ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I outline three versions of Trope Nominalism. On the most widespread variant, Standard Trope Nominalism (STN), a trope's nature determines its relations of resemblance to other tropes and its membership in natural classes of tropes. For Resemblance Trope Nominalism (RTN), on the other hand, the nature of a trope is determined by that trope's resemblance relations to other tropes, not the other way around. For Natural Class Trope Nominalism (NCTN), the nature of a trope is determined by its memberships in natural classes of tropes. I defend Natural Class Trope Nominalism. Along the way I discuss objections to Trope Nominalism including those directed at Natural Class Trope Nominalism. I also discuss three accounts of trope individuation, the Primitivist Principle (PI), the Spatio-Temporal Principle (SI) and the Object Principle (OI). Under (PI), intrinsically exactly similar tropes in the same world are numerically distinct tropes if and only if they are numerically distinct. For (SI), intrinsically exactly similar tropes in the same world are numerically distinct if and only if there is distance between them. And for (OI) exactly similar tropes in the same world are distinct just in case they characterize wholly distinct objects. I defend a primitivist account of trope individuation.
