The Cratylus contains Plato's most extensive study of the relation of language to reality and to the pursuit of wisdom. Yet the dialogue has remained relatively neglected in efforts to understand Plato's deepest metaphysical and epistemological commitments. The blame for such neglect lies largely in the dialogue's extensive, difficult, even mysterious etymological section. Recent attempts to make sense of the bulk of the Cratylus are shedding much welcome light on the important roles that the etymological analyses play in the dialogue (...) and in Plato's philosophy more generally. The article outlines three strategies of interpretation before concluding with the author's own proposal. (shrink)

In the last century, philosophers turned their attention to language. One place they have looked for clues about its nature is Plato’s Cratylus, which considers whether names are naturally or conventionally correct. The dialogue is a source of annoyance to many commentators because it does not take a clear position on the central question. At times, it argues that language is conventional, and, at other times, defends the view that language is natural. This lack of commitment has led to a (...) longstanding dispute over the outcome of the dialogue. I argue that the Cratylus provides no clear resolution to this problem because it presupposes certain unexamined metaphysical commitments about the nature of reality, which are in need of thorough investigation. (shrink)

Against the background of a conventionalist theory, and staged as a defense of a naturalistic notion of names and naming, the critique of language developed in Plato’s Cratylus does not only propose that human language, in contrast to the language of the gods, is bound to the realm of myth and lie. The dialogue also concludes by offering a set of reasons to think that knowledge of reality is not within the reach of our words. Interpretations of the dialogue’s long (...) etymological sections often neglect this critique and tend to end up with an overly optimistic assessment of the theory of language on offer. In the light of one of the dialogue’s central etymological accounts, Socrates’ etymology of the name Hermes, this paper discusses two recent and influential versions of such a view: David Sedley’s theory of onomatopoetic encapsulation and Franco Trivigno’s qualified referentialism. It argues that the complex relation between language and reality expressed in the Cratylus cannot be exhaustively captured by either of these theories because Plato considers all names to be semantically underdetermined until they are put to use. It suggests that Plato rather works with a functionalistic notion of names and naming, and that the dialogue’s account of natural and correct naming is to be understood in these terms. (shrink)

I here revive and support the hypothesis that Plato's Cratylus is set in 399 BCE, on the day of the Theaetetus and Euthyphro and before that of the Sophist and Statesman. To revive it, I suggest that the competing cases for other dramatic dates are weaker. To support it, I show that the connections between the Cratylus and Euthyphro warrant reconsideration, and I consider neglected dramatic details, the role of etymology in religious esotericism, and some missed connections between the philosophical (...) concerns of the two dialogues. I conclude by suggesting ways in which this hypothesis yields promising new horizons to explore. (shrink)

Inspired by my reading of the conclusions of Plato’s Cratylus, in which I suggest that Socrates endorses the claim that speaker’s intentions determine meaning of their utterances, this thesis investigates a modern parallel. Drawing on observations that people who produce an utterances that do not accord with the conventions of their linguistic community can often nevertheless communicate successfully, Donald Davidson concludes that it is the legitimate intentions of speakers to be interpreted in a particular way that determine the meanings of (...) their utterances. This thesis investigates how we might interpret the non-standard utterances of another from the perspective of Davidson’s anticonventionalist picture of language. It proceeds by investigating the possible roles for radical interpretation and triangulation in explaining successful day-to-day communication, where non-standard language use abounds, and argues that - even from a Davidsonian perspective - a full account of the linguistic skills and knowledge that a language user requires to interpret utterances must ultimately appeal at least to regularities word use and expressions, if not full-blown conventions. (shrink)

Near the beginning of the Cratylus (385e-387d) Plato's Socrates argues, against his friend Hermogenes, that the standards of correctness for our use of names in speech are in no way up to us. Yet this conclusion should strike us, at least initially, as bizarre. After all, how could it not be up to us whether to call our children by the names of our parents, or whether to call dogs “dogs“? My aim in this paper will be to show that, (...) although Plato's argument does not succeed in establishing this apparently bizarre conclusion, it may well succeed in establishing an equally momentous conclusion: that the standards of correctness for our use of concepts in thought are in no way up to us. (shrink)

With the use of a particular metaphor, which appears at the end of the Cratylus and is taken up with perfect symmetry at the beginning of the Theaetetus, Plato certainly wanted to indicate the succession of Cratylus–Theaetetus as an order for reading the two dialogues, which Trasillus faithfully reproduced in structuring the second tetralogy of Platonic dialogues. The claim of the theory of ideas, with which the Cratylus ends, must therefore be considered the background in which to place not only (...) the analysis of the name carried out in the Cratylus, but also the discussion and criticism of the epistemological theories examined and refuted in the Theaetetus. The transition from the discussion of the name to that of the logos is another important theoretical element that connects the two dialogues. Another one is the theory of knowledge, already precisely elaborated in the Cratylus, and taken up and deepened in the Theaetetus. Finally, the theme of false and error is a third theoretical element common to the two dialogues, which, starting from Euthydemus, finds its solution in the Sophist. (shrink)

The name tells the thing if it's a name. If it doesn’t tell the thing, it isn’t a name. This is the puzzling and enigmatic theory proposed by Cratilo in the homonymous Plato’s dialogue. The thesis in Hermogenes already sounds hermetic, an "oracle" which requires the presence of an interpreter to clarify what remains hidden in the terms of the sentence. According to the disciple of Heraclitus, the names are by nature guaranteed to impart pure truths, that is, they are (...) all right, at least as many as are real names. An imperfectly fitting name isn’t an inappropriate name. It would not be a name at all. In this text we would like to examine the Platonic Cratylus with respect to the meaning that lies behind the words of Cratylus and clarify his position in face of Socrates's refutation. We will therefore concentrate our attention on the last section of the dialogue devoted to the exchange between Cratylus and Socrates, especially pages 427e-440e. (shrink)

This thesis is about Plato‘s dialogue Cratylus, which is one of the earliest texts in the history ofphilosophy of language and has generated much interpretive controversy. In the dialogue, Platoexamines two theories on the correctness of names; conventionalism and naturalism. However,there is no clear positive outcome in the dialogue in regard to the debate betweenconventionalism and naturalism. Therefore, scholars have long been divided as to what Plato‘sown position on the correctness of names is. Another puzzling feature of the dialogue concernsthe (...) etymological section, which has often been ignored or treated in isolation in modernscholarship. This section takes up about half of the dialogue and offers elaborate explanations ofa large number of words in the Greek language. Some recent studies of the Cratylus, however,are shedding much welcome light on the etymological section and the role it plays in thedialogue as a whole. In this thesis, I compare two competing interpretations of the etymologicalsection and discuss how an understanding of the etymologies can help us understand Plato‘sposition on the correctness of names and the purpose of the dialogue as a whole. In TimothyBaxter‘s interpretation, the etymological section should be read as a parody which amounts to aPlatonic critique of a mistaken attitude towards names and language found especially in thepoetry and philosophy in Plato‘s time. David Sedley, on the other hand, argues that theetymologies are seriously intended by Plato as a method of linguistic and historical analysis, amethod he himself endorsed and practiced. If the etymologies are taken seriously, Sedley argues,they show that Plato favored a form of naturalism in regard to the correctness of names. Afterproviding an outline and evaluation of these two interpretations, the thesis concludes with myown proposal. Although I disagree with some of Sedley‘s particular interpretations andarguments, I find myself in broad agreement with his general conclusions. (shrink)