Talk:Reification

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Examples of fallacious statements arising from reification are:

"That country doesn't have any democracy. We should give some of ours to them". "Give peace a chance". "This is knowledge". "War leads to peace". "One has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". "One has the right to own slaves". "Their ideology is going to ruin this country".

Virtually every example on this list is wrong.

- Give peace a chance isn't reification, peace in this context is a physical state of affairs. - War leads to peace isn't a reification, for the same reason - One has the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness certainly isn't reification, it's an assertion about the rights of persons. - Same with the right to own slaves bit ( I agree we shouldn't have slaves, but the reason that isn't that the propostion "we have the right to own slaves" is a reification, or incorrect". - Your ideology is going to ruin this country is incorrect, if someone has an ideology this is a concrete state of affairs ( ideologies are made up of brain states).

Um, might I humbly submit that ideologies are not made up of brainstates? Ideologies tend to be composed of things like ideas, ideals and principles, and approaches and strategies for extending the same to new circumstances.

It may well be true that one physical embodiment of an ideology could be as a set of brainstates in an individual, or even a collection of sets of brainstates found in a community of people who adhere to that ideology. But an ideology can also be written or verbalised - leading to other physical embodiments of that ideology.

When one says "your ideology is going to ruin...", it is not likely that one means "your brainstates that correspond to ... will ruin...". It is more likely that one is referring to a cluster of ideas and such in and of themselves, and probably that one means something along the lines of "those ideals, principles, ideas, and strategies, when held and acted on by a lot of people, will ruin..."

(I have the utmost respect for the anonymous writer of these examples; I just think the examples given make no sense.) User:The Epopt

That is disrespectful. You may be able to proof that my examples are incorrect. Please try. Or you may not understand them. I added clarifications. I don't understand your example. Please clarify. User:RitaBijlsma
You feel that it is disrespectful of me to not understand your examples?
No, one sentence away I suggested that you would either proof that my examples are incorrect or inform me that you don't understand them (which would imply that clarification was necessary), instead of stating that they make no sense. Misquoting someone is also not particularly respectful, isn't it? RitaBijlsma
About energy: I have a higher degree in physics than any high school physics teacher. Years ago I got a first on my thermodynamics paper, which among others discussed the meaning of the thermodynamic concept of energy.
I'm afraid that does not impress me. (Many of us working on Wikipedia are rather bright.) By the bye, given that we are talking about logic fallacies here (and, obliquely, respect), what is the significance of the grade you were given on a school paper "years ago"?
I was reacting on the statement that I should ask any high school physics teacher. I was not impressed. Given that someone tried to claim that all high school physics teachers were on his side, I stated that some group of thermodynamics professors was on my side. It was not a school paper, but part of my master thesis. I don't expect that support of those professors would convince anyone, and I would not like it that way, but I would hope that it may be a reason for some to give my arguments some deeper thought than that they apparently do. The way energy is defined in high school and normal university courses is in my opinion with the fallacy of reification, so just refering to that definition is irrelevant. A good argument requires some deeper considerations. I didn't want to go into that discussion here. My example was not about thermodynamic energy.

Hey, I'll be bolder. I think that this is a weird kind of logical fallacy. It kinda ignores that people use abstraction, classification, and metaphor as part of speech. I agree that if I say life is like a road, that I can walk up and down roads but not up and down lives. but that is violating the metaphor. that isn't drawing invalid logical conclusions.

Ok, now image a child hearing you talk about life like it is a road. Assume the child did never make the abstraction of defining life. It only heard about some entity that is like a road. Now the child is violating the metaphor on a regular basis, without being aware, even after it grew up. This will result in invalid logical conclusions. Not with respect to life probably, but with more subtle abstract concepts. Do a websearch. You should find some articles that warn that we are doomed because this fallacy is so common. You are doing a fine job in convincing me that they are right.



Isn't the last statement an example of the fallacy of composition. Just because the state is composed of individuals doesn't mean that the state is the same as a collection of individuals. I can make the same argument about people and atoms.

