Types (in philosophy)

In philosophy, "Types" refer to categories or classes of things that share common characteristics, allowing us to organize and understand the world systematically. For example, "animal" is a broad type that includes many individual species like dogs or cats. Types help differentiate general categories from individual instances, which are considered "tokens" of those types. Recognizing types aids in reasoning, classification, and addressing questions about identity and essence—such as what makes something fundamentally the same or different within a category.