  At the conclusion of the Third Man argument, Socrates suggests that it might be possible to avoid all previous inconsistencies at the heart of the theory of forms by supposing that forms are thoughts that reside only in minds. In what appears to be a severely truncated argument, Parmenides provides two sets of reasons for thinking that this suggestion will not avoid absurdity either. (Allen (1997, 174) argues that Parmenides only provides a single argument here, one that most would identify as the second of two.)