philosophy.
2. We do not deny that Socrates is partly in jest and partly in earnest.
He is discoursing in a high-flown vein, which may be compared to the
'dithyrambics of the Phaedrus.' They are mysteries of which he is
speaking, and he professes a kind of ludicrous fear of his imaginary
wisdom. When he is arguing out of Homer, about the names of Hector's son,
or when he describes himself as inspired or maddened by Euthyphro, with
whom he has been sitting from the early dawn (compare Phaedrus and Lysias;
Phaedr.) and expresses his intention of yielding to the illusion to-day,
and to-morrow he will go to a priest and be purified, we easily see that
his words are not to be taken seriously. In this part of the dialogue his
dread of committing impiety, the pretended derivation of his wisdom from
another, the extravagance of some of his etymologies, and, in general, the
manner in which the fun, fast and furious, vires acquirit eundo, remind us
strongly of the Phaedrus. The jest is a long one, extending over more than
half the dialogue. But then, we remember that the Euthydemus is a still
longer jest, in which the irony is preserved to the very end. There he is
parodying the ingenious follies of early logic; in the Cratylus he is
ridiculing the fancies of a new school of sophists and grammarians. The
fallacies of the Euthydemus are still retained at the end of our logic
books; and the etymologies of the Cratylus have also found their way into
later writers. Some of these are not much worse than the conjectures of
Hemsterhuis, and other critics of the last century; but this does not prove
that they are serious. For Plato is in advance of his age in his
conception of language, as much as he is in his conception of mythology.
(Compare Phaedrus.)
When the fervour of his etymological enthusiasm has abated, Socrates ends,
as he has begun, with a rational explanation of language. Still he
preserves his 'know nothing' disguise, and himself declares his first
notions about names to be reckless and ridiculous. Having explained
compound words by resolving them into their original elements, he now
proceeds to analyse simple words into the letters of which they are
composed. The Socrates who 'knows nothing,' here passes into the teacher,
the dialectician, the arranger of species. There is nothing in this part
of the dialogue which is either weak or extravagant. Plato is a supporter
of the Onomatopoetic theory of language; that is to say, he supposes words
to be formed by the imitation of ideas in sounds; he also recognises the
effect of time, the influence of foreign languages, the desire of euphony,
to be formative principles; and he admits a certain element of chance. But
he gives no imitation in all this that he is preparing the way for the
construction of an ideal language. Or that he has any Eleatic speculation
to oppose to the Heracleiteanism of Cratylus.
The theory of language which is propounded in the Cratylus is in accordance
with the later phase of the philosophy of Plato, and would have been
regarded by him as in the main true. The dialogue is also a satire on the
philological fancies of the day. Socrates in pursuit of his vocation as a
detector of false knowledge, lights by accident on the truth. He is
guessing, he is dreaming; he has heard, as he says in the Phaedrus, from
another: no one is more surprised than himself at his own discoveries.
And yet some of his best remarks, as for example his view of the derivation
of Greek words from other languages, or of the permutations of letters, or
again, his observation that in speaking of the Gods we are only speaking of
our names of them, occur among these flights of humour.
We can imagine a character having a profound insight into the nature of men
and things, and yet hardly dwelling upon them seriously; blending
inextricably sense and nonsense; sometimes enveloping in a blaze of jests
the most serious matters, and then again allowing the truth to peer
through; enjoying the flow of his own humour, and puzzling mankind by an
ironical exaggeration of their absurdities. Such were Aristophanes and
Rabelais; such, in a different style, were Sterne, Jean Paul, Hamann,--
writers who sometimes become unintelligible through the extravagance of
their fancies. Such is the character which Plato intends to depict in some
of his dialogues as the Silenus Socrates; and through this medium we have
to receive our theory of language.
There remains a difficulty which seems to demand a more exact answer: In
what relation does the satirical or etymological portion of the dialogue
stand to the serious? Granting all that can be said about the provoking
irony of Socrates, about the parody of Euthyphro, or Prodicus, or
Antisthenes, how does the long catalogue of etymologies furnish any answer
to the question of Hermogenes, which is evidently the main thesis of the
dialogue: What is the truth, or correctness, or principle of names?
