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Single Idea 9087
[filed under theme 18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 1. Abstract Thought
]
Full Idea
Theists may find attractive a view popular among medieval philosophers from Augustine on: that abstract objects are really divine thoughts. More exactly, propositions are divine thoughts, properties divine concepts, and sets divine collections.
Gist of Idea
Theists may see abstract objects as really divine thoughts
Source
Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.233)
Book Ref
Plantinga,Alvin: 'Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality' [OUP 2003], p.233
A Reaction
Hm. I pass this on because we should be aware that there is a theological history to discussions of abstract objects, and some people have vested interests in keeping them outside of the natural world. Aren't properties natural? Does God gerrymander sets?
The
22 ideas
with the same theme
[general concepts not about concrete objects]:
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9569
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The origin of geometry started in sensation, then moved to calculation, and then to reason
[Proclus]
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10503
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We abstract forms from appearances, and acquire knowledge of immaterial things
[Aquinas]
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10509
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Understanding consists entirely of grasping abstracted species
[Aquinas]
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5827
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A species of thing is an abstract idea, and a word is a sign that refers to the idea
[Locke]
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23648
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First we notice and name attributes ('abstracting'); then we notice that subjects share them ('generalising')
[Reid]
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6925
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The new philosophy thinks of the concrete in a concrete (not a abstract) manner
[Feuerbach]
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9078
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The study of the nature of Abstract Ideas does not belong to logic, but to a different science
[Mill]
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9080
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General conceptions are a necessary preliminary to Induction
[Mill]
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9846
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Defining 'direction' by parallelism doesn't tell you whether direction is a line
[Dummett on Frege]
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9030
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Abstractions can be interpreted dispositionally, as the ability to recognise or imagine an item
[Price,HH]
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9029
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If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem
[Price,HH]
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11102
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Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms
[Quine]
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17664
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Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction
[Armstrong]
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9873
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Abstract terms are acceptable as long as we know how they function linguistically
[Dummett]
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10839
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You can't infer a dog's abstract concepts from its behaviour
[Dummett]
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9086
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The idea of abstract objects is not ontological; it comes from the epistemological idea of abstraction
[Plantinga]
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9087
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Theists may see abstract objects as really divine thoughts
[Plantinga]
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8901
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Abstraction is usually explained either by example, or conflation, or abstraction, or negatively
[Lewis]
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9144
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Fine's 'procedural postulationism' uses creative definitions, but avoids abstract ontology
[Fine,K, by Cook/Ebert]
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8299
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Abstractions are non-spatial, or dependent, or derived from concepts
[Lowe]
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9609
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The older sense of 'abstract' is where 'redness' or 'group' is abstracted from particulars
[Brown,JR]
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9611
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'Abstract' nowadays means outside space and time, not concrete, not physical
[Brown,JR]
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