9. Cf. Meno 81e ff., where Socrates does precisely that.
10. The Euripus is the straits between the island of Euboea and Boeotia on the Greek mainland; its currents were both violent and variable.
11. Odyssey xx.17–18.
12. Harmonia was in legend the wife of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes. Socrates’ punning joke is simply that, having dealt with Harmonia (harmony), we must now deal with Cadmus (i.e., Cebes, the other Theban).
13. Alternatively: “If someone should cling to your hypothesis itself, you would dismiss him and would not answer until you had examined whether the consequences that follow from it agree with one another or contradict one another.”
14. The reference is to 70d–71a above.
15. The Telephus of Aeschylus is not extant.
16. A proverbial expression whose origin is obscure.
17. Iliad viii.14; cf. viii.481.
18. For these features of the underworld, see Odyssey x.511 ff, xi.157.
19. A cock was sacrificed to Asclepius by the sick people who slept in his temples, hoping for a cure. Socrates apparently means that death is a cure for the ills of life.
CRATYLUS
Translated by C.D.C. Reeve.
This dialogue is on a topic of great interest to Plato’s contemporaries that figures little in our own discussions in philosophy of language: the ‘correctness of names’. When a name (or, for that matter, any other word or phrase) is the correct one for naming a given thing or performing another linguistic function, what is the source of this correctness? Socrates canvasses two opposed positions. The first is defended by his close friend Hermogenes (Hermogenes was in Socrates’ entourage on the day of his death), the impecunious brother of Callias, the rich patron of sophists at Athens in whose house the drama of Protagoras is set. Hermogenes adopts the minimalist position that correctness is by convention: whatever is agreed in a community to be the name to use for a thing is the correct one in that community. The other position is defended by Cratylus, a historical person mentioned also by Aristotle, whose own information about him may however derive from what the character Cratylus says in this dialogue. Cratylus adopts the obscure ‘naturalist’ position that each name names only whatever it does ‘by nature’—no matter what the conventions in any community may be. As a first approximation, this means that under expert etymological examination each name can be reduced to a disguised description correctly revealing the nature of the thing named by it—and that revelatory capacity is what makes it the correct name for that thing. Socrates examines the views of each disputant and attempts to resolve the conflict between them. But he concludes that the knowledge of names—the etymological art professing to reveal the true nature of things by working out the ultimate descriptive meanings of the words we use—is of no real importance. All it can ever reveal is what those who first introduced our words thought was the nature of reality, and that might well be wrong—indeed, Socrates employs etymological principles themselves to argue that the Greek language indicates, falsely, that the nature of reality is constant change and flux. To learn the truth we have to go behind words altogether, to examine with our minds, and grasp directly the permanent, unchanging natures of things as they are in themselves: Platonic Forms.
Readers are always puzzled at the fact that Plato has Socrates devote more than half his discussion to proposing etymological analyses of a whole series of names, beginning with the names of the gods. We should bear in mind that, when Plato was writing, expertise in etymology was highly regarded, precisely as a means of discovering the ultimate truth about things through coming to possess knowledge of names. At least part of Plato’s purpose seems to be to establish Socrates’ credentials as a first-rate practitioner of the art of etymology as then practiced, better than the ‘experts’ themselves. When Socrates then also argues that knowledge of names is an unimportant thing, he can be taken to speak with the authority not just of philosophy but even of etymological science itself—as an insider, not an outsider looking in. Somewhat similarly, in Phaedrus and Menexenus philosophy is credited with the unique ability actually to do well what rhetoric, another prestigious contemporary expertise, professed to be able to do on its own.
J.M.C.
[383] HERMOGENES: Shall we let Socrates here join our discussion?
CRATYLUS: If you like.
HERMOGENES: Cratylus says, Socrates, that there is a correctness of name for each thing, one that belongs to it by nature. A thing’s name isn’t whatever people agree to call it—some bit of their native language that applies to it—but there is a natural correctness of names, which is the [b] same for everyone, Greek or foreigner. So, I ask him whether his own name is truly ‘Cratylus’. He agrees that it is. “What about Socrates?” I say. “His name is ‘Socrates’.” “Does this also hold for everyone else? Is the name we call him his name?” “It certainly doesn’t hold of you. Your name isn’t ‘Hermogenes’, not even if everyone calls you by it.” Eagerly, I ask him to tell me what he means. He responds sarcastically and makes nothing [384] clear. He pretends to possess some private knowledge which would force me to agree with him and say the very things about names that he says himself, were he to express it in plain terms. So, if you can somehow interpret Cratylus’ oracular utterances, I’d gladly listen. Though I’d really rather find out what you yourself have to say about the correctness of names, if that’s all right with you.
