Reification

Reification generally refers to making something real, bringing it into being, or making something concrete.

Specifically, reification may refer to:

• Concretization, or making less abstract or less generalized
• Reification (computer science), making a data model for a previously abstract concept
• Reification (fallacy), fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing
• Reification in Gestalt psychology, where an object is perceived as having more spatial information than is actually present in the original stimulus
• Reification (knowledge representation), used to represent facts that must then be manipulated in some way
• Reification (linguistics) in natural language processing, where a natural language statement is transformed so actions and events in it become quantifiable variables
• Reification (Marxism) (German: Verdinglichung), the consideration of an abstraction or an object as if it had living existence and abilities; at the same time it implies the thingification of social relations; sometimes called objectification
• Reification (statistics), the consideration of a ‘perfect’ model which is used to make inferences connecting (imperfect) model results with experimental observations

See also

• Objectification