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Full Idea
If any characterization of the abstract deserves to be regarded as the modern standard one, it is this: an abstract entity is a non-spatial (or non-spatiotemporal) causally inert thing. This view presents a number of perplexities...
Gist of Idea
Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things
Source
Gideon Rosen (Abstract Objects [2001], 'Non-spat')
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.3
A Reaction
As indicated in other ideas, the problem is that some abstractions do seem to be located somewhere in space-time, and to have come into existence, and to pass away. I like 'to exist is to have causal powers'. See Ideas 5992 and 8300.
Related Ideas
Idea 5992 Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman]
Idea 8300 Perhaps possession of causal power is the hallmark of existence (and a reason to deny the void) [Lowe]
| 8912 | Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things [Rosen] |
| 8913 | Chess may be abstract, but it has existed in specific space and time [Rosen] |
| 8914 | Sets are said to be abstract and non-spatial, but a set of books can be on a shelf [Rosen] |
| 8918 | Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation [Rosen] |
| 8919 | Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity [Rosen] |
| 8917 | The Way of Abstraction used to say an abstraction is an idea that was formed by abstracting [Rosen] |
| 8916 | Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence [Rosen] |
| 8915 | How we refer to abstractions is much less clear than how we refer to other things [Rosen] |