What is Abstraction?
- Abstraction as generality:
- Distinguishing the general from the particular in the world of ideas.
- We can have a general idea of water apart from specific ideas of
water, e.g. Lake Superior, or my dripping faucet.
- Abstraction as universality:
- An abstraction is that which is shared by individual instances.
- For example, justice, as an abstraction, is that which is
shared by all just acts.
- Abstraction as non-concreteness:
- Numbers (abstract) vs. numerals (concrete)
- Sets (abstract) vs. elements (sometimes concrete)
- Procedures (abstract) vs. running programs, or processes (concrete)
- In all characterizations, abstraction is the process of eliminating
specificity by ignoring certain details and features.