Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  HERMOGENES: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So mustn’t we first divide off the vowels and then the others in accordance with their differences in kind, that is to say, the “consonants” and “mutes” (as I take it they’re called by specialists in these matters) and the semivowels, which are neither vowels nor mutes? And, as to the vowels themselves, mustn’t we also divide off those that differ in kind from one another? Then when we’ve also well divided off the things that are—the things to which we have to give names—if there are some things to which [d] they can all be carried back, as names are to the letters, and from which we can see that they derive, and if different kinds of being are found among them, in just the way that there are among the letters—once we’ve done all this well, we’ll know how to apply each letter to what it resembles, whether one letter or a combination of many is to be applied to one thing. It’s just the same as it is with painters. When they want to produce a resemblance, they sometimes use only purple, sometimes another color, [e] and sometimes—for example, when they want to paint human flesh or something of that sort—they mix many colors, employing the particular color, I suppose, that their particular subject demands. Similarly, we’ll apply letters to things, using one letter for one thing, when that’s what seems to be required, or many letters together, to form what’s called a syllable, or many syllables combined to form names and verbs. From [425] names and verbs, in turn, we shall finally construct something important, beautiful, and whole. And just as the painter painted an animal, so—by means of the craft of naming or rhetoric or whatever it is—we shall construct sentences. Of course, I don’t really mean we ourselves—I was carried away by the discussion. It was the ancients who combined things in this way. Our job—if indeed we are to examine all these things with scientific knowledge—is to divide where they put together, so as to see whether or [b] not both the primary and derivative names are given in accord with nature. For, any other way of connecting names to things, Hermogenes, is inferior and unsystematic.

  HERMOGENES: By god, Socrates, it probably is.

  SOCRATES: Well, then, do you think you could divide them in that way? I don’t think I could.

  HERMOGENES: Then it’s even less likely that I could.

  SOCRATES: Shall we give up then? Or do you want us to do what we can, and try to see a little of what these names are like? Aren’t we in a [c] similar situation to the one we were in a while ago with the gods?51 We prefaced that discussion by saying that we were wholly ignorant of the truth, and were merely describing human beliefs about the gods. So, shouldn’t we now say this to ourselves before we proceed: If anyone, whether ourselves or someone else, divides names properly, he will divide them in the way we have just described, but, given our present situation, we must follow the proverb and “do the best we can” to work at them? Do you agree or not?

  HERMOGENES: Of course, I agree completely.

  [d] SOCRATES: Perhaps it will seem absurd, Hermogenes, to think that things become clear by being imitated in letters and syllables, but it is absolutely unavoidable. For we have nothing better on which to base the truth of primary names. Unless you want us to behave like tragic poets, who introduce a deus ex machina whenever they’re perplexed. For we, too, could escape our difficulties by saying that the primary names are correct because they were given by the gods. But is that the best account we can give? Or [e] is it this one: that we got them from foreigners, who are more ancient than we are? Or this: that just as it is impossible to investigate foreign names, so it is impossible to investigate the primary ones because they are too [426] ancient? Aren’t all these merely the clever excuses of people who have no account to offer of how primary names are correctly given? And yet regardless of what kind of excuse one offers, if one doesn’t know about the correctness of primary names, one cannot know about the correctness of derivative ones, which can only express something by means of those others about which one knows nothing. Clearly, then, anyone who claims to have a scientific understanding of derivative names must first and [b] foremost be able to explain the primary ones with perfect clarity. Otherwise he can be certain that what he says about the others will be worthless. Or do you disagree?

  HERMOGENES: No, Socrates, not in the least.

  SOCRATES: Well, my impressions about primary names seem to me to be entirely outrageous and absurd. Nonetheless, I’ll share them with you, if you like. But if you have something better to offer, I hope you’ll share it with me.

  HERMOGENES: Have no fear, I will.

