Editing Abstraction (section)

==Origins==
{{Main|Behavioral modernity}}
[[Thinking]] in abstractions is considered by [[anthropologist]]s, [[archaeologist]]s, and [[sociologist]]s to be one of the key traits in [[modern human behaviour]], believed<ref>{{Cite journal |last =Carrier |first =James G. |date =2007-01-19 |title =Social aspects of abstraction |url =http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2001.tb00151.x |journal =Social Anthropology |volume =9 |issue =3 |pages =243–256 |doi =10.1111/j.1469-8676.2001.tb00151.x |issn =0964-0282|url-access =subscription }}</ref> to have developed between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. Its development is likely to have been closely connected with the [[origin of language | development]] of human [[language]], which (whether spoken or written) appears to both involve and facilitate abstract thinking. [[Max Müller]] suggests interrelationship between [[metaphor]] and abstraction in the development of [[thought]] and language.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Müller
 |first1               = F. Max
 |author-link1         = Max Müller
 |year                 = 1886
 |title                = Metaphor as a Mode of Abstraction
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=CNut1j1GvW0C
 |publisher            = Chapman & Hall
 |pages                = 625 – 626, 632
 |access-date          = 14 January 2025
 |quote                = [...] metaphor is mostly produced by the gradual fading of the colours of our percepts, and even by the vanishing of the outlines of their shadows, ''i.e.'' of our concepts. This gives us abstract, hence general names, and these general names , without any metaphorical effort, become applicable to a large number of new objects, and are afterwards called metaphors. [...] metaphor is but a new side of abstraction and generalisation, the vital principles of all thought and of all language.
}} 
</ref>

===History===
''Abstraction'' involves [[Inductive reasoning|induction]] of ideas or the synthesis of particular facts into one general theory about something. Its opposite, ''specification'', is the analysis or breaking-down of a general idea or abstraction into concrete facts. Abstraction can be illustrated by [[Francis Bacon]]'s ''[[Novum Organum]]'' (1620), a book of modern scientific philosophy written in the late [[Jacobean era]]<ref name="Hesse">Hesse, M. B. (1964), "Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science", in A Critical History of Western Philosophy, ed. D. J. O'Connor, New York, pp. 141–52.</ref> of England to encourage modern thinkers to collect specific facts before making any generalizations.

Bacon used and promoted [[inductive reasoning|induction]] as an abstraction tool; his induction complemented but was distinct from the ancient [[deductive]]-thinking approach that had dominated the Western intellectual world since the times of Greek philosophers like [[Thales]], [[Anaximander]], and [[Aristotle]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Klein |first=Jürgen |title=Francis Bacon|date=2016 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/francis-bacon/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Winter 2016 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=2019-10-22}}</ref> Thales ({{circa|624}}–546 BCE) believed that everything in the universe comes from one main substance, water. He deduced or specified from a general idea, "everything is water," to the specific forms of water such as ice, snow, fog, and rivers.

Early-modern scientists used the approach of abstraction (going from particular facts collected into one general idea). [[Isaac Newton|Newton]] (1642–1727) derived the motion of the planets from [[Copernicus]]' (1473–1543) simplification, that the Sun is the center of the [[Solar System]]; [[Kepler]] (1571–1630) compressed thousands of measurements into one expression to finally conclude that Mars moves in an elliptical orbit about the Sun; [[Galileo]] (1564–1642) compressed the results of one hundred specific experiments into the law of [[falling bodies]].