Trope (philosophy)

The term "trope" is both a term which denotes figurative and metaphorical language and one which has been used in various technical senses. The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος (tropos), "a turn, a change", related to the root of the verb τρέπειν (trepein), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"; this means that the term is used metaphorically to denote, among other things, metaphorical language. Perhaps the term can be explained as meaning the same thing as a turn of phrase in its original sense.

The term is also used in technical senses, which do not always correspond to its linguistic origin. Its meaning has to be judged from the context, some of which are given below.

Here a trope is a figurative and metaphorical use of a word or a phrase. The verb to trope means then to make a trope.

A trope or mode is one of the ten skeptical arguments or "ways of refuting dogmatism", also called the The Ten Modes of Pyrrhonism, described by the Greek physician and philosopher Sextus Empiricus.

The use of tropes has been extended from a linguistic usage to the field of philosophy of history by, among other theorists, Hayden White in his Metahistory (1973). Tropes are generally understood to be styles of discourse — rather than figures of style — underlying the historian's writing of history. They are historically determined in as much as the historiography of every period is defined by a specific type of trope.

For Hayden White, tropes historically unfolded in this sequence: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and finally, irony.

Trope theory in metaphysics is a version of nominalism. Here, a trope is a particular instance of a property, like the specific redness of a rose, or the specific nuance of green of a leaf. Trope theories assume that universals are unnecessary. This use of the term goes back to D. C. Williams (1953). The basic problem has been discussed previously in philosophy without using the term "trope". The following is a brief background:

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