Abstraction (sociology)

Abstraction is generally defined as a conceptual process of complexity reduction that highlights the essential properties or first principles of a given object or idea. ^[1]

Benjamin Bratton of the Center for Design and Geopolitics referred to abstraction as a function of intelligence for an organism to “map its own surroundings,” particularly with respect to food, friend, or foe. The formalizing of modes of reasoning is but a projection of this “primordial abstraction.” As we evolve more complex forms of intelligence, ‘abstraction as mapping’ is the general principle of that complexification.^[2]

Society is an abstract concept. Abstraction is also a social and material process. Society is also becoming increasingly abstract. These are a few fundamental ways in which abstraction is a vital concept in sociology.^[3]

1. ↑ https://medium.com/the-abs-tract-organization/introduction-to-abstraction-e62dd0ed9eb2
2. ↑ https://medium.com/the-abs-tract-organization/the-abstraction-of-benjamin-bratton-756c647ab6ec
3. ↑ https://medium.com/the-abs-tract-organization/introduction-to-abstraction-e62dd0ed9eb2