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Full Idea
Modern upholders of universals generally reject self-predication; humanity is not a man, whiteness is not a white thing. This means that the Third Man argument does not constitute a difficulty.
Gist of Idea
Most thinkers now reject self-predication (whiteness is NOT white) so there is no Third Man problem
Source
David M. Armstrong (Universals and Particulars [1995], p.506)
Book Ref
'A Companion to Metaphysics', ed/tr. Kim,Jaegwon/Sosa,Ernest [Blackwell 1995], p.506
A Reaction
This certainly seems right, and is relevant to the modern problem of the content of thought. The idea of a tree does not need to be tree-like.
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| 190 | If asked whether justice itself is just or unjust, you would have to say that it is just [Plato] |
| 563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 9483 | Forms have to be their own paradigms, which seems to fuse the paradigm and the copy [Aristotle] |
| 4442 | Most thinkers now reject self-predication (whiteness is NOT white) so there is no Third Man problem [Armstrong] |