[From Latin abstractus: drawn away or out from, derived, removed, separated.]
(metaphysics) The doctrine that ideas or abstractions actually exist; see idealism and Platonism.
(epistemology) The view that knowledge is gained only through abstraction from particulars; more commonly called conceptualism.
(aesthetics) The doctrine that abstraction (especially visual abstraction) is more valuable or important than representation in the arts; see modernism and expressionism.