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Full Idea
The distinction of abstract and concrete is one of kind and not degree.
Gist of Idea
Abstract/concrete is a distinction of kind, not degree
Source
JP Burgess / G Rosen (A Subject with No Object [1997], I.A.1.a)
Book Ref
Burgess,J/Rosen,G: 'A Subject with No Object' [OUP 1997], p.14
A Reaction
I think I must agree with this. If there is a borderline, it would be in particulars that seem to have an abstract aspect to them. A horse involves the abstraction of being a horse, and it involves be one horse.
Related Idea
Idea 9884 The distinction of concrete/abstract, or actual/non-actual, is a scale, not a dichotomy [Dummett]
| 9918 | Abstract/concrete is a distinction of kind, not degree [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9919 | The old debate classified representations as abstract, not entities [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9921 | 'True' is only occasionally useful, as in 'everything Fermat believed was true' [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9922 | If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9923 | We should talk about possible existence, rather than actual existence, of numbers [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9924 | Modal logic gives an account of metalogical possibility, not metaphysical possibility [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9925 | Structuralism and nominalism are normally rivals, but might work together [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9926 | A relation is either a set of sets of sets, or a set of sets [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9928 | Mereology implies that acceptance of entities entails acceptance of conglomerates [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9927 | Mathematics has ascended to higher and higher levels of abstraction [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9929 | Much of what science says about concrete entities is 'abstraction-laden' [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9930 | Abstraction is on a scale, of sets, to attributes, to type-formulas, to token-formulas [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9933 | The paradoxes are only a problem for Frege; Cantor didn't assume every condition determines a set [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9932 | The paradoxes no longer seem crucial in critiques of set theory [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9934 | Number words became nouns around the time of Plato [Burgess/Rosen] |