The Latin “Third Man”. A Survey and Edition of Texts from the XIIIth Century

Latin commentators came across the « Third Man » in Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi. The way they dealt with the argument is a fair illustration of how they were both faithful to the text and innovative in their understanding of its most challenging issues. Besides providing a detailed survey of all manuscript sources, the introductory essay shows that Latin interpretation originates from a mistake in Boethius’ translation which radically transformed the argument. The edition makes available for the first time a considerable amount of new documentary evidence which made it possible to solve the riddle of the Latin « Third Man ».