Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

326 CRITICISM OF PLATO’S THEORY OF FORMSit means that it is not satisfactory to paint the following, simplistic, pictureof the debate between Plato and <strong>Aristotle</strong> about essence: Plato,extravagantly and unnecessarily, made essences separate and distinct fromsense-perceptible and, in general, changing things; <strong>Aristotle</strong> restoredessences to where they obviously belong, namely, in the sense-perceptibleand, in general, the changing things. There is a particular reason why thispicture is simplistic. For to say simply that, according to <strong>Aristotle</strong>, essencesare in the sense-perceptible things, although it is true as far as it goes, is tooverlook that there is a fundamental problem in <strong>Aristotle</strong>, and one that hehimself raises and sets out to answer: how is the essence of a changingthing related to that thing itself and in particular to the ultimate subject ofpredication? As we saw at length earlier (in Chapter 7, especially §§5v–viii), it is above all this problem that <strong>Aristotle</strong> raises and sets out to answerin the central books of the Metaphysics, and especially book VII.6<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s criticism, based on Plato’s theory ofessence: the third-man argumentBut <strong>Aristotle</strong> also argues that Plato’s theory of essences as separate anddistinct forms leads to absurd consequences even on its own merit andindependently of his, <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s, alternative theory of essence. One absurdconsequence, he argues, is that if there is one separate and distinct form of,for example, human beings, i.e. distinct from the changing human beingswith which we are directly familiar from sense perception and experience,then there will be infinitely many separate and distinct forms of the humanbeing. He labels this attempt to reduce Plato’s theory to absurdity ‘thethird-man’ argument: we start with the human beings with which we arefamiliar from sense perception and experience (this is the first man); butPlatonists postulate a second human being, namely, the separate and distinctform of the human being (this is the second man); but this, <strong>Aristotle</strong>argues, leads to the absurd consequence that we must postulate a furtherseparate and distinct form of the human being (the third man), and so onwithout end. The moral that <strong>Aristotle</strong> wants to draw from this criticism isthat we should not postulate a second human being, i.e. a human beingthat is separate and distinct from changing ones, in the first place.The polemical intent of <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s criticism is evident already in thelabel ‘the third man’. For to use this label is to portray Plato’s form of thehuman being as simply another human being: a human being which isentirely like those with which we are familiar from sense perception andexperience, except that it is changeless and everlasting—as it were in a deep