reification

1 regarding something abstract as a material thing [syn: hypostatization, hypostatisation]

2 representing a human being as a physical thing deprived of personal qualities or individuality; "according to Marx, treating labor as a commodity exemplified the reification of the individual" [syn: depersonalization, depersonalisation]

English

Etymology

From re- and facere.

Noun

1. The consideration of an abstract thing as if it were concrete, or of an inanimate object as if it were living.

Translations

Related terms

• reify

Reification may refer to:

• Reification (computer science), making a data model for a previously abstract concept

• Reification (fallacy), fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing

• Reification in Gestalt psychology, where an object is perceived as having more spatial information than is actually present in the original stimulus

• Reification (knowledge representation), used to represent facts that must then be manipulated in some way

• Reification (linguistics) in natural language processing, where a natural language statement is transformed so actions and events in it become quantifiable variables

• Reification (Marxism) (German: Verdinglichung), the consideration of an abstraction or an object as if it had living existence and abilities; at the same time it implies the thingification of social relations

• Reification (statistics), the consideration of a `perfect' model which is used to make inferences connecting (imperfect) model results with experimental observations