I think there is no reason to expect a single meaning of the word. You did a good job in enumerating uses of ‘abstraction’ and finding its theme (removed from specific). I don’t understand what confusion remains though.
I’m not sure whether or not there actually is a single meaning of the word or not. I get the impression from hearing other people talk about it that there is a single meaning, and that I’m not understanding what that single meaning is. But if it is the case that there is in fact no single meaning, I indeed wouldn’t have any confusion remaining, aside from maybe not having as good an understanding of how the different meanings relate as I would like.
I get the impression from hearing other people talk about it that there is a single meaning, and that I’m not understanding what that single meaning is
People are often wrong about that.
A person who understands this effect can use it to exploit people, and when they do it is called “equivocation”, to use two different senses of the same word in quick enough succession that nobody notices the words aren’t really pointing at the same thing, to then use the inconsistencies between the word senses to approach impossible conclusions.
I wish I could drop a load of examples but I’ve never been good at that. This deserves a post. This deserves a paper, there are probably whole philosophical projects that are based on the pursuit of impossible chimeras held up by prolonged, entrenched equivocation...
One such essay about a concept that is either identical to equivocation, or somewhere in the vicinity (I’ve never quite been able to figure out which, but I think it’s supposed to be subtly different) is Scott’s post about Motte and Bailey, which includes lots of examples
I think there is no reason to expect a single meaning of the word. You did a good job in enumerating uses of ‘abstraction’ and finding its theme (removed from specific). I don’t understand what confusion remains though.
I’m not sure whether or not there actually is a single meaning of the word or not. I get the impression from hearing other people talk about it that there is a single meaning, and that I’m not understanding what that single meaning is. But if it is the case that there is in fact no single meaning, I indeed wouldn’t have any confusion remaining, aside from maybe not having as good an understanding of how the different meanings relate as I would like.
People are often wrong about that.
A person who understands this effect can use it to exploit people, and when they do it is called “equivocation”, to use two different senses of the same word in quick enough succession that nobody notices the words aren’t really pointing at the same thing, to then use the inconsistencies between the word senses to approach impossible conclusions.
I wish I could drop a load of examples but I’ve never been good at that. This deserves a post. This deserves a paper, there are probably whole philosophical projects that are based on the pursuit of impossible chimeras held up by prolonged, entrenched equivocation...
One such essay about a concept that is either identical to equivocation, or somewhere in the vicinity (I’ve never quite been able to figure out which, but I think it’s supposed to be subtly different) is Scott’s post about Motte and Bailey, which includes lots of examples