Philosophy Discussion Forums

Hi,

I am somewhat troubled with the concept of what is abstract and what is concrete.

Here is my thinking.

We can agree that anything one dreams in their sleep and describe it thereafter are 'abstract thoughts'.

What one sees within their view are concrete objects.

Let's say, person A sees this other person B directly in front of themselves. Person B is concrete because he is directly in front of Person A's eyes. As soon as person A closes their eyes and the person B remains directly in front of A, the person B becomes an abstract because person A, whenever describing person B is coming from person A's thought.

Does this make sense?

Another example: Let's say Person C went to a museum and saw a painting there (the painting is concrete because its there and was seen by Person C). The next day, Person C describes the painting at the museum from memory. Is this abstract or concrete?

Can any of you set this straight for me.

Many thanks
BTJH

BTJH74 wrote: ↑January 5th, 2021, 2:02 am Hi,

I am somewhat troubled with the concept of what is abstract and what is concrete.

Here is my thinking.

We can agree that anything one dreams in their sleep and describe it thereafter are 'abstract thoughts'.

What one sees within their view are concrete objects.

Let's say, person A sees this other person B directly in front of themselves. Person B is concrete because he is directly in front of Person A's eyes. As soon as person A closes their eyes and the person B remains directly in front of A, the person B becomes an abstract because person A, whenever describing person B is coming from person A's thought.

Does this make sense?

Another example: Let's say Person C went to a museum and saw a painting there (the painting is concrete because its there and was seen by Person C). The next day, Person C describes the painting at the museum from memory. Is this abstract or concrete?

Can any of you set this straight for me.

Many thanks
BTJH

It is a good question.

I think the problem is one of how to express the idea in English and other languages.

If, instead of the adjective 'abstract' we say we abstract(verb) concept A from concept B, then we are not bound to having the referent of concept A within touching or seeing distance.

EG P says " Black Beauty was a horse". and P2 responds "You and I have both read that book and we know the writer made horse welfare a public concern".

In the above example, neither a physically detectable book of that title, or the meaning that P2 abstracted from the book are physically present to touch, smell, hear, or see. Neither does any horse need to be present to the senses.

Abstract thinking deals with theories and possibilities. This kind of thinking is often limited in usefulness by technology of the time. A lot of physics gets into this, we can't really use the knowledge of exactly how quickly an object will be pulled into a black hole a certain distance right now, and testing it would be extremely expensive.

Concrete thinking deals with the here and now. It leads to thinking of more testable things that can be applied to real life. A good example of this would be diagnosing a patient in medicine.

Abstract: keeping the general idea, leaving the details, less specific, ..

From abstract to more concrete
For example: communication tool (audio, visual, verbal) -> audio communication tool (gsm, phone, ...) -> phone -> Phone type x brand y -> my own phone of type x brand y.

You could even go further to more abstract or concrete. But when you go too far, it would be possible that the recipient won't understand your message (cause you generalized too much and some essentials were lost), but this depends on the context of the dialogue.

BTJH74 wrote: ↑January 5th, 2021, 2:02 am Hi,

I am somewhat troubled with the concept of what is abstract and what is concrete.

It's all in the mind. A hallucination is pretty concrete to whomever is experiencing it. The "real world" would be fairly abstract to a schizophrenic. It's all rather subjective, in my opinion, which is fairly abstract.

An abstract idea is an idea that does not require the immediate presence of something that can be measured.

BTJH74 wrote:Hi, I am somewhat troubled with the concept of what is abstract and what is concrete.

Here is my thinking.

We can agree that anything one dreams in their sleep and describe it thereafter are 'abstract thoughts'.

What one sees within their view are concrete objects.

Hi. I'd say you're using the word "concrete" here to mean roughly the same thing as the word "real", as an antonym for "abstract". Concrete/real things are those that exist independently of minds. Abstract things exist in minds. Concrete/real things can exist when minds don't. Abstract things can't.

