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The Difficulties with Trope Nominalism: The Problem of the Foundations of Resemblance and Numerical Difference
Abstract
One of the objections against trope nominalism is that tropes, contrary to the declarations of the their proponents, must be complex, which opens the road to a regress that can only be stopped by accepting some universals. The complexity of tropes is supposed to arise from the fact that the relation of resemblance and the relation of numerical difference, which occur between perfectly resembling tropes, must have separate foundations which are components of tropes themselves. These foundations again stand in resemblance and difference relations, thus they are also complex, and so on. In this article, I discuss this problem and try to refute the arguments of the opponents of trope nominalism. As a point of reference I take Paweł Rojek’s paper „Regresy podobieństwa. Podwójny relacyjny argument przeciw nominalizmowi tropowemu” [Resemblance regresses. A double argument against trope nominalism], which in an original way links together the various objections against trope nominalism. The structure of my article is as follows: first I briefly characterize trope nominalism and indicate what I have in common with this position. Then I characterize relations, in particular the resemblance relation, and then I present Rojek’s argument. Then I try to show that the argument for the complexity of tropes presupposes the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, which is rejected by nominalists. In the penultimate section, I point out that particularity is not a component of a trope, but a way in which a trope constitutes reality.
Keywords:
trope nominalism, resemblance, numerical difference, simplicity of tropesDetails
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