Abstract and concrete as cluster concepts

Abstract

The traditional abstract–concrete distinction treats the categories as mutually exclusive, exhaustive, and absolute. Along these lines, reductionists argue that abstractness (or concreteness) can be defined in terms of a single property. While adequate for paradigmatic entities, this view fails to accommodate non-paradigmatic entities, such as impure sets, immanent universals, and musical works, that seem to instantiate incompatible properties. Eliminativist responses avoid this tension by denying the existence or essential characteristics of these entities. Instead, I propose the Property Spectrum View (PSV), which treats the abstract and the concrete categories as cluster concepts and regards abstractness (or concreteness) as a derivative property. According to this approach, entities may be abstract or concrete to varying degrees, depending on the properties they instantiate. Therefore, PSV shifts methodological priority from category membership to property instantiation and accounts for non-paradigmatic cases, which is illustrated through an examination of musical works.