SOCRATES: Hermogenes, son of Hipponicus, there is an ancient proverb [b] that “fine things are very difficult” to know about, and it certainly isn’t easy to get to know about names. To be sure, if I’d attended Prodicus’ fifty-drachma lecture course, which he himself advertises as an exhaustive treatment of the topic, there’d be nothing to prevent you from learning the precise truth about the correctness of names straightaway. But as [c] I’ve heard only the one-drachma course, I don’t know the truth about it. Nonetheless, I am ready to investigate it along with you and Cratylus. As for his denying that your real name is ‘Hermogenes’, I suspect he’s making fun of you. Perhaps he thinks you want to make money but fail every time you try.1 In any case, as I was saying, it’s certainly difficult to know about these matters, so we’ll have to conduct a joint investigation to see who is right, you or Cratylus.
HERMOGENES: Well, Socrates, I’ve often talked with Cratylus—and with lots of other people, for that matter—and no one is able to persuade me that the correctness of names is determined by anything besides convention and agreement. I believe that any name you give a thing is its correct [d] name. If you change its name and give it another, the new one is as correct as the old. For example, when we give names to our domestic slaves, the new ones are as correct as the old. No name belongs to a particular thing by nature, but only because of the rules and usage of those who establish the usage and call it by that name. However, if I’m wrong about this, I’m ready to listen not just to Cratylus but to anyone, and to learn from him too. [e]
SOCRATES: Perhaps you’re on to something, Hermogenes, let’s see. Are [385] you saying that whatever anyone decides to call2 a particular thing is its name?
HERMOGENES: I am.
SOCRATES: Whether it is a private individual or a community that does so?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: What about this? Suppose I call one of the things that are—for instance, the one we now call ‘man’—suppose I give that the name ‘horse’ and give the one we now call ‘horse’ the name ‘man’. Will the same thing have the public name ‘man’ but the private name ‘horse’? Is that what you mean?
HERMOGENES: Yes.3 [385b1]
SOCRATES: So whatever each person says is the name of something, for [d] him, that is its name?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And however many names someone says there are for each thing, it will really have that number at whatever time he says it?
HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates, for I can’t conceive of any other way in which names could be correct. I call a thing by th
e name I gave it; you call it by the different name you gave it. In the same way, I see that different communities have different names for the same things—Greeks differing [e] from other Greeks, and Greeks from foreigners.
SOCRATES: Let’s see, Hermogenes, whether the same also seems to you to hold of the things that are. Is the being or essence of each of them something private for each person, as Protagoras tells us? He says that man is “the measure of all things,” and that things are to me as they appear to me, and are to you as they appear to you. Do you agree, or do you [386] believe that things have some fixed being or essence of their own?
HERMOGENES: There have been times, Socrates, when I have been so puzzled that I’ve been driven to take refuge in Protagoras’ doctrine, even though I don’t believe it at all.
SOCRATES: What’s that? Have you actually been driven to believe that [b] there is no such thing as a bad man?
HERMOGENES: No, by god, I haven’t. Indeed, I’ve often found myself believing that there are very bad ones, and plenty of them.
SOCRATES: What? Have you never believed that there are any who are very good?
HERMOGENES: Not many.
SOCRATES: But you did believe that there were some good ones?
HERMOGENES: I did.
SOCRATES: And what do you hold about such people? Or is it this: the very good are very wise, while the very bad are very foolish?
[c] HERMOGENES: Yes, that’s what I believe.
SOCRATES: But if Protagoras is telling the truth—if it is the Truth4 that things are for each person as he believes them to be, how is it possible for one person to be wise and another foolish?
HERMOGENES: It isn’t possible.
SOCRATES: You strongly believe, it seems to me, that if wisdom exists, and foolishness likewise, then Protagoras cannot be telling the truth. After all, if what each person believes to be true is true for him, no one can truly [d] be wiser than anyone else.
HERMOGENES: That’s right.
SOCRATES: But you also reject Euthydemus’ doctrine that everything always has every attribute simultaneously. For if virtue and vice always belong to everything simultaneously, it follows once again that it is impossible for some people to be good and others to be bad.
HERMOGENES: That’s true.
SOCRATES: But if neither is right, if it isn’t the case that everything always has every attribute simultaneously or that each thing has a being or essence privately for each person, then it is clear that things have some fixed being [e] or essence of their own. They are not in relation to us and are not made to fluctuate by how they appear to us. They are by themselves, in relation to their own being or essence, which is theirs by nature.
HERMOGENES: I agree, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And if things are of such a nature, doesn’t the same hold of actions performed in relation to them? Or aren’t actions included in some one class of the things that are?
HERMOGENES: Of course they are.
SOCRATES: So an action’s performance accords with the action’s own [387] nature, and not with what we believe. Suppose, for example, that we undertake to cut something. If we make the cut in whatever way we choose and with whatever tool we choose, we will not succeed in cutting. But if in each case we choose to cut in accord with the nature of cutting and being cut and with the natural tool for cutting, we’ll succeed and cut correctly. If we try to cut contrary to nature, however, we’ll be in error and accomplish nothing.
