Fraser MacBride (University of Cambridge): Trope Neglect: The Moore-Stout Debate

Fraser MacBride is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy and a Fellow and Director of Studies in Philosophy at Trinity Hall. His main research interests lie in metaphysics (the problem of universals, the character of relations and predication), the philosophy of mathematics (issues surrounding structuralism, neo-logicism and fictionalism) and the history of analytic philosophy (Russell, Wittgenstein and Ramsey).

Abstract:

In this paper I aim to come to an understanding of  how one trope proselyte, G.F. Stout, and another apostate, G.E. Moore, contrived to talk past one another in a famous exchange in Durham in July 1923  ("Are The Characteristics of Particular Things Universal of  Particular?"). The result was to mislead a generation of British philosophers, leading to their subsequent neglect of tropes (aka abstract particulars, moments etc). I suggest that the failure of Stout and Moore to communicate arose from a deeper disagreement, —that they failed to make explicit—, about the contents of perceptual 
experience.