Trope theory is a new development in
ontology. It’s been around for a few decades.
Traditional ontology deals with universals, meaning things like ‘redness’ or ‘being a cat‘. A red cat would ‘instantiate’ those two universals somehow.
A trope is an abstract particular; a particular shade of red, a particular mood, a particular whatever.
(In rhetoric, by the way, a trope is a figure of speech. Nothing to do with this kind of trope.)
So instead of ‘being a zen master’ in general, you’d be dealing with the particular situtation that Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master and nobody had noticed. For example.
So what, you say. Why should I give a rat’s?. Well for one thing, it shows that philosophy is making progress.
And this: every e2 node describes a trope, nothing more nothing less. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.