Home

Cognition

Personal construct psychology

Rationalism

Skepticism

Propositional logic

Fallacy of misplaced concreteness

Fallacy of misplaced concreteness

Alfred North Whitehead

- neglecting the degree of abstraction involved when an actual entity is considered merely so far as it exemplifies certain categories of thought

This is a major human communication problem

Communication fails when people operate at different levels of concreteness

We typically accept a high level of abstraction in what we believe and demand a high level of concreteness when we disbelieve

People typically accept a high level of abstraction in their religious beliefs but make concrete objections to others' beliefs