Ancient Philosophy 32 (2012)

©Mathesis Publications 35

Etymology and the Power of Names in Plato’s Cratylus

Franco V. Trivigno

There are two important and related controversies with which interpreters of
Plato’s Cratylus have struggled. The first concerns the seriousness of Socrates’
etymologies (397a-421c),1 and the second concerns the status of the imitation
theory of letters (421c-427d), which grounds the discipline of etymology and,
some have thought, provides Plato with a theoretical foundation for the construc-
tion of an ideal language.2 Socrates introduces etymology as a way of demon-
strating the truth of what I am calling the ‘natural names thesis’, which holds that
a name is correct if and only if it is naturally suited to its referent.3 The core diffi-
culty derives from the fact that Socrates himself seems to take both sides: after
spending nearly the entire dialogue defending etymology and the imitation the-
ory, he spends the rest of the dialogue refuting its claims and attacking the natural
names thesis (427e-440c).
The failure to perceive the purpose of the etymologies within the overall argu-
ment of the Cratylus has seriously hampered scholarly discussion of these issues.
As Barney 1998, 64 rightly complains, there has been a tendency among scholars

1 Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to the etymologies in the literature. One side takes

them as serious philological accounts, e.g., Grote 1867; Findlay 1973; Sedley 1998; Sedley 2003. The
other takes them as comic or parodic, e.g., Brock 1990; Arieti 1991; Sallis 1996; Gonzalez 1998;
Nightingale 2003. Barney 1998, a notable exception, denies that the etymologies are seriously meant
and also denies that they are parodic; she rather claims that the etymologies are a rational reconstruc-
tion of the etymologists’ position as part of Plato’s agon against etymology. As I will argue, Barney is
right to see the etymologies as part of an agon, but she is wrong to deny that they are parodic.
2 I consider the discipline of etymology to encompass both a practical part, etymological deriva-

tion, and a set of theoretical and methodological assumptions, in this case, including the imitation the-
ory of letters. (Though I refer to the imitation ‘theory’ of letters and to the ‘theoretical’ concerns it
addresses, I acknowledge that these formulations are anachronistic and potentially misleading.)
Those who argue that Plato opposes the notion of an ideal language include Kahn 1973, 167; Gonza-
lez 1998, 78ff. Those who argue that the Cratylus endorses the notion include Weingartner 1970,
14ff.; Kretzmann 1971, 137; Anagnostopolous 1972, 729; Baxter 1992, chs. 2 and 3. There are two
inflections of the latter group: those who think that, for Plato, an ideal language is something he is try-
ing to develop and those who think that he, more modestly, is trying to establish a rigorous terminol-
ogy. Kretzmann 1971, 137, on the one hand, suggests that the result of Platonic dialectic might be an
ideally precise language; Baxter 1992, 48ff., on the other, thinks that a perfect language serves as a
prescriptive ideal for a precise terminology.
3 Here ‘name’ translates ὄνομα, though ὄνομα, which encompasses common nouns, proper

names, adjectives and even infinitives, designates a wider linguistic category than ‘name’. Unfortu-
nately, there is no better option: ‘noun’ gives too narrow a scope; ‘word’ too broad. On this, see Kret-
zmann 1971, 126n1; Anagnostopolous 1972, 693-695; Ketchum 1979, 133; Sedley 2003, 4. See LSJ
s.v.
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to reduce all questions regarding the etymologies to one: ‘whether the etymolo-
gies are Scherz oder Ernst—whether Plato is expounding dogma or enjoying a
(fairly private) joke’. I want to move beyond this dichotomy. Underlying the
divide is the false assumption that comedy can have no serious meaning or inten-
tion.4 Because of this assumption, there has been a failure to connect the parody
to the philosophical argument, that is, to see the parody as having implications
for the argument.5
Those who have argued that Plato’s intentions are parodic have failed to come
up with a story about how Plato carries out this parody, why he spends so much
of the dialogue on it, and what specifically we are meant to take from it. For this
reason, much of the discussion has depended on who finds what ridiculous, and
as Sedley 2003, 37-38 rightly points out, our reactions cannot be taken as deci-
sive evidence for Plato’s intentions. What is needed—and what I attempt to pro-
vide—is a coherent account of Plato’s parodic strategy and its philosophical
implications in the context of the overall argument of the dialogue.6 My central
claim is that Socrates’ etymologizing and the imitation theory, along with the lat-
ter’s gestures toward an ideal language, are parodic, exposing the particular
methodological shortcomings of etymology, and, further, that the parody oper-
ates as an argument, namely, a reduction ad absurdum of the natural names the-
sis as understood by Cratylus. The implications of the parody are not merely
destructive, since the dialogue suggests that, using names as tools, we ought to
focus our philosophical efforts on the things themselves, i.e., the stable natures,
to which names imperfectly refer. This imperfection is endemic, I suggest,
against those who see the Cratylus as promoting an ideal language. Despite the
imperfection, the two purposes attributed to names, to teach and to divide being,
can be achieved through the appropriately philosophical, i.e., dialectical, use of
names. It is in its philosophical usage that the real power of names lies.
In part 1, I set up my reading by directly addressing the arguments of the two

4 For a clear diagnosis of the equivocations that underlie this assumption, see Silk 2000, 310-

320. Others have identified this false dichotomy as hampering understanding of the Cratylus: Gold-
schmidt 1986, 144-145 n1; Gonzalez 1998, 305n21. This general problem hampers understanding of
the Menexenus as well: see Trivigno 2009.
5 It may be that my analysis of the parody does not capture all of ways in which Plato plays with

names for serious purposes in the Cratylus. I readily grant this, but I will restrict my analysis to the
parody. In general, however, it should be noted that Plato frequently plays with language, exploiting
double meanings, associations, and ambiguities in names in order to make a serious philosophical
point. On Plato’s proclivity for puns, oxymoron, etc., see Campbell 1973, II.ii.d: ‘§22: Playing with
words’ (290-291). Such uses, I suggest, are for rhetorical purposes to reinforce an argument, and they
can never substitute for dialectical analyses or be sufficient in themselves to attain knowledge. Plato,
in short, may sometimes take philosophical advantage of fortuitous accidents of language.
6 Since the etymological section takes up nearly the entire dialogue, it can provide pertinent evi-

dence for the view that Plato’s Cratylus is ultimately trying to defend. Thus, I assume, with most
scholars, that there is a Platonic view on language that readers are meant to take from the dialogue.
However, I acknowledge that this is an assumption. Against this assumption, see Mackenzie 1986,
which argues that the dialogue is entirely aporetic and locates the dialogue, along with Theaetetus,
Sophist, and Timaeus, as part of Plato’s revisionary attack on the theory of Forms.
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main opponents of what I call the ‘parody reading’, George Grote and David
Sedley, and by attempting to diagnose what has misled some commentators into
taking the etymologies seriously. In part 2, I give an account of what I mean by
parody and, using an example from Aristophanes, I explain the logic of the par-
ticular parodic strategy of amplification that Plato employs in the dialogue. In
parts 3 to 5, I argue that Socrates’ etymologizing is parodic by examining the
details of the parody and revealing Plato’s overall parodic strategy. In my
account, the parody targets etymology on three levels: the arbitrariness of its
practice, as seen in certain strategically placed individual etymologies (part 3),
the illusoriness of its systematic breadth, which consistently reflects Heraclitean
assumptions (part 4), and the absurdity of the imitation theory, on which the dis-
cipline logically depends (part 5). As I will show, in every case, Plato helps us to
understand the parody by bolstering it with explicit argument and criticism. In
part 6, I bring together the implications of the parody to reveal its serious philo-
sophical purpose: it not only exposes etymology as methodologically suspect and
operates as a reductio ad absurdum of the natural names thesis, but it also sug-
gests that there is a serious way in which names—in the context of a dialectical
conversation—can be truth-revealing. I show further that the view of names that
emerges in the Cratylus implies that Plato did not aspire to the creation of an
ideal language.

I. Taking Etymology Seriously

In the dialogue Socrates considers two theses about the correctness of names:
Hermogenes’ conventionalist view, whereby a name is correct if it is ascribed by
a speaker or a community of speakers, and Cratylus’ naturalist view, whereby a
name is correct if and only if it is naturally suited to its referent.7 A name is natu-
rally suitable, on the Cratylean view, if its constituent parts encode a true descrip-
tion of its referent. Socrates’ long elucidation of etymologies purports to
demonstrate the legitimacy of the naturalist view; he first introduces the etymo-
logical method (391b-397a), employs it to analyze names across a wide swath of
existence (397a-421c), and then finally lays the theoretical foundation for it with
the imitation theory of letters (421c-427d). In the Cratylus, the practice of ety-
mology consists in the systematic unpacking of the constituent parts of names to
reveal the true descriptions encoded in them.8 This unpacking is made possible

7 The literature of Plato’s ultimate view on whether names are natural or conventional is

divided, and each possible position is represented, though as Silverman 1992, 26n2 suggests, ‘most
scholars would allow that Plato wants to have it both ways’ in some sense. Some insist that Plato
endorses the naturalist position: e.g., Kretzmann 1971; Fine 1977; others, that he endorses the con-
ventionalist position: e.g., Robinson 1969; Bestor 1980; others, that he endorses both: e.g., Anag-
nostopoulos 1972; Gold 1978; and still others, that he endorses neither: Weingartner 1970;
Mackenzie 1986. To anticipate, my position is that names are both natural and conventional but not
in the ways that either Cratylus or Hermogenes have in mind (see §6 below).
8 This conception of the practice of etymology is significantly different from the current one,

which consists almost exclusively of an accounting of the history of a word, and in particular the
discovery of the earlier forms from which a word is derived. For an account of the difference
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by and grounded in the work of the original name-makers, whose ideal language
perfectly fixed the relationship between names and beings (425a-b). When Craty-
lus endorses and takes over the defense of the natural names thesis (427e-428d),
Socrates reverses course and begins to refute the theory he has spent nearly the
entire dialogue constructing and defending (428d-440e). This reversal has left
commentators to puzzle over how to understand not only the purpose of the ety-
mological section but also the status of the ideal language to which the etymolo-
gies seemingly appeal. In essence, those who take the etymologies seriously take
Socrates at his word and see his reversal as the voicing of misgivings, and not as
an outright rejection; by contrast, what I am calling the ‘parody reading’ takes
Socrates’ later reversal as a serious rejection and explains his earlier apparent
seriousness in terms of parody.
The two primary proponents of what I will call the ‘serious reading’ are David
Sedley and George Grote, who both argue forcefully that the etymologies are
meant seriously by Plato and ought thus to be taken seriously by interpreters.
Before outlining my account of parody more generally, I want to address their
concerns directly in order to motivate a reconsideration of the parody reading.
Grote 1867, 519-520 argues forcefully against the thesis that ‘Plato meant all or
most of [the etymologies] as parody and caricature’. In his view, the etymologies
are ‘bona fide guesses’ or ‘specimens of admissible etymological conjecture’
(526, 529), which are meant to ‘illustrate [Socrates’] doctrine’ that names exhibit
a ‘propriety of signification in reference to the persons or matters to which they
are applied’ (516). He adduces four basic arguments against taking the etymolo-
gies as parodic. I address each in turn.
First, Grote claims that they were taken seriously by ancient commentators,
such as Dionysius of Hallicarnassus, Plutarch, and Proclus, and that they ‘are
more likely to judge rightly than we’ (528-529). This point establishes nothing
more than the existence of a tradition of taking the etymologies seriously. Since
the closest of these in time to Plato, Dionysius of Hallicarnassus, was born over
two hundred years after Plato died, there is no reason to see his view as reflecting
some special access to Plato’s mind and thus does not provide an especially com-
pelling reason to take the etymologies seriously.
Second, Grote argues that we have no solid proof that the sophists, who are
supposed to be the targets of the parody, actually practiced etymology (521-523).
This ignores the independent evidence of Aristophanes’ Clouds, where Socrates,
clearly standing in for the sophists, makes an etymological connection between
the words for fart and thunder, βρόντη and πόρδη respectively (394-395). This
is not simply an Aristophanic one-liner but is part of a larger presentation of the
sophistic attempt to fix or correct ordinary language for its imprecision (cp. 658-
694). At the very least, Prodicus—well known in the Platonic dialogues for his
emphasis on precision and explicitly mentioned by the Clouds themselves as one
of their favorites (361)—is implicated. Further, it is not at all clear that parody

