Cratylus
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Benjamin Jowett
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~26,300 words · 125 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Cratylus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/cratylus
- MLAPlato. "Cratylus." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/cratylus.
- ChicagoPlato. Cratylus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/cratylus.
What it is about
Are the names of things correct by nature or by convention? The dialogue spends half its length on etymologies — many of them fanciful — only to conclude that words do not teach us reality.
Context and history
The earliest surviving treatise on philosophy of language, and the conclusion is what counts: if you want to know things, look at the things and not at their names. The invented etymologies have amused philologists for centuries, and Plato was probably laughing too.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
HERMOGENES: I should explain to you, Socrates, that our friend Cratylus has been arguing about names; he says that they are natural and not conventional; not a portion of the human voice which men agree to use; but that there is a truth or correctness in them, which is the same for Hellenes as for barbarians. Whereupon I ask him, whether his own name of Cratylus is a true name or not, and he answers “Yes.” And Socrates? “Yes.” Then every man’s name, as I tell him, is that which he is called. To this he replies—“If all the world were to call you Hermogenes, that would not be your name.” And when I am anxious to have a further explanation he is ironical and mysterious, and seems to imply that he has a notion of his own about the matter, if he would only tell, and could entirely convince me, if he chose to be intelligible. Tell me, Socrates, what this oracle means; or rather tell me, if you will be so good, what is your own view of the truth or correctness of names, which I would far sooner hear. SOCRATES: Son of Hipponicus, there is an ancient saying, that “hard is the knowledge of the good.” And the knowledge of names is a great part of knowledge. If I had not been poor, I might have heard the fifty-drachma course of the great Prodicus, which is a complete education in grammar and language—these are his own words—and then I should have been at once able to answer your question about the correctness of names. But, indeed, I have only heard the single-drachma course, and therefore, I do not know the truth about such matters; I will, however, gladly assist you and Cratylus in the investigation of them. When he declares that your name is not really Hermogenes, I suspect that he is only making fun of you;—he means to say that you are no true son of Hermes, because you are always looking after a fortune and never in luck.← Back to Plato