The Problem of Universals
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The problem of participation and the infiinte regress in the third man argument
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Plato, who proposed the existence of universals also considered a counter-argument against their existence. In his dialogue The Parmenides he has his hero, Socrates, facing difficult and challenging questions from an older philosopher, Parmenides. "In this extract the young Socrates and the elder Parmenides are discussing the precise nature of the relationship between a Form and a concrete instance of a Form. For example, they are trying to discover the precise nature of the relationship that may or may or may not exist between the universal man ( which is the Form that makes it possible for all men to be alike – the property of being a Man), and a particular instance of that universal – a concrete man such as Plato. This is a relationship that Plato describes as one of "participation", but the question remains, what exactly is participation?" Socrates replied. "Well, Parmendes, the best answer I can provide is as follows: I suggest that these Forms are patterns imbued in the nature of things. All other things are made in their image and resemble them, and for the instance to participate in the Form is nothing more than their being made in their likeness." Parmenides: "But if a concrete instance is made in the image of a Form, then must it not follow that the Form resembles the image, for the image of the Form was made in the likeness of the Form? If A resembles B then B must resemble A. [If the image resembles the Form, then the form must resemble the image.] Socrates: "It must!" Parmenides: "Furthermore, whenever two things resemble each other, so that they can be alike, there must be a Form to account for this, just as you showed earlier." Socrates: "Certainly!" Parmenides: "In that case, it follows that nothing can resemble a Form, nor can a Form be like anything else. For if that was the case, then it would always be necessary to posit a second Form in addition to the first Form [to account for the resemblance between the Form and the particular], and since that second Form will be like the first, we will have to posit a third Form, and so on ad infinitum, on the assumption that Form is like the thing that partakes of it." Socrates: "I agree!" Parmenides: "It follows that particulars cannot partake of Forms by resembling them. We must seek some other understanding of the relationship of participation." Socrates: "So it seems." Parmenides: "You should appreciate the great difficulties that arise from the assertion that Forms independently [of their particulars, in a separate realm]. Socrates: "Certainly!" The question considered here is how a form and a particular combine. The discussion starts when the young Socrates suggests that the relationship must be one of resemblance. This is similar to Hume's suggestion that an idea is a copy of a particular, and leads to related problems. An infinite regress occurs when a solution to a problem simply regenerates that problem, so the problem repeats itself over and over again, ad infinitum. In this extract Parmenides argues that the supposition that forms (universals) resemble particulars leads to a regeneration of exactly the same problem. The difficulty is explained as follows. We posit the existence of a Form in order to account for the resemblance between particulars. All men resemble each other in being men, so there must be a Form of Man. However, if the Form of Man resembles particular men, then we will have to posit the existence of a another Form (the Form of the Form of Man – or the "third man") in order to account for this resemblance. Now we have the Form of the Form of Man and also the Form of Man, so we will need a fourth Form, the Form of the Form of the Form of Man and so on ad infinitum. The following diagram might help to clarify this argument. ... The question is – does this show that the notion of a Form or universal is useless as a means of explaining why objects resemble each other? Clearly, Plato did not intend this conclusion. Plato sought to defend the doctrine of Forms not to expose it. Hence, in this dialogue he makes Socrates a young man, in order to indicate that his responses are not mature. The conclusion to be drawn from the problem, which is what Parmenides does draw from it, is that one or both of the following premises of the problem must be false. 1. That Forms resemble particular. 2. That Forms exist independently of particulars. However, if Forms do not resemble particulars there is the question of how forms and particulars relate to each other. The particular is said to participate in the form, but what exactly is the relationship of participation? This is analogous to the problem of abstraction that we saw at the end of the last section. If ideas are abstracted from impressions, what exactly is the relationship of abstraction? There is, however, one solution to the problem of participation offered by Kant. This solution is consistent only with some form of idealism – namely that the whole world of experience (of phenomena) is, in some sense, in the mind. Kant denies both premises above. He maintains that the mind (or a faculty of the mind, which he calls Imagination) unconsciously structures experience and makes experience intelligible to consciousness. The structure exists because we ourselves put it there. This is possible because both the Forms (that is the structures) and the particulars are mental in origin. No doubt this solution is high debatable.
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Contents of
The Problem of Universals
1 Hume, Empiricism - that ideas are copies of impressions
2 Plato and his argument in The Meno: the doctrine of recollection and the idea of metempsychosis
3 Plato - forms, universals, ideas - the problem of universals
4 Universals and realism
5 Empiricism and nominalism - Hobbes
6 The problem of participation and the infiinte regress in the third man argument
7 Wittgenstein and his attack on universals
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