between modern etymology and that practiced by Socrates, see Baxter 1992, 57-62.
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must have one single target, as some commentators have seemed to assume.9 To
return to the Clouds for a moment, Aristophanes’ parodic portrayal of Socrates is
clearly meant to target a wide swath of the Greek intellectual tradition, including
Socrates, the sophists—both individually and as a group—and various preso-
cratic philosophers.10 The evidence from the Cratylus itself suggests that Plato
has multiple targets in mind: the sophists generally (391b11), Prodicus (384b3),
Protagoras (391c4), Euthyphro (396d5, 399a1, 400a1, 407d8, 409d1, 428c7), and
Homer and the rest of the poets (391c8-d1, 392a) are all explicitly mentioned as
sources for the discipline of etymology, though other plausible targets have been
postulated as well.11 Partly based on the discovery of the Derveni papyrus, a
fourth century text containing allegorical and etymological analyses of an Orphic
poem, modern scholars seem now to agree that the practice of etymology was
prevalent during Plato’s time (see, e.g., Goldschmidt 1986, 109-142; Baxter
1992, chs. 4-5; Barney 1998, 67-68).12 In my view, a more general target, in
addition to the discipline of etymology, is a methodological focus on names as
such providing the path to knowledge.
Third, Grote points to the serious context of the discussion as undermining the
claim that the etymologies are parodic. He points to the seriousness with which
Socrates proposes the general theory about names (387b-391b) and to his argu-
ments, which have the ‘sincere and serious purpose of establishing the conclu-
sion’ (523). If the etymologies were parodic, Socrates would be contradicting the
very theory he is seriously defending and paradoxically supporting the opposing
view of Protagoras (523).
Several responses are appropriate. First, Grote’s argument commits the fallacy
of false dilemma. It is certainly not the case that Socrates must choose either
between the natural names thesis or the theory of Protagoras, since the theory of
Protagoras is introduced as something separate from and a possible implication
of the conventionalist view. As several commentators have pointed out, nothing

9 On the multiple targets of the parody in the Menexenus, see Trivigno 2009, 32-34.
10 See, e.g., Dover 1989, xxxii-lvii. He claims that, in addition to one or two elements that per-
tain to the real Socrates, ‘most of the elements in Aristophanes’ portrayal of Socrates can be identified
either as general characteristics of the sophists or as conspicuous characteristics of some contempo-
rary intellectuals’ (xl).
11 I will not pursue the question of targets in detail, in part because such discussion must remain

speculative. I will say that, if the Menexenus is any guide, then we should expect Plato to specify his
targets by making explicit reference to them: see Trivigno 2009. For further discussion of possible
targets of the parody, see Kahn 1973, 154-157; Baxter 1992, 91, 94-99; Levin 1995, 96-99. Based on
the reference to Homer and the rest of the poets, Levin argues that the entire Greek literary tradition is
a target. She makes a persuasive case for this claim, but I find less persuasive her attempt to dismiss
the sophists, Protagoras and Prodicus as targets (1995, 94-96). She seems to assume, falsely, that one
must choose between literary and more strictly philosophical targets. Since parody can and often does
have a variety of targets, I see no reason to make such an assumption.
12 On the Derveni papyrus, see Baxter 1992, 130-138. Since the papyrus was found in 1962,

Grote could not have been aware of it and its implications—albeit indirect—for the interpretation of
the Cratylus. On the possibility that Euthyphro was, in fact, the author of the Derveni papyrus, see
Kahn 1997.
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in the conventionalist view logically implies Protagorean relativism (see, e.g.,

Keller 2000, 290). If anything, Socrates’ options are the naturalist or convention-
alist views, but these hardly exhaust the possibilities. Indeed on my view,
Socrates in fact rejects both views as endorsed by their proponents but, under a
different guise, endorses both views.
Second, Grote’s claim would seem to beg the core question. I certainly grant
that the context is relevant for understanding the intention. Grote appeals to a
context—the articulation of the natural names thesis (386e-391b)—which is,
strictly speaking, not a part of the etymology section, and, on my reading, it is not
a part of the parody either. However, if one takes the relevant context to be that
of the etymological theory (391c-397a), which is closer to the actual etymologies
(397b-427d), then there is ample reason to think that the context is playful rather
than serious and that the parodic nature of the etymologies is signaled by this
playful context. Socrates spends much of that particular passage attempting to
distance himself from etymology by attributing it to a wide variety of sources.
Before he begins the etymologies, he claims that, afterwards, he will need to
‘exorcise and purify’ himself of his etymological wisdom (396e1-397a1) and,
after he is done, he says that he has ‘wondered’ at this wisdom and declares that
he himself ‘disbelieves it’ (428d1-2). Further, it is worth noting that Socrates
does not seem to take his own etymologies seriously even while he is articulating
them in the etymology section itself (Kretzmann 1971, 133n21 finds eighteen
disclaimers). For example, he refers to the ‘wisdom’ that has enabled him to pour
forth such an effusion of etymologies in clearly ironical terms (396c6, 396d8,
397a1, 401e6, 410e3). The source of his alleged wisdom is consistently displaced
in the etymology section as well; he is inspired (396d-e, 399a1, 409d1-2)—not
by a god—by Euthyphro, who is set up as a kind of holy figure, a repository of
divine wisdom (see esp. 396d4-e1; see Barney 1998, 71-74). Also, Socrates at
several points declares what he has said, or will say, to be ‘nonsense’ (393b1,
397d6, 401e4) or ‘ridiculous’ (400b6, 402a1, 425d1, 426b6). Finally, many com-
mentators have noticed the overall tone of the etymology section to be playful or
humorous.13 In short, pointing to the context does not make the case either way.
If anything, it lends support to the ‘parody reading’.
Third, Grote’s line of reasoning seems to make the mistake of assuming that, if
the etymologies are parodic, then they can have no serious philosophical purpose
and no role in the argument of the dialogue. This is simply false; as I will demon-

13 Even Barney, who denies that the etymologies are parodic, acknowledges their ‘vaguely

humorous tone’ (1998, 86). However, she sees the humor as akin to that of the pun or the limerick
rather than that of parody. Her argument for this rests on a forced and idiosyncratic understanding of
parody. In her view, the parody should render its speaker, Socrates, stupid-seeming (1998, 87); but
this is clearly a mistake. The one expounding the parody should seem clever, and the targets of the
parody should seem stupid. Further, Barney seems to think that the humorous tone is the ‘principal
source of support for the ‘parody’ interpretation’ (86); not only is the tone not the principal support
for the parody reading, it is not, strictly speaking, necessary, as my own argument does not rely in any
essential way on the tone of the etymology section.
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strate, the parody plays a crucial role in the argument of the dialogue.
Last, since Socrates himself rejects the natural names thesis, it should not be
surprising that the etymologies, which purport to have the purpose of defending
the thesis, should turn out to undermine it after all. I agree, however, with Grote’s
overall picture in one sense. If the etymologies are serious, then Socrates means
to endorse the natural names thesis. As I will argue, there is a version of the natu-
ral names thesis that Socrates endorses, but it is not the one that is connected to
the practice of etymology.
In his fourth argument, Grote points to some quite plausible individual ety-
mologies, which are intermingled with the supposedly parodic ones, in order to
show that the supposedly parodic ones are just as seriously meant as the plausible
ones. He further points out that, since Plato does not clearly distinguish between
serious and parodic etymologies, we have no justification for doing so ourselves.
This puts implausible restraints on the rhetoric of parody. If a parody did not sub-
stantially reproduce its target without distortion, then one would not be capable
of clearly seeing the distortions. As I will argue, Plato’s particular parodic strat-
egy, that of amplification, requires Socrates to inhabit the logic of etymology and
push it beyond reasonable limits. This means that there will be some plausible-
seeming etymologies mixed in with the more implausible ones. These more plau-
sible ones set the stage for the more implausible ones. There is indeed a
disanalogy here between what is implied by the Grote-Sedley approach, and what
is implied by the parodic reading. For, if the etymology section is serious, then it
follows that the etymologies should all be serious; but if they are parodic, then it
does not follow that they should all be comic or funny; nor should they all be
equally outrageous. For, the success of a parody requires that some of the ety-
mologies seem serious—so that the more explicitly comic ones can have their
intended effect. The parody reading is thus even consistent with some of the ety-
mological analyses revealing a Platonic view.14
A further, more general, criticism of Grote is in order. He does not seem to rec-
ognize that his positive view (namely, etymologies as admissible etymological
conjecture) also requires that Plato have faith in the superior understanding of the
original name-makers. He must assume that Plato assumes that the name-makers
got it basically right. Otherwise, there would be no compelling reason to bother
conjecturing diachronically about what the name-makers originally designated
(see 425a-b).
Sedley 1998 and 2003, ix, 23 make the case that the almost universal failure to
see that Plato takes the etymologies seriously is the single greatest obstacle to
understanding the dialogue. He claims that the ‘etymologies are…exegetically
correct, in that they do recover the original beliefs of the name-makers’ and that
Plato seriously believed that names ‘really are encoded descriptions, and there is
no reason whatsoever why we should not set out decoding them’ (2003, 28

14 However, as I will argue, none of the insights that may be gleaned from the etymological anal-

yses are a result of etymological methodology itself.

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emphasis mine). But we surely need a positive reason to set about decoding
names, and Sedley gives us one: he goes beyond Grote in attributing to Plato
faith in ‘the superior understanding’ of the ancient name-makers who were
‘divine or had divine sources of information’ (32-33). Dividing the etymologies
into the cosmological (397c-410e) and the ethical (411a-421c), Sedley says of
the former group:
The cosmological etymologies systematically demonstrate the
high level of understanding already attained by our distant
ancestors. Not one of the etymologies… [discussed] in this
section reveals a false belief, and again and again they lay bare
genuine and even seminal insights. In short, not only does ety-
mology work as an exegetical device…it can also offer us a
whole range of decodings which any Platonically-attuned
reader will recognize as philosophically correct. (2003, 98)
Thus, decoding names can be a path to truth in that it can lead one to a ‘philo-
sophically correct’ view in a large number of cases.
There are four reasons to be skeptical of such a view. First, Socrates himself
goes to great lengths to point out that the beliefs of the original name-makers are
not necessarily to be trusted (e.g., 429a-b). How is one to discern, in advance of
possessing knowledge of X, that the name-makers correctly encoded ‘X’, and
thus that decoding ‘X’ will lead one to a philosophically correct view? In order to
find a reason to pursue the etymology of ‘X’, one would need independent
knowledge of X, which would thereby render the etymology superfluous. Thus,
we seem to have a positive reason not to decode names, but rather to seek inde-
pendent knowledge of X. Indeed, this is just what Socrates recommends (439a).
Second, Sedley seems to want to have it both ways: he wants to claim both that
etymology does track the truth, in the case of the cosmological etymologies, and
that it does not, in the case of the ethical etymologies. On his view, the problem
with the ancient name-makers was that they illicitly extended their Heraclitean
beliefs about the physical world, the cosmos, into the ethical realm (108-109).
Even if Sedley is right, not only does this seriously call into question that suppos-
edly divine origin of the name-makers’ knowledge, but etymology is a methodol-
ogy that leads one to the truth, i.e., a Platonic view, only about as often as it leads
one astray. This seems to be a very good reason to avoid it. A third problem is
that in order to achieve its goals of recovering the original beliefs and (in certain
cases) the truth, etymology would need a clear methodology. On this point,
Socrates seems at best highly skeptical (see my discussion in §3). Since Socrates
emphasizes the extreme variability in meaning that names undergo over time
(e.g., 418a-b), it is far from clear that etymology could consistently recover the
original names. Even if it did have a clear methodology and one could recover
the original names, given the basic ambiguity that names exhibit (418a5-b5), it is
not at all clear that the beliefs of the original name-makers are thereby revealed.
Even if we were skeptical of the value of the original name-makers’ view but
were interested nonetheless, it is not at all clear that we could recover them. Last,
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Sedley’s solution would seem to saddle Plato with an incoherent view, since he
has Socrates explicitly contrasts the flux doctrine with the existence of stable
objects of knowledge (439cff.; see my discussion in §4).15 If Plato is committed
to anything, he is surely committed to that. Nowhere in the dialogue is it sug-
gested that the flux doctrine be restricted; it is, at all events, to be rejected.
What has misled some commentators into taking the etymologies seriously is
that the natural names thesis that Socrates articulates does not, at first blush,
appear ridiculous. Indeed, the initial account (386e-391b) is quite serious. How-
ever, as many scholars have noticed, Socrates’ original formulation of the natural
names thesis contains a crucial ambiguity (see, e.g., Kahn 1973, 165-167;
Ketchum 1979, 144; Benardete 1980, 127-129; Baxter 1992, 4; Gonzalez 1998,
64-65). He claims that ‘we must name things in the way it is natural to name
things (πράγματα) and which with it is natural for them to be named’ (387d4-
5).16 On Socrates’ view, ‘a name is a tool for teaching (διδασκαλικόν) and
dividing up being (καὶ διακριτικὸν τῆς οὐσίας)’ (388b13-c1), or, put differ-
ently, using names, ‘we teach one another something and divide things according
to how they are’.17 Names are created by the name-makers, or rule-setters, under
the supervision of dialecticians, the experts in language use (388b-390d).18 The
process by which individual names are made is notoriously obscure, and it
involves appealing to each thing’s natural name for guidance: the name-maker
‘looks to the natural name of each thing and puts its form (εἶδος) into letters and
syllables’ (390e2-5).19
It is unclear whether we are meant to take the passage to imply either or both of
the following claims:
[1] the natural correctness of a name consists in its referring to a stable nature

15 Whether these are the same separated forms as in the Republic is irrelevant. Irwin 1977, 2

argues convincingly that, in this passage in the Cratylus, Plato ‘assumes the existence of forms’
though ‘[s]eparated Forms are never mentioned or implied’.
16 All translations of the Cratylus are my own. I have consulted Reeve’s translation (1997).
17 Reeve 1997 takes the καὶ epexegetically in both cases, rendering the phrases ‘a tool for giving

instruction, that is to say, for diving being’ and ‘we instruct each other, that is to say, divide things
according to their natures’ respectively. While I certainly agree that the two tasks are related—I refer
to them as ‘dual tasks’—I think there are good grounds for mentioning them separately. The first task
is explicitly interpersonal in a way that the second is not, and it explicitly retains the implication that
names are tools for human use. The naturalist theory that Socrates develops on Cratylus’ behalf
deemphasizes the interpersonal aspect such the metaphysics of the world can be read off of names
themselves abstracted from their use. By contrast, the conventionalist view seems to emphasize the
interpersonal task at the expense of the metaphysical one. On this issue, see Silverman 2001, 28-30. I
return to this point in §6.
18 These designations translate ὀνοματουργός and νομοθέτης respectively. The fact that

Socrates calls the original name-maker the ‘setter of the nomos’ perhaps foreshadows Socrates’ later
claim that nomos can never be eliminated from language. Since I do not think that two different sets
of persons are indicated by these terms, I will refer throughout to the ‘name-makers’.
19 In the literature, what I am calling the ‘natural name’ is variably referred to as the ‘proper

form’ (Calvert 1970); the ‘model correct name’ (Kretzmann 1971); the ‘ideal name’ (Anagnostopou-
los 1972); and the ‘species-Form of name’ (Sedley 2003).
44

[2] the natural correctness of a name consists in its constituents, i.e., syllables
and letters, being naturally suited to refer to the object in question.
Socrates explicitly embraces [1], which is in principle indifferent to and indepen-
dent of the composition and ordering of the letters. He initially claims, ‘it makes
no difference whether the same letters or different ones signify (σημαίνει) the
same thing. Nor does it matter if some letter is added or subtracted, as long as the
essence (οὐσία) of the thing expressed (δηλουμένη) by the name is in control’
(393d1-4).20 This is a clear endorsement of [1]. Understood as a minimal princi-
ple ([1], but not [2]), the natural names thesis conceives of natural suitability in
terms of the mere fact of reference to a stable nature; a name thus directs us to
look away from itself to the nature to which it refers. While Socrates initially
defends the insertion and removal of letters as necessary for making descriptive
phrases function as names (see 399a, 402d), he comes to regard the practice as
truth-obfuscating and distorting (404d).21 That is, Socrates shifts his position
with respect to [2] in order to accommodate what he takes to be Cratylus’ posi-
tion. 22 The joint truth of [1] and [2] would imply a more robust principle,
whereby the constituents of a name, its syllables and letters, must be naturally
suited to the relevant natures. We are thus directed to look inside the name to its
constituent elements. Throughout the etymology section, we see Socrates ana-
lyze names into smaller descriptive phrases and then these into their constituent
letters. In my view, [1] is a crucial claim that Socrates emphasizes again and
again, but he seems ambivalent about [2]. As the dialogue progresses, the stabil-
ity of these essences or natures is called into question by the alleged Heraclitean
assumptions of the name-makers, and the only connection to reality that remains
are the motions of the mouth and tongue that imitate the motions of the things, or
beings. On my interpretation, Socrates never abandons [1], and it is [2] that
requires the postulation of an originally ideal language, which leads to the imita-
tion theory of letters and the ultimate demise of the more robust version of the
natural names thesis.
II. Parodic Amplification

Before turning to the etymological section itself, I want to clarify what I mean
when I say that the etymologies are parodic. Barney 1998, 86 has complained—
justly in my view—that the proponents of the parody reading have not suffi-
ciently given an account of the details of the parody, which can explain how it

20 In translating οὐσία here, I employ ‘essence’; just above, in translating 388b13-c1, I used

‘being’. I do this because, in the latter case, Socrates is referring to the whole range of existence,
while, in the former, he is referring to the particular nature that a thing has.
21 Socrates complains that euphony, for some, is more important than truth with the result that

euphonic change ‘distorts (ἐκκλίνουσι)’ the name (404d6). Plato himself was no stranger to
euphonic considerations in composing his texts: see Campbell 1973, 253.
22 The overall purpose of this move, in my view, is pedagogical. Plato wants us to see that there

is a weaker sense in which names are natural, but to realize that it is not the strong sense that Cratylus
has in mind and to which Socrates is giving voice. See Gonzalez 1998, 69.
 45

works and what it means. This is an important objection, since very few scholars
actually go into the details of the parody. In Trivigno 2009, 30 I claim that par-
ody is ‘an imitation that distorts a target text, author, or genre’, and I identify
‘amplification’ as one parodic strategy that Plato employs in the Menexenus; par-
odic amplification homes in ‘on one aspect of the target text and amplifies it to
absurdity, often exposing its artificiality’. In terms of the Cratylus, Socrates
adopts the logic of etymological practice and pursues it relentlessly until its inner
workings and intellectual vacuity are exposed.23
It will be useful to have a paradigm of parodic amplification in order to ‘see’ it
in action, and an excellent example can be found in the Clouds in Aristophanes’
presentation of the absurdity of sophistic attempts to ‘correct’ or ‘fix’ language to
make it more technically precise. In the comedy, Socrates attempts to teach
Strepsiades to correct the imprecision of ordinary language with respect to gen-
der (658ff.). Aristophanes has Socrates begin with a somewhat plausible-seem-
ing example, one for which even Strepsiades understands the disambiguating
utility, and ends with a nonsense example, one that uses grammatical gender to
insult the masculinity of certain Athenian men. Aristophanes thus inhabits the
logic of correcting language and pushes it beyond its reasonable limits.
In Aristophanes’ parody, the initial problem is that grammatical gender and
natural gender (i.e., sex) do not match up: the same grammatically masculine
word, ἀλεκτρύων, refers to both the male and female fowl (664).24 Socrates’
solution is to invent a new grammatically feminine term, ἀλεκτρύαινα, or ‘fow-
less’, and revive an older grammatically masculine term, ἀλέκτωρ, or ‘fowler’,
both to disambiguate the term and to restore the consistency between the names
and their gendered referents. Acknowledging the benefit of these new terms,
Strepsiades, swearing ‘by Air’, exuberantly offers to fill up Socrates’ mortar, τὴν
κάρδοπον. Socrates quickly points out that Strepsiades has made a mistake: ἡ
κάρδοπος is a feminine noun (ἡ) with a masculine-looking ending (-ος). In this
case, language seems to be inconsistent with itself. This example is much more
abstruse: according to Socrates’ reasoning, the article, not the object itself, deter-
mines gender, and the noun ought to reflect its gender with the appropriate end-
ing.25 In order to explain the mistake to Strepsiades, Socrates adduces the name
of the reputed shield-dropper, ‘Cleonymus’, which like κάρδοπος, is a gram-

23 Thus, even if it is true, as Barney 1998, 87 argues, that Socrates’ etymologies are ‘likely to be

for the most part original’, this would not undermine the claim that the etymologies are parodic. Par-
ody imitates and distorts—it does not simply reproduce.
24 See Smyth 1984. As he defines it, grammatical gender is ‘determined only by…form’ (45). In

general, the ‘rule of natural gender’ (§197) holds that grammatical gender will match sex in nearly all
applicable cases. However, some nouns have no formal difference and are either masculine or femi-
nine depending on the article (e.g., ὁ ἵππος, ἡ ἵππος), while others have one grammatical gender
regardless of sex (e.g., ὁ λαγώς, ἡ ἀλώπηξ) (46).
25 Regarding the ‘Gender of Sexless Objects’ (§199), Smyth 1984, 46 claims that these are pri-

marily recognized by their endings. In this case, we have a second declension (o-stem) noun, of which
the great majority are masculine. A brief list of feminine second declensions (e.g., ἡ ὁδός) is given
by Smyth §232 (54).
46

matically masculine-looking name denoting something feminine. To remedy the

incongruity, Socrates invents the feminine ‘Cleonymé’ and καρδόπη (680).
Socrates uses this example to segue into a lesson about the gender of proper
names in general (681-682). Aristophanes thus exposes the absurdity of a notion
of the correctness of names at its most vulnerable point. At the very beginning of
the play, Strepsiades recounts the argument he and his wife had about their son’s
name (59ff.), which was settled upon as a compromise. The father wanted to
name him after his grandfather, Pheidonides, which means Thrifty-son—just the
sort of son that Strepsiades wishes he had. Τhe mother wanted to add hippos
(horse) to the name to give it an aristocratic flavor. The resulting compromise,
Pheidippides, or Thrifty-horse, is, in one way, a kind of contradiction and, in
another, precisely what Pheidippides is not, since he has wasted so much of his
father’s money on horses.26 When asked to enumerate masculine proper names,
Strepsiades makes another ‘error’ by citing the name of an alleged draft-dodger,
Ἀμυνίας, a masculine second declension noun whose vocative, Ἀμυνία, in form
resembles a feminine vocative.27 To refer to Amynias in this way, Socrates
claims, is tantamount to calling him a woman—which is fine because ‘she
doesn’t go into battle’ (691-692).
Now we are fully in nonsense mode, and Aristophanes does not leave us to
draw out the methodological implications: when Strepsiades asks what the point
of these linguistic lessons is, Socrates replies, ‘no point at all, by Zeus!’ (694).
However, there is certainly a point that Aristophanes’ audience is supposed to
see. The parody of sophistic attempts to fix language shows that such exercises,
though vacuous in themselves, are meant to engender in the practitioner a facility
with linguistic manipulation (656-659)—just what Strepsiades explicitly desires
in order to escape his debts—and in this ability to manipulate words lies its per-
suasive and political power. This was the danger that the sophists presented to the
norms and values of Athenian society and that Aristophanes seems bent on
exposing. In this sense, Aristophanes and Plato share a common purpose.
Socrates’ etymologies in the Cratylus are supposed to verify the cogency of the
natural names thesis, and his consistent ability to unpack the encoded descrip-
tions of names purports to show that etymology is a techne and further that, since
the names are decoded into basic Heraclitean concepts, the Greek language sys-
tematically indicates a Heraclitean world view, i.e., that the world is in constant
flux. The parody, I argue, plays a crucial function in the overall argument of the
dialogue. In short, it functions as a reductio ad absurdum of the natural names
thesis: If the natural names thesis is true, then etymology is a systematic techne,
one that reveals the truth about beings through an analysis of names. If it is a
techne, then it must have a consistent methodology. If etymology does have a
consistent methodology, then it must derive from or answer to the systematic
way that names reveal the nature of beings. If names reveal beings in a system-
26Thanks to Stephanie Nelson for this formulation.
27First declension (a-stem) masculine nouns have vocatives that resemble first declension femi-
nine nouns (see Smyth 1984, 52).
 47

atic way, then this systematicity must be grounded in a theoretical basis whereby
names connect to beings. The attempt to articulate such a basis, i.e., the imitation
theory of letters, is shown to be absurd; therefore etymology is no techne and the
natural names thesis is false.
As I will show, Plato’s parody attacks etymology at the level of methodology
(§3), at the level of systematicity (§4) and at the theoretical level (§5). In each
case but the last, the etymologist can appeal to a deeper level to save etymology
from the criticisms. Once the foundation for etymology is shown to be absurd,
the etymologist has no further recourse. To give a full and complete account of
the parody of etymology in all of its details would be both tedious and go well
beyond my scope. Instead, I will indicate how the parodic amplification can be
seen (§3) in certain strategically placed individual etymologies (Ἀπόλλων,
δίκαιον, τέχνη, βλαβερόν, and ὄν) that reveal problems with the methodology,
(§4) in the seemingly comprehensive systematicity of the etymologies and (§5) in
the pursuit of the etymological method all the way down to its grounding in the
letters.

III. The Parody of the Methodology of Etymology

In this section, I focus on the following individual etymologies: (i) Ἀπόλλων,
or ‘Apollo’ (404d-406a), (ii) δίκαιον, or ‘justice’ (412c-e), (iii) τέχνη, or ‘craft’
(414b-c), (iv) βλαβερόν, or ‘harm’ (417d-418a), and (v) ὄν, or ‘being’ (421b-c).
Plato draws our attention to these in three ways: first, the etymology is itself
especially tortured or implausible; second, each of these terms picks out a con-
cept that is absolutely central to Plato’s philosophical portrait of Socrates and his
account of the philosophical life; and third, Socrates closely follows each with
explicit commentary on the arbitrariness of the etymological method; that is, like
Aristophanes, Plato does not leave us to draw out the implications of the parody
for ourselves. Plato’s parody of these etymological derivations attacks etymology
at the level of methodology by showing it to be, at bottom, arbitrary.
These particularly implausible etymological derivations are relatively evenly
distributed both temporally and thematically. There is, in other words, a distinc-
tive rhythm to the parody, whereby a series of more plausible-seeming etymolo-
gies reaches a crescendo in a particularly implausible etymology. The
amplification reaches a high point in these etymologies. And at that moment,
Socrates and Hermogenes pause to discuss the legitimacy of the method. In the
below analyses, I focus on these particularly implausible etymologies and the
ensuing methodological reflections, but it is important to remember that these are
the peaks, as it were, in Plato’s strategy of amplification.

1. Ἀπόλλων (404d-406a)
The etymology of Ἀπόλλων comes in the middle of the section on the names
of the gods (400d-408d), and it is by far the longest.28 Socrates finds four distinct

28 When Socrates, at Hermogenes’ request, begins this investigation of the names of gods he
48

descriptions encoded in Apollo’s name, each corresponding to his proficiency in

music, prophecy, medicine, and archery (404dff.). Ἀπόλλων unpacks as ἁπλοῦ,
ἀεὶ βάλλοντος, ἀπολούοντος, and ὁμοπολοῦντος. Socrates initially claims
that those who are ‘ignorant of the correctness of names’ (404c6-7) are terrified
by the god, Ἀπόλλων, mistakenly linking his name to ἀπόλλυμι, to destroy, thus
making him Ἀπολλύων, ‘the Destroyer’ (404c5-8, 404d8-e2, 405e1-4). Placing
‘more significance on euphony (εὐστομίαν) than on truth’, these people ‘distort
(ἐκκλίνουσι)’ his name (404d6-e2). Instead, Socrates claims, Apollo’s name is
actually ‘most beautifully suited’ to ‘the four powers of the god’: medicine,
prophecy, archery, and music (404e4-405a3). Each etymology degenerates fur-
ther away from Apollo’s name. As doctor, he purifies, and may be rightly called
Ἀπολούων, ‘the Purifier’ (405a6-c4). Since he prophesizes with single-minded-
ness, or simplicity—made equivalent to ‘truth’ (405c2)—he may be called
Ἄπλουν, ‘the Simple’—this etymology is odd since oracular utterances, though
true, were puzzling and hardly simple. As an excellent archer, he may be rightly
called Ἀειβάλλων, ‘Always-Shooting’ (405c5-6). As a musician, Apollo makes
things move harmoniously and may be rightly called Ὁμοπολῶν, ‘the One Who
Makes Things Move Together’ (405c6-e2). We are very far from Ἀπόλλων here,
so Socrates completes the ring structure of the passage and comes back to
Ἀπόλλων by ‘replacing Ὁμο- with Ἀ-…[and] insert[ing] a λ to keep the name
from becoming a harsh one’ (405d6-e2). Ἀπόλων, without the second λ, is
essentially equivalent to Ἀπολλύων, ‘the Destroyer’, dismissed above as a false
etymology.29
There are several points to notice here. This multi-etymology culminates in the
absurd and Aristophanic accumulation of Apollo’s powers: he is the ‘simple,
always shooting purifier, who makes things move together’ (406a2-3).30 If the
comic accumulation were not enough, the set contains a contradiction, since, on
this account, he is certainly not simple but varied and complex. We also see evi-
dence of methodological sleight of hand in that Socrates repeatedly disclaims the
most obvious etymology and closest neighbor to Ἀπόλλων, namely, derivations
of ἀπόλλυμι, and he opts for ever more distant possibilities. Thus, Socrates
shows by example the way that etymology can be used to serve the purposes of
its user. Further, it seems that Socrates thinks that all of these etymologies are
jointly correct, and that seems impossible, given that various distinct and jointly
unsatisfiable derivations are employed to arrive at each of the four powers. But if
they are merely possibilities or options, then Apollo’s name is not really suited to
his multiple powers. It is suited to one power, and the relationship to the others is

warns that they ‘know nothing about the gods themselves or about the names they call themselves’
and that they could only investigate ‘human beings and their beliefs…in giving the gods their names’
(400e-401a).
29 Rosenmeyer 1998, 47-48 calls the whole analysis of Apollo’s name a ‘roving conjecture

which would seem to rule out scientific etymologizing.

30 The comic technique of accumulation is characteristic of Aristophanes (see, e.g., Nub.

1009ff.). On Aristophanes’ various uses of accumulation, see Spyropoulos 1974.

 49

incidental and thus uninformative.