It seems to me that a lot of confusion can be caused as a result of the fact that abstract concepts can refer to real things, that it's possible that there are no real things (solipsism), and that we only have evidence of the existence of real things via our senses. This sometimes seems to result in people mistakenly thinking that because our only knowledge of the real/concrete is via the abstract, then the real/concrete is itself abstract. But it isn't. Even if we took the solipsistic view that there is no real world, that wouldn't change the definition of the word "real". It would still refer to a putative real world.

So, with that in mind, yes I agree that my dreams are abstract. Dreams, by definition, can't exist without minds. I also agree with the statement "What one sees within their view are concrete objects" if we're clear about what that sentence is saying. It's not saying that the "view" or the "perception" is real. It's saying that the object we assume to exist as a result of that perception, if it existed, would be classed as real. If it turns out that it doesn't exist it's still classed as real. It would stop being classed as real if we stopped classing it as such, perhaps by saying something like "Ah! It's just an illusion."

Let's say, person A sees this other person B directly in front of themselves. Person B is concrete because he is directly in front of Person A's eyes.

No, I disagree. Person B is not concrete/real because he is directly in front of Person A's eyes. He is concrete/real by definition. We see a person. We postulate that that act of perception is due to the presences of a real thing (a person). That putative thing is real. The postulate isn't.

As soon as person A closes their eyes and the person B remains directly in front of A, the person B becomes an abstract because person A, whenever describing person B is coming from person A's thought.

Does this make sense?

No, it doesn't make sense given what I've said above, although it might make sense to someone who disagrees with what I've said above.

Person B doesn't become abstract just because A closes their eyes. He merely becomes unsensed by A. Part of the postulate "I see a real person in front of me", as a result of the definition of the word "real", is that when I close my eyes they don't disappear as a result of me doing that.

Another example: Let's say Person C went to a museum and saw a painting there (the painting is concrete because its there and was seen by Person C). The next day, Person C describes the painting at the museum from memory. Is this abstract or concrete?

The description is abstract. The memory is abstract. The painting is real.

Steve wrote:

Another example: Let's say Person C went to a museum and saw a painting there (the painting is concrete because its there and was seen by Person C). The next day, Person C describes the painting at the museum from memory. Is this abstract or concrete?
The description is abstract. The memory is abstract. The painting is real.

Belindi wrote:I think the problem is one of how to express the idea in English and other languages.

I think it's true that ambiguities in English sentences are often barriers to clearly examining ideas. Take, for example, this sentence from the OP:

"What one sees within their view are concrete objects."

It could be deemed to mean more than one thing. It could be a variation of the saying "seeing is believing". That is, it could be an assertion that all visual sensations are caused by the existence of real objects. If so, it could be unpacked as something like this:

"If we receive certain sensations via our eyes then we assume that they're caused by the existence of a real object. A real object is a thing that exists independently of any minds/perceptions and would not cease to exist just because those minds/perceptions ceased."

Or it could be an assertion that only the things that are currently being perceived are real objects. If so, it could be unpacked as something like this:

"Only the things one sees are real objects."

The rest of the OP suggests that the writer of that OP means it to be the latter. I think in everyday speech it would more often tend to mean the former.

Steve wrote:

Another example: Let's say Person C went to a museum and saw a painting there (the painting is concrete because its there and was seen by Person C). The next day, Person C describes the painting at the museum from memory. Is this abstract or concrete?
The description is abstract. The memory is abstract. The painting is real.

It depends on how Person C describes the painting. Ideas abstracted from the thing the artefact are abstract by definition of 'abstract: abstracted'

If Person C were to utter the painting's commercial value, or how the director of the museum chose to display that particular work of art then these are concrete utterances.

If Person C describes the painting from the point of view of a carpenter measuring it for a new frame, a conservator estimating what treatment the painting needs, or the artist himself saying authoritatively what his meaningful intention was then these are concrete utterances.

