Generalizing and Abstracting

IN theories and experiments on concept formation, the terms generalization and abstraction are often used in an equivocal sense, frequently as synonyms to describe the process of forming a concept from perceptual or verbal data. In one sense, however, the terms are distinct, as for example, when a concept name shifts its meaning from the concrete-general to the abstract-particular, as in the following sentences involving the concept “ballad”. (1) A ballad is a piece of creative writing. (2) The ballad is a literary form. We can describe any concept by a double notation, made up of (i) a0, a1, a2 … levels of abstraction, where a0 is the concrete, and (ii) g0, gi, gii, giii … degrees of generalization, where g0 is the unique or the particular.