I do agree that this example is not correct. Although many logical errors are made because people tend to forget that a state or a family is actually a group of people, the statement that the state is more important than the individual is in itself a correct use of the abstract concept. In fact, it is necessarily true. It just states that A + B + C + ... is more than the A. In which A, B, C are the importance of people and all positive. But it is an error to conclude that necessarily A may be sacrificed for the state, as the larger importance of the state is only based on A being part of it. If any individual can at some point be sacrificed, the granted importance to any individual is reduced. Then, the total granted importance is not just the origional sum minus one, but much lower.
It seems that you are now committing a reification fallacy, by treating the concept of importance as if it were a physical substance which could be added together. Interestingly, that's probably a better example of the fallacy than any of the examples that are currently in the article.
So only substances can be added together? The fallacy is not a fallacy about some kind of linguistic structure, but about the meaning of words. The arguments about adding substances have some real meaning in the context in which they are used. You just jump onto some linguistic structural similarity. Your statement implies that the importance of 2 people can not be considered more than the importance of one person, because importance is not a substances that can be added. There is nothing wrong with adding importances. Doing so does not at all imply that any other arithmetic operation is possible, not even that that addition is an arithmetic operation: I never claimed that I could compare the value of A with that of B + C + D ... only the value of A with A + B + C + D ... and only qualitatively, and not the ratio. The first comparision implies arithmetic, the second doesn't. Notice also that I was arguing against comparing values before and after the substraction of A, with the argument that the values are not fixed. Which means that I explicitely did not use them as substances. Let's add `jumping onto linguistic structural similaries' to the list of logical fallacies.


Examples that are in dispute:

  • You can't see the woods for the trees.
Here the fallacy is intentional. This is a joke used to state that someone fails to make an abstraction. Taking literally, the trees are said to be the cause of the failure, suggesting that woods could exist without trees.
There is no fallacy. It's not saying that there are no woods. It's saying that you can't see them.
Yes, two statements are made: that you can't see the abstraction is the actual statement. Naturally that is caused by your own failure to abstract. But as joke it is also stated that the existance of the trees is the cause of the failure. As a joke, the failure is said not to be your fault, but to be a logical consequense of the trees being in the way. That is only possible if trees and wood could exist independently. It ignores that a wood is a collection of trees.
  • I gave you all the love I have, please give it back!
Love is not a thing that can be given back.
No, but you can love someone who loves you.
So? Was there something said about the possibility of loving someone back?
  • I do have the utmost respect for you, I just don't think that your argument is worth any consideration.
Respect is an abstract concept describing a particular way people may address someone else. Considering someone's argument not worth any consideration is a disrespectful way. Well, you may have good reason, he may have lost your respect when it comes to some subject, but just claiming to have respect while behaving disrespectfully is using respect as some thing in itself and nobody could tell what that thing would be.
This doesn't make any sense. It's perfectly possible to respect someone while thinking that they are presenting a stupid argument that isn't worth consideration. I happen to have a lot of respect for Roger Penrose. I think he is talking non-sense when he talks about quantum consciousness.
So you don't respect Roger Penrose when it comes to quantum consciousness. I don't notice that I or Roger Penrose get anything positive from your respect. Your respect is just a void remark.
No it's not. I think that Penrose is brilliant when it comes to pure mathematics and quantum gravity. I think it is talking nonsense when to comes to quantum consciousness. The fact that I have a generally positive opinion of him, but I think he is being silly in a specific case is precisely the meaning I'm trying to get across and *precisely* why that the statement is not meaningless.
The other way that statement can be meaningful is to say, I think you are wrong, but *I* might be wrong in thinking that you are wrong.
One thing that you have to keep in mind is that in the physical sciences this comes up all the time. (i.e. I think you do good work in general, I might be wrong, but your argument here is stupid.)
Hmm. I used `not worth any consideration', which means ignoring someone (at some point), i.e. refusing further communication. I thought your `non-sense' meant the same thing. But now I see you don't react on that issue at all. `I might be wrong, but your argument here is stupid' is not refusing to communicate. It is just a refrase of `I think what you say is incorrect'. I would never say that thinking that someone is incorrect is disrespectful. Ignoring someone with respect to anything that affects this person, is disrespectful. Respect is a garantee of being taken seriously. You apparently think that Penrose is incorrect about something, but you gave it consideration. So that example does not at all apply to my example.
But even this doesn't work. Student asks teacher to consider argument for errors. Teacher thinks that the student is smart enough to find flaws in own argument so doesn't consider it.
  • You often feel exhausted, I think your partner is preying on your energy.
This actually is said! But energy is not a substance that can be taken from you.
Energy is not a substance, but it is very real, and very physical. Ask any high school physics teacher. And as for running out of energy, walk forty miles.
The fact that energy is really a very useful concept does not mean that it is correct to use it as if it is a substance. Of course you can run out of it by doing something. But not by someone taking it.
I pull a rickshaw. My chemical potential is being taken by the person I'm pulling and his kinetic energy is increasing.
Chemical potential? That is not even an extensive quantity! Please familiarize yourself with the definition of a term before using it. You mean free enthalpy. Do you think that because you get tired, the other person gets more energized? That was what my example was about. The normal day use of energy of a person is just not the same concept as thermodynamic energy.
  • The British in India invented the Dravidian race and the Aryan race and treated them not only as if they were real, but also as if one were intrinsically better than the other.
A group of people is wrongly considered a particular race. That does not mean that the concept of that race is reified.
  • The state is more important than the individual.
The state is an organization of individuals and is therefore no more important than the individuals that are members of it.)
This also works with "family" in place of "state".
Isn't this an example of a fallacy of composition? A human being is composed of atoms, therefore human beings are no more important than atoms.

