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'hypostatic abstraction'
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| Title of object: |
hypostatic abstraction |
| Canonical Name: |
HypostaticAbstraction |
| Type: |
Definition |
| Created on: |
2008-03-12 12:37:55 |
| Modified on: |
2008-08-10 08:32:22 |
| Classification: |
msc:00A30, msc:03A05, msc:03B15, msc:03B22, msc:03B30, msc:03B42 |
| Defines: |
abstract object, formal object, hypostatic object |
| Synonyms: |
hypostatic abstraction=hypostasis
hypostatic abstraction=objectification
hypostatic abstraction=reification
hypostatic abstraction=subjectal abstraction |
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Content:
\textbf{Hypostatic abstraction} is a formal operation that takes an element of information, as expressed in the proposition $X\ \operatorname{is}\ Y,$ and reconceives its information to consist in the relation between that subject and another subject, as expressed in the proposition $X\ \operatorname{has}\ Y\!\operatorname{-ness}.$ The existence of the latter subject, $Y\!\operatorname{-ness},$ consists solely in the truth of those propositions that have the corresponding concrete term, $Y,$ as the predicate. Hypostatic abstraction is known under many names, for example, \textit{hypostasis}, \textit{objectification}, \textit{reification}, or \textit{subjectal abstraction}. The object of discussion or thought thus introduced is termed a \textit{hypostatic object}.
The above definition is adapted from one given by Charles Sanders Peirce (CP 4.235). The main thing about the formal operation of hypostatic abstraction, insofar as it can be observed to operate on formal linguistic expressions, is that it converts an adjective or some part of a predicate into an extra subject, upping the arity of the main predicate in the process.
For example, a typical case of hypostatic abstraction occurs in the transformation from ``honey is sweet" to ``honey possesses sweetness", which transformation can be viewed in the following variety of ways:
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The grammatical trace of this hypostatic transformation tells of a process that abstracts the adjective ``sweet" from the main predicate ``is sweet", thus arriving at a new, increased-arity predicate ``possesses", and as a by-product of the reaction, as it were, precipitating out the substantive ``sweetness" as a new second subject of the new predicate, ``possesses".
\section{References and further reading}
\begin{itemize}
\item
Peirce, Charles Sanders (1902), ``The Simplest Mathematics", CP 4.227--323 in \textit{Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce}, vols. 1--6, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds.), vols. 7--8, Arthur W. Burks (ed.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1931--1935, 1958. Cited as (CP volume.paragraph).
\item
Zeman, J. Jay (1982), \textit{The Monist}, 65 (1982), 211--229. Reprinted, pp. 293--311 in \textit{The Relevance of Charles Peirce}, Eugene Freeman (ed.), Monist Library of Philosophy, La Salle, IL, 1983. \PMlinkexternal{Eprint}{http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/jzeman/peirce_on_abstraction.htm}.
\end{itemize}
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