{"id":6531,"date":"2016-04-08T14:24:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T14:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/08\/a-question-for-trope-theorists\/"},"modified":"2016-04-08T14:24:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T14:24:19","slug":"a-question-for-trope-theorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/08\/a-question-for-trope-theorists\/","title":{"rendered":"A Question for Trope Theorists"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 lap, or any individual substance? On trope theory, individual substances  (concrete particulars) are assayed as bundles of compresent tropes.  To put it crudely, sufficiently many of the right tropes tied together by relations of compresence yield an individual substance.  Concrete particulars are reductively analyzable into systems of compresent tropes.  So far, so good.<\/span><\/p>\n

But my cat Max Black is black and furry and so is his brother Manny K. Black.  How do we account for furriness and blackness as properties had by both of these critters and innumerable actual and possible others?  How do we account for universals<\/em> in our one-category ontology if all we have to work with are tropes?  How can we construct universals out of abstract particulars?<\/span><\/p>\n

The standard answer is in terms of classes or sets of exactly resembling tropes.  Black1<\/sub> and black2<\/sub> are numerically distinct, as numerically distinct as Max and Manny.  But they resemble each other exactly.  The same goes for all black tropes.  Take the set of them all.  That is the universal blackness.  Thus universals are reductively analyzable in terms of sets or classes of exactly resembling tropes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neat, eh?<\/span><\/p>\n

Now here is my question. Trope theory was advertised as a one-category ontology.  Don't we now have two<\/em> categories, a category of tropes and a category of sets?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

"There is no commitment to sets.  All the furry tropes resemble each other.  Furriness the universal is just the furry tropes."<\/span><\/p>\n

I don't think this is a good answer.  For I could press: the furry tropes taken distributively or taken collectively?  Obviously, they must be taken collectively.  But then we are back to sets.<\/span><\/p>\n

How then would a trope theorist answer my (non-rhetorical) question?<\/span><\/p>\n

Cat and mouse:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_0867\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
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\"\"<\/a>Tropes as Truth-Makers? Or Do We Need Facts?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>A Question About Tropes<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Relational Ontology, Constituent Ontology, and Divine Simplicity<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Senses of 'Abstract' with a Little Help from Hegel<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Delight of the 'Find'<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “A Question for Trope Theorists”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trope-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}