Abstract utterances are ideas inspired by the painting would be about its beauty or its truth, its aesthetic value. Actually in real life what happens is that abstract ideas about the painting are infiltrated by concrete ideas such as that it was displayed in a posh art gallery and is worth a lot of money.

But yes, the memory of the painting's measurements by the carpenter, the museum director or the conservator abstracted from the artefact and converted into symbolic form (feet and inches, chemical formulas, light sources).I have argued myself into the position of claiming no perception is directly concrete but that all perceptions are filtered through pre-existing concepts.

Belindi wrote:It depends on how Person C describes the painting. Ideas abstracted from the thing the artefact are abstract by definition of 'abstract: abstracted'

If Person C were to utter the painting's commercial value, or how the director of the museum chose to display that particular work of art then these are concrete utterances.

If Person C describes the painting from the point of view of a carpenter measuring it for a new frame, a conservator estimating what treatment the painting needs, or the artist himself saying authoritatively what his meaningful intention was then these are concrete utterances.

It would depend how the word "concrete" is being used. To avoid ambiguity, at the top of the post from which you quoted, I stated my assumption as to how that word was was being used (as a synonym for "real" when it is used as an antonym for "abstract") and what it means. By that definition, I disagree that any utterance by something with a mind could be regarded as concrete, if we're using the word "utterance" to mean the idea being expressed and not just the physical act of moving air around in front of the mouth. But I may agree if you're using some different definition of the word "concrete".

Abstract utterances are ideas inspired by the painting would be about its beauty or its truth, its aesthetic value. Actually in real life what happens is that abstract ideas about the painting are infiltrated by concrete ideas such as that it was displayed in a posh art gallery and is worth a lot of money.

So, you appear to be using the word "concrete" to mean something different from the way that I use it. You appear to use it to distinguish between different classes of ideas. I'd say all ideas are abstract because they don't exist in the absence of minds. I don't know for sure how BTJH74 (the original poster) was using that word.

Steve,
regarding

Hi. I'd say you're using the word "concrete" here to mean roughly the same thing as the word "real", as an antonym for "abstract". Concrete/real things are those that exist independently of minds. Abstract things exist in minds. Concrete/real things can exist when minds don't. Abstract things can't.

Does this boil down a discussion of Kant's things in themselves?

In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, Kant argued the sum of all objects, the empirical world, is a complex of appearances whose existence and connection occur only in our representations.[2] Kant introduces the thing-in-itself as follows:

And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something.

— Prolegomena, § 32

Belindi wrote:Does this boil down a discussion of Kant's things in themselves?

Hard to tell what it might turn out to be about unless our BTJH74 pipes up again.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑February 1st, 2021, 10:06 am

Belindi wrote:Does this boil down a discussion of Kant's things in themselves?

Hard to tell what it might turn out to be about unless our BTJH74 pipes up again.

His original idea may be his intellectual property, but he can't stop other people discussing it. Often when I am trying to understand what someone means I discover more about what I mean.

Belindi wrote:His original idea may be his intellectual property, but he can't stop other people discussing it. Often when I am trying to understand what someone means I discover more about what I mean.

Fair point. It's notable that the number of pages of subsequent discussion that any given OP provokes doesn't tend to be particularly strongly related to the coherence, precision or clarity of that OP. It depends where other people take it when they pick it up and run with it.

Concretes are particulars: specific, single existents, just as they are as a particular, with all of their details as a particular, etc.

Abstractions are types/categories arching over a number of concretes (a number of particulars). Abstractions focus on similarities while ignoring many unique details of concretes/particulars, in order to create a "type," "category" or "kind" concept.

So the particular furry creature in front of you, in all its unique details, is a concrete. There's only one of that particular. Nothing else is the same as it.

The abstraction is that it's an example of a type or category of thing called a "dog," of which there are many other examples .