4 The Cratylus

The Cratylus is a wonderful farce. There is just enough seeming seriousness to throw the unwary off the scent, but the abundance of mischievousness, of grotesque fun, of wild peripeties shows that Plato smiled giddily the whole while he wrote the dialogue. In the course of the work, Plato makes several serious points: that taking extreme positions leads to mindless folly; that the followers of Heraclitus are so confused and so enthusiastic in their devotion to the philosopher that they adhere irrationally to views even after they have been proven defective; and that the failure to reflect results in stupid gullibility.

The Cratylus is one of the dialogues that begins immediately without a framing device. Plato must have thought that the drama in the conversation would itself be sufficient to make his points. Since the dialogue deals with language and the correctness of names, the absence of scenery and of setting is dramatically appropriate. All depends on language.

The cast of characters is of some interest. Cratylus, a follower of Heraclitus, who claimed that all the universe is in a state of flux, is reported to have been one of Plato’s teachers.^[1] Cratylus himself is most famous for his refinement of Heraclitus. Heraclitus had said that it was impossible to step into the same river twice; Cratylus added that it was impossible to step into the same river even once.^[2]Hermogenes, the other interlocutor in the dialogue, is reported by Diogenes Laertius to have been a teacher of Plato also, but this is probably a mistake.^[3] Diogenes Laertius says that he was a follower of Parmenides (3.6). He is known from the Phaedo, where he is present at Socrates’ death. If these biographical data be true, we have a confrontation between a follower of Parmenides, Hermogenes, and a follower of Heraclitus, Cratylus; thus the dialogue falls into the pattern of those, like the Gorgias or Protagoras, where we see the clash of different philosophical programs as embodied in specific persons. If indeed Hermogenes was also a follower of Socrates, Plato would not have refrained from criticism. Certainly, he was no admirer of all of Socrates’ disciples, for such devotees as Aristodemus, Apollodorus, and Chaerephon are occasionally portrayed in a shadowed light.^[4] In the Cratylus, in fact, Hermogenes’ willing acceptance of everything Socrates utters may contain the real point of the dialogue: beware enthusiastic devotion to a philosophical scheme or to a particular philosopher-to any scheme or to any philosopher; do not let enthusiasm interfere with the search for truth. That antiquity (and indeed modernity) was in need of such a warning is evident from the many examples of people who, unlike Aristotle, loved their masters-Epicurus or Plato or Heraclitus-more than they loved truth.

The play begins as Hermogenes and Cratylus agree to let Socrates in on their argument. They have been arguing, Hermogenes says, about whether language is natural or conventional. Cratylus believes that all names, those of Greeks and non-Greeks, are natural and correct. He nevertheless denies that Hermogenes is Hermogenes’ name, even if all the world calls him by that name. Hermogenes is confused and asks Socrates to explain Cratylus’s meaning (383A- 384A). Socrates, as usual, claims not to know much about the subject, here language. His ignorance is attributable to his poverty: he could not afford the full fifty-drachma course that Prodicus offered, but only the one-drachma course. He jokes about the etymology of Hermo­ genes’ name, saying that despite the meaning of the name (“of the race of Hermes”), Hermogenes is no real son of Hermes, since he is always looking for money but never having any luck (384B-C). Socrates agrees to help settle the argument. Hermogenes then presents his view that language is conventional; hence any name one gives is the right one (384D).

What we have in the debate is an application to language of the nomos-physis controversy of the fifth century.^[5] Is language a creation of convention or a fact of nature? The sides are as clear and in as stark a contrast as possible: Cratylus is on the side of nature; Hermogenes, on the side of convention. Socrates argues first with Hermogenes while Cratylus listens silently.

In asserting that all names are by convention, Hermogenes first denies that there can be any error in the assignment of names, but eventually he sees that if all names are right, then no falsity is possible. Because he believes that there is a permanent essence to things, he agrees that a denial of that essence would be false (385C). Socrates in fact asks Hermogenes whether he is asserting the relativism of Prota­goras. Hermocrates replies, “There have been times, Socrates, when I have been driven in my perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras, not that I agree with him at all” (386A). What an odd comment! It appears that a prior rejection of Protagoras causes Hermogenes to reject Protagoras’s views even when his own argument drives him to those very views! Is this not a confession of a mind that puts individuals before propositions, personality before truth?

Hermogenes agrees that things and actions do have permanent essences. He then sees (387A-B) that for a given purpose there is a natural way of acting. When this principle of natural ways is extended to speech, Socrates and he conclude that there is a natural, correct way of speaking. Now Socrates slips into naming: shouldn’t there be a natural process of naming too (387D)? As weavers are the only ones who weave properly, or carpenters the only ones who build properly, so in general only the skilled perform any particular action well. When it comes to naming, only legislators name well (389A), for this is their particular skill. Finally, just as each maker makes an object according to its nature, so does the legislator (389D-E). A good legislator will give the proper name of the form to the thing.^[6] To all of these conclusions Hermogenes readily agrees.

What we see in these conclusions is Socrates reviewing for Hermo­ genes, his follower, what must be familiar ground-the rejection of relativism, the assertion of the authority of the skilled. In the safe familiarity of these ideas, Hermogenes is ripe to be plucked. When Socrates persuades Hermogenes that only the dialectician is a judge of whether the legislator has done his work aright, he is preparing Hermogenes to accept whatever comes next.

Just a few minutes into the conversation, Hermogenes has been led to a position quite the opposite of his long-held view on the conven­tionality of language-all the way to Cratylus’s position, and Socrates does not refrain from pointing this out (390E). Thus we have the first great peripety in the dialogue. Hermogenes, unable to reply, is embar­rassed to have changed his view so readily. “Show me some examples of the natural fitness of names,” he begs.

Socrates (391A) replies that he has no examples to show. Yet the rest of the dialogue contains myriads of such examples! For examples, says Socrates, Hermogenes should ask his brother Callias, who has spent a fortune on sophists (39IB-C) and particularly on Protagoras.^[7] Again, as if to make the point clear to the audience, Hermogenes laments the inconsistency he would manifest if he were to attach value to Protagoras whom he has rejected, as if consistency mattered to Hermogenes, who has already changed his view one hundred and eighty degrees on the conventionality of language and will in the course of this conversation change his views over and over again!

Well, then, says Socrates, consider what Homer has to say. And now Socrates begins a hilarious examination of words. As this consti­ tutes the bulk of the dialogue, it would be remiss not to examine it. But since much of this section is repetitive, it will suffice to concentrate on the high points and not to dwell on every little jest.^[8]

In Homer there are a few strange passages where the poet observes that men call something by one name, gods call it by another. The gods, of course, cannot be mistaken, but here Socrates throws up his hands and forbears to seek an explanation: divine things are beyond human understanding, he says, and he resolves to concentrate on examples where humans give more than one name to things (392A-B). An example is found in Homer, where Hector’s son goes by the names of Scamandrius and Astyanax. Now since men call him Astyanax, Socrates reasons, women must call him Scamandrius. Since men are wiser than women, Astyanax must be the better name. As there is no evidence in Homer that Astyanax is a better name that Scamandrius, what we have is an example of ad hoc reasoning, not the last that we shall see in the dialogue.^[9] As Hector was a defender of the city, a name that meant “king of the city” would be appropriate for his son, would it not, asks Socrates. There follows a most remarkable exchange (392E):

HERMOGENES: I see.

SOCRATES: Why, Hermogenes, I do not as yet see myself, and do you?

HERMOGENES: No, indeed, not I.

We have here a vivid example of a man who will be blindly led along, agreeing when he doesn’t even follow the substance of what is being said.

Kings and sons of kings should have the same names, says Socrates, and the words “king” (anax) and “holder” (Hector) have nearly the same meaning. But do they really? Isn’t Socrates stretching? He admits, even at the beginning of this etymological section, that he is talking nonsense and that he doesn’t know what he meant about Homer and Homer’s views on language. (We must remember that these views on the nature of language and naming have been attributed to Homer, as if Homer himself were involved in such a debate!) But this Socratic confession doesn’t matter to Hermogenes (393B): even though Socra­tes himself has called his remarks nonsense, Hermogenes is convinced! As the names of letters contain vowels and consonants additional to the name of the letter, so, says Socrates (393E), do words have letters in them that are superfluous to the real meaning of the word. Indeed, by adding or subtracting a letter to the name of a king, the word may be so disguised as not to appear a kingly name at all to the ignorant. Thus even though the names of Astyanax and Hector have only one letter in common, they both mean “king,” and the phenomenon is true for many other kingly names as well. By this crazy reasoning, of course, any word might be a disguised form of any other word. Moreover, says Socrates, some names are good, some bad. An irrelig­ious son of a religious father should be called by a name that reflects his lack of religiosity. Socrates gives as examples of appropriately good names ”Agamemnon,” ”Atreus,” and ” Pelops.”

Here we see another method that Socrates will follow. Often several quite different possible etymologies of a name occur to him, and he will claim them all as the natural meaning of the name. For example, “Atreus” may be derived from the word for “stubborn” (ateires) or from the word for “fearless” (atrestos) or from the word for “destruc­ tive one” (athros), and the name is fine given any of these derivations. For “Pelops,” a word with no apparent etymology, Socrates invents a whole phrase as the etymology-four words: “the one seeing things from afar” (o ta pelas oron). Passing over the ridiculous ex post facto etymologizing that Socrates so wittily engages in, we may ask the logical question: how could a father know at the birth of his son what the son would be like when grown up? What father will give his son a name connoting criminality or impiety? In fact, Socrates forces us to contemplate the absurdity in his very next example, Tantalus, where the name is appropriate to the man because of the punishment he suffered after he had died and went to Hades! What father could or would prophetically give his son such a name? But this name too requires further ingenuity, for “Tantalus” is an intentionally disguised form of “talanteia” (suspended stone).

After a sequence of more strained, twisted, mangled, convoluted, crazy etymologies dealing with some of the primordial gods, Socrates says (396C-D):

If I could remember the genealogy of Hesiod, I would have gone on and tried more conclusions of the same sort on the remoter ancestors of the gods-then I might see whether this wisdom, which has come to me all in an instant, I know not whence, will or will not hold good to the end.

To this Hermogenes responds: “You seem to me, Socrates, to be quite like a prophet newly inspired, and to be uttering oracles.” Socrates then jokes about Euthyphro, who has inspired him to speak in this oracular style.^[10] Despite warnings from Socrates that he is speaking nonsense, Hermogenes continues to be dazzled; he is insatiable for more and more etymologies. When Socrates suggests that a passage from Hesiod defines the word “daimon,” Hermogenes is at a loss to see the etymology, and he asks for the inference (398A). “What is the inference!” exclaims Socrates, as if it were self-evident, and at length explains how the word for “knowing” has undergone various dialecti­ cal changes. For “hero” Socrates wins the hearts of twentieth century students of classical Greek who often confuse the words “ask” and “love” because of their similarity. The confusion turns up in the etymology of the word: either they were born from love or as skillful dialecticians they are good at asking questions.^[11] Either etymology will do as well (398D). The point seems to be that any explanation that makes a kind of sense will be sufficient to prove a natural origin for the word.

A bit later, Socrates offers two explanations for “soul.” Herma­ genes prefers the second because it is more scientific (400B), probably because the doctrines of Anaxagoras were mentioned in conjunction with it. Hermogenes thinks it more scientific, but, says Socrates, he can’t help laughing at the derivation of soul from “that which carries and holds nature.”

After a few more etymologies of the names of gods, Socrates introduces a new dimension to the humor mocking Heraclitus. Begin­ning in 401D and continuing shortly afterwards in 402B-C, Socrates derives a number of names from words for flowing or moving. As usual, Hermogenes approves of the derivations even when he doesn’t understand them. He agrees with Socrates on the Heraclitean direction of the etymologies, though he says he does not understand the etymol­ogy of the river “Tethys.” Socrates’ explanation of the word is a piece of buffoonery: it is self-evident, he says, for it is only a little disguised. “For that which is strained and filtered (diattomenon, ethoumenon) may be likened to a spring, and the name Tethys is made up of these two words” (402C-D). The simile and the compound etymology are both farfetched.

The etymology of “Hades” (403E-404B) shows how Socrates can manipulate philosophy for the sake of a comic etymology. “Hades” turns out to be from the verb “to know” and shows that only when liberated from the body can souls truly know. It could just as easily have been derived from aeides (unseen), a possibility Socrates men­tions but, probably because it would yield a less attractive view of the god, rejects. Socrates is playfully showing how any etymology you want can be derived from any word. Indeed, he even says that some of his derivations are facetious (406B-C), but this does not stifle Hermo­ genes’ appetite for more.^[12]

When Socrates is momentarily stumped over the etymology of “Athena,” he instead explains “Pallas”; when pressed on “Athena,” he extemporaneously explains the name as dialectical variations on several words (407B-C).