  [c] SOCRATES: First off, ‘r’ seems to me to be a tool for copying every sort of motion (kinēsis).—We haven’t said why motion has this name, but it’s clear that it means ‘hesis’ (‘a going forth’), since in ancient times we used ‘e’ in place of ‘ē’. The first part comes from ‘kiein’, a non-Attic name equivalent to ‘ienai’ (‘moving’). So if you wanted to find an ancient name corresponding to the present ‘kinēsis’, the correct answer would be ‘hesis’. But nowadays, what with the non-Attic word ‘kiein’, the change from ‘e’ to ‘ē’, and the insertion of ‘n’, we say ‘kinēsis’, though it ought to be ‘kieinēsis’. ‘Stasis’ (‘rest’) is a beautified version of a name meaning the [d] opposite of ‘ienai’ (‘moving’).—In any case, as I was saying, the letter ‘r’ seemed to the name-giver to be a beautiful tool for copying motion, at any rate he often uses it for this purpose. He first uses this letter to imitate motion in the name ‘rhein’ (‘flowing’) and ‘rhoē’ (‘flow”) themselves. Then in ‘tromos’ (‘trembling’) and ‘trechein’ (‘running’), and in such verbs as [e] ‘krouein’ (‘striking’), ‘thrauein’ (‘crushing’), ‘ereikein’ (‘rending’), ‘thruptein’ (‘breaking’), ‘kermatizein’ (‘crumbling’), ‘rhumbein’ (‘whirling’), it is mostly ‘r’ he uses to imitate these motions. He saw, I suppose, that the tongue was most agitated and least at rest in pronouncing this letter, and that’s probably why he used it in these names. He uses ‘i’, in turn, to imitate all the small things that can most easily penetrate everything. Hence, in ‘ienai’ [427] (‘moving’) and ‘hiesthai’ (‘hastening’), he uses ‘i’ to do the imitating. Similarly, he uses ‘phi’, ‘psi’, ‘s’, and ‘z’ to do the imitating in such names as ‘psuchron’ (‘chilling’), ‘zeon’ (‘seething’), ‘seiesthai’ (‘shaking’), and ‘seismos’ (‘quaking’), because all these letters are pronounced with an expulsion of breath. Indeed, whenever the name-giver wants to imitate some sort of blowing or hard breathing (phusōdes), he almost always seems to employ them. He also seems to have thought that the compression and stopping of the power of the tongue involved in pronouncing ‘d’ and ‘t’ made such [b] names as ‘desmos’ (‘shackling’) and ‘stasis’ (‘rest’) appropriately imitative. And because he observed that the tongue glides most of all in pronouncing ‘l’, he uses it to produce a resemblance in ‘olisthanein’ (‘glide’) itself, and in such names as ‘leion’ (‘smooth’), ‘liparon’ (‘sleek’), ‘kollōdes’ (‘viscous’), and the like. But when he wants to imitate something cloying, he uses names, such as ‘glischron’ (‘gluey’), ‘gluku’ (‘sweet’), and ‘gloiōdes’ (‘clammy’), in which the gliding of the tongue is stopped by the power of the ‘g’. And because he saw that ‘n’ is sounded inwardly, he used it in ‘endon’ (‘within’) and ‘entos’ (‘inside’), in order to make the letters copy [c] the things. He put an ‘a’ in ‘mega’ (‘large’) and an ‘ē’ in ‘mēkos’ (‘length’) because these letters are both pronounced long. He wanted ‘o’ to signify roundness, so he mixed lots of it into the name ‘gongulon’ (‘round’). In the same way, the rule-setter apparently used the other letters or elements as likenesses in order to make a sign or name for each of the things that are, and then compounded all the remaining names out of these, imitating the things they name. That, Hermogenes, is my view of what it means to say that names are correct—unless, of course, Cratylus disagrees. [d]

  HERMOGENES: Well, Socrates, as I said at the beginning, Cratylus c
onfuses me a lot of the time. He says that there is such a thing as the correctness of names, but he never explains clearly what it is. Consequently, I’m never able to determine whether his lack of clarity is intentional or unintentional. [e] So tell me now, Cratylus, here in the presence of Socrates, do you agree with what he has been saying about names, or do you have something better to say? If you have, tell it to us, and either you’ll learn about your errors from Socrates or become our teacher.

  CRATYLUS: But, Hermogenes, do you really think that any subject can be taught or learned so quickly, not to mention one like this, which seems to be among the most important?

