more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The Forms would have to function as paradigms not just for other entities, but also for themselves. ..But this produces an absurd fusion of the paradigm and the copy.
Gist of Idea
Forms have to be their own paradigms, which seems to fuse the paradigm and the copy
Source
Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079b28)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Metaphysics', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,Hugh [Penguin 1998], p.406
A Reaction
A nice succinct statement of the problem of self-predication (which leads to the Third Man regress, if we posit another Form as a paradigm of the Form we are interested in).
| 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] |