Abstract: Higher-order metaphysicians standardly understand types as linguistic and not metaphysical: they assign types only to linguistic expressions and not to pieces of the non-linguistic world. In their less formal prose, however, they do make de re type ascriptions. And with good reason: given a suitable higher-order understanding of metaontology, most higher-order metaphysicians think that reality is typed, and if reality is typed, then de re type ascriptions should make sense. However, no account of de re types is available on the market. In this paper, I provide an account of de re type ascriptions. I argue that this account is congenial to the standard type-theoretic picture of reality. Along the way, higher-order metaontology is discussed and a particular logic of trans-type identity is defended. Time permitting, I will scrutinise Robert Stalnaker’s views of de re types and criticise them for being at bottom first-orderist.