When it is time for “Hermes” to receive an etymological explana­tion, Socrates can’t help joking with Hermogenes on the name. Socra tes says, “I should imagine that the name Hermes has to do with speech, and signifies that he is the interpreter, or messenger, or thief, or liar, or bargainer; all that sort of thing has a lot to do with language” (408A). Here we have a real clue as to what Socrates’ role is in the dialogue: he is an interpreter, messenger, thief, liar, and bargainer all in one! In this very passage he reminds us of the legislator who gave the gods their names, as if we had forgotten him, so that we will wonder how the legislator formed the name of the god who invented speech!

When it comes to the etymology of “pyr,” fire, Socrates claims to have been abandoned by the muse. But his ingenuity has certainly not departed. Words like “pyr,” which he can’t readily explain, must be foreign.^[13]

After a long run of imaginative etymologies, Socrates returns to the theme of Heraclitean jokes. Many of his contemporary philosophers, he says, get dizzy from going round and round on various topics. From this dizziness they imagine that the world is actually moving and that nothing is stable but everything in flux. His own name-making has given him this thought (411B-C). In short, Heraclitus’s view of the universe, that panta rei, that everything flows, is attributable to the punning dizziness they experience in vainly chasing questions! Isn’t

Socrates showing us, by his endless crazy etymologizing, the silly lengths to which philosophers go when they pursue a line of reasoning with single-minded mania, without any regard for common sense or truth?

Indeed, continuing his gibes at Heraclitus, he proceeds to derive all the words for knowledge and virtue from terms having to do with motion. (Later on, again in deference to his Heraclitean listeners, he claims that the words for “falsehood” and the like come from words contrary to motion [421B-C].) In defining justice, he introduces a new principle-euphony-to explain the presence of a kappa. But the principle is introduced out of the air. Socrates proceeds with a long joke on the various meanings of “justice” (412E-413C):

Thus far, as I was saying, there is a general agreement about the nature of justice, but I, Hermogenes, being an enthusiastic disciple, have been told in a mystery that the justice of which I am speaking is also the cause of the world. Now a cause is that because of which anything is created, and someone comes and whispers in my ear that justice is rightly so called because partaking of the nature of the cause. And I begin, after hearing what he has said, to interrogate him gently. Well, my excellent friend, say I, but if all of this is true, I still want to know what is justice. Thereupon they think that I ask tiresome questions, and am leaping over the barriers, and have been already sufficiently answered, and they try to satisfy me with one derivation after another, and at length they quarrel. For one of them says that justice is the sun, and that he only is the piercing and burning element which is the guardian of nature. And when I joyfully repeat this notion, I am answered by the satirical remark, What, is there no justice in the world when the sun is down? And when I earnestly beg my questioner to tell me his own honest opinion, he says, Fire in the abstract. But this is not very intelligible. Another says, No, not fire in the abstract, but the abstraction of heat in the fire…. (Tr. Jowett)

Hermogenes is so dazzled by this nonsense that he says that Socrates could not be improvising, that he must have learned this. But Socrates wants to continue in order to assure Hermogenes of his originality. Surely there is no limit to Hermogenes’ gullibility.

One second Socrates is quite baffled by the derivation of a word (415B); the next second (415D), the derivation-a quite complicated one-has come to him. Surely we are to note the ad hoc ex tempore quality of Socrates’ learned disquisition. Again and again (416A and 421C), when Socrates is stumped by a word, he brings up openly his “ingenious device”-the claim that the word is foreign.^[14] He certainly never disguises his playfulness.

The last part of Socrates’ conversation with Hermogenes concerns a new category-primary words. The discussion is introduced comi­cally: if a person analyzes names into words and keeps repeating the process, anyone who has to respond to him will give up in despair (421D-E)! Socrates begins to analyze words that are not compounded or derived from other words. These so-called primary words are vocal imitations of things themselves. In order, of course, for there to be vocal imitations, all things must have sounds. Although this might strike us as a most peculiar assertion (for how can words like “space” “triangle,” or “silence” have their own natural sound the way donkeys or cows do?), Hermogenes readily agrees to it (423D). Of course, in asking Hermogenes the question, Socrates has thrown in a red herring: “All objects have sound and figure, and many have color?” What could be the possible point of the addition of “figure” and “color” to the question if not to distract Hermogenes from the absurdity of the question? With a conclusion like this assented to, Socrates leads Hermogenes further down the primrose path.

The task of analyzing how sounds imitate the things themselves is quite daunting, they agree (424C), but the only way to proceed is to separate sounds and examine them singly. The matter is still daunting, however, and Socrates sees that they will need a further ingenious device. If the device of claiming a word to be of foreign extraction worked for unexplainable secondary words, why not claim that the primary words were named by the gods (425E)? Or, as a second-string ingenious device, Socrates suggests that perhaps they came from some older foreign people. (Of course, the ingenious device of ever more ancient foreign peoples would eventually lead to an infinite regress.)

