Reification

Various forms of fallacies of reasoning or abstraction in which something is, in some way, understood as a “thing” when it is not actually appropriate to do so.

The term is used very inconsistently in the literature and can therefore refer to a wide variety of phenomena, depending on the context. These include, amongst others:

• The fallacy of treating abstract concepts as if they referred to something concrete. This is referred to here as Hypostatisation.

• A special case of this is the confusion of a symbol with the object or phenomenon it symbolises. This is described here as the Semiotic fallacy.

• The fallacy of regarding or even treating people as if they were objects. This is referred to here as Objectification (of human beings).

• Conversely, when human characteristics or attributes are ascribed to plants, animals or even inanimate objects (e.g. stones or bodies of water), we refer to this as Anthropomorphisation.

However, all these phenomena can also be described as “reification”. For this reason, these articles also have this term listed under “Other names”.

• Fallacies of abstraction