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For e.g. suffering is a property that many people share but each person's suffering is somewhat different to each other. I can extend the argument to say that every property had by objects is a tiny bit different to each other, therefore there are no properties shared by objects. I know there is something wrong with my argument but I can't quite see what, does anyone know the answer to this argument?

Richard Bamford
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  • it sounds like you are describing [tropes](https://iep.utm.edu/universa/#SH3c). – David Gudeman Apr 03 '23 at 22:31
  • Your implicit definition of property is wrong. Having a property does not imply having the same property value. "Size" is a property of multiple physical or metaphysical systems, but that does not imply all systems have the same size. A property is an attribute, a quality, and it is often valued on a range (there are no humans having 10km "size"). In addition, human language is not precise. All wines have some value of "acidity", but it's never the same. Either if I suffer a bit, and you suffer a lot, we share the same property. – RodolfoAP Apr 04 '23 at 04:45

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The fault with your logic is that you are using the word 'property' in a very specific way which is incompatible with its many meanings in ordinary usage.

If, for example, I say that AA batteries share the property of being able to power my artificial right forefinger (the original having been worn out by the typing of countless under-appreciated answers on PSE), I mean that they all are capable of performing that task in similar way. There may be endless small variations between the batteries, but they are negligible for the purpose of my classification.

More generally, I might say that all batteries share the property of generating a voltage, regardless of what the voltage is.

Then there are conceptual properties. All pound coins share the identical property of being officially worth a pound. The fact that each coin might be physically different from another is utterly irrelevant.

I could go on, but rather than drain my finger battery any further, I will summarise now by saying that in ordinary usage for the possession of a shared property it is not necessary for two objects to be identical in all respects, or for the property to be shared to an identical degree. If you adopt your own definition of 'property', which is restricted to identical cases, then you should not be surprised if something then seems wrong with your argument when you confuse your definition with the usual one.

Marco Ocram
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