Abstract

How to understand the recurrence of features is the problem of universals. I examine one of the solutions of the problem of universals, the so-called trope theory. Both trope theory and realism about universals admit the existence of properties and relations, while other views do not. The difficulties of the latter I briefly examine in Chapter 1. ;Trope theorists claim that the properties and relations of individual things are particular, while realists claim that they are universal. If trope theory explains everything that realism explains, and there is no inconsistency or incompleteness in it, it is not necessary to accept universals. I point out several difficulties that trope theory faces. Unless trope theory resolves them, it is not in a better position than realism. ;In Chapter 2, I criticize G. F. Stout's arguments for the view that no property of an individual thing can occur in other places at the same time. ;In Chapter 3, I examine in detail what a trope is supposed to be in trope theory. The notion of a trope is not as clear as trope theorists think. According to trope theorists, a trope, i.e., an abstract particular, is abstract in the sense that it is an "incomplete" component of a concrete particular and particular in the sense that it is confined to a particular spatio-temporal location. Trope theorists hold that location is external to a trope's nature. Then what is a trope that is distinct from its location? There is no reason to claim that the nature of a trope itself cannot occur In other places at the same time. ;In Chapter 4, I argue that trope theory fails to provide an adequate principle of identity or Individuation for tropes, while realism accounts for the identity or individuation of particular properties, of universal properties and concrete things. ;In Chapter 2 and 5, I criticize Stout's and other classic trope theorists accounts for "universals." Neither appealing to an unanalyzable distributive unity of a kind nor appealing to of tropes is an adequate way to account for the recurrence of features