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)

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)