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By Nathaniel J. Kan
Williams' and Keith Campbell, the philosophy of tropes as the sole fundamental entities
in the world is a false one, and in fact tropes are no more a less complex model or
convenient to accept than the idea of universals. While Williams' trope theory has some
merits, I would argue that there are fundamental difficulties that need to be worked out in
order for us to accept a philosophy of tropes, and even then many of the problems Daly
It is true that Williams' argument is confused. Williams writes about the tropes of
a lollipop "the color-cum-shape is less abstract … than the color alone but it is more
which is wholly concrete." (115) As Daly claims (142), the measure on which Williams
Boolean but a sliding scale. This seems a critical flaw in Williams' argument, unless
something can be more of a trope than another thing, which brings into play many more
class, or bundled, together. But Williams' trope "is a particular entity either abstract or
consisting of one or more concreta in combination with an abstractum." (115) It does not
seem to make sense that the stick of a lollipop is not a trope, and yet the stick-plus-color
of the lollipop is; then the only way in which the physical parts of the lollipop constitute
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the individual as a whole are through previous combination with its abstract parts. But
this leads to further questions. The total number of tropes that constitute one individual
then seems to be the number of possible recombinations involving sums of concreta and
abstractum (assuming of course every combination involving concreta has at least one
abstractum). This seems completely arbitrary, and also allows for an arbitrary amount of
overlap: the lollipop would be composed of the trope that is 'the stick plus the color' and
the trope that is 'the stick plus the taste', and so on.
Furthermore, if, as Williams claims, the cat's smile plus her ears plus the aridity of
the moon is a trope, then what is this trope compresent with? Is this trope in multiple
compresence classes? But compresence must be an equivalence relation, and thus, under
this definition of tropes there would be only one compresence class of tropes, and this
would contain all tropes. But then it would follow that there was only one individual,
theory. A theory of tropes that perhaps only discussed tropes on a particle level might
better fit Williams' requirements. For the properties of an electron or quark might be all
individually called as tropes, and then unlike with the problem of macroscopic objects,
there are not really any concreta left for us to assign. A particle seems to be just the
compresence class of its determinate properties (x mass, y charge, etc.), and trope theory
Macroscopic tropes then, if they exist, are really simply language we adopt to
discuss mereological sums of particle tropes, such that the sum of the determinate mass
tropes of some large number of particles is the trope called the '5 kg of the cat'.
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Now we can account for what the universal theorist would claim is the
instantiation of a universal, and perhaps in a much less complex fashion. The '-1.60x10-19
C charge on electron A' perfectly resembles the '-1.60x10-19 C charge on electron B'. The
benefit of adopting trope theory comes from the fact that no two tropes are numerically
the same: for example the two tropes above exactly resemble, but are inherently different,
as one applies to A and one to B. So tropes then distinguish between two properties that
we might at first be inclined to say are instances of a universal property, by virtue of the
other tropes the tropes are bundled with. This seems to Williams and other trope theorists
Daly's argument, that tropes do not really provide a simpler model for the world
than universals instantiated in substances, still largely applies to our new theory,
however. This is for several reasons. Daly makes the claim that the resemblance relation
in trope theory causes a regress, and the only solution to this is to posit at least one
This argument can be applied to causal theory as well. Causal relations are
another part of trope theory that Williams does not account for. For Williams,
compresence and resemblance tropes are both necessary and exhaustive in providing all
possible relations. But Williams forgets causal relations, which might be accounted for in
terms of natural laws. In our theory of tropes we would either need to have natural laws
which would all be specific instances of a natural law relation. But this would not seem to
be causation, as here there does not seem to be any difference between a natural law with
effect. For example, if there are two electrons which are each a class of compresent
tropes, call them A and B, then there would be the trope that is 'Coulomb's law between
A and B' which would be a relationship between the location trope of A and the location
trope of B and the tropes '-1.60x10-19 C charge on electron A' and '-1.60x10-19 C charge on
electron B'. This Coulomb's law trope would be a relationship trope that would in turn
require a relationship trope between it and the mass and acceleration tropes of A and B.
Likewise there might be a 'gravity law between A and B' relationship trope.
The trope theorist can argue then that to the outside observer analyzing a single
natural law trope, it seems that there would be a necessary causal relation.
Also it might be asked, in what sense can a trope change? For this model of trope
theory incorporating natural laws and causation we would need, for example, either many
acceleration tropes of a particle, or one acceleration trope with the ability to change. But
if a trope is allowed to change with time, what inherent to the trope determines its value?
This case is very similar to Daly's argument (157-8) for the necessity of
instantiation tropes. What determines which acceleration trope is bound to certain space-
time coordinates? If we have a trope F that is 'acceleration of x m/s2 for particle A' which
relate F and x1y1z1t1. But we might imagine a world where F and x1y1z1t1 do not stand in
C1. Thus F and x1y1z1t1 do alone do not establish the space-time location of F, and we are
Furthermore, we might imagine a case where a particle would have "the same"
acceleration at two space-time coordinates (I say "the same" because I do not necessarily
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want to imply that they are numerically identical tropes, but that if there are multiple
tropes then they have the same determinate magnitudes). Then we can ask in this case are
there two acceleration tropes that more than exactly resemble each other, or is there one
trope bundled with two space-time tropes? In the former case, these two tropes, call them
X and Y, would seem to be numerically identical, and thus the same trope. That is, X is
'acceleration of x m/s2 for particle A' and Y is 'acceleration of x m/s2 for particle A'. This
cannot seem to be the case, as two numerically identical tropes, by trope theory, are one
trope.
But consider the latter case. There is only X, and it is bundled with two space-time
tropes x1y1z1t1 and x2y2z2t2. This, as well, causes problems for the trope theorist. There
now is a need for two bundling relations, R1 and R2, to bundle X and x1y1z1t1, and X and
x2y2z2t2. While this might be able to be worked out, it seems that here there is the choice
between admitting the fact that R1, X and x1y1z1t1 stand in a certain relationship as a
primitive fact, or admitting further and further levels of bundling relations to explain how
R1, X and x1y1z1t1 can stand in one relation, and R2, X and x2y2z2t2 can stand in another.
claiming they are primitive and by showing a regression. But this is true in any ontology,
universals over one of tropes or the reverse has no practical effect. Both models produce
exactly the same results. But it seems that there still remain serious questions about trope
Works Cited
Williams, D. C., 1953. “On The Elements of Being: I,” from Properties: 113-124.