Tropes

Trope theory is the view that the world is (wholly or partly) constituted by so-called tropes, which are entities most often characterized as a kind of abstract particular or particular property. Very little is uncontroversial when it comes to tropes and the theory or theories in which tropes (not always so-called) figure. What attracts many to the theory is that it, in occupying a sort of middle position in between classical nominalism (according to which all there is, is particular) and classical realism (according to which there is a separate and fundamental category of properties), appears to avoid some of the troubles befalling either of those views. More precisely, by accepting the existence of entities that are, or that at least behave like, properties, the trope theorist avoids the charge, often made against classical nominalists, of positing entities that are somehow too unstructured to be able to fulfill all of our explanatory needs. And by not accepting the existence of universals, the trope theorist avoids having to accept the existence of a kind of entity many find mysterious, counterintuitive, and “unscientific.” Apart from this very thin core assumption—that there are tropes—different trope theories need not have very much in common. Most trope theorists (but not all) believe that there is nothing but tropes. Most of these one-category trope theorists (but, again, not all) hold that distinct concrete particulars (which are understood by most, but again not all, as bundles of tropes) are the same—for example, have the same color—when (some of) the tropes that characterize them are members of the same (exact) similarity class. And most (but not all) hold that resemblance between tropes is determined by the tropes’ individual, intrinsic nature, which is taken as a primitive.