Third man argument

Okay kiddo, so imagine you and your friends are playing a game of tag. You're running around, trying to touch each other and whoever touches or is touched becomes "it".

Now, imagine that there's a new rule added to the game. The rule is that if someone is already "it" and they touch someone new, a third person automatically becomes "it".

So, let's say that you're "it" and you touch your friend, making them "it". According to this new rule, a third person should now become "it" as well.

But, here's where things get tricky. Who becomes the third person to be "it"? Is it the person who touched or the person who was touched?

This is the same problem that the third man argument tries to solve, but instead of playing tag, we're talking about complicated philosophical ideas. The argument goes that if there are two things that share a quality or characteristic, there must be a third thing that also shares that quality, otherwise it doesn't make sense.

For example, if you have two books that are both considered "good", there must be a third thing that defines what makes a book "good". Otherwise, how can we really say that they are both "good" if we don't have a clear definition of what that means?

The same thing applies to other philosophical concepts, like beauty or truth. The third man argument says that there must be a third thing that defines these concepts, otherwise we can't really understand or talk about them in a meaningful way.

So, the third man argument is really just a way of trying to understand complicated ideas by breaking them down into simpler parts and making sure that everything makes sense. It's like trying to figure out who the third person in a game of tag should be!