A little theory of abstraction

Abstract

By means of abstraction a notion A is derived from a notion S. The resulting notion A often is called abstraction as well. Abstraction is considered important for information systems development. It often is naively understood as simply prescinding from aspects not considered as important for a task at hand. This approach to abstraction does not take into account two points: Firstly, prior to prescinding from characteristics of a phenomenon this phenomenon must be constructed conceptually. Secondly, the extent of a notion in general only can be determined with respect to a scope that was presupposed. The present paper proposes an approach to abstraction that meets both of these points and restricts abstraction to be carried out only within predefined conceptual frameworks. A few commonly used example frameworks are identified and discussed. The paper aims at helping those who feel that the known abstraction concepts for a task at hand are not satisfactory and want to define better suitable ones.