In raising methodological issues about intentionally distorting names to make
an etymology work and about the difficulty of finding an adequate test to choose
amongst competing etymologies, Plato’s parody raises serious philosophical
issues about whether there can be an etymological method that is not at bottom
arbitrary. Socrates underscores this point right after he ends his speech about
Apollo with the following disclaimer:
[T]here is both a serious (σπουδαίως) manner of accounting
for the names of these gods, and a playful one (παιδίκως). Ask
some others for the serious one, but nothing prevents us from
going through the playful one. For even the gods are lovers of
play (φιλοπαίσμονες). (406b8-c3)
Strictly speaking, this disclaimer points forward to the etymologies of ‘Dionysus’
and ‘Aphrodite’, but it is no accident that this disclaimer, which raises serious
methodological worries, comes immediately after a long, meandering and inter-
nally inconsistent etymology. Indeed, the distinction itself seems to raise its own
methodological problems, since it is not clear that the playful etymologies that
Socrates does give to Dionysus (‘giver of wine’) and Aphrodite (‘born from
foam’) are any more or less implausible than the ones given for any of the other
gods. Indeed, the mere fact that there are other, and more serious, etymologies
raises exactly the same methodological problem as with Apollo: namely, how do
we determine which ones are genuine and which ones, fraudulent. We would
need, it seems, a standard that is independent of the names.

ii. δίκαιον (412c-e)

During the section of the virtues (411a-415a), in which derivations are rapidly
given for φρόνησις, ἐπιστήμη, σωφροσύνη, σοφία, and a host of other virtue
terms, Socrates pauses to note how difficult the derivation of δίκαιον is (412c7-
8). As with Apollo’s name, this is the longest etymology in its section, and
according to Socrates, it is a disputable one (412c8-d1). But the dispute, it turns
out, is not about the etymology at all, but rather about justice itself. Socrates
begins by attributing to ‘those who believe everything to be in motion’, i.e., to
Heracliteans, the belief that the ‘fastest and lightest thing’ penetrates everything
in the universe and is that ‘because of which all coming-to-be comes to be’
(412d1-5). Socrates concludes:
Therefore, since it governs all other things, penetrating
(διαϊόν) them, this thing [i.e. the fastest and lightest thing] is
rightly given the name, δίκαιον, and the κ–sound is added for
the sake of euphony. (412d8-e2)
I want to note three things about this etymology: first, euphony is introduced to
explain why a name lacks a seemingly essential letter and thus why the etymol-
ogy is hard to see. Second, while the two words, διαϊόν and δίκαιον, appear
visually similar, the former is a compound of δια- (‘through’) and ἰόν (‘going’),
which means that the diphthong -αι in δίκαιον could not have come from
50

διαϊόν; indeed, this is what the dieresis in διαϊόν indicates, and euphonic con-
siderations would have put the κ in between the two parts, making it διακιόν.
This capricious aspect of the etymology is best explained by the beliefs of the
etymologists in the perpetual motion of the world and their insistence on seeing
motion everywhere. Thus, we see etymology being used to verify already held
assumptions as opposed to being used to discover the truth about the world.
Third, attributing quickness and lightness to such a weighty and important thing
as justice seems somehow to demean it.
Socrates next confesses that he learned about ‘all these matters in secret’
(413a2-3). What he learned was that ‘the just (δίκαιον) is the cause—for that
‘through which’ (δι’ ὅ) something comes to be is the cause—and someone said it
is rightly called Δία (‘Zeus’) because of this’ (413a3-5). This derivation also
requires a κ for euphonic reasons, though this is left unstated. In addition,
Socrates, without comment, has simply reversed his earlier etymology of Δία
(395e5-396b3), thus rending this derivation here neither particularly secret nor
particularly informative and implicitly raising worries that the methodology may
be circular. 31 On his own telling, even this secret teaching fails to satisfy
Socrates, and he persists:
Even after hearing these things, I gently continue to question
them no less. ‘What in the world is the just (τί οὖν ποτ’
ἔστιν…δίκαιον), best of men, if it is thus as you say?’ I seem
to be asking for more than is appropriate and to be leaping over
what has been uncovered; for they say that I have learned
enough. (413a6-b1)
Here the agreement amongst various etymologists regarding δίκαιον breaks
down (413b3-4), and Socrates proceeds to detail the various attempts of these
unnamed sources to answer his famous τί ἐστι question regarding justice. He
receives stock, formulaic, Presocratic responses: the just is said to be ‘the sun’,
‘fire’, ‘heat’, and ‘mind’ (413b4, c3, c5).32 After receiving these contradictory
answers, Socrates claims he was ‘in even greater perplexity (ἐν πλείονι ἀπορίᾳ)
than before [he] tried to learn what the just is’ (413c7-d1).
He thus concludes with a stark contrast between his own method, dialectic, and
the method of etymology, which merely seeks ‘after the name of the just, which
appears to have been given for the reasons adduced’ (413d1-2). It could not be
clearer here that Socrates is drawing attention to this passage as implying serious
methodological objections to etymology. An unambiguous contrast is being
drawn between etymology and dialectic, and the essence of justice, the what-it-is,
is portrayed as being completely beyond the scope of etymology. To restate this
point in more contemporary language, the search for Socratic definition is not

31 Even Hermogenes, in responding to Socrates’ long speech, seems to get the knock against the

methodology here, since he implies that Socrates has been simply inventing the etymologies as he
goes along (413d3-4).
32 Plato is clearly pointing out various Presocratic philosophers as parodic targets, in particular

and explicitly, Anaxagoras (413c5).

 51

one that aims at the meaning, or sense, of the word ‘just’ but rather at its refer-
ence, the just itself.33 Etymology, by contrast, can only ever get at the meaning,
because, on the grounds that the meaning of the word is all there is to know, it
never broaches the question of the reference. It fails, at bottom, to ask the right
sort of questions.

iii. τέχνη (414b-c)

The etymology for τέχνη comes right before the ‘pinnacle of the inquiry’
(415a8-9), the words for virtue and vice themselves. It is not a particularly long
account, but Hermogenes’ peculiar response provokes Socrates’ methodological
reflections on etymology, which emphasize the importance and correctness of the
original names. The process of inserting and removing letters reaches its climax
in the analysis of the word τέχνη: ‘Doesn’t [τέχνη] signify the possession of
understanding (ἕξιν νοῦ), if the τ is removed and an ο is inserted both between
the χ and the ν and between the ν and the η [making it ἐχονόη]?’ (414b9-c2). In
response to this, Hermogenes exclaims, ‘A very sticky haul, Socrates!’ (414c3).
The Greek expression that he uses, καὶ μάλα γε γλίσχρως, is noteworthy for
being colloquial and even comic.34 But we can see the cause of Hermogenes’
incredulity, in that Socrates rather casually eliminates the very first letter of
τέχνη in his derivation.
The core problem, Socrates asserts, is that the ‘original names have been cov-
ered over by those wanting to poeticize (τραγῳδεῖν) them’ (414c4-5). They ‘add
and subtract letters for the sake of euphony (εὐστομίας) and, by beautification
and over the course of time, they turn names in all directions’ (414c4-7). Socrates
then suggests that these people ‘shaping their mouths (τὸ δὲ στόμα πλάττοντες)
care not at all for truth’ (414c9-d1). These nefarious name-changers obfuscate to
the point where ‘inserting many things into the original names, they bring it
about that no human being can understand what the name means’ (414d1-4).
There are several things to notice here. First, the motions of the mouth are intro-
duced here as an illegitimate consideration that trumps truth and is connected to
euphony (literally ‘well-mouthed’ in Greek) and the distortions of the name-
changers. These motions will later play a foundational role in the imitation the-
ory of letters. Second, as the work of the name-changers becomes more distorting
and less benign, the name-makers grow in importance, and the dialecticians—
who were initially supposed to oversee the name-makers—fade from view.
Socrates’ method, which begins as a synchronic, analytical exercise, attains a
more historical and corrective dimension.35

33 See Frege 1997. For the use of Frege’s distinction in understanding the goal of Socratic

inquiry, see Penner 1992, 142-147.

34 Only Plato and Aristophanes use the word, γλίσχρος, in the sense of resisting in a sticky man-

ner. Cf. Aristophanes’ Acharnians 452; Peace 482; Plato Crito 53e; Rep. 488a. For an analysis of the
phrase, see Williams 1982, 93.
35 Other scholars have noticed this shift as well (see, e.g., Baxter 1992, 57ff.; Rosenmeyer 1998,

47, esp. n25).

52

Indeed, we begin to see the push back to an originally ideal language. The dis-
tortions of the name-changers make recovery and reconstitution of the original
names, and their elliptical descriptions, all the more pertinent, but Socrates
clearly sees that the whole methodology for making these corrections becomes
arbitrary: ‘If we are allowed to add or subtract whatever we want to names, then
it will be far too easy and we would be able to fit every name to every thing’
(414d7-9). Even in asking Hermogenes to supervise him, Socrates manages to
connect the power of etymology to its lack of precision. He appoints Hermogenes
as his ‘wise supervisor’ to guard that the etymologies are ‘measured and proba-
ble’ (414e2-3). But then, quoting Homer (Il. vi 265), he asks that Hermogenes
not ‘be excessively precise “lest you enfeeble my strength”’ (414e5-415a2). The
arbitrariness of the method could not be more clearly signaled than this. It should
be emphasized that adding and removing letters has been Socrates’ strategy the
entire time. If, by that method, he could derive any given thing from any given
name, then it is very hard to see in what sense etymology could be precise or sci-
entific at all.

iv. βλαβερόν (417d-418a)

In the middle of the section on moral terms, Socrates presents his etymology of
‘harmful’, βλαβερόν thus:
βλαβερόν means ‘that which is harming (βλάπτον) the flow
(ῥοῦν)’. ‘Harming (βλάπτον)’, in turn, signifies ‘wanting to
grasp (βουλόμενον ἅπτειν)’. To grasp and to bind (δεῖν) are
the same, and this, the name-maker always censures. There-
fore, what wants to grasp the flow would be most correctly
(ὀρθότατα) called βουλαπτεροῦν, but this has been beauti-
fied, in my view, and so is called βλαβερον.36 (417d10-e5)
Again, Hermogenes calls attention to the etymology. He exclaims: ‘Such intrica-
cies, Socrates, you draw from names! Just now, you looked exactly like you were
whistling the flute-prelude of the Hymn to Athena, when you were saying the
name βουλαπτεροῦν’ (417e6-418a1). This exchange is revealing in several
ways. First, the Heraclitean prejudice of the name-makers are given here as an
explanation of the derivation of this important moral concept. As in the deriva-
tion for δίκαιον, Socrates’ account here resolves ultimately into two of what
Hermogenes will later identify as primary names, namely ἰόν, ῥοῦν, and δεῖν
(421c3-6), ‘going’, ‘flowing’, and ‘binding’, which are central to Heraclitean
metaphysics. Second, Socrates again emphasizes that there is an earlier version
of the word that is more correct than the one in present usage, and again
attributes the distortion to considerations of beautification. Third, Hermogenes,
recently appointed supervisor, both questions the legitimacy of the etymology
and attributes to Socrates a kind of mock-solemnity in articulating it. If one

36 This term is arguably not as central to the Platonic project as the others; yet Socrates turns the

traditional notion of harm on its head by arguing that it is better to suffer than to commit harm.
 53

thinks that parody must be discerned from the style of delivery, then what we
have here is a kind of stage-direction that indicates that this is parody.
Socrates, in response to Hermogenes’ teasing, immediately disclaims responsi-
bility, implicating instead the name-makers (418a2-3). Before giving his etymol-
ogy for ζημιῶδες, ‘hurtful’, Socrates reflects again on the methodology:
Observe, Hermogenes, how truly I spoke when I said that, by
adding and subtracting letters, they exceedingly alter the mean-
ing (διανοίας) of the name, with the result that extremely
small alterations sometimes make a name signify its oppo-
site… [T]his beautiful new language of ours has twisted
ζημιῶδες and δέον to reveal their opposites, covering over
what they actually mean (νοεῖ), while the ancient language
clearly expresses (δηλοῖ) what both names intend. (418a5-b5)
This methodological reflection underscores and deepens the previous one, which
called into question etymology on the grounds that one could derive any given
thing from any given name. The prior criticism might be averted by an honest
and fastidious etymologist. However, if even very slight changes in the ordering
of the letters can result in a word actually meaning the opposite of what it origi-
nally meant, then there is surely little hope in a methodology that relies exclu-
sively on adding and removing letters. Further, the then-current Attic Greek
language is presented as a messy, twisted hodgepodge of misleading alterations,
wrought by the name-changer’s euphonic considerations and by time. Socrates
emphasizes this point again: ‘Know therefore that only the ancient names for
these things clearly express (δηλοῖ) the meaning (διανοίας) of the name-maker’
(418c8-9). The only way out of the mess is to return back to the clarity of the
ancient language, the perfectly ideal one whose names clearly signify their refer-
ents in a precise and orderly way.