I too found the examples neither clear nor useful, and I work in a field where reification is a big problem and much discussed (anthropology).

Some of the examples seemed to me to be examples of the metaphorical use of language. At best whoever contributed the examples is confronting an issue in semantics, at worse, he or she is misunderstanding how some idiomatic expressions in English are used. I don't think any American who complains -- if I may provide an example of my own, which I think is analogous -- that "you don't return my love" in any way thinks love is material, and can circulate like books or records. Fluent speakers of English understand that when one says "give me back my coat" and "give me back my love" they are using the words "give me back" in very very different ways.

I thought that "give me back my love" was a ridiculous statement that was never used, unlike `return my love'. It was intended as a save example. But I am not a native speaker of English. So it seems to be `at worse'. I would think it would be a good idea if someone would put some effort in finding a clear, short, English example instead of only attacking other peoples examples. Some even conclude from the lack of good examples that the fallacy doesn't exist.

A good article on reification must distinguish between "metaphor" and "abstraction." These are related -- but in a complex way. A linguist might say that metaphor is one example of abstraction. But I think many scientists use abstraction in a more specific way, and in a way they would methodologically distinguish from metaphor. Scientists in the process of constructing theories develop abstract models all the time. Although such models are abstractions of observed events, they are used to provide explanations and predictions of other events.

It is my sense that reification becomes a problem when this method breaks down, when abstractions are used to explai or predict in ways that are unwarrented, either by the model itself or by the general principles of the scientific method.

I am not going to put this directly in the article -- perhaps the Epopt and RitaBijlsma could discuss (or argue over) this, and other Wikipedians who know more about the history of science, epistemology and logic, and linguistics than I could figure out a way to develop a truly useful article. SR

Ok, what about the following example:

Every qualified citizen should serve two years in the United States military. We must defend the stately marble temple of democracy.

Given in: `The Critical Reader, Thinker and Writer', W. Ross Winterowd and Geoffrey R. Winterowd, Mayfield Publishing Company, California, 1992

  • I would call that a metaphor. -- April

As I said I am not a philosopher and I would really like a philosopher to step in here, and I would defer to them. But I am not sure about this example; I would need to see the context in which it occurs. One question I have is, which part of the sentence is the fallacy? Describing the nation as a "stately marble temple?" That doesn't sound like reification to me, just a metaphor -- and if the fallacy of reification applies to all metaphors, we are in trouble! Or does it refer to the USE of this metaphor to justify a certain action, e.g. serving in the military? Perhaps this would be an example of the fallacy. I would like other people (especially philosophers) to contribute here,

SR

When I used the term "reification" in the definition of Force I meant by it the epistemic process of attributing SOME of the properties of objects. Thus, a force is reified when its value is held constant from one situation (e.g. the situation in which it is measured in isolation)to another situation (e.g. one in which it is in combination with another force, and thus in which only their combination can be directly measured). The constancy to properties over changes in situations is like the constancy of objects that allows for their self identification (e.g. a child learns to expect that when ey put a toy in a box and closes the box, it is still there when ey subsequently opens the box). AM

Here's my proposed example for reification: "a hierarchy of intelligence". "Intelligence" is a term that's used to describe the emergent property of a large set of mental processes. It is an exceedingly complex topic, and one with many different facets.

However, there exists a sizeable group of people that treat "intelligence" as if it were a quantity like bone density, as if it could be unequivocally measured and ranked. "This person has twice the intelligence than that person." I think that's a classic example of reification. A nebulous quality (intelligence) is being treated like s measurable quantity. -- April

That would be really great if the great minds here could agree on an example: that would make the article much clearer, without having to go through this rather long talk page to understand the concept. -User:Olivier

The main article definitely needs an example. I haven't managed to followed all the above properly either! Can we not find a simplistic example that may not be thoroughly proper to illustrate the article? -- sgb 2003-06-11