HERMOGENES: That’s my view, at least. [b]
SOCRATES: So, again, if we undertake to burn something, our burning mustn’t accord with every belief but with the correct one—that is to say, with the one that tells us how that thing burns and is burned naturally, and what the natural tool for burning it is?
HERMOGENES: That’s right.
SOCRATES: And the same holds of all other actions?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Now isn’t speaking or saying one sort of action?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then will someone speak correctly if he speaks in whatever way he believes he should speak? Or isn’t it rather the case that he will accomplish something and succeed in speaking if he says things in the natural way to say them, in the natural way for them to be said, and with [c] the natural tool for saying them? But if he speaks in any other way he will be in error and accomplish nothing?
HERMOGENES: I believe so.5 [387c5]
SOCRATES: Tell me this. Is there something you call speaking the truth [385b2] and something you call speaking a falsehood?
HERMOGENES: Indeed, there is.
SOCRATES: Then some statements are true, while others are false?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And those that say of the things that are that they are, are true, while those that say of the things that are that they are not, are false?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: So it is possible to say both things that are and things that are not in a statement?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Is a whole true statement true but not its parts? [c]
HERMOGENES: No, the parts are also true.
SOCRATES: Are the large parts true but not the small ones, or are all of them true?
HERMOGENES: In my view, they are all true.
SOCRATES: Is there a part of a statement that’s smaller than a name?
HERMOGENES: No, it is the smallest.
SOCRATES: In a true statement, is this smallest part something that’s said?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And, on your view, this part is then true.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And a part of a false statement is false?
HERMOGENES: That’s right.
SOCRATES: So isn’t it possible to say a true or a false name, since true or false statements are possible?
[d] HERMOGENES: Certainly.
[387c6] SOCRATES: Now using names is a part of saying; since it is by using names that people say things.
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if speaking or saying is a sort of action, one that is about things, isn’t using names also a sort of action?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
[d] SOCRATES: And didn’t we see that actions aren’t in relation to us but have a special nature of their own?
HERMOGENES: We did.
SOCRATES: So if we are to be consistent with what we said previously, we cannot name things as we choose; rather, we must name them in the natural way for them to be named and with the natural tool for naming them. In that way we’ll accomplish something and succeed in naming, otherwise we won’t.
HERMOGENES: So it seems.
SOCRATES: Again, what one has to cut, one must cut with something?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what one has to weave, one must weave with something? [e] And what one has to drill, one must drill with something?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what one has to name, one must name with something?
[388] HERMOGENES: That’s right.
SOCRATES: What must drilling be done with?
HERMOGENES: A drill.
SOCRATES: Weaving?
HERMOGENES: A shuttle.
SOCRATES: And naming?
HERMOGENES: A name.
SOCRATES: Well done! So a name is also a sort of tool?
HERMOGENES: That’s right.
SOCRATES: And suppose I ask, “What sort of tool is a shuttle?” Isn’t the answer, “One we weave with”?
[b] HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: What do we do when we weave? Don’t we divide the warp and woof that are mixed together?
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Would you answer in the same way about drills and other tools?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And you’d also answer in the same way about names, since they are tools. What do we do when we name?
HERMOGENES: I don’
t know what to answer.
SOCRATES: Don’t we instruct each other, that is to say, divide things according to their natures?
HERMOGENES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: So just as a shuttle is a tool for dividing warp and woof, a name is a tool for giving instruction, that is to say, for dividing being. [c]
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Isn’t a shuttle a weaver’s tool?
HERMOGENES: Of course.
SOCRATES: So a weaver will use shuttles well; and to use a shuttle well is to use it as a weaver does. By the same token, an instructor will use names well; and to use a name well is to use it as an instructor does.
HERMOGENES: Yes.
SOCRATES: When a weaver uses a shuttle well, whose product is he using?
HERMOGENES: A carpenter’s.
SOCRATES: Is everyone a carpenter or only those who possess the craft of carpentry?
HERMOGENES: Only those who possess the craft.
SOCRATES: And whose product does a driller use well when he uses a drill? [d]
HERMOGENES: A blacksmith’s.
SOCRATES: And is everyone a blacksmith or only those who possess the craft?
HERMOGENES: Only those who possess the craft.
SOCRATES: Good. So whose product does an instructor use when he uses a name?
HERMOGENES: I don’t know.
SOCRATES: Can you at least tell me this? Who or what provides us with the names we use?
HERMOGENES: I don’t know that either.
SOCRATES: Don’t you think that rules6 provide us with them?
HERMOGENES: I suppose they do.
SOCRATES: So, when an instructor uses a name, he’s using the product of a rule-setter. [e]
HERMOGENES: I believe he is.
SOCRATES: Do you think that every man is a rule-setter or only the one who possesses the craft?
HERMOGENES: Only the one who possesses the craft.
SOCRATES: It follows that it isn’t every man who can give names, Hermogenes, but only a namemaker, and he, it seems, is a rule-setter—the kind [389] of craftsman most rarely found among human beings.
Complete Works Page 20
