PhronesisChronic abstraction-preference (CAP) designates a stable attractor state in which a thinker systematically engages with experience, plans, relationships, and work primarily at the level of concepts, frameworks, and general structures rather than through direct, particular, committed, concrete contact. We argue that CAP constitutes a wrong attractor W in the Phronesis framework, operating against the ground state S^0 of calibrated grounded thinking.
The paper develops two interlocking mechanisms: the Concept-Retreat Architecture (CRA), which describes how abstraction is recruited not for epistemic purposes but as a defensive maneuver against the vulnerability inherent in concrete engagement; and the Embodied-Engagement Foreclosure Basin (EEFB), which characterizes the self-reinforcing dynamics that make return to concrete particularity increasingly costly.
We present nine propositions tracing the architecture from its roots in concrete-commitment anxiety (P1) through abstraction as safe distance (P2), the implementation gap (P3), conceptual-thinker identity lock-in (P4), and the poverty of abstraction without grounding (P5). We then distinguish productive theoretical thinking from its compulsive counterpart (P6), characterize the return path as requiring specific, committed, particular response (P7), describe recalibration practice (P8), and establish the stability of S^0 as fluent movement between levels of abstraction (P9).
The paper closes with clinical and practical implications and a manual for returning from the concept to the thing.