hypostatization
- noun
- /ˌhaɪpəstəˈzeɪʃən/
- Formal
:
hipostatización
- In discussions about identity, the hypostatization of categories can limit our understanding of the fluidity present in human experiences.
Examples
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The hypostatization of collective memory can lead to distorted perceptions about historical events, making them seem more concrete than they actually are.
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To do so, it suggests, is to participate in the falsifying hypostatization and curtailment of possibilities implicit in the classic notion of self or subject.
Academic text (1990) -
The motivation for these emphases has largely been the wish to undo what is taken for a deadly reification of the subject and a concomitant hypostatization of literary character in "humanist" discourse.
Academic text (1990) -
Moreover, there are in Being and Time resources for a contextual, "microphysical" approach to power that would have allowed Heidegger to anticipate Foucault's critique of the hypostatization of power as something that is externally imposed on social relations.
Academic text (2016) -
Philosophers often warn against the hypostatization of abstract ideas, urging us to remember that concepts like justice and freedom are not tangible objects.
Synonyms
14
8.2
Treating ideas or feelings as if they were a real thing you can touch
1
9.9
Treating an idea as a real thing
Surface Forms
Morphology
hypostatization = hypostatize (opaque) = hypostasis + ize + ation
Formation to a noun is regular, but both the verb 'hypostatize' and the root 'hypostasis' are rare, technical Greek-derived forms unlikely to be known by average learners, so the meaning is not easily derived.
Etymology
Hypostatization comes from Greek parts hypo- ('under') and -stasis ('standing'), giving the image of something that 'stands under' and becomes solid. So, hypostatization means making an idea or feeling 'stand' like a real thing, treating an abstract idea as if it were concrete.