Abstract Particulars

by Keith Campbell

Many philosophers have held, explicitly or implicitly, that a comprehensive survey of the world's constituents would include the "cases" of qualities and relations which occur at particular places and times. It is not so common to affirm that such cases are themselves particulars in their own right, rather than deriving their particularity from their association with a substance. In this study the author contends that properties can be particulars and proposes a first philosophy which recognizes such particular properties, or tropes, as the sole fundamental category. He offers a new version of the Resemblance resolution of the Problems of the Universals, and also argues for theses about relations (Foundationism) and the basic physical properties (field theory) which are congenial to a trope philosophy, but are in large measure independent of it, having merits irrespective of the truth about properties in general. The final chapter points to the strengths of a trope analysis for the philosophy of the mind and of social phenomena.

Genres: Philosophy, Metaphysics

220 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

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Keith Campbell was an Australian philosopher working in metaphysics.

Reviews

[Markku Keinänen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A definitive classic in trope theory. In spite of some tensions between different accounts presented in the work (the tie of compresence vs. co-location, tropes vs. fields, painless realism), a pioneering attempt to present a comprehensive Humean view of tropes.