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Unit 11 The third man argument & “Parmenides” dialogue
My Theses : The alleged later Plato’s dialogues “Parmenides”, “Sophist” and “Politician” are indeed the writings of Aristotle. The third man argument in “Parmenides” was invented by Aristotle.
Argumentation and Proof
I think that “Parmenides”, “Sophist” and “Politician” which have been believed to be the works of Plato, were indeed written by Aristotle. I will in this lecture discuss primarily “Parmenides” dialogue.
The reasons why these later dialogues are attributed to Aristotle, are as follows.
The basic reason of my assertion is that these two dialogical works have narrow relationship with the thoughts of Aristotle : Aristotle’s Logic(=Organon) and Metaphysics have to do with “Parmenides” and “Sophist”. The intimate relationship between two groups of literatures necessarily implies the Aristotle’s authorship of “Parmenides” and “Sophist”, but the identity of thoughts between two groups makes sure the identity of persons.
The grave problematic in alleged Plato’s later works lies in that these works including “Politician” contradicts the authentic Plato i.e. the Form-Theory: Plato contradicts himself if later works is written by him. The denial of Form-Theory in later works designate the false writing of Plato. Many scholars, e.g. Socher, Überweg and Schaarschmidt in 19 century, denied the authenticity of Plato’s later works. In 20 century scholars e.g. Vlastos and Cohen, doubted the reliability of the most important argument in “Parmenides” i.e. the third man argument. Vlastos expressed his suspicion that Plato himself might not believed his argument of third man, even though he did no doubted the authenticity of Plato’s “Parmenides“
What Vlastos showed is that the third man argument in “Parmenides” is contradictory.
We must turn to the third man argument in text :
[132a] “I fancy your reason for believing that each idea is one is something like this; when there is a number of things which seem to you to be great, you may think, as you look at them all, that there is one and the same idea in them, and hence you think the great is one.”
“That is true,” he said.
“But if with your mind's eye you regard the absolute great and these many great things in the same way, will not another great appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great?”
“So it seems.”
“That is, another idea of greatness will appear, in addition to absolute greatness and the objects which partake of it; [132b] and another again in addition to these, by reason of which they are all great; and each of your ideas will no longer be one, but their number will be infinite.”
When we recapitulate the over quoted in diagram it is as follows :
This is the authentic relation of Form and individuals by Plato. Great things are great because they participate in the Great itself as Form.
But Aristotle indicates the necessity of the second Form which combine the Great itself and great things, because great things and the Great itself are called equally great i.e. the Great itself is great.
Vlastos designates this relationship as The Self-Predication of Form(=SP).
At any rate Aristotle supposes the identity of predication of Form and individuals, which must not be admitted by Plato. In this regard a new Form is postulated in order to connect the two parties i.e. Form and its individuals.
According the third man argument a new Form as the being of same predicates emerges repeatedly, therefore the number of Forms becomes infinite : regress ad infinitum. From the original Form of beauty generate Form 2, Form 3 - - - endlessly.
However this argument is deficient and artificial; Form and individuals are equalized. This is total false from the standpoint of genuine Platonism. Therefore Plato is not believed to develop such a fictional argument in order to defeat his own system of belief in “Parmenides“ dialogue. Hitherto man has interpreted the third argument in “Parmenides” as the self criticism of Plato himself. However alleged self criticism of Plato himself loses ground because the argument is too weak and artificial.
# analogy of day and sail
Parmenides in “Parmenides” proved the absurdity of Form-Theory through TM(=the third man argument). Furthermore he goes so far as to divide Form: He invents the “analogy of day and sail” in order to reinforce his position of denial of Form-Theory.
Young Socrates likens the Form to day in order to the affirm the self identity of Form : “It might be like day, which is one and the same, is in many places at once, and yet is not separated from itself; so each idea, though one and the same, might be in all its participants at once.” (131b)
However old and cunning Parmenides turns day into sail in order to eliminate the vagueness of the term day: Spreading a sail over many persons might be like the Form-Theory.
“Would the whole sail be over each person, or a particular part over each?” “A part over each.”
“Then,” said he, “the ideas themselves, Socrates, are divisible into parts, and the objects which partake of them would partake of a part, and in each of them there would be not the whole, but only a part of each idea.” (131b)
Therefore Aristotelian Parmenides destroys once more the ground of Form(idea, eidos) With regard to the analogy of sail i.e. the divisibility of Form occures the paradox that a small thing is smaller than the absolute smallness(=Form of small) because the small thing partakes of a part of the absolute smallness.
Aristotle elaborates the concept-pair of part and whole in his Metaphysics 1203b :
Parts means (3) the elements into which a whole is divided, or of which it consistsㅡthe whole meaning either the form or that which has the form.
Therefore we can conclude that Aristotelian Parmenides in “Parmenides” nakes his criticism against the Form-Theory on the ground of the logic and metaphysics which were established by Aristotle himself. The main instrument of attack of Form was the concept-pair of part and whole. And the concept of “the whole” means either form or that which has the form by Aristotle as over quoted.
The second part of “Parmenides” deals with a great deal of difficulties which mainly result from the concept of “one”, which indeed allures to the One-Being of Parmenides. However Aristotle doesn’t make direct criticism against Parmenides. Only he suggests the difficulties involved in the One-Being notion.
The concept of one or unity relates to various concepts such as limited and unlimited, part and whole, same and different, being and nonbeing, one and many etc. These things can be regard as philosophical, logical training to extract the logical, metaphysical categories, which show up clearly first in his metaphysics.
As in Plato’s “Theaetus“ the problematic of One in “Parmenides” is not to be solved only to vary in diversified references. The way of argumentation is dialectical in the meaning of Hegel, i.e. dialectical logic as the unity of the opposites, however Aristotle is not to verify dialectical logic. Instead he laid foundation of formal logic. I suggest only that there is somewhat linkage between both forms of logics, formal logic and dialectical logic.
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