Talk:Reification (fallacy)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Philosophy Portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.
Additional information: Related task forces (core areas): Logic

An entry from Reification (fallacy) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 26 April 2007.

Contents 1 Pathetic connection 1.1 Reification and hypostatization 2 Thanks for the article, Piotrus. 3 Usage in literature 4 On Nothingness 5 Great Article 6 Just in literature? 7 Citations Needed — Also Patience 8 State?

[edit] Pathetic connection

I highly doubt that the pathetic fallacy falls under reification. When you change an object (eg a geyser) into a person, you are completely doing the opposite of making it a thing. Perhaps some research or an academic authority is warranted. In fact, none of the sources you cited claim that attributing human qualities to inanimate objects falls remotely within the realm of reification. --Oreo Priest 05:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I think there is some merit to Oreo Priest's objection to the pathetic fallacy as a subset of reification, although some instances of the pathetic fallacy seem to qualify, such as cases where the concept that is personified is a high level abstraction. For example, "Nature is angry at us," seems to treat the abstraction of "nature" as if it were a concrete person. However, one sees the pathetic fallacy in speaking of concetes as well. For example "Lake Superior is angry at us." So the pathetic fallacy does not fit very neatly into the definition of the fallacy of reification, does it? —Blanchette 06:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm still going to have to disagree. From one of the sources: "Treating abstractions as actual existing entities or regarding them as causally efficacious and ontologically prior and superior to their referents. Similar to hypostatization, except the kinds of abstractions involved are usually philosophical or ideological, such as "universals,"15 "existence," "good," and "justice."

Example: "Good and evil are the two forces ruling the universe." But, good and evil are qualities, not forces."

This is what I mean. Personification is the pathetic fallacy, while reification is different. Lake Superior is a thing, as is nature. I think this should stick to things like Heidegger's complaint of the reification of time and space. (see Being and Time). I know this is a little provocative, but I'm going to delete the objectionable content unless you cite your sources, so I can verify that I am, in fact, wrong. --Oreo Priest 13:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

That pathetic fallacy is a subset of reif/hyp fallacy is clearly mentioned here (section on 'Hypostatization fallacy': The pathetic fallacy is a subset of this fallacy. or see the section on pathetic fallacy itself) and here (When human-like qualities are attributed as well, we also have anthropomorphization.) - please read the refs before declaring they don't support the article.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  15:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reification and hypostatization

First, I did read the references, I just did not look under hypostatization. Upon following your links, what The Autonomist says makes perfect sense to me. You'll note that it never conflates reification and hypostatization, instead it says that reification and the pathetic fallacy are subsets of hypostatization. This seems like an excellent clarification and I actually propose we somehow create two articles, one on hypostatization, and another on reification. Something worth noting is that About.com does conflate the two, which I think is likely an error. Your thoughts? --Oreo Priest 17:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a good idea, although note that some sources don't see the difference between them - and I will admit the difference is still not clear to me. I think we are dealing with a combination of two subjects and two descriptions - correct me if I am wrong: 1) abstractions and 2) real but not alive objects and descriptions a) alive b) human like / intelligence. Perhaps a matrix or a graph indicating which of the 4 resulting scenarios fall under which fallacy, and where they overlap, would help? A table can be easily adopted from Common good (economics).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

For starters, I asked a philosophy professor, and she said unequivocally that there's no way personification or giving something lifelike properties falls under reification. Because she is a philosophy professor and the author of the about.com article is only an MA, that clears up any concern I have about About.com. I'm also not terribly concerned about the distinction between humans and other lifelike qualities, I'll leave that to you. My understanding of the subjects is:

Hypostasis
Reification	personification/ pathetic fallacy/whatever

On that note, I should mention that hypostasis seems to be the more grammatically correct word.

So, my proposal: 1) add an article on the hypostatic fallacy or section in the hypostasis article, explaining what it is, including the table I made (to your taste) and mentioning that reification and living-being-ification are proper subsets of hypostasis.

2) Clean up all the bits about reifying something into a living being. Thoughts? --Oreo Priest 21:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I am confused by your table. Please see if you can fill the below one for me:

	Abstractions	Real but non-alive objects
Assigned alive qualities
Assigned human/intelligence qualities

Also, with all due respect to your professor - who may well be right - remember that per WP:V we cannot accept 'I heard it from the authority' (or even 'authority emailed me', or 'I am the authority') over 'this is a publication'. Currently we seem to be looking at some major confusion among philsophers themselves (not that I am suprised by that... :>) as on how to define those terms and how do they differ. I think we need to dig more sources (I just skimmed a few google hits when I was writing the article) and see if we can spot a pattern with more sources (is there a most common definition, or are they several contradicting but equally distributed and reliable?).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense, we should find more sources. As for the table, yours also confuses me a great deal. Here is my understanding in set theory notation:

• Reification ⊂ Hypostasis
• Giving lifelike attributes ⊂ Hypostasis
• Personification ⊂ Giving lifelike attributes
• Giving lifelike attributes ∩ Reification  =  ∅
• Giving lifelike attributes ∪ Reification  =  Hypostasis

--Oreo Priest 15:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid I am confused - how can you say that giving lifelike attributes is not part of reification? Perhaps... can I ask you to define reification and hypostasis as you understand them?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  02:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I can be much more clear on my concept of the relation between the term. I believe hypostasis is "the turning of something abstract into" something concrete, I think we agree there. I believe reification is the specific subset of this where no lifelike attributes are given (i.e. it is turned into a nonliving thing), and that giving lifelike attributes (I'm not sure of the specific term) to an abstract concept is the complement of reification. Personification is a subset of giving lifelike attributes. Let me know what you think of this, or if my use of set theory notation confuses you. --Oreo Priest 17:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

