Abstract/Concrete
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While abstract terms like love change meaning with time and circumstances, concrete terms like spoon stay pretty much the same. Spoon and hot and puppy mean pretty much the same to you now as they did when you were four. You may think you understand and agree with me when I say, "We all want success. Success means different things to each of us, and you can't be sure of what I mean by that abstract term. On the other hand, if I say "I want a gold Rolex on my wrist and a Mercedes in my driveway," you know exactly what I mean and you know whether you want the same things or different things. Can you see that concrete terms are clearer and more interesting than abstract terms?
If you were a politician, you might prefer abstract terms to concrete terms. General terms and specific terms are not opposites, as abstract and concrete terms are; instead, they are the different ends of a range of terms. Let's look at an example. Furniture is a general term; it includes within it many different items. If I ask you to form an image of furniture, it won't be easy to do. Do you see a department store display room? Even if you can produce a distinct image in your mind, how likely is it that another reader will form a very similar image?
Furniture is a concrete term it refers to something we can see and feel , but its meaning is still hard to pin down, because the group is so large. Do you have positive or negative feelings toward furniture? Again, it's hard to develop much of a response, because the group represented by this general term is just too large.
We can make the group smaller with the less general term, chair. This is still pretty general that is, it still refers to a group rather than an individual , but it's easier to picture a chair than it is to picture furniture.
The further you descend down the ladder, the easier it becomes to visualize your words, to imagine a specific scene. If you think back to what you've just read, chances are you'll most easily remember and most certainly understand the gold Rolex, the Mercedes, and the lime green La-Z-Boy rocker-recliner. To me being both math and art is golden. Organizing our own treasure hunt and discovering the treasures is fun, right? So this part of it means grown. This reminds me of my great high school English teacher.
Shift next to rocking chair. Now the image is getting clearer, and it's easier to form an attitude toward the thing. The images we form are likely to be fairly similar, and we're all likely to have some similar associations comfort, relaxation, calm , so this less general or more specific term communicates more clearly than the more general or less specific terms before it. We can become more and more specific.
It can be a La-Z-Boy rocker-recliner. It can be a green velvet La-Z-Boy rocker recliner.
How to Share the ‘Big Picture’ (Without Boring Your Readers to Tears)
It can be a lime green velvet La-Z-Boy rocker recliner with a cigarette burn on the left arm and a crushed jelly doughnut pressed into the back edge of the seat cushion. By the time we get to the last description, we have surely reached the individual, a single chair. Note how easy it is to visualize this chair, and how much attitude we can form about it. The more you rely on general terms, the more your writing is likely to be vague and dull.
As your language becomes more specific, though, your meanings become clearer and your writing becomes more interesting. Does this mean you have to cram your writing with loads of detailed description? First, you don't always need modifiers to identify an individual: Second, not everything needs to be individual: If you think back to what you've just read, chances are you'll most easily remember and most certainly understand the gold Rolex, the Mercedes, and the lime green La-Z-Boy rocker-recliner. Their meanings are clear and they bring images with them we more easily recall things that are linked with a sense impression, which is why it's easier to remember learning how to ride a bike or swim than it is to remember learning about the causes of the Civil War.
We experience the world first and most vividly through our senses. From the beginning, we sense hot, cold, soft, rough, loud. Our early words are all concrete: We teach concrete terms: I think part of it is that we're trying to offer ideas or conclusions. We've worked hard for them, we're proud of them, they're what we want to share.
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After Mary tells you that you're her best friend, you hear her tell Margaret that she really hates you. Warner promises to pay you extra for raking her lawn after cutting it, but when you're finished she says it should be part of the original price, and she won't give you the promised money. Your dad promises to pick you up at four o'clock, but leaves you standing like a fool on the corner until after six. Your boss promises you a promotion, then gives it instead to his boss's nephew.
From these and more specific experiences, you learn that you can't always trust everybody. Do you tell your child those stories? More probably you just tell your child, "You can't always trust everybody. It took a lot of concrete, specific experiences to teach you that lesson, but you try to pass it on with a few general words.
You may think you're doing it right, giving your child the lesson without the hurt you went through. But the hurts teach the lesson, not the general terms. You can check out this principle in the textbooks you read and the lectures you listen to. If you find yourself bored or confused, chances are you're getting generalizations and abstractions. One of the most useful questions you can ask of an unclear presentation including your own is, "Can you give me an example? Your writing whether it's in an essay, a letter, a memorandum, a report, an advertisement, or a resume will be clearer, more interesting, and better remembered if it is dominated by concrete and specific terms, and if it keeps abstract and general terms to a minimum.
Go ahead and use abstract and general terms in your thesis statement and your topic sentences.
Abstract and concrete are classifications that denote whether the object that a term describes has physical referents. Abstract objects have no physical referents . The more abstract or general your language is, the more unclear and boring it will be. The more concrete and specific your language is, the more clear and vivid.
Gottlob Frege said that abstract objects, such as numbers, were members of a third realm , [6] [7] different from the external world or from internal consciousness. Another popular proposal for drawing the abstract-concrete distinction contends that an object is abstract if it lacks any causal powers. A causal power has the ability to affect something causally.
Thus, the empty set is abstract because it cannot act on other objects. One problem for this view is that it is not clear exactly what it is to have a causal power. For a more detailed exploration of the abstract-concrete distinction, follow the link below to the Stanford Encyclopedia article. Jean Piaget uses the terms "concrete" and "formal" to describe the different types of learning.
Examples: How to mix abstract and concrete language
Concrete thinking involves facts and descriptions about everyday, tangible objects, while abstract formal operational thinking involves a mental process. Recently, there has been some philosophical interest in the development of a third category of objects known as the quasi-abstract. Quasi-abstract objects have drawn particular attention in the area of social ontology and documentality. Some argue that the over-adherence to the platonist duality of the concrete and the abstract has led to a large category of social objects having been overlooked or rejected as nonexisting because they exhibit characteristics that the traditional duality between concrete and abstract regards as incompatible.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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For the album by Kiana, see Abstract Entity. Abstraction Abstract object theory Abstract particulars Abstract structure Conceptual framework Nominalism Non-physical entity Object philosophy Object of the mind Incorporeality Philosophy of mathematics Platonic realm Platonism Universal metaphysics. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Retrieved 18 September Sketch for a systematic metaphysics. Kemp, Fernando, Asher , Elsevier, p.
Eine logische Untersuchung," in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
Retrieved 1 January In Zalta, Edward N. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.