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> The author is as guilty as anyone who, during the process of abstraction, forgets they have done so and thinks that the concept of a cat implies that cats are
by voidhorse 4y ago
> The author is as guilty as anyone who, during the process of abstraction, forgets they have done so and thinks that the concept of a cat implies that cats are some universal essence made manifest. Forms are constantly trying to convince us that they're real.
The later Marxists had a term for this, reification, and I'm convinced it is probably the most common fallacy human beings make.
- kelseyfrog 4y agoUsing the technical term has tended to enrage folks here before. "Why should I have to read The Social Construction of Reality to understand what you've written," has the same sensibility as "Why should I have to know a programing language to write programs?!" But yes, that's precisely it.