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+--- Thread: The poetics of hypostasization (/thread-21433.html)
The poetics of hypostasization - Magical Realist - Sep 26, 2026
“The hypostasization of aspects into (conceptual) states that, at least socially and linguistically, are treated as though they were actual objects in themselves would seem to be a constant function of language. We not only talk of ‘yellowness,’ ‘largeness,’ ‘smallness’, ‘heat,’ or ‘cold’ as though they were actual things (rather than aspects of things), but by treating them thus verbally, we allow ourselves to study them and to create explanatory models of them, models that are counterintuitive precisely to the extent that they deny their object status and return them to their aspective states... It is arguable that such hypostasization is a poetic function of language, and one that, we can easily see, makes science (which is, after all, a similar hypostasization of aspects) possible.”
–Samuel R. Delany
It is an extension of this nasty habit of language to impute discrete "thingness" or "noun-ness" to every subject and object it predicates. The sophistry of abstraction to transition unnoticeably from the descriptively specific to the ideationally general. Derrida said wherever there is language there is already generalization going on. But what is being said anymore when we are speaking the language of categories and universals and unbiquitous typologies--an eschatology of the disinstantiated and purely conceptual? This relentless cartography of the ungeographical? What of Being even shines thru anymore thru this smokey glass of the reified and the staticized?
“We hypostatize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of the information; the message has changed. This is a language which we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language; changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected outward once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing this, that in fact this is all we are doing”
― Philip K. Dick, Valis
RE: The poetics of hypostasization - Ostronomos - Sep 26, 2026
(3 hours ago)Magical Realist Wrote: “The hypostasization of aspects into (conceptual) states that, at least socially and linguistically, are treated as though they were actual objects in themselves would seem to be a constant function of language. We not only talk of ‘yellowness,’ ‘largeness,’ ‘smallness’, ‘heat,’ or ‘cold’ as though they were actual things (rather than aspects of things), but by treating them thus verbally, we allow ourselves to study them and to create explanatory models of them, models that are counterintuitive precisely to the extent that they deny their object status and return them to their aspective states... It is arguable that such hypostasization is a poetic function of language, and one that, we can easily see, makes science (which is, after all, a similar hypostasization of aspects) possible.”
–Samuel R. Delany
It is an extension of this nasty habit of language to impute discrete "thingness" or "noun-ness" to every subject and object it predicates. The sophistry of abstraction to transition unnoticeably from the descriptively specific to the ideationally general. Derrida said wherever there is language there is already generalization going on. But what is being said anymore when we are speaking the language of categories and universals and unbiquitous typologies--an eschatology of the disinstantiated and purely conceptual? This cartography of the ungeographical? What of Being even shines thru anymore thru this smokey glass of the reified and the staticized?
“We hypostatize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of the information; the message has changed. This is a language which we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language; changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected outward once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing this, that in fact this is all we are doing”
― Philip K. Dick, Valis
You've succeeded in capturing my attention.
I enjoyed reading your analysis. Language seems to be the exclusive domain of the conscious being. Casting aside the reality that would otherwise overwhelm. Linguistic power is an inherent property not only of mind, but of reality. See this fascinating video that incorporates the idea of the universe as a processor and display and as well a language: