Another Hello to the Third Man

Abstract

This paper considers the Third Man Argument (TMA) and its force against Plato’s theory of Forms. After reconstructing the argument as it appears in the Parmenides, it focuses on a prominent contemporary response due to Constance Meinwald (2022), according to which the regress generated by the TMA can be blocked by distinguishing two kinds of predication: Ordinary Predication, which attributes properties to particulars, and Tree Predication, a special form of self-predication that specifies the nature or definition of a Form. On this view, sentences such as “Largeness is large” specify part of the definition of what is to be Large. 

I argue that, although Meinwald’s proposal correctly identifies Self-Predication as the premise to qualify to resist the TMA, her Tree Predication model ultimately fails. First, I show that the distinction between Ordinary and Tree Predication does not successfully generalise to cases discussed in the Sophist, such as predications involving the Form of the Same, without reintroducing a version of the regress it was meant to avoid. Second, I argue the Tree Predication model lacks adequate explanatory power: when multiple Tree Predications are available, the view yields explanatory overdetermination, weakening the original motivation for the account. The resulting position either reintroduces a regress at the level of Forms or deprives Tree Predication of its purported grounding role.

The paper concludes that Meinwald’s solution, while insightful, does not provide a fully satisfactory resolution of the TMA. Nonetheless, it advances the debate by showing that any adequate response must carefully qualify the notion of Self-Predication.