Abstract

This dissertation offers a solution to the problem of self-predication in Plato's middle theory of Forms. R. E. Allen and, more recently, Thomas W Bestor, have each argued that Plato's eponymy theory of ordinary predication implies that self-predication statements are identity statements, logically different from ordinary or eponymous predication statements. Their thesis thus implies that the theory of Forms is unscathed by the attack of the third man argument. In this dissertation it is argued that although self-predications are in fact identity statements, the eponymy theory requires that Forms be classified with their participants--contrary to the claims of Allen and of Bestor--because the two sorts of statements are of the same fundamental kind. Thus, eponymy does not rescue the theory from the third man. ;The strategy is as follows: The first chapter explicates the eponymy theory of predication. As naming is crucial for the theory, the second chapter provides an analysis of Plato's concept of a name. By examining the Cratylus, some of Plato's philosophical concerns during the middle period, and a very promising recent analysis of Plato's notion of a name, the author shows that Plato views a name as a non-descriptive linguistic tag having only denotation. The first two sections of the third chapter offer a critical examination of the positions of Allen and Bestor respectively. The third section puts forth an analysis of self-predication statements in relation to Plato's semantics. An appendix is included which focuses on a passage in the Republic at 476a that has been taken as indicating that Plato espoused the doctrine of the communion of Forms in as early a work as the Republic. The author argues that it is illegitimate to read the text as an allusion to this position found in the Sophist