This paper explores a novel analysis of adjectives in the comparative and the positive based on the notion of a trope, rather than the notion of a degree. Tropes are particularized properties, concrete manifestations of properties in individuals. The point of departure is that a sentence like John is happier than Mary is intuitively equivalent to ‘John’s happiness exceeds Mary’s happiness’, a s...

This article studies Sir Walter Scott’s use of the family-as-nation trope in Ivanhoe and Anne of Geierstein. The importance of this trope in his figuration of nationhood is discerned by carrying out a close reading of the texts and placing them in their historical context, which primarily consists of a comparison with Edmund Burke and Maria Edgeworth. Consequently, his position is revealed as b...

In young adults, having a relatively long time perspective has been associated with a more abstract, holistic approach to cognitive tasks, as opposed to the more concrete, detailed approach associated with having a more limited or near-future focus ( Trope & Liberman, 2003). Here we studied the impact of age differences in temporal perspective on performance on a classic visual attention task (...

Trope theory is the view that the world is a world of abstract particular qualities. But if all there is are tropes, how do we account for the truth of propositions ostensibly made true by some concrete particular? A common answer is that concrete particulars are nothing but tropes in compresence. This answer seems vulnerable to an argument (first presented by F. H. Bradley) according to which ...

This paper makes two related contributions. First, the dual economic structure underlying development is shown as producing a distinct conception of other comprising of a devalued third world which is foregrounded and world of the third which is excluded. This dyad of inclusion-exclusion of other is produced in relation to the centers of capitalism and modernism. The category of third world hel...