Tropes

• Qualiton: one-place trope (Fred’s greenness, Elisa’s humanity)
• Relaton: multi-place trope (Fred and Elisa’s friendship, Americans’ co-citizenship)

Truthmaker argument for tropes

1. (Premise) For every positive true proposition p there is something (perhaps a plurality) in the world in virtue of which the proposition holds. (This is called the truthmaker of p.)

2. (Premise) If p holds in virtue of the existence of x, then the existence of x logically necessitates the truth of p.

3. (Premise) Fred is conscious.

4. (Premise) The items Platonic realists posit to explain (3) is conscious are Fred, consciousness and instantiation.

5. (Premise) Fred, consciousness and instantiation can exist without Fred being conscious.

6. Therefore, the items Platonic realists posit to explain (3) are not what (3) is true in virtue of. (2, 4 and 5)

7. (Premise) (3) is a positive true proposition.

8. Therefore, there is something beyond the items Platonic realists posit to explain (3), which is a part of that in virtue of which (3) holds. (1, 6 and 7)

9. (Premise) The best candidate for that something is a qualiton of Fred’s consciousness or a relaton of Fred’s instantiation of consciousness.

10. Therefore, probably, there are qualitons or relatons or both.

Classic trope theory

· A universal is a set of tropes all of which exactly resemble each other.

· An individual is a set of compresent tropes.

· Exemplification is overlapping.

Difficulties: Can’t individuals survive exchange of tropes? What holds a set together?

Kernel tropism

• A universal is a set of tropes all of which exactly resemble each other.
• An individual is not a bundle of tropes but something that has the tropes.

Difficulties: How is an individual related to its tropes? (Part to whole?) Regress?

Meinongian vs. actualist

1. Meinongian trope theorists allow non-actual tropes (e.g., Sherlock Holmes’ intelligence; Mother Teresa’s warlikeness).
2. Actualists don’t.

Advantage of Meinongian tropism

• A possible world can be taken to be a set of qualitons and relatons.

Relations

• These are tricky. One way is to eliminate relations and replace them with qualities. (Leibniz.)
• Symmetric relations seem to be pretty easy. X and Y are married provided that X and Y each have the very same trope of marriage in them.
• But asymmetrical ones are more problematic. X likes Y.

Uses

• Qualitons may be the relata of causation.