Chapter 5 - Likeness and Likenesses in the Parmenides

Summary

The second version in the text of Part I of the Parmenides of the Third Man regress against the theory of Forms has often been read in its critical thrust as essentially identical with the original version. That interpretation fails to do sufficient justice to the regress’s focus specifically on the Form of Likeness. Such a Form has to be posited once the application of the predicate like inherent in the original–copy model of participation in Forms is itself explained on that model. Are Platonists then trapped? Part II of the dialogue supplies indications to the contrary. Like figures in many of its arguments, where it is often construed as being qualified in the same way. What readers effectively come to recognise is that like is a second-order predicate: ‘is like’ means ‘share the same first-order predicate’, not ‘participates in the Form Likeness’. Part II of the Parmenides therefore supplies materials for resisting the regress; and the presentation of likeness as a theme which we are invited to pursue through both parts alerts us to the fact that they are available, and are pertinent to the business of evaluating Parmenides’ critique of Socrates.