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Single Idea 8522

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes ]

Full Idea

The 'companionship difficulty' cannot arise if the members of the resemblance class are tropes rather than whole concrete particulars. The instances of having a heart, as abstract particulars, are quite different from instances of having a kidney.

Clarification

See Idea 7956 for Goodman's 'companionship difficult'

Gist of Idea

Tropes solve the Companionship Difficulty, since the resemblance is only between abstract particulars

Source

Keith Campbell (The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars [1981], §6)

Book Ref

'Properties', ed/tr. Mellor,D.H. /Oliver,A [OUP 1997], p.134


A Reaction

The companionship difficulty seems worst if you base your account of properties just on being members of a class. Any talk of resemblance eventually has to talk about 'respects' of resemblance. Is a trope a respect? Is a mode an object?

Related Idea

Idea 7956 If all and only red things were round things, we would need to specify the 'respect' of the resemblance [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]


The 14 ideas from 'The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars'

Two red cloths are separate instances of redness, because you can dye one of them blue [Campbell,K]
Red could only recur in a variety of objects if it was many, which makes them particulars [Campbell,K]
Abstractions come before the mind by concentrating on a part of what is presented [Campbell,K]
Tropes are basic particulars, so concrete particulars are collections of co-located tropes [Campbell,K]
Events are trope-sequences, in which tropes replace one another [Campbell,K]
Causal conditions are particular abstract instances of properties, which makes them tropes [Campbell,K]
Davidson can't explain causation entirely by events, because conditions are also involved [Campbell,K]
Bundles must be unique, so the Identity of Indiscernibles is a necessity - which it isn't! [Campbell,K]
Two pure spheres in non-absolute space are identical but indiscernible [Campbell,K]
Tropes solve the Companionship Difficulty, since the resemblance is only between abstract particulars [Campbell,K]
Tropes solve the Imperfect Community problem, as they can only resemble in one respect [Campbell,K]
Nominalism has the problem that without humans nothing would resemble anything else [Campbell,K]
Trope theory makes space central to reality, as tropes must have a shape and size [Campbell,K]
Relations need terms, so they must be second-order entities based on first-order tropes [Campbell,K]