Q&A: The Third Man Argument
The Third Man Argument
Question
The argument goes like this:
1. X is beautiful.
2. Y is beautiful.
3. Beauty itself (the Idea of Beauty) is something real (in the modern sense of the word, meaning independent of human cognition).
4. But beauty itself (a) is also beautiful.
Conclusion: x, y, and beauty itself (a) all partake of the Idea of Beauty, beauty itself (b).
5. But beauty itself (b) is also beautiful.
and so on and so on.
I didn’t understand what kind of argument this is. It looks like sheer nonsense. Obviously beauty itself is beautiful, but it is not beautiful in the way a particular object is beautiful; it is beautiful in its essence (and not merely as a property). It’s not the same sense at all.
Where am I wrong (or maybe right)?
Answer
You are completely right. A detailed logical analysis of this “paradox” can be found in the book on Platonism in the Talmudic Logic series.
I just happened to come in here now. I’ll only add one small correction: it is not true that beauty itself is beautiful. Beauty is a property of objects, but that property itself is not beautiful in any accepted sense. The speed of a car does not itself have speed, and the squareness of a square is not square. Likewise, horseness is not a horse and does not have the properties of a horse (and surprisingly enough, the Idea of redness is not red either). In the book I distinguished between the ideal horse and horseness. The former has the properties of a horse, while the latter does not. The latter is itself a collection of properties, and properties do not have properties (at least not of the same order).