Why Resemblance is Not a Relation? -Trope Ontology in a Conceptualist Guise

Author:Eric M. Peng

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  It is argued that Trope Particularism need not take trope-level resemblance to be an ontological primitive. The main idea is the appeal to the Arity Principle suggested by Butchvarov. But, this does not mean that “resemblance” is unintelligible. I propose that “resemblance” can be metaphysically reduced to a second order internal relation over two first order internal relations such as “greater than” and “heavier than,” and that the phenomena of similarity should call solely for an epistemological or psychological explanation.

Keywords: internal relation、resemblance、the Arity Principle、the Uniformity Principle、trope