  [428] HERMOGENES: No, by god, I don’t. But I think that Hesiod is right in saying that

  If you can add even a little to a little, it’s worthwhile.52

  So, if you can add even a little more, don’t shrink from the labor, but assist Socrates—he deserves it—and assist me, too.

  SOCRATES: Yes, Cratylus, please do. As far as I’m concerned, nothing I’ve said is set in stone. I have simply been saying what seems right to me as a result of my investigations with Hermogenes. So, don’t hesitate to speak, [b] and if your views are better than mine, I’ll gladly accept them. And it wouldn’t surprise me if they were better, for you’ve both investigated these matters for yourself and learned about them from others. So, if indeed you do happen to have something better to offer, you may sign me up as a student in your course on the correctness of names.

  CRATYLUS: Yes, Socrates, I have, as you say, occupied myself with these matters, and it’s possible that you might have something to learn from [c] me. But I fear the opposite is altogether more likely. So much so, indeed, that it occurs to me to say to you what Achilles says to Ajax in the “Prayers”:

  Ajax, son of Telamon, seed of Zeus, lord of the people,

  All you have said to me seems spoken after my own mind.53

  The same is true of me where you’re concerned, Socrates: your oracular utterances—whether inspired by Euthyphro or by some other Muse who has long inhabited your own mind without your knowing about it—seem to be pretty much spoken after my own mind.

  [d] SOCRATES: But, Cratylus, I have long been surprised at my own wisdom—and doubtful of it, too. That’s why I think it’s necessary to keep re-investigating whatever I say, since self-deception is the worst thing of all. How could it not be terrible, indeed, when the deceiver never deserts you even for an instant but is always right there with you? Therefore, I think we have to turn back frequently to what we’ve already said, in order to test it by looking at it “backwards and forwards simultaneously,” as the aforementioned poet puts it.54 So, let’s now see what we have said. We said that the correctness of a name consists in displaying the nature of the thing it names. And is that statement satisfactory? [e]

  CRATYLUS: In my view, Socrates, it is entirely satisfactory.

  SOCRATES: So names are spoken in order to give instruction?

  CRATYLUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Is there a craft for that and are there craftsmen who practice it?

  CRATYLUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Who are they?

  CRATYLUS: As you said at the beginning, they’re the rule-setters.55 [429]

  SOCRATES: Is this craft attributed to human beings in the same way as other crafts or not? What I mean is this: aren’t some painters better or worse than others?

  CRATYLUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: And the better painters produce finer products or paintings, while the others produce inferior ones? Similarly with builders—some build finer houses, others build inferior ones?

  CRATYLUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: What about rule-setters? Do some of them produce finer products, others inferior ones? [b]

  CRATYLUS: No, there I no longer agree with you.

  SOCRATES: So you don’t think that some rules are better, others inferior?

  CRATYLUS: Certainly not.

  SOCRATES: Nor names either, it seems. Or do you think that some names have been better given, others worse?

  CRATYLUS: Certainly not.

  SOCRATES: So all names have been correctly given?

  CRATYLUS: Yes, as many of them as are names at all.

  SOCRATES: What about the case of Hermogenes, which we mentioned earlier? Has he not been given this name at all, unless he belongs to the family of Hermes? Or has he been given it, only not correctly? [c]

  CRATYLUS: I think he hasn’t been given it at all, Socrates. People take it to have been given to him, but it is really the name of someone else, namely, the very one who also has the nature.

  SOCRATES: What about when someone says that our friend here is Hermogenes? Is he speaking falsely or is he not even managing to do that much? Is it even possible to say that he is Hermogenes, if he isn’t?

  CRATYLUS: What do you mean?

  SOCRATES: That false speaking is in every way impossible, for isn’t that [d] what you are trying to say? Certainly, many people do say it nowadays, Cratylus, and many have said it in the past as well.

  CRATYLUS: But, Socrates, how can anyone say the thing he says and not say something that is? Doesn’t speaking falsely consist in not saying things that are?

  SOCRATES: Your argument is too subtle for me at my age. All the same, tell me this. Do you think it is possible to say something falsely, although [e] not possible to speak it falsely?

