Grounded abstraction

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A purported distinction that, for a given person, provides a predictably useful tool for making decisions involving the set of instances grouped by that abstraction. Examples: dog, human, taxpayer, Internet, yellow, fear, useful, and hypnotic.

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Floating abstraction

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A purported distinction is held by a given person, who is unable to provide any consistent or non-contradictory way to identify the instances of the set that the purported distinction includes or does not include. Examples (at least for most people): good, bad, right, wrong, should, deserve, decent, God, and proper.

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Ambiguous (term) abstraction

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Two or more abstractions are being indicated by the same term (word) by different people, for any given person, those abstractions may be either grounded or floating, but because the people using those terms to indicate those abstractions incorrectly assume that others using those terms are indicating the same abstractions, major misunderstandings (often exacerbated by righteousness) occur. These misunderstandings often express themselves by disputants attributing ignorance, stupidity, or bad motives to those who seem to disagree with them. Examples: freedom, love, respect, responsibility, patriotism, God, and fairness. 

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The bane of humanity

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Both floating and ambiguous abstractions have been the bane of humanity. 

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It was only when the Enlightenment transformed our ideas that knowledge should be grounded in an emphasis on rational thought as the primary source of knowledge and authority and reliance on observation, experimentation, and scientific reasoning to understand the world that science and technology started to make any real progress. Before the Enlightenment (before 1685), with some exceptions like Euclid and Aristotle, thinkers did not focus on grounding their knowledge in rational thought, observation, and experimentation. 

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We need more skepticism and uncertainty

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Let's bring that spirit and methods of Enlightenment into our own lives. Let's keep our own ideas open to question and refinement. Let's not assume that we necessarily know what the other person is trying to say. Let's invite partnership in trying to get clearer together what we really mean by the terms and words that are using us (instead of us using them). 

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What I suggest that you will find as you do this is that there is no fundamental disagreement, either among the different parts of yourself (your Now, Next, Oneself, and Others) or between you and others. 

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