Explanation Of Third Man Argument?

Question

Don't worry about getting into too much detail. I would just like to know what the argument is and what one can learn from it. Thanks.

Answer 1

The third man argument is an analysis of Plato's theory of forms that highlights one of its major problems.  The problem is that you seem to have an infinite regress of set membership.

What I mean by that is simply that the forms of things are supposed to themselves have the properties we're examining. So the form of largeness is itself large. But then you can have a new form that is the form containing all the large things and the form of largeness which is itself large.

The term comes from the fact that the original argument dealt with 'man-ness' and you had to create a third thing to contain men and the form of men. A third man.

You can learn a little about set theory from it and you can learn something about Plato's theory of forms but nothing that is really applicable to everyday life.