  CRATYLUS: In my view, one can neither speak nor say anything falsely.

  SOCRATES: What about announcing something falsely or addressing someone falsely? For example, suppose you were in a foreign country and someone meeting you took your hand and said, “Greetings! Hermogenes, son of Smicrion, visitor from Athens,” would he be speaking, saying, announcing, or addressing these words not to you but to Hermogenes—or to no one?

  CRATYLUS: In my view, Socrates, he is not articulating them as he should.

  SOCRATES: Well, that’s a welcome answer. But are the words he articulates [430] true or false, or partly true and partly false? If you tell me that, I’ll be satisfied.

  CRATYLUS: For my part, I’d say he’s just making noise and acting pointlessly, as if he were banging a brass pot.

  SOCRATES: Let’s see, Cratylus, if we can somehow come to terms with one another. You agree, don’t you, that it’s one thing to be a name and another to be the thing it names?

  CRATYLUS: Yes, I do.

  [b] SOCRATES: And you also agree that a name is an imitation of a thing?

  CRATYLUS: Absolutely.

  SOCRATES: And that a painting is a different sort of imitation of a thing?

  CRATYLUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well, perhaps what you’re saying is correct and I’m misunderstanding you, but can both of these imitations—both paintings and names—be assigned and applied to the things of which they are imitations, or not?

  CRATYLUS: They can.

  [c] SOCRATES: Then consider this. Can we assign a likeness of a man to a man and that of a woman to a woman, and so on?

  CRATYLUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: What about the opposite? Can we assign the likeness of a man to a woman and that of a woman to a man?

  CRATYLUS: Yes, we can.

  SOCRATES: And are both these assignments correct, or only the first?

  CRATYLUS: Only the first.

  SOCRATES: That is to say, the one that assigns to each thing the painting or name that is appropriate to it or like it?

  CRATYLUS: That’s my view, at least.

  [d] SOCRATES: Since you and I are friends, we don’t want to mince words, so here’s what I think. I call the first kind of assignment correct, whether it’s an assignment of a painting or a name, but if it’s an assignment of a name, I call it both correct and true. And I call the other kind of assignment, the one that assigns and applies unlike imitations, incorrect, and, in the case of names, false as well.

  CRATYLUS: But it may be, Socrates, that it’s possible to assign paintings incorrectly, but not names, which must always be correctly assigned. [e]r />
  SOCRATES: What do you mean? What’s the difference between them? Can’t I step up to a man and say “This is your portrait,” while showing him what happens to be his own likeness, or what happens to be the likeness of a woman? And by “show” I mean bring before the sense of sight.

  CRATYLUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Well, then, can’t I step up to the same man a second time and say, “This is your name”? Now, a name is an imitation, just as a painting or portrait is. So, can’t I say to him, “This is your name,” and after that put before his sense of hearing what happens to be an imitation of himself, [431] saying “Man,” or what happens to be an imitation of a female of the human species, saying “Woman”? Don’t you think that all this is possible and sometimes occurs?

  CRATYLUS: I’m willing to go along with you, Socrates, and say that it occurs.

  SOCRATES: It’s good of you to do so, Cratylus, provided you really are willing, since then we don’t have to argue any further about the matter. So if some such assignments of names take place, we may call the first of [b] them speaking truly and the second speaking falsely. But if that is so, it is sometimes possible to assign names incorrectly, to give them not to things they fit but to things they don’t fit. The same is true of verbs. But if verbs and names can be assigned in this way, the same must be true of statements, since statements are, I believe, a combination of names and verbs. What do you think, Cratylus? [c]

  CRATYLUS: The same as you, since I think you’re right.

  SOCRATES: Further, primary names may be compared to paintings, and in paintings it’s possible to present all the appropriate colors and shapes, or not to present them all. Some may be left out, or too many included, or those included may be too large. Isn’t that so?

  CRATYLUS: It is.

  SOCRATES: So doesn’t someone who presents all of them, present a fine painting or likeness, while someone who adds some or leaves some out, though he still produces a painting or likeness, produces a bad one?