  • I was thinking exactly the same. The article doesn't clarify anything to someone that is not "highly" familiar with the English language like me even though I consider myself fairly acquinted with it. All I had to do was open a dictionary and see the Dutch term "verstoffelijken" (a rather brute translation would be materialization) to immediatly understand that a concept of thought has become a "being of flesh and blood". (I was already able to come to such a conclusion without even being introduced to the character in the book. The reif sipped on his drink... was obviously indentured to a Hive mind... and then the mentioning of "what are a man and a reification doing here?") Wordnet even defines it as "regarding something abstract as a material thing" (and "representing a human being as a physical thing deprived of personal qualities or individuality"). AltMazter 16:33, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)


Please clean up this page. Generally, the etymology of the word reify (from the latin "realis") suggests nothing more than "To convert into a thing; to materialize." This should be made clear, and then it can be clear that in logic the term is used in a specialized sense. The page declares a definiton without sectioning the specialization. Maybe a disambiguation page would be nice; or at least a clearer format.

I agree with you completely. I think the article in its current form jumps right into the arcane. --DanielNuyu 08:40, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm with you. This article makes it appear that the primary use of this term is in a debate between groups of thought in epistemology. From my admittedly casual perusal of web sources and academic sources at USC, it seems that this term is often used very generally to mean the regarding of an abtract concept as something concrete. But in the general sense of the word it doesn't seem to be connected to the idea that this use is a logical fallacy... any more than, say, metaphor. Also, the extensive debate on the examples might be reduced if the term was redefined to disclude the term "fallacy." --joeOnSunset 21:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] False Examples

Okay, I just got rid of the examples that appear to be false according to how the article is written or could be taken as metaphors. Obviously, saying "Give me one big container of justice" is metaphorically speaking.

I know this has been discussed before, and frankly, I saw no justification for keeping them here. Especially when the argument for the examples appear to be filled with sniping and ad hominen attacks and other logical fallacies (how rich! A debate about a logical fallacy filled with logical fallacies).

The biggest problem is that in it's current state, the article makes NO SENSE. It reads as nonsense. For instance, one of the 'fallicious examples' was "Give peace a chance." How is that fallicious. Give a standard of living a chance? I don't get how that would seem to be fallicious. Or "War leads to peace." What exactly is fallicious about one status leading to another status. Or how about the "You have the right to life, liberty, and property." I'm completely confused now. Just tell me how that is fallicious. You can grant someone rights. You can restrict them. It's called the law! The only one that seems to be logical (and I don't even know if that is correct) is the whole giving a country some of our democracy.

The first part of the article just seems to be filled with contradictions, incorrect statements, and other unencyclopedic things. For instance, an epistemological realists, according to this site, is someone who claims that what we know about an object exists independantly of our mind. How does that mix in with the description of concrete and concepts and abstracts? The people that they are opposed follow epistemological idealism - or the idea that what we know is only held in our mind.

Granted, I don't have a deep education in philosophy. But even if this was a correct article, it still isn't comprehendable to average man. I think we might be able to label the first part of this article as patent nonsense. --THollan 20:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An example

Since I stumbled on this in an effort to confirm my definition of reification, I'll try to offer a real-life (as much as graduate school psychology can be real-life) example. My understanding of reification is not so much the metaphorical concretization of an abstract concept is the fallacy, but when one is then constrained by the limits of the concrete nature of the metaphor one is then 'reifying' the concept. A dissertation example: I am using three terms to define three slightly different sets of behaviors ("benefit-finding", "positive reappraisal" and "adversarial growth") and how other behaviors are correlated with these behaviors. My advisor then asks me whether these three things, benefit-finding, positive reappraisal and adversarial growth are really three different things, or simply different aspects of the same 'thing'. The reification fallacy occurs here in the assumption of a knowable real-world 'thing'ness. The true reality is my three terms are abstract concepts that I am using to group behaviors, there is no true "benefit-finding" thing, nor could there be a true "all three things". One might ask whether these might be better conceptualized as all being one set of behaviors, but that is quite different from asking whether they are three different things, or simply different aspects of one over-arching thing. Hope this helps.

[edit] Disambiguation

I decided to just be bold and make this into a disambiguation page. I did have a question about the naming of sub-pages, though - is linguistics the best name for the one linked as such? I don't know anything about natural language processing, so hopefully someone can fill me in. Also, I didn't think a separate page on hypostatiation or reification as a general term is necessary, but I am open to feedback. Any thoughts? Deleuze 05:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reification as a fallacy?

I added Reification (fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a concrete) to the list as Wikipedia needs such an article. Perhaps my definition is not the best. The discussion on this page demonstrates that the subject needs the help of an expert because what may look like reification may be intended as a harmless metaphor or may on the other hand betray a genuine confusion of categories. A search of other treatments of the subject on the Web may be useful. Please help this needed article come to be! —Blanchette 07:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

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