If Hermogenes really wants to hear Socrates’ ideas, even though they are wild and ridiculous (426C), he will share them. Here we reach the comic climax of the dialogue, as Socrates now claims that certain letters signify certain things: “r” suggests motion; “d” and “t” express binding and staying in place, and so on.^[15] He is much like the poet Rimbaud, who is said to have claimed that the letter “a” always made him think of black, the letter “e” of green, and so on through the vowels. In other words, like Rimbaud, Socrates’ significations seem to be purely subjective.

Hermogenes turns to Cratylus to learn whether he agrees with Socrates’ remarks. Cratylus, we remember, was Hermogenes’ oppo­nent in the argument, the one who held the position that language was natural. Cratylus says that he cannot explain language-the most important of all subjects-in a moment. Socrates adds his request, expressing his fear that he may have made mistakes, for, unlike Cratylus, he has had no teachers and has not reflected on the matter. Cratylus answers by quoting Ajax’s speech to Achilles in Iliad 9.644- 45: “you have said all things according to my mind.”

Socrates, again expressing doubts about his own “wondrous wis­dom,” begins to question Cratylus. But Cratylus (428C) proclaims that Socrates has spoken like an oracle. If we the audience have been waiting for a word of sober criticism about Socrates’ playful etymolo­gies, we don’t get it from Cratylus. Perhaps we are to observe that since Socrates supported Cratylus’s view, Cratylus simply accepts the etymologies without reflection.

Though Cratylus held a position opposite to that of Hermogenes, like Hermogenes he believes that names cannot be false; indeed, he claims that a mistakenly given name is not a name at all; thus no mistaken names are possible (429D-E).^[16] This sort of reasoning derives from Parmenides’ views that the thing that is not is non-being and thus has no existence, and later on in the West it finds its way into the definition of evil as absence of good and thus as nonexistence. ^[17] The trouble with the view, as Socrates observes, is that it renders impossi­ble lies, errors, mistakes. What now causes Cratylus to stumble is that while he is willing to admit errors in the case of the misassignment of pictures, he absolutely refuses to admit such errors in the case of names (430D-E). There is no reason for the inconsistency, and he soon yields the point (431A).

This agreement introduces the possibility that some names may be better than others, and at once (431E-432A) Cratylus withdraws his earlier agreement, saying that when it comes to language, a less good name may result in another name altogether. Though true for number, agrees Socrates, where the addition or subtraction of a digit creates a different number, it is not true for names or pictures. But again (433C) Cratylus will not alter his position that a name that has an incorrect letter is not a name at all; Socrates is forced to try a new approach.

Cratylus agrees that there must be a correspondence between the thing and the sound. By nature, certain sounds indicate certain things: “r” shows rapidity, “l” softness. Now Socrates springs the trap: how then does one explain the word sklerotes, which is also pronounced by the Eretrians skleroter, and means “harshness”? The Eretrians’ sub­ stitution of “r” for “s” is easily explained by Cratylus as making no difference to the extent that the words are alike to both Athenians and Eretrians. But how can he explain the presence of the “l,” which signifies “softness,” in a word meaning “harshness”? Vexed, Cratylus explains that the “l” must have been wrongly inserted (434D). But, of course, he has already claimed that such errors are impossible. When Socrates asks how the word can still be intelligible, thus reiterating Cratylus’s own argument, Cratylus is compelled to answer that the explanation is custom or convention. In short, we have the second great peripety of the play: Cratylus, who had been the advocate of extreme naturalism in language, now says that some words are the way they are by convention. Socrates points out the contradiction (435 A-D), and Cratylus stands in stupified silence.

The dialogue now takes a new direction, for the folly of Cratylus’s position requires more elucidation. Cratylus claims that he who knows the name of something will also know its nature. Of course, as Socrates observes, this notion has problems: suppose the first namers had a mistaken conception of things; wouldn’t their names be mistaken? But again, despite agreement, Cratylus returns to his earlier views that names must be right or they are not names at all.

