ion is a term that commonly carries negative connotations. So, for example, it is frequently opposed to lived experience – that is, abstraction is presented as a reduction of the richness and complexity of everyday life. In other negative uses, abstraction is held to involve an erasure of difference in a process of homogenization or generalization, as for example when the creation of classes or classifications of types denies the full expression of singular cases, individuality and particularity. Abstraction, it is claimed, is indifferent to the particular and therefore incapable of generating or promoting difference. If abstraction does generate difference, it does so, it is presumed, only in calculable terms, defined in relation to a fixed number of possibilities. Abstraction is also used negatively to indicate a preoccupied state of mind or to describe cognitive states, types of thoughts that are oblivious to events (as in abstract thought). Abstraction in these negative senses is always in need of specification, in more ways than one. Rather than restricting abstraction to these negative uses (which paradoxically themselves often rely on the mode of abstraction they describe), this collection examines practices of abstraction rather than abstraction as such: that is, the collection is concerned with the doing of abstraction. This focus allows the authors to recognize abstraction as a characteristic of many everyday as well as scientific, technical and economic practices. And to do so without assuming that these practices refer to orders or levels of culture or society established a priori, while nonetheless pointing to the ways in which practices of abstraction are a means to organize and coordinate society. And while the authors consider whether and how such practices variously involve recognized characteristics of abstraction: detachment from or avoidance of representational qualities; identification and isolation of common features or attributes to create classifications, types or genres; processes of deand re-contextualization; practices of extraction; the pre-occupation of mind – they are also attentive to the ways in which practices of abstraction work with and against other specific, situated practices, and do so more or less successfully. A shared focus, then, is on the way in which practices of abstraction do not go uncontested, but must be accounted for, often as a product of concrete work which – ironically – itself may become an abstraction. In the pages that follow, abstraction can be found in the Anthropocenic calls for a politicization of geophyisics (Tironi); in new forms of experience money such as Apple Pay and their relation to existing accounts of money (Tkacz); as a constitutive component in the ontology of social scientific methodology (Michael); as virtualities, both real and ideal but not actual (Shields); as central to innovation processes in mathematical and © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group CONTACT Celia Lury c.lury@warwick.ac.uk DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 2019, VOL. 20, NO. 3, 243–245 https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2019.1672203 computational methods (Spencer); as a mode of thought that has consecutively distanced and domesticated ‘nature’ (Chandler); and in the performed behaviours of people enrolled in an electricity load experiment (Grandclement). This array of abstractions reminds us of a central irony of abstraction – that it is itself not easy to abstract. If we try to abstract a version of abstraction that echoes across the papers (at least as a starting point), it might invoke generalization from the particular, and the allied bracketing of the specific and the situated, in order to derive (or reflect) categories of comparison. But this abstracted articulation of abstraction is too specific – it is too epistemological (Michael) or uncritical (Chandler). Moreover, it says little about the practices by which abstraction is attempted if not always accomplished. For instance, abstraction can be manifested through self-conscious performance (Grandclement, Tkacz, Spencer), or exemplified in the caricature of the geosciences that affords their critique (Tironi). The contributions collected here show how the ‘negative’ abstraction of abstraction leaves open the multiple ‘others’ against which ‘abstraction’ is articulated. Put otherwise, a solely negative account avoids acknowledging what abstraction is a movement away from, what it is working against, the interrelations of abstraction and its others, not simply descriptively, but also speculatively, making it hard to explore how such interrelations can be/are being revitalized (rather than reinforced). In contrast, our authors identify and describe the emergent involutions of abstraction and its others through, say, the production of liminal events (for example, Shields), or the composition of modes of care (Michael), or the promotion of a sort of ‘hyper-abstraction’ (Chandler). In exploring the ambivalence of abstraction, in describing what abstraction works against, the authors highlight the interruptions, disturbances and glitches that emerge in the movement from the empirical to the formal, the particular to the general, and back. They recognize the ambivalences of abstraction and in doing so develop a more ambivalent relation to abstraction than a solely negative account will allow. To further this concern with the ambivalence of abstraction, and drawing on the accounts the authors to this Special Issue raise, we list a short series of basic questions to ask of abstraction: When, where and how does abstraction take place? What are the practices and means by which abstraction is attempted or accomplished? On what do these practices or means work? In other words, what are the (specific) ‘others’ of this (specific) abstraction? What does abstraction ‘do’? In what way is abstraction productive or positive, negating or negative? What are the qualities of abstraction? What resists abstraction? Can abstraction itself be a mode of resistance? What are the emergent, or ambiguous, relations between abstraction and its others? How might these be enhanced, better involuted, and rendered ‘positive’? And in what does that ‘positivity’ consist? To be sure these are simple questions, but they might together serve as a prompt to a more expansive and elaborated list. Such a list, we hope, would invite a more pronounced circumspection over our own respective uses – and practices – of abstraction. Ideally it resources a collective recognition that abstraction is itself an abstraction, even if that recognition also entails something of the negative and positive qualities of the abstract. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. 244 C. LURY AND M. MICHAEL

