Concept
Type–token distinction
Overview
The type–token distinction is the difference between a type of objects (analogous to a class) and the individual tokens of that type (analogous to instances). Since each type may be instantiated by multiple tokens, there are generally more tokens than types of an object.
For example, the sentence "A rose is a rose is a rose" contains three word types: three word tokens of the type a, two word tokens of the type is, and three word tokens of the type rose. The distinction is important in disciplines such as logic, linguistics, metalogic, typography, and computer programming.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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This distinction is manifest from our inability to form a clear and distinct idea of such substance, if we separate from it such attribute; or to have a clear perception of the one of two such attributes if we separate it from the other. For example, because any substance which ceases to endure ceases also to exist, duration is not distinct from substance except in thought (RATIONE); and in general all the modes of…
René Descartes, Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
Close in meaning to Type–token distinction; the term itself is not named.
First of all, languages are by this simplification rendered more prolix, several words having become necessary to express what could have been expressed by a single word before. Thus the words, _Dei_ and _Deo_, in the Latin, sufficiently show, without any addition, what relation the object signified is understood to stand in to the objects expressed by the other words in the sentence. But to express the same…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Type–token distinction is.
Psychologically, there is no break between image and response, between thought and action. The stimulus is a condition of action, in both senses of the ambiguity of the word "condition." (1) It _is_ action; it is a state or condition of action. (2) It is also an initiation of action.
John Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory
States what Type–token distinction is.
Related ideas
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.