Socrates continues his etymologies. In the discussion with Hermo­ genes, it had appeared that many words derive their meaning from original terms for flux, and we recall the passage where many positive words had been so derived. Now, however, in another comic reversal, Socrates shows how many positive words have in their derivation the sense of rest: thus the word for “knowledge” comes from “stopping”; “sure,” from “stationary”; “inquiry,” from “stopping”; and “mem­ory,” from “rest.” But words like “mistake” and “accident” turn out to be from words for motion (437A-D). Here again we see Socrates’ manipulation of etymologies for the sole purpose of dismaying the Heraclitean Cratylus!

But, Cratylus protests, the greater number of words are derived from terms denoting motion; this shows, he suggests, that the basis of the universe is motion. Socrates denies that a mere count of votes can tell us accurately what the universe is like. Indeed, isn’t Cratylus’s reference to the majority of such terms just another instance of his conventionalism?

There is another problem implicit in Cratylus’s position, and Socra­tes points it out (438A-E). If things can be known only from names, how did the original namers name things in accordance with their knowledge of them? Here (438C) Cratylus is driven to the ingenious expedient of Socrates: he claims that the original names were given by the gods! Of course, as Socrates observes, the problem remains: if some names are expressive of rest, others of motion, how can we tell which are the correct names? Finally (439A-B), it appears that in order to know which are the true names, which the false, one must apply a standard outside the names themselves-reality itself.^[18]

In a last attack on the Heracliteans, Socrates says that indeed the first namers gave names based on the idea of motion and flux (439C), but they did so erroneously and are dragging down others with them. In a final speech, Socrates seems to speak rather seriously, arguing that if in fact everything is changing, there can be no knowledge. He says (440B-D):

Whether there is this eternal nature in things, or whether the truth is what Heraclitus and his followers and many others say, is a question hard to determine, and no man of sense will like to put himself or the education of his mind in the power of names. Neither will he so far trust names or the givers of names as to be confident in any knowledge which condemns himself and other existences to an unhealthy state of unreality; he will not believe that all things leak like a pot or imagine that the world is a man who has a running at the nose. This may be true, Cratylus, but is also very likely to be untrue, and therefore I would not have you be too easily persuaded of it. Reflect well and like a man, and do not easily accept such a doctrine, for you are young and of an age to learn. And when you have found the truth, come and tell me. (Tr. Jowett)

“Reflect well and like a man.” Cratylus promises to do so, but he adds that he has already been through a lot of trouble and thought and inclines to the views of Heraclitus. The dialogue ends with Cratylus’s exhortation to Socrates to continue to think about these matters.

In a sense, the entire Cratylus is an Aesop’s fable, with a moral tacked on at the end in the form of Socrates’ final speech quoted above. Each of Socrates’ major interlocutors changes his position completely. Cratylus, who seems to be the more learned of the two, constantly shifts his position. Plato is undoubtedly playing on Craty­lus’s Heracliteanism: as Heraclitus believed the universe to be a state of constant flux, so Cratylus’s constant shifting of position is an embodiment of that view. Indeed, he may be an embodiment of his own more extreme view, enshrined in his statement about not being able to walk in the same river once: Cratylus simply will not maintain a position. He follows the argument for a while and adjusts his views accordingly; a moment later, however, he is adhering to his original views. Hermogenes, on the other hand, is monumentally gullible. Even after Socrates repeatedly tells him that he is joking, that the remarks are extemporaneous and ad hoc, even after he has corrected himself or modified a prior view, still Hermogenes takes it all literally and goes so far as to refer to Socrates as an inspired oracle and prophet. It is as though no amount of pounding on his head has any effect at all. Initially reluctant to alter his firmly held view on the conventionality of language, once he sees how easy and painless it is to shift his position, shift it he does.

In his moral at the end, Socrates asserts that he doesn’t know what the universe is really like. A perfectly reasonable statement. After all, who, except for some physicists at the Cerne in Switzerland, does know? Socrates also gives advice to the young men: “do not be too easily persuaded.” This, I think is one of the two major points of the dialogue. The other is its obverse: do not adhere rigidly to unsupport­able views. In regard to both points we see failure in the dialogue.^[19] Till the end, Hermogenes is easily persuaded; till the end Cratylus adheres rigidly to his discredited Heracliteanism.

Undoubtedly, Plato also wished to make some fun of the linguistic studies of his day.^[20] Throughout the dialogues he seems to admonish those who concentrate so much on the distinctions or etymologies of words that both etymologists and words lose touch with the real world. If he seems to do so in an inordinate number of the dialogues, it is surely because the vice was so rampant in intellectual circles. But it is a lesson as useful for us as it was for his contemporaries.