hypostasis (from Latin, ‘substance’), the process of regarding a concept or abstraction as an independent or real entity. The verb forms ‘hypostatize’ and ‘reify’ designate the acts of positing objects of a certain sort for the purposes of one’s theory. It is sometimes implied that a fallacy is involved in so describing these processes or acts, as in ‘Plato was guilty of the reification of universals’. The issue turns largely on criteria of ontological commitment. See also METAPHYSICS , ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMEN. C.F.D.