They are mere personifications of abstract ideas, and it's not at all clear that Sin and her son, Death, exist as individual entities in the same way, or on the same plane, that Satan does, for example, or Beelzebub.

他们仅仅是将抽象的思想拟人化的结果，但我们不清楚的是罪恶之神和她的儿子死神，以同样的方式或在同一个星球作为独立的个体存在，例如撒旦或者苍蝇王比尔泽布也是这样。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选

Oftentimes, inventions that seem, in the abstract, to be good ideas may be impossible because something that you have to do to make it actually come into practice is too expensive and so it's not economic to produce the invention.

通常在理论上,创新固然不错,但却很难实现,因为把创意变成现实,花费会相当的昂贵,实现这样的创意非常不合算

耶鲁公开课 - 金融市场课程节选

They are talking about abstract intellectual ideas, often religious or philosophical ones, and that, plus its setting: I hope you noticed the sort of New Havenish setting of Franny's breakdown.

他们在谈论一些抽象的智力观念，通常是关于宗教或哲学的，除了它的设置，我希望你们注意到那种,弗兰尼崩溃的新的Havenish设定。

耶鲁公开课 - 1945年后的美国小说课程节选