v. ὄν (421b-c)
The most capricious etymology of the whole dialogue is crucial to the system-
atic Heracliteanism that Socrates’s etymologies seem to establish: he claims that
ὄν, ‘being’, once an ι is added, indicates ἰόν, ‘going’, giving no consideration to
the possibility that it would work the other way around. After establishing that
‘the divine motion (φορά) of being’ indicates ‘truth’, ἀλήθεια, and that the
name thus indicates ‘a divine wandering (θεία…ἄλη)’ (421b1-3), Socrates reit-
erates the Heracliteanism of the name-makers. ‘Falsehood (ψεῦδος) is the oppo-
site of these motions, such that again what is held (τὸ ἰσχόμενον) or compelled
to be at rest (τὸ ἀναγκαζόμενον ἡσυχάζειν) has been despised’ (421b4-5).
Socrates claims the following about ὄν:
ὄν (‘being’), along with οὐσία (‘essence’), agrees with
ἀλήθεια (‘truth’), the ι having been removed. For, it signifies
ἰόν (‘going’); οὐκ ὄν (‘not being’), in turn, signifies οὐκ ἰόν,
some people even calling it that. (421b7-c2)
One can easily see that, were one so inclined, one could the reverse the order of
54

the etymology, removing the ι from ἰόν and deriving ὄν from ἰόν. In other
words, the proper direction of an etymological derivation is not obvious. Indeed,
were the derivation to go the other way, etymology might reveal an entirely dif-
ferent metaphysical system. Hermogenes, noticing the names have been system-
atically resolving into ἰόν, ῥοῦν, and δεῖν (‘going’, ‘flowing’, and ‘binding’)
(421c3-6), asks Socrates to give an account of them. Conceding that all ‘the ear-
lier names resolved into these’ (422b10-c1), Socrates distinguishes ‘primary
names (τὰ ὀνόματα στοιχεῖα)’ as foundational for the rest (422b6). This move
launches Socrates into the imitation theory of letters, and raises the question of
the apparently systematic way that names indicate a Heraclitean world-view.
Since I treat the Heraclitean system in the next section, §4, and the imitation the-
ory in §5, I will break off my analysis here. For my purposes, it is enough to note
that the proper direction of etymologies is shown to be ambiguous and that this
final etymology both completes the Heraclitean system and serves as a founda-
tion for etymology. As I will show, both of these aspects of the discipline of ety-
mology are targets of Plato’s parody.
To sum up part 3, we have seen Plato’s parodic strategy of amplification at
work. Socrates inhabits the logic of etymology, initially employs it in a reason-
able-seeming way, and then amplifies it to absurdity. At key moments in the ety-
mological section, regarding key concepts in Platonic philosophy, Socrates gives
a particularly implausible etymology. Those particularly implausible etymolo-
gies are preceded by more plausible-seeming ones, just as one would expect from
the parodic strategy of amplification. The implausibility is confirmed by Socrates
and Hermogenes, who stop to reflect on the serious deficiencies in the method
that the implausible etymology reveals. To sum up the problems with the etymo-
logical method: As shown in (i) the etymology of Ἀπόλλων, the difficulty of
finding an adequate test to choose amongst competing etymologies suggests the
methodology is arbitrary and requires a standard independent of names. As
shown in (ii) the etymology of δίκαιον, etymology can only ever get at the
meaning of a name, like ‘justice’, but, on the grounds that the meaning of the
word is all there is to know, it never even broaches the question of the reference,
justice itself; that is, etymology fails to ask the right sort of questions. As shown
in (iii) the etymology of τέχνη, the methodology of etymology, adding and
removing letters from names, allows one to derive any given thing from any
given name, and thus it is very hard to see in what sense etymology could be pre-
cise or scientific. As shown in (iv) the etymology of βλαβερόν, the radical vari-
ability of meaning that names undergo as a result of even slight changes
highlights seemingly insurmountable difficulties for the etymologist; the presen-
tation of then-current Greek as a messy and imprecise language foregrounds the
importance of the name-maker’s original ascriptions and their perfectly ideal lan-
guage, in which names clearly signify their referents in a precise and orderly
way. As shown in (v) the etymology of ὄν, since the proper direction of an ety-
mological derivation is unclear, one can thus use etymology to make names mean
whatever one wants. The fact that the methodology of etymology is arbitrary
 55

means that names can be manipulated by the etymologist to indicate his desired
metaphysical system. This is one of the core philosophical points that emerge
from these high points in the parodic amplification. A clever etymologist can
make names mean whatever he wants and thus create the world in his own image.
The reductio might have ended at this point. If the methodology is in fact arbi-
trary, then etymology is not a techne and the natural names thesis is false. How-
ever, while these methodological criticisms are quite damning, the etymologist
might have one of several responses. Indeed the seeds of the etymologist’s
response can be gleaned from the parody itself. First, the etymologist might
claim that the inconsistency in the application of the method is a problem with
practitioners, not with the methodology itself. Socrates’ claim to need a supervi-
sor might lead one to think that the problem is with practitioners (414e2-3). Sec-
ond, the etymologist might blame the name-changers who have changed
individual names so much that the methodology does not function as it should in
every case. Indeed, Socrates himself does this, highlighting the need to return to
the perfect clarity of the original names given by the original name-makers
(414c-d, 418a-e). Last, the etymologist might concede the methodological point,
while still maintaining that it is possible that the methodology can be fixed and
etymology saved by appeal to the universal scope of etymology and the consis-
tently Heraclitean content that its analysis of names reveals. Knowing the sys-
tematic content of the original names, one can fix the names that have been
altered so that the methodology works. Socrates, on multiple occasions, appeals
explicitly or implicitly to the systematic Heracliteanism that etymology reveals
(e.g., 412c-d, 417e, 421c). Indeed, even Cratylus uses this strategy when trying to
defend etymology against Socrates’ methodological criticisms (436b-c). Thus,
the parodic attack at the level of systematicity is necessary for the overall argu-
ment. I turn now explicitly to the parody at this level.

IV. The Parody of the Etymological System

As it is presented in the Cratylus, etymology is systematic. It can provide
knowledge of quite literally everything, or, in Greek philosophical parlance, ‘the
whole’, thereby revealing a common underlying metaphysics, namely, Hera-
cliteanism. In short, etymology has a universal scope and a systematic content. In
addition, Socrates’ etymologies proceed in an orderly manner through the range
of existence. Sedley 2003, 89-90, 113-114, for example, divides the etymologies
into two large groups, the cosmological (397c-410e), and the ethical (411a-
421c), which are themselves carved up into multiple sub-groups. I have no quar-
rel with such a division. Some scholars see the systematic nature of etymology as
decisive evidence against the ‘parody reading’.37 However, in my view, the paro-
37 E.g., Barney 1998, 86 and n54 has argued that ‘there is no particular reason for a parody or

satire to be exhaustive’ and further that ‘the exhaustiveness of the etymologies will be problematic
for any reading along these general lines’. Sedley 2003, 113 further points to the systematic ordering
of the etymologies as evidence against the ‘parody reading’: ‘The seriousness of [Socrates’]
approach is…confirmed by the systematically ordered sequence of terms considered’.
56

dic strategy of amplification explains both why etymology seems to have a uni-
versal scope and a systematic content and why both the scope and content are
non-platonic.38 For the parody targets the illusoriness of the etymological system
by exposing the universal scope and the systematic content as counterfeit. In
short, etymology only pretends to be systematic, and the parody at this level
undermines the etymologist’s appeal to the system in order to justify etymology
and save it from the methodological criticisms articulated in §3 above.
I first want to show that the seemingly universal scope of Socrates’ etymolo-
gies is part of Plato’s parodic strategy. Barney claims that there is no particular
reason for a parody to be exhaustive, implying that the fact that Socrates goes on
at such length cannot be accommodated by the ‘parody reading’.39 There cer-
tainly is, however, good reason for parodic amplification to be exhaustive.
Indeed, such exhaustiveness is just what we would expect when targeting a disci-
pline that purports to have a universal scope. Recall that Cratylus holds that
‘whoever knows a thing’s name also knows the thing’ (435d) and that etymology
can explain names across the entire spectrum of existence, including gods, men,
elements, natural kinds, etc. Etymology’s claim to exhaustiveness provides
enough reason for the parodic amplification to be exhaustive, even if actual ety-
mologists never proceeded in the way that Socrates does. It may be that they laid
claim to universality in scope without ever demonstrating it. Given Cratylus’
stubborn silence for most of the dialogue and his refusal to answer Hermogenes’
request for an explanation of his view, this latter conjecture may not be far off.
Through Socrates’ parody, we see the claim to universality enacted in such a way
as to undermine etymology’s purported ability to explain everything. By enacting
the claim to universality, Socrates’ etymologies purport to articulate just about
all there is to know. After Socrates’ etymologies, one might very well be inclined

38 Benardete 1980 nicely formulates the problem of systematicity, claiming that the dialogue

‘has the look of a Platonic dictionary’ but that most of the etymologies are ‘as desperately forced as
the patter of a standup comic’ (127, emphasis mine). Benardete’s own reading focuses on etymolo-
gies whose analyses he finds congenial—an interpretive strategy that is not necessarily incompatible
with my own view, so long as the supposedly Platonic line of argument is not taken to be a serious
result of etymological method.
39 I am broadly sympathetic to Barney’s claim that Socrates offers the etymologies as part of an

agôn; however, I do not see why she thinks that being in an agôn is supposed to provide an adequate
explanation for the exhaustiveness of the etymologies. In essence, she tries to build exhaustiveness
into the definition of an agôn by connecting it to ‘the primordial competition of the poets’ (1998, 85-
86). Her final remark on this issue, gesturing toward the catalogue of ships in Iliad ii, can hardly
count as decisive: ‘The Cratylus etymologies are in their own weird way a catalogue, inspired by an
appropriately weird sort of Muse (note 428c6-8): their exhaustiveness is a necessary feature’ (86).
She is right to compare the exhaustiveness of the etymologies to that of Socrates’ funeral oration in
the Menexenus. But, in my view, the length and comprehensiveness of the funeral oration cannot be
explained but by an appeal to parody: see Trivigno 2009, 29-30. In the end, I think our accounts of the
etymological section are somewhat similar, insofar as I think that parody performs roughly the ago-
nistic function that she describes. Yet we draw substantially different conclusions about Plato’s
understanding of language and, in particular, about his attitude toward ordinary language (Barney
1998, 88-98; see my brief discussion of this in §6 below).
 57

to wonder, is that really it?