After illustrating the nature of correctness by the analogy of the arts,
and then, as in the Republic, ironically appealing to the authority of the
Homeric poems, Socrates shows that the truth or correctness of names can
only be ascertained by an appeal to etymology. The truth of names is to be
found in the analysis of their elements. But why does he admit etymologies
which are absurd, based on Heracleitean fancies, fourfold interpretations
of words, impossible unions and separations of syllables and letters?
1. The answer to this difficulty has been already anticipated in part:
Socrates is not a dogmatic teacher, and therefore he puts on this wild and
fanciful disguise, in order that the truth may be permitted to appear: 2.
as Benfey remarks, an erroneous example may illustrate a principle of
language as well as a true one: 3. many of these etymologies, as, for
example, that of dikaion, are indicated, by the manner in which Socrates
speaks of them, to have been current in his own age: 4. the philosophy of
language had not made such progress as would have justified Plato in
propounding real derivations. Like his master Socrates, he saw through the
hollowness of the incipient sciences of the day, and tries to move in a
circle apart from them, laying down the conditions under which they are to
be pursued, but, as in the Timaeus, cautious and tentative, when he is
speaking of actual phenomena. To have made etymologies seriously, would
have seemed to him like the interpretation of the myths in the Phaedrus,
the task 'of a not very fortunate individual, who had a great deal of time
on his hands.' The irony of Socrates places him above and beyond the
errors of his contemporaries.
The Cratylus is full of humour and satirical touches: the inspiration
which comes from Euthyphro, and his prancing steeds, the light admixture of
quotations from Homer, and the spurious dialectic which is applied to them;
the jest about the fifty-drachma course of Prodicus, which is declared on
the best authority, viz. his own, to be a complete education in grammar and
rhetoric; the double explanation of the name Hermogenes, either as 'not
being in luck,' or 'being no speaker;' the dearly-bought wisdom of Callias,
the Lacedaemonian whose name was 'Rush,' and, above all, the pleasure which
Socrates expresses in his own dangerous discoveries, which 'to-morrow he
will purge away,' are truly humorous. While delivering a lecture on the
philosophy of language, Socrates is also satirizing the endless fertility
of the human mind in spinning arguments out of nothing, and employing the
most trifling and fanciful analogies in support of a theory. Etymology in
ancient as in modern times was a favourite recreation; and Socrates makes
merry at the expense of the etymologists. The simplicity of Hermogenes,
who is ready to believe anything that he is told, heightens the effect.
Socrates in his genial and ironical mood hits right and left at his
adversaries: Ouranos is so called apo tou oran ta ano, which, as some
philosophers say, is the way to have a pure mind; the sophists are by a
fanciful explanation converted into heroes; 'the givers of names were like
some philosophers who fancy that the earth goes round because their heads
are always going round.' There is a great deal of 'mischief' lurking in
the following: 'I found myself in greater perplexity about justice than I
was before I began to learn;' 'The rho in katoptron must be the addition
of some one who cares nothing about truth, but thinks only of putting the
mouth into shape;' 'Tales and falsehoods have generally to do with the
Tragic and goatish life, and tragedy is the place of them.' Several
philosophers and sophists are mentioned by name: first, Protagoras and
Euthydemus are assailed; then the interpreters of Homer, oi palaioi
Omerikoi (compare Arist. Met.) and the Orphic poets are alluded to by the
way; then he discovers a hive of wisdom in the philosophy of Heracleitus;--
the doctrine of the flux is contained in the word ousia (= osia the pushing
principle), an anticipation of Anaxagoras is found in psuche and selene.
