Category: Trope Theory
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One-Category Trope Bundle Theory and Brentano’s Reism
This morning's mail brought a longish letter from philosophy student Ryan Peterson. He would like some comments and I will try to oblige him as time permits, but time is short. So for now I will confine my comments to the postscript of his letter: P.S. Just as crazy as one category trope bundle theory…
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Trope Troubles: An Exercise in Aporetics
Elliot C. asked me about tropes. What follows is a re-post from 30 March 2016, slightly emended, which stands up well under current scrutiny. Perhaps Elliot will find the time to tell me whether he finds it clear and convincing and whether it answers his questions. ………………………….. A reader has been much exercised of late…
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Non-Substantial Change, Trope Bundle Theory, and States of Affairs
I am presently writing a review article for Metaphysica about Bo R. Meinertsen's Metaphysics of States of Affairs: Truthmaking, Universals, and a Farewell to Bradley's Regress (Springer 2018). Since I will probably incorporate the following critical remarks into my review, I want to give Bo a chance to respond. Substantial and Non-Substantial Change One way…
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Van Inwagen: No Truck with Tropes or Constituent Ontology Generally
Thanks again to Professor Levy to getting me 'fired up' over this topic. ………………………………………. Is the notion of a trope intelligible? If not, then we can pack it in right here and dispense with discussion of the subsidiary difficulties. Peter van Inwagen confesses, "I do not understand much of what B-ontologists write." (Ontology, Identity, and…
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A Question for Trope Theorists
Trope bundle theory is regularly advertised as a one-category ontology. What this means is that everything is either a trope or a logical construction from tropes. Standard trope theory is a metaphysic that implies that everything can be accounted for in terms of ontologically basic simples, namely, tropes. So what about the cat in my…
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The Emperor’s Clothes Revisited or Trope Theory Interrogated
The following is a comment by Eric Levy in a recent trope thread. My responses are in blue. ……………………… Might I revert to the problem of compresent tropes constituting a concrete particular? Heil well formulates it: “One difficulty is in understanding properties as parts that add up to objects” (2015, 120). The whole business seems…
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Senses of ‘Abstract’ with a Little Help from Hegel
For Eric Levy, who 'inspired' me to dig deeper into this material. ………………………………… Keith Campbell and others call tropes abstract particulars. But what is it for something to be abstract? It may be useful to sort out the different senses of 'abstract' since this term and its opposite 'concrete' are thrown around quite a lot…
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Trope Troubles: An Exercise in Aporetics with the Help of Professor Levy
Eric P. Levy, an emeritus professor of English at the University of British Columbia, has been much exercised of late by trope theory and other questions in ontology. He has been sharing his enthusiasm with me. He espies . . . an apparent antinomy at the heart of trope theory. On the one hand,…
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A Question About Tropes
EL: I have been reading with great pleasure and enlightenment certain sections of your superb work, A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated. Your skill and poise in framing and unfolding your argument, your marvelous dexterity with rebuttal of adversarial views, and your insistence that existence remain at the center of metaphysical inquiry instead of…
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Atheism and Ontological Simplicity: A Retraction and a Repair
Chad McIntosh spotted the sloppiness in something I posted the other day. A retraction is in order. And then a repair. A Retraction I wrote, The simple atheist — to give him a name — cannot countenance anything as God that is not ontologically simple. That is, he buys all the arguments classical theists give…
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Pre-Print: Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology
The following review article is scheduled to appear later this year in Studia Neoscholastica. The editor grants me permission to reproduce it here should anyone have comments that might lead to its improvement. REVIEW ARTICLE William F. Vallicella Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology, Cambridge University Press, 2014, viii + 261 pp. This volume…
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Comments on “On the Individuation of Tropes”
What follows is a paper by a reader, posted with his permission, together with some comments of mine. I will make my comments as time permits and not all in one session. Others are invited to add their comments in the ComBox. On the Individuation of Tropes Introduction Trope theorists see their view as a…
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Tropes as Truth-Makers? Or Do We Need Facts?
Here is a white cube. Call it 'Carl.' 'Carl is white' is true. But Carl, though white, might not have been white. (He would not have been white had I painted him red.) So 'Carl is white' is contingently true. There is no necessity that Carl be white. By contrast, 'Carl is three-dimensional' is necessarily…
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Peter van Inwagen’s Trouble with Tropes
Concerning tropes, Peter van Inwagen says, "I don't understand what people can be talking about when they talk about those alleged items." (Existence: Essays in Ontology, Cambridge UP, 2014, p. 211.) He continues on the same page: Consider two tennis balls that are perfect duplicates of each other. Among their other features, each is 6.7…
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God, Simplicity, and Tropes
A reader asks, In your Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy divine simplicity article you draw a helpful comparison toward the end between trope theory and divine simplicity. However it left me wondering in what way the claim that 1) God is simple differs from the claim that 2) God is just a trope of divinity? Excellent…