Further evidence that the scope of the etymologies is part of the parody comes
from the fact that we have little reason to believe that Plato saw the cosmos as
being composed of all and only the entities that are actually etymologized. Just
focusing on the cosmological section (397c-410e), the scope of the etymologies
does not seem to map onto the scope of the Platonic universe if, for example, the
Timaeus is to be our guide. Indeed, of the thirteen and a half Stephanus pages
dedicated to the cosmos in the Cratylus, Socrates spends a full eight of them—
well over half—discussing the names of the individual gods, who are hardly even
mentioned in the Timaeus. 40 This focus on the gods can be explained by
Socrates’ particular etymological Muse, Euthyphro, whose purported expertise in
theology and knowledge of piety Socrates exposes in the Euthyphro.41 If the
scope of the universe is being determined by a known hack, this surely counts in
favor of the parody reading. Further, if one takes the universal scope as evidence
in favor of Plato’s seriousness, then there are certain entities—central to the
Timaeus—whose absence should be rather stunning: the Same and the Different
(Tim. 35a ff.), the receptacle (49a ff.), mathematical shapes (53c ff.) and forms
(51b ff.). However, one need not appeal to Timaeus to find mention of the exis-
tence of entities that are not etymologized, since, in the ‘universe’ of the the
Cratylus itself, forms play a prominent role. Socrates mentions the ‘form (εἶδος)
of the shuttle’ (389b3), refers to ‘what a name itself is’ (389d6-7) and later
explicitly appeals to the existence of stable, eternal forms of the beautiful and the
good, here employing ἰδέα, not εἶδος (439c-440b). The absence of the etymol-
ogy of εἶδος, or of ἰδέα, should thus count decisively against those who would
make the scope of the etymologies universal. The scope, in short, is only univer-
sal on a certain non-platonic picture of the universe. Since the content is non-pla-
tonic, I am not impressed by appeals to the systematic order of the etymologies.
The orderly sequence proves nothing if it orders the wrong set of things. In any
case, the ordering is only somewhat systematic.42 Rosenmeyer 1998, 56 rightly
notes that, despite the larger organizational structure, the etymologies are
‘marked by repeated signs of seemingly willful disorder’. Such willful disorder
seems far more amenable to parody than to a serious exposition. Thus, the appar-
ently universal scope of the etymologies in the Cratylus is not only easily accom-
modated, but best explained, by the ‘parody reading’ and the strategy of
amplification.
Turning to the question of the systematic content of the etymologies, one finds
that this issue is somewhat trickier, since Plato does seem to have had some Her-
aclitean proclivities in other dialogues (see, e.g., Irwin 1977). Thus, the mere fact
that the etymologies are systematically Heraclitean is not necessarily sufficient

40 Timaeus, accepting the customary theogony, only mentions the gods in passing (40e-41a).
41 Scholars generally assume that the Euthyphro mentioned here is the same as the one who con-
verses with Socrates in the Euthyphro. For a defense of the claim, see Nails 2002, s.v. Euthyphro.
42 For an account of the somewhat systematic order of the etymologies, see Brumbaugh 1958;

Baxter 1992, 91-92; Rosenmeyer 1998, 43-44; Sedley 1998, 148-150.

58

proof of their parodic nature. Within the Cratylus itself, however, there is ample
evidence that Plato accepts no version of Heracliteanism on offer. This is shown
through Socrates’ ironic endorsement of Heracliteanism, the satirical and comic
imagery of Heracliteans and the explicit arguments that show Heracliteanism to
be incompatible with the possibility of knowledge and, more problematically in
the context of the Cratylus, with the possibility of naming itself. Plato’s purpose
in having Socrates provide a systematic content to the etymologies is to show us
is that, given the arbitrariness of the method, one can justify any world-view
whatsoever by simply choosing a starting point (like Heraclitean metaphysics)
and explaining all names in terms of its basic concepts. Indeed, this is just what
Socrates does: as I mention above, the etymologies resolve into words like ἰόν
(‘going’), ῥέον (‘flowing’), or δοῦν (‘binding’). That is, the Heraclitean
assumptions are operative throughout the entire section, including (as I will show
in §5) in the imitation theory of letters. They are also made explicit at two key
moments: near the very beginning of the etymology section (401a-402c) and
right in the middle between the cosmological and ethical sections (411b-d).
The first key moment comes when Socrates is about to etymologize the
Olympic deities; he claims not to be investigating the gods directly but ‘human
beings and which beliefs (δόξαν) they had when giving these names to the gods’
(401a4-5). He claims that the ‘first ones to set down names were not common
people but rather lofty thinkers and subtle reasoners (μετεωρολόγοι καὶ
ἀδολέσχαι τινές)’ (401b6-8). Given the way Aristophanes uses these terms, the
compliment is, at best, equivocal.43 In giving the etymology of Ἑστία, ‘Hestia’,
Socrates immediately introduces οὐσία, ‘being’ or ‘essence’, as relevant, but he
mentions two alternative spellings of οὐσία: ἐσσία and ὠσία (401c2-4). Accord-
ing to the second name, ὠσία, ‘it makes sense to call the οὐσία of things Ἑστία’
(401c4-6). Socrates continues: ‘Those who use the name ὠσία pretty well
believe, in accord with Heraclitus, that all beings are flowing and that nothing
stands fast—the cause and originator of them is the pusher (τὸ ὠθοῦν), from
which it is thus well-named ὠσία’ (401d4-7). In explicating οὐσία, Socrates ini-
tially presents the two options as on equal footing, but then ultimately passes
over ἐσσία, a word with no necessary connection to motion, for another, ὠσία,
which is connected to motion (see LSJ s.v.). Thus, at the beginning, Socrates
makes arbitrary decisions that aim to portray names as indicating a Heraclitean
world-view. At the end, in the etymology of ὄν (discussed above in §3.v),
43 The first term, μετεωρολόγοι, does have a history of serious usage. Yet in Aristophanes’

Clouds, meteorological investigation is consistently and satirically associated with the sophists (228-
230, 333, 360). It does not take much effort to hear Aristophanes’ μετεωροφέναξ and μετεωροσο-
φιστής standing behind this passage, especially when coupled with the second term (see Baxter 1992,
139-141). The second term, ἀδολέσχης, translated here as ‘subtle reasoner’, typically means some-
thing like ‘idle chatterer’; see LSJ s.v. In both Eupolis 352 and Clouds 1485, it is used as a term of
abuse for sophists. In Plato, it is also used as a term of abuse: Stm. 299b, Tht. 195b, and Rep. 488e.
Indeed, LSJ lists only one positive, non-pejorative sense for the term that comes from this very pas-
sage in the Cratylus. Since the sense of this term in the Cratylus can only be ascertained in the context
of an interpretation of the seriousness of the etymologies, LSJ’s determination can hardly be decisive.
 59

Socrates again arbitrarily connects οὐσία with a word of motion, this time ἰόν, or
‘going’. Thus, an arbitrary decision at the end is supported by an arbitrary deci-
sion at the beginning. We are in a circle, and it is not hard to see that it is a
vicious one, whose only support is an arbitrary starting point, the Heraclitean
beliefs of the etymologist.
After this etymology, Socrates stops to reflect on the method and he explicitly
connects the etymology of Ἑστία to his own Heracliteanism. He claims to have
‘a swarm of wisdom’ that ‘sounds completely absurd…but seems to have some
plausibility to it’ (401e6-402a2). After this equivocal endorsement of the wis-
dom, he explicitly attributes it to Heraclitus, claiming to ‘see Heraclitus saying
ancient bits of wisdom’ (402a4-6). Socrates then quotes him:
Heraclitus says somewhere that ‘everything gives way and
nothing stands fast’ and, comparing beings to the flowing
(ῥοῇ) of a river, he says that ‘you cannot step into the same
river twice’. (402a8-10)
He then suggests that ‘those who gave the names to the ancestors of the gods,
“Rhea” and “Chronos”, think no differently from Heraclitus’ (402b1-3) and
points out that the names of those gods ‘agree with one another and…point
towards the doctrines of Heraclitus’ (402c2-3). The implication of this method-
ological reflection is that etymology is driven by the Heraclitean assumptions of
its practitioner. Though etymology purports to reveal the truth about the world
through an analysis of names, what it does is reveal the beliefs of the etymologist
projected onto names and thus back onto the original name-makers.44 If Socrates
were to hold these views seriously, then he could not consistently endorse the
existence of stable objects of knowledge, as he does later in the dialogue
(439bff.). It is much more plausible to suppose that this endorsement of Hera-
cliteanism is ironic.
The second key moment where Socrates pauses to reflect on the Heraclitean
assumptions comes right in the middle between the cosmological etymologies
and the ethical ones. He provides a satirical image of the Heracliteans, which
contains, at least implicitly, a serious criticism of them. The centrality of the
image lends at least prima facie support to its significance:
By the dog, I think I have a pretty good inspiration, what’s just
now popped into my mind: the ancient people who set down
the names are very much like the majority of today’s wise men,
who whirl around and around so often searching after beings
that they become dizzy and, as a result, the things themselves
appear to be turning around and in every way moving. They
don’t attribute the cause for this belief to their own internal
experience but to the things themselves being so by nature;
none of them are thought to be stable or steadfast but rather

44 If this analysis is right, then etymology is neither exegetically serious nor effective in recover-

ing the beliefs of the name-makers in the way that Sedley claims that it is.
60

flowing and moving and full of every sort of motion and end-
less coming-to-be. (411b3-c5)
Socrates is struck by this inspiration because he claims the names that Hermo-
genes had just mentioned—those of the virtues—were ‘given on the assumption
that the things they name are moving, flowing and coming-to-be’ (411c7-10).
The image Socrates provides of Heracliteans running around and around in a cir-
cle, like a dog chasing its tail, is surely meant to undermine their alleged status as
wise men. The serious implication here is that the mental dizziness of Hera-
cliteans, i.e., confusion, is the cause of their metaphysical view; they project
themselves and their confusion onto the world. This comic portrait of Hera-
cliteans, along with its serious implication, is surely evidence that Socrates’
endorsement of their views is ironical.45 Further, Socrates’ move from attributing
Heracliteanism to himself in the first key passage to attributing it to the original
name-makers in the second again suggests that it is the etymologist who projects
his own views back onto the original name-makers, who are then in turn cited by
him as authoritative sources.
In addition to these two key passages within the parody, Plato provides us with
explicit argumentation against Heracliteanism in the dialogue. In his discussion
with Cratylus, Socrates considers the possibility the name-makers actually were
committed Heracliteans. Socrates worries that they will be deceived:
if in truth the name-givers set down names, believing that
everything is always going and flowing, as they seem to have
done, and if it turns out that matters aren’t really thus at all,
but the name-makers themselves, having fallen into a kind of
whirlpool, are tossed around in confusion and having cast us
in, are dragging us around along with them. (439b10-c6)
Socrates does seem here to endorse the idea that the name-makers were Her-
caliteans—though note the conditional—but he immediately renders the point
irrelevant. The point seems to be that whether or not the original name-makers
were Heracliteans, Heracliteanism is false. In short, Socrates discourages Craty-
lus from thinking of the name-makers as authorities at all. Socrates immediately
describe his ‘dream’ about the existence of a ‘beautiful itself, and a good itself’
(439c6-d1). He then shows, in a tightly compressed series of arguments—four by
my count—which ends the entire dialogue, that Heracliteanism is not compatible
with the possibility of knowledge (439c-440d).46 The four arguments are worth
briefly mentioning.
First, Socrates shows that, given Heracliteanism, successful reference is
impossible. He first elicits from Cratylus the assumption that the beautiful itself
‘is always such as it is’ (439d5-6). He then shows that, given Heracliteanism, the
beautiful can neither be said to be ‘a this’ nor ‘such and such’ (439d8-9); the pos-
45At the dialogue’s end, Socrates provides another satirical image of Heracliteans (see below).
46See Irwin 1977, 2, which shows that Plato does not, in this passage, endorse Heracliteanism of
any variety, not even one restricted to the physical world, and that those who think that the argument
here begins with an assumption about the physical world being in flux are mistaken.
 61