"I believe reification is the specific subset of this where no lifelike attributes are given". That's interesting distinction. We could certainly use refs for that. Definition and example from [1] is not conclusive, I am afraid - I could argue that "forces ruling the universe" are alive...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Congrats on the DYK. As I can't really find anything to support my viewpoint, I'll concede. I'm still a little sceptical though, especially at the not-particularly-academic sources. --Oreo Priest 20:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you are right we need an article on hypostasis; we just need to see what is a subset/common part of what... and yes, the sources are far from perfect - but than logic is not my area of expertise, I will be the first to admit. But they fullfill WP:V until we get better ones...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  03:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the article, Piotrus.

•Two comments: Your subheading "Ethymology" is not as familiar as the equivalent "Etymology" – the former redirects to the latter in en.Wikipedia. Also, in the "Theory" section you write "A reification circle refers to the event when a norm, first seen as artificial and forces,...." It makes sense to me if "forces" should be "forced" but perhaps you had something else in mind that I'm not getting.

Made changes referred to above.—Blanchette 07:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usage in literature

Just mentioning that the authors of The Science of Discworld mention "reifying the privative", or in other words working on the basis that if X is a real "thing" or concept, then the absence of X can be treated as a real thing as well. For example, heat is an actual measurable quantity, but cold is merely the absence of heat and so "shutting the windows to keep out the cold" is actually reifying cold. I'm pretty sure there's a reference somewhere in the book that may be more "acceptable" than a book that's half fantasy novel, half popular science book and I'll try and track it down later. Confusing Manifestation 02:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On Nothingness

The first example in the Examples paragraph references Ayn Rand's position on the Existentialist concept of Nothingness. It looks like Ayn Rand completely misinterpreted the Existentialist concept of Nothingness, which is not a sort of metaphysical existent (in that case, it would be reification indeed). Instead, it is more about the absence of a specific thing, e.g. you have an appointment with John for lunch, but John didn't show up. John is not there, thus a negation of John being there. That is Existentialist Nothingness: the absence of a specific thing. "Nothing Noughts" and "Existence Exists" are not similar axioms, as Ayn Rand seemed to have thought. I wonder if she actually read Heidegger herself. I suspect she only read snippets of his works out of context. See also Nothing.

[edit] Great Article

This is an awesome article, really wonderful... I bow my hat to you, Wikipedians. =]

[edit] Just in literature?

I find it odd that "literature" is singled out here as the only field in which it is acceptable to use metaphors of this sort. You can find metaphors of all sorts throughout science (it is impossible to have any language without metaphors) and every other field. It only becomes considered a fallacy when one accuses someone else of taking the metaphor too seriously or borrowing from the wrong semantic domains. Using metaphors of any sort is not itself a fallacy, which is what this particular article implies at the moment. --24.147.86.187 21:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I amplified that second paragraph to address your concerns and make the distinction between metaphorical and fallacious reification clearer. —Blanchette 00:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations Needed — Also Patience

I reverted deletions by user 59.101.37.166. Removing sentences or paragraphs because they are unreferenced is not always appropriate. Most recently-created Wikipedia articles are poorly referenced but in time they evolve into something better. Naturally if the information is not only unreferenced but actually false, it should be deleted, but then we would hope for a reference to a reliable source that contradicts the false information, if only by being a comprehensive treatise on the subject which does not confirm the information in question. In other words, I agree that the burden of proof is on the editor who inserts or defends the information but Wikipedia policy definitely allows unreferenced material on noncontroversial topics. As it states on WP:VERIFY, "Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source," Which means, of course, that unverified material is permitted until challenged. So now that this material has been challenged please note that the WP:VERIFY also states, "Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider moving it to the talk page."

It should be obvious that operating on the principles of 59.101.37.166's deletions, the entire article except the "the reification of the zero" quote should be deleted. This article was only created this past April. Patience has served Wikipedia well in the past and should continue to do so. I would be grateful to user 59.101.37.166 if he/she would discuss improvements to this article before deleting any more. I too have doubts about the sentence, "When people describe nonbiological events (like a geyser) or social institutions (like government) as alive, they are committing a reification fallacy," not because it is unverified or I think it is false, but because the article does not go on to explain the rationale (or historical reason) for using the term "reification" for both the case where an abstraction is treated as a concrete, and where a non-living thing is treated as if it were a living thing, since it is hard to see the latter as a subset of the first. Perhaps the etymologically defined reification was expanded to include attributing new properties to things that do not actually possess them (newthingification?), but in any case, this article would benefit from a clearer expositions of the different senses and shades of reification. As for the second paragraph, it makes the vital distinction between metaphorical reification which is certainly an example of treating an abstraction as if it were a concrete ("justice is blind"), and fallacious reification. If you want to know more about why this paragraph is necessary see the original Reification [[2]] talk page where the problems of making the distinction between metaphorical and fallacious reification led to a dead end for the fallacy article.—Blanchette 12:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State?

Regarding a state as a conscious being: "This product is known to the state of California to cause cancer."

Is that really a fallacy? It seems to me that that is nothing more than a shorthand for "the government of the State of California" (which in turn is itself shorthand for "the people who make up the government of the State of California") Nik42 (talk) 05:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)