Link to originalReification of analytic distinctions
An analytic distinction is one you draw to isolate aspects of a phenomenon for study: cause vs. effect, structure vs. function, individual vs. society, mind vs. body, genotype vs. phenotype, syntax vs. semantics, form vs. content, software vs. hardware, …
The distinction is a tool; the underlying reality is typically a single interwoven process where both sides are constitutively entangled.
Reification is the error of forgetting the tool-status and treating the two sides as independently existing things that then have to be glued back together.
You end up with pseudo-problems about how the two “interact” (pineal gland).