Again, he ridicules the arbitrary methods of pulling out and putting in
letters which were in vogue among the philologers of his time; or slightly
scoffs at contemporary religious beliefs. Lastly, he is impatient of
hearing from the half-converted Cratylus the doctrine that falsehood can
neither be spoken, nor uttered, nor addressed; a piece of sophistry
attributed to Gorgias, which reappears in the Sophist. And he proceeds to
demolish, with no less delight than he had set up, the Heracleitean theory
of language.
In the latter part of the dialogue Socrates becomes more serious, though he
does not lay aside but rather aggravates his banter of the Heracleiteans,
whom here, as in the Theaetetus, he delights to ridicule. What was the
origin of this enmity we can hardly determine:--was it due to the natural
dislike which may be supposed to exist between the 'patrons of the flux'
and the 'friends of the ideas' (Soph.)? or is it to be attributed to the
indignation which Plato felt at having wasted his time upon 'Cratylus and
the doctrines of Heracleitus' in the days of his youth? Socrates, touching
on some of the characteristic difficulties of early Greek philosophy,
endeavours to show Cratylus that imitation may be partial or imperfect,
that a knowledge of things is higher than a knowledge of names, and that
there can be no knowledge if all things are in a state of transition. But
Cratylus, who does not easily apprehend the argument from common sense,
remains unconvinced, and on the whole inclines to his former opinion. Some
profound philosophical remarks are scattered up and down, admitting of an
application not only to language but to knowledge generally; such as the
assertion that 'consistency is no test of truth:' or again, 'If we are
over-precise about words, truth will say "too late" to us as to the belated
traveller in Aegina.'
The place of the dialogue in the series cannot be determined with
certainty. The style and subject, and the treatment of the character of
Socrates, have a close resemblance to the earlier dialogues, especially to
the Phaedrus and Euthydemus. The manner in which the ideas are spoken of
at the end of the dialogue, also indicates a comparatively early date. The
imaginative element is still in full vigour; the Socrates of the Cratylus
is the Socrates of the Apology and Symposium, not yet Platonized; and he
describes, as in the Theaetetus, the philosophy of Heracleitus by
'unsavoury' similes--he cannot believe that the world is like 'a leaky
vessel,' or 'a man who has a running at the nose'; he attributes the flux
of the world to the swimming in some folks' heads. On the other hand, the
relation of thought to language is omitted here, but is treated of in the
Sophist. These grounds are not sufficient to enable us to arrive at a
precise conclusion. But we shall not be far wrong in placing the Cratylus
about the middle, or at any rate in the first half, of the series.
Cratylus, the Heracleitean philosopher, and Hermogenes, the brother of
Callias, have been arguing about names; the former maintaining that they
are natural, the latter that they are conventional. Cratylus affirms that
his own is a true name, but will not allow that the name of Hermogenes is
equally true. Hermogenes asks Socrates to explain to him what Cratylus
means; or, far rather, he would like to know, What Socrates himself thinks
about the truth or correctness of names? Socrates replies, that hard is
knowledge, and the nature of names is a considerable part of knowledge: he
has never been to hear the fifty-drachma course of Prodicus; and having
only attended the single-drachma course, he is not competent to give an
opinion on such matters. When Cratylus denies that Hermogenes is a true
name, he supposes him to mean that he is not a true son of Hermes, because
he is never in luck. But he would like to have an open council and to hear
both sides.
Hermogenes is of opinion that there is no principle in names; they may be
changed, as we change the names of slaves, whenever we please, and the
altered name is as good as the original one.
You mean to say, for instance, rejoins Socrates, that if I agree to call a
man a horse, then a man will be rightly called a horse by me, and a man by
the rest of the world? But, surely, there is in words a true and a false,
as there are true and false propositions. If a whole proposition be true
or false, then the parts of a proposition may be true or false, and the
least parts as well as the greatest; and the least parts are names, and
therefore names may be true or false. Would Hermogenes maintain that
anybody may give a name to anything, and as many names as he pleases; and
would all these names be always true at the time of giving them?
Hermogenes replies that this is the only way in which he can conceive that
names are correct; and he appeals to the practice of different nations, and
