1402. Abstracts

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1. Abstracts ( = properties = objects) are either ordinary because ontic or extraordinary because ontological. Ordinary or ontic abstracts ( = properties = objects) include individualities, species, genera, and categories, while extraordinary or ontological abstracts ( = properties = objects) include only transcendentals.

2. But an individual is no more to be identified simpliciter with an individuality than with a species, genus, category or transcendental. For an individual is not an abstract ( = property = object), but a concrete ( = instance = subject). And this is so even if an individual, being, in a way, relatively abstract by contrast with an event, than which nothing can be more concrete, may be said to be a quasi-abstract. An individual is not simply an individuality, but an individuality somehow actualized. Consequently, analysis of the concept "individual" requires the threefold distinction between essence, existence, and actuality, which is to say, (1) the individuality of the individual (essence); (2) the individuality of the individual somehow actualized (existence); and (3) the individuality of the individual actualized in just this, that, or the other event (or actual state) or sequence thereof (actuality).

3. The general rule is that events occur, individuals exist, and abstracts ( = properties = objects) are instantiated. Another related rule is that abstracts ( = properties = objects) at any level—from transcendentals to individualities—are real only insofar as they are instantiated somehow in all relatively lower levels as well as in some concrete(s) ( = instance[s] = subject[s]), i.e., individual(s) and / or event(s). Thus a category, for example, is real only insofar as it is instantiated in some genera, which in turn are real only insofar as they are instantiated in some species, which themselves are real only insofar as they are instantiated in some individualities, which in turn are real only insofar as they are actualized in some event(s) (or actual state[s]).

n.d.; rev. 12 April 1997; 6 August 2002