ABSTRACT This paper explores an ontological version of ‘abstraction’ as it manifests in the commonalities and differences across social scientific research events. Drawing on a range of writings that focus on the potentiality of the event, on Whitehead’s concept of the ‘eternal object’, and on the notion of attractor as discussed by DeLanda, the notion of abstractor’ is tentatively proposed. The aim is to show how abstractors introduce particular potentialities, or ‘lineages of becoming’. However, in the specific context of the research event, these abstractors are subject to modes of care (with their own linages of becoming) that inform how analysts might engage with the potentialities of a research event (understood as an inventive problem space). This broad schema is initially illustrated through a particular abstractor, that of the ‘blackest black’ as partially actualized in the nanotechnology VANTAblack. Subsequently, the case of VANTAblack is used to prompt a number of heuristic questions with regard to how we might practically and carefully explore the commonalities and differences across research events. The paper closes with reflections on the broader status of the approach sketched here.

中文翻译：

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面向抽象者：护理方式和血统

摘要本文探讨了“抽象”的本体论版本，因为它体现在社会科学研究事件之间的共性和差异上。借鉴一系列关注事件可能性的著作，怀特海（Whitehead）的“永恒物体”概念以及DeLanda讨论的吸引子概念，初步提出了抽象器概念。目的是展示抽象者如何引入特定的潜力或“成为世袭”。但是，在研究事件的特定上下文中，这些抽象者必须遵循谨慎的方式（以自己的意愿为指导），以告知分析人员如何利用研究事件的潜力（被理解为创造性的问题空间）。最初通过特定的抽象器说明了这种广泛的架构，纳米技术VANTAblack中部分实现的“最黑的黑色”。随后，使用VANTAblack的案例来提示一些启发式问题，这些问题涉及我们如何切实可行地仔细探索研究事件之间的共性和差异。本文在结束时总结了此处概述的方法的广泛地位。