Accidents, Modes, Tropes, and Universals

American Philosophical Quarterly 51 (4):333-344 (2014)
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Abstract

What are properties? Examples are easy. Consider a particular billiard ball. The ball is red, spherical, and has a definite mass. The ball's redness, sphericity, and mass are properties: properties of the ball. Putting it this way invites a distinction between the ball, a bearer of properties, and the ball's properties. Some philosophers deny that there are properties. To say that the ball is red or spherical, for instance, is just to say that the predicates "is red" and "is spherical" apply truly to the ball. But it is hard not to think that "is red" applies truly to the ball, if it does, because the ball is a particular way, the red way; and "is spherical" applies to the ball because it is a particular way, the spherical way; and the ways in question are distinct ways the ball is. Ways the ball is are, or appear to be, properties of the ball.

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John Heil
Washington University in St. Louis

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References found in this work

From an ontological point of view.John Heil - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Universe as We Find It.John Heil - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Metaphysical Themes 1274–1671.Robert Pasnau - 2011 - New York: Oxford University Press.
From an Ontological Point of View.John Heil - 2003 - Philosophy 79 (309):491-494.

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