中文翻译：

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简介：抽象的矛盾

“离子”一词通常带有负面含义。因此，例如，它经常与生活经验相对立-也就是说，抽象表现为减少日常生活的丰富性和复杂性。在其他负面用途中，抽象被认为是消除了同质化或泛化过程中的差异，例如，当类的创建或类型分类拒绝了奇异情况，个性和特殊性的完整表达时。要求保护的是，抽象对特定事物无动于衷，因此不能产生或促进差异。如果抽象确实产生了差异，那么它就这样做了，只能以可计算的术语来推论，并且相对于一定数量的可能性进行定义。抽象也被否定地用来表示一种过分关注的心理状态或描述认知状态，即不遵守事件的思想类型（与抽象思想一样）。这些负面意义上的抽象总是需要规范的，而不仅仅是一种方式。而不是将抽象限制于这些负面用途（自相矛盾的是，它们通常依赖于它们描述的抽象模式），该集合研究抽象的实践而不是抽象的抽象：也就是说，该集合与抽象的进行有关。这种关注使作者能够认识到抽象是许多日常以及科学，技术和经济实践的特征。并且在不假定这些做法是指先验先后建立的文化或社会秩序或水平的前提下，尽管如此，它还是指出了抽象实践是组织和协调社会的一种方式。同时，作者考虑了这种做法是否以及如何以各种方式涉及公认的抽象特征：脱离或避免代表品质；识别和隔离共同的特征或属性以创建分类，类型或体裁；脱脱和重新关联的过程；提取方法；专注于思想–他们还关注抽象实践与其他特定情况下的实践相抵触的方式，或多或少成功地做到这一点。因此，一个共同的重点是如何在抽象实践中不容置疑，而必须加以考虑的方式，通常是作为具体工作的产物，具有讽刺意味的是，它本身可能会成为一种抽象。在随后的几页中，人类文明的呼吁将地球物理学的政治化（提罗尼）中可以找到抽象的东西。以新形式的体验货币，例如Apple Pay及其与现有货币帐户的关系（Tkacz）；作为社会科学方法论本体的组成部分（迈克尔）；作为虚拟的，真实的和理想的但不是实际的（盾牌）；作为数学创新过程的核心，©2019 Informa UK Limited，以Taylor＆Francis Group的名义交易联系Celia Lury c.lury@warwick.ac.uk区分：社会理论杂志2019，VOL。20号 3，243–245 https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2019.1672203计算方法（Spencer）；作为一种思维模式，已经相距遥远并且驯化了“自然”（钱德勒）；以及参加电力负荷实验的人的行为表现（Grandclement）。这一系列抽象使我们想起抽象的中心讽刺-它本身并不容易抽象。如果我们尝试抽象出一个在论文中回响的抽象版本（至少作为起点），则它可能会从特定内容，特定内容和所处位置的相关方括号中进行泛化，以便得出（或反映）比较类别。但是这种抽象的抽象表达太具体了–它太过于认识论（迈克尔）或非批判性（钱德勒）。而且，它很少说明尝试抽象的实践（如果不总是实现的话）。例如，抽象可以通过自我意识的表现来体现（Grandclement，Tkacz，Spencer），或者可以通过对地球科学的讽刺来体现（Tironi）。此处收集的贡献表明，“负”抽象抽象如何打开与“抽象”相关的多个“其他”。换句话讲，一个完全否定的描述避免避免抽象化是一种运动，它正在与之抗衡，它与之抗衡的是抽象与它之间的相互关系，不仅是描述性的，而且是推测性的，这使得探索这种相互关系的方式变得困难/正在复兴（而不是加强）。相比之下，我们的作者通过产生阈值事件（例如Shields）来识别和描述抽象及其其他形式的新兴内卷，或照护方式的构成（迈克尔），或某种“超抽象”的提倡（钱德勒）。在探索抽象的矛盾性时，在描述抽象所针对的对象时，作者强调了从经验到形式，特别是从一般到最后的运动中出现的干扰，干扰和小故障。他们认识到抽象的矛盾性，并且在这样做时，与抽象的关系比单单否定性描述所允许的矛盾性更高。为了进一步解决抽象问题的矛盾，并利用本期特刊作者的论述，我们列出了一系列简短的抽象问题：抽象在哪里以及如何发生？尝试或完成抽象的实践和手段是什么？这些做法或手段在什么方面起作用？换句话说，这个（特定）抽象的（特定）“其他”是什么？抽象“做什么”？抽象以什么方式产生或产生积极影响，否定或负面影响？抽象的品质是什么？什么抵抗抽象？抽象本身可以成为一种抵制模式吗？抽象与其他抽象之间出现了什么或模棱两可的关系？这些将如何增强，更好地融合和呈现“积极”？那“积极性”是由什么组成的呢？可以肯定的是，这些问题很简单，但它们可能会共同提示更广泛和详尽的清单。我们希望这样的清单，会引起对我们自己的抽象用途和实践的更深刻的审慎思考。理想情况下，它应该获得一种集体认识，即抽象本身就是抽象，即使这种认识也需要抽象的消极和正面特质。披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。244 C.LURY和M.MICHAEL