Theory
Reification often takes place when natural or social processes are misunderstood and/or simplified; for example when human creations are described as "facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will". Reification can also occur when a word with a normal usage is given an invalid usage, with mental constructs or concepts referred to as live beings.
When human-like qualities are attributed as well, it is a special case of reification, known as pathetic fallacy (or anthropomorphic fallacy).
- Nature provides empathy that we may have insight into the mind of others.
Reification may derive from an inborn tendency to simplify experience by assuming constancy as much as possible.
Read more about this topic: Reification (fallacy)
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“The theory of truth is a series of truisms.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“The theory [before the twentieth century] ... was that all the jobs in the world belonged by right to men, and that only men were by nature entitled to wages. If a woman earned money, outside domestic service, it was because some misfortune had deprived her of masculine protection.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“It is not enough for theory to describe and analyse, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes. In order to do this theory must partake of and become the acceleration of this logic. It must tear itself from all referents and take pride only in the future. Theory must operate on time at the cost of a deliberate distortion of present reality.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)