Noun#Concrete nouns and abstract nouns

An abstract ( pl. abstractions; Latin abstractum " deducted " ) is in grammar and linguistics, a noun is called with the somewhat non- representational, such as faith, love, hope. As a counter- term is the concrete object, something in rem.

The thought process, the specific properties of non - rem and rem units for concept formation sums in linguistic descriptions, it is generally - also outside the grammar - called abstraction.

Abstractions as a stylistic device

Abstractions can be found in Roman poetry again; a well-known Praktizierer was, for example, Sallust, who in his texts abstractions over concrete nouns preferred (eg De coniuratione Catilinae ). It had, for example, the practical reason that it makes you indeed could appeal to certain people, a self but nothing could be proved, since no concrete names were used. This could often circumvent censorship and protect their own lives.

Abstract in the abstract

Abstraction and language can be seen as abstractions themselves, and the uncertainty when dealing with non-representational terms and designations runs through the history of philosophy. Fritz Mauthner 1906 characterizes the abstract as unreal and unbelievable concept:

" What is the nature of language? What is the relationship, "the language " to the languages ​​. The simplest answer would be: " the language " does not exist; the word is such a pale abstraction, that it hardly corresponds to something real. And if the human language as a "tool " of knowledge if, in particular my mother language as a tool would be reliable, so I would have to give up the attempt of this criticism from the outset, because then the subject of the investigation an abstraction, an unreal and incomprehensible term. So I stand before the first distressing dilemma. Only when the human language and, in particular my mother tongue is not reliable and not logical, only then I will discover behind the extreme abstraction " language " still something real; but then I will because of the unreliability of the tool, the investigation can not make as thorough as I would like. But since I do not actually abfasse these opening sentences at the beginning of my observations, but after years of effort, so I know that this distressing dilemma will haunt me from step to step. "

Abstraction as a tool

An abstraction can be used as a tool: It is used as long as you need it for a specific purpose, for example, to consider existing conditions again. In this sense, Hanna Meissner sees the function of abstractions:

" [B ] egriffliche abstractions [ are ] useful to allow an analytical reconstruction of the historical per dispositives or apparatus which could be designed to produce other inflections to allow other materializations. "