In Python, arguments are the values you pass to a function when you call it. They can be categorized into two main types: positional arguments and keyword arguments.

Positional arguments are those that are assigned to parameters based on their position in the function call. For example, if a function is defined to take three parameters, the first argument you pass will be assigned to the first parameter, the second argument to the second parameter, and so on. This means that the order of the arguments matters significantly ².

On the other hand, keyword arguments allow you to specify which parameter you are assigning a value to by using the parameter name. This means you can pass arguments in any order, as long as you specify the parameter names. For instance, if a function has parameters name and age, you can call it as function(age=30, name='Alice') ⁵.

Additionally, Python supports special argument types like *args and **kwargs, which allow you to pass a variable number of arguments to a function ².