reification

Meanings

Plural: reifications

Noun

• regarding something abstract as a material thing
• 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"
• The consideration of an abstract thing as if it were concrete, or of an inanimate object as if it were living.
• The consideration of a human being as an impersonal object.
• A process that makes a computable/addressable object out of a non-computable/addressable one; or a concrete class out of a generic one.
• The transformation of a natural-language statement into a form in which its actions and events are quantifiable variables.

Synonyms

depersonalisation, depersonalization, hypostatisation, hypostatization, materialization, objectification, pathetic fallacy, thingification