 According to some philosophers, trope theory has roots going back at least to Aristotle (possibly to Plato, perhaps even to the pre-socratics, cf. Mertz 1996: 83–118). In the Categories, Aristotle points out that Substance and Quality both come in what we may call a universal and a particular variety (man and this man in the case of substance, and pallor and this pale—to ti leukon—in the case of quality). Not everyone believe that this means that Aristotle accepts the existence of tropes, however. On one interpretation (Owen 1965) this pale names an absolutely determinate, yet perfectly shareable, shade of pallor. But on a more traditional interpretation (cf. e.g., Ackrill 1963), it picks out a trope, i.e., a particular ‘bit’ of pallor peculiar to the substance that happens to exemplify it (for a discussion, cf. Cohen 2013). In view of the strong Aristotelian influence on medieval thinkers, it is perhaps not surprising that tropes or trope-like entities are found also here (often mentioned in this connection are Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham, and Suarez). And in early modern philosophy, entities resembling tropes can be found in the works of e.g., Leibniz and  Locke.[3]