Abstraction is the essential instrument for revealing structures invisible to direct observation

Evidence

It is, of course, the case—as “culturalism” argues—that, in historical reality, practices do not appear neatly distinguished out into their respective instances. However, to think about or to analyze the complexity of the real, the act of practice of thinking is required; and this necessitates the use of the power of abstraction and analysis, the formation of concepts with which to cut into the complexity of the real, in order precisely to reveal and bring to light relationships and structures which cannot be visible to the naive naked eye, and which can neither present nor authenticate themselves: “In the analysis of economic forms, neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of assistance. The power of abstraction must replace both.” Of course, structuralism has frequently taken this proposition to its extreme. Because thought is impossible without “the power of abstraction,” it has confused this with giving an absolute primacy to the level of the formation of concepts—and at the highest, most abstract level of abstraction only: Theory with a capital “T” then becomes judge and jury. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 199

Categorization

• DEFINE: Presents the core Marxian methodological premise that analysis requires abstraction, and warns against the structuralist deviation of absolutizing Theory.
• XREF: connects to: Scientific isolation of structures never leaves the world of existing objects.; Structural interpretation reads the gaps rather than the unified whole — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1394; Society’s institutions constitute a real whole abstraction from which falsifies data. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 692 (+3 more)