sibility of successful reference is entirely cut off by the fact that it is always
changing: ‘Isn’t it necessary that at the same time that we are speaking of some-
thing, it immediately becomes a different thing and withdraws and is no longer
how it was?’ (439d10-11). The endemic instability makes accessing the objects
of knowledge through names impossible.
Second, he shows that the view cannot accommodate stable objects of knowl-
edge, like the beautiful itself, at all:
How could something which never stays the same be some-
thing? For, if at some point it remains the same, then during
that time, it is clear that it is not changing. But if it always stays
the same and is always the same thing, how could it change or
move without departing from its own form? (439e1-5)
According to Socrates’ dilemma argument, one must choose between the exis-
tence of stable objects of knowledge and the flux doctrine of Heracliteanism.
Third, the view cannot explain how forms can be known or even how one
could begin the attempt to know:
Nor can it be known by anyone. For when the would-be
knower approaches it, it becomes a different thing of a differ-
ent kind, such that what sort of thing it is and what it is like can
no longer be known. For surely no knowledge knows that
which isn’t in any way. (439e7-440a4)
On the Heraclitean view, since the object to be known if always changing, nei-
ther knowledge nor inquiry is even possible.
Fourth, Socrates offers a meta-level critique and another dilemma. Knowledge
is either subject to the flux doctrine and thus is always moving, or it is not. If not,
then it stands as a counterexample to the flux doctrine, and Heracliteanism is
false; if it is, then it would immediately cease to be knowledge; further, if knowl-
edge were always moving, ‘there would never be knowledge’ (440a6-b3).
Socrates concludes: ‘On this account, no one could know anything and nothing
could be known’ (440b3-4).
This line of argument presents a devastating criticism. The Heraclitean
assumptions of the etymologist that everything is always flowing, and the
methodological assumptions about the practice of etymology that an analysis of
names provides knowledge of beings, are not logically compatible. Neither nam-
ing nor knowledge turns out to be possible. Socrates ends his critique with a
mocking and wickedly funny image of Heracliteans:
No one with understanding can commit himself and the care of
his soul to names, or having trust in names and the name-mak-
ers, affirm that he knows something, thus condemning both
himself and beings as completely unsound, by believing that
everything flows like leaking cups and that the things are
afflicted exactly like people with runny noses, and that all
things are in a state of flowing and dripping. (440c3-d2)
I do not see how Plato could have made it any clearer that he rejects Hera-
62

cliteanism in the Cratylus.47 Since he does, then the Heraclitean nature of the
derivations can in fact be used as evidence of the parodic intentions of the ety-
mologies.
What is Plato’s purpose in having Socrates parodically elaborate a complex
Heraclitean system of names that purport to range over everything? The core par-
odic point seems to be that, since one can fit any name to any thing, by choosing
an arbitrary starting point, ‘going’, for example, one could seem to explain the
whole range of existence. Given Parmenidean prejudices, for example, one could
systematically explain all names in terms of being and stability. Thus, the parody
at the systematic level both reinforces the prior parodic criticisms regarding the
arbitrariness of the methodology and articulates a different kind of criticism at a
more general level. This more general criticism takes aim at etymology’s pur-
portedly universal scope and systematic content and shows that its systematic
exhaustiveness is grounded in nothing more than the beliefs of the etymologist.
The mere fact that an etymologist can provide a systematically coherent deriva-
tion of names across the range of existence is not positive evidence in favor of
that system’s truth.
This parodic point is later expressly reinforced by Socrates when Cratylus
appeals to the systematic nature of the etymologies as evidence of their truth.
Socrates responds that coherence is no guarantee of truth, and one could have a
fully coherent system that was nonetheless false (436c-d). Socrates then offers
revamped etymologies for ἐπιστήμη, βέβαιον, ἱστορία, πιστόν, μνήμη, and
others (437a2-c4). If one took the time, Socrates claims, one could find a host of
names that show that ‘the name-maker signifies that things are not going and
moving, but rather resting’ (437c6-8). This passage gives the lie to the claim that
Socrates genuinely believed the name-makers to be Heracliteanism and etymol-
ogy to be capable of recovering an originally coherent set of names. According to
Socrates’ initial elucidation of ἐπιστήμη, for example, the name indicates that ‘a
soul that is worthy follows (ἕπεται) the movement of things… Thus one ought to
insert an ε and make the name ἑπεϊστήμη’ (412a1-4); later he claims that
ἐπιστήμη ‘seems to signify that it sets (ἵστημι) the soul upon the things, rather
than carrying it along with them, so that it’s more correct to say the beginning as
we do now, rather than inserting an ε to make ἑπεϊστήμη, and to insert an ι rather
than an ε [making ἐπιϊστήμη]’ (437a2-8).
Two points are of note here. First, Socrates claims that the name ἐπιστήμη is
‘ambiguous (ἀμφίβολόν)’, but his examples indicate that all names, or at least a
great many of them, are ambiguous in this way.48 Thus, one can analyze individ-

47 It is worth emphasizing that Plato gives no indication whatsoever that he means to endorse a

restricted Heracliteanism, as Sedley’s view would have it. Rather, Heracliteanism is rejected in the
strongest possible terms.
48 Brumbaugh 1958, 506 claims that ‘every department of existence, when reflected in language,

presents the same systematic form-flow…ambiguity’. This ambiguity gives words power and flexi-
bility and provides the occasion for exploitation of the ambiguity in the way that one finds, e.g., in the
Euthydemus. See also Robinson 1941 and 1942, 106-107, which asserts that ‘All language is ambigu-
 63

ual names so that they reveal contradictory descriptions. Second, the overall con-
sistency of language can be thus established one way or the other. If Socrates can
offer revamped etymologies for a small but varied subset of the names to make
them indicate a Parmenidean world-view, then surely, as he claims, he can do so
for the rest of the language as well. Even if he cannot, that is, if some names only
indicate Heracliteanism, we are still left with what Socrates calls the ‘civil war
among names’ (438d2), and that indicates a basic problem with the methodology
of looking for truth in names. In no case can the seeming systematicity of lan-
guage be used to justify a particular world-view. What makes names so powerful
is that, once they are no longer beholden to an objective standard, they can be
used to create or to shape the world in whatever way one wants.49
In terms of the reductio argument, the fact that the content of the system is at
bottom arbitrary means that appeal to the system cannot save etymology from the
methodological criticisms in §3. Again, we might say that the argument is fin-
ished and we can safely conclude that etymology is not a techne and the natural
names thesis is false. However, the etymologist has one last strategy to pursue.
He might claim that it is still possible that a system of names may be found based
on the theoretical connection between names and beings. That is, if names can be
objectively grounded in the nature of beings, we can build up the systematic con-
tent and, in that way, save the methodology, etymology, and the natural names
thesis. In the next section, I explore Plato’s strategy of parodic amplification at
the level of theory; we see Socrates pursuing the theoretical underpinning of ety-
mology to its logical and absurd conclusion.

V. The Parody of the Theory of Etymology

The last part of the parody shows how pursuit of the method of etymology all
the way down to the basic level of the letters leads to absurdity. According to
Cratylus, the original name-makers, based on their knowledge, named everything
correctly (429b10-11, 436b12-c2). Without this assumption, it is hard to see how
etymology could possibly be a guide to truth. He adduces, in support of this, the
proof of the consistently Heraclitean assumptions that all names encode (437b-c).
The practice of etymology requires an originally ideal and perfectly correct lan-
guage in order to provide it with a final goal for its analyses. But even this ideal
language requires explanation—what, in short, grounds this ideal language? On
what basis was the ideal language constructed? Socrates presses these questions
and formulates the imitation theory of letters, which provides the culmination of

ous, then, in the sense that every sentence and every word has an indefinite number of meanings; and
the range of these meanings is usually much wider for words than for sentences’. Yet to argue that
Plato had a very limited concept of ambiguity, he marginalizes evidence from the Euthydemus and
Cratylus (1942, 105-114), and focuses on Plato’s lack of a technical term for ambiguity (see Sprague
1962, 7-8, 8n5 for an attack on Robinson’s view).
49 See Berger 1971, 21. Cf. the portrayals of Worse Argument (889ff.) and Thinkery-educated

Pheidippides (1321ff.) in Aristophanes’ Clouds. Both understand words however they want and use
their facility at manipulating words to create the world in their own selfish image.
64

the parody by exposing as absurd the only possible theoretical foundation for ety-
mology (421c-427d).
When Hermogenes finally notices that many of the etymologies resolve into
ἰόν (going), ῥέον (flowing), or δοῦν (binding), he asks to have these names ana-
lyzed (421c4-6). It will be useful to have an overview of Socrates’ fairly lengthy
response. Socrates replies by first making a distinction between primary and
derivative names (422a-e); he then proposes imitation as a principle of correct-
ness for primary names whereby the letters imitate the being of each thing (422e-
424b); he then describes the necessary conditions for name-maker’s
accomplishment of the imitation as involving a prior taxonomy both of the letters
and of being (424b-425b); he then pauses to issue an emphatic disclaimer sug-
gesting that the very proposal they are considering is ‘outrageous and absurd’
(425b-426b); but he continues nevertheless to demonstrate the theory by provid-
ing analyses for a whole series of letters (426b-427d). As soon as Socrates hands
the account over to Cratylus, who endorses it wholeheartedly (428b-d), Socrates
immediately reverses course and declares himself distrustful of the whole enter-
prise (428d-e).
The initial moves in the parodic amplification seem plausible, but, by the end,
Socrates is demonstrating the implications of an absurd theory. Socrates first
acknowledges that, unless there are some primary names out of which the deriva-
tive ones are composed, a vicious regress will ensue and the whole etymological
enterprise will be hopeless (421d-422b). In other words, some account of the pri-
mary names is necessary for the discipline of etymology to be legitimate.
Socrates insists that there is ‘one kind of correctness’ for both primary and
derivative names: ‘expressing what sort of thing each of the beings are’ (422c7-
d3). The derivative names achieve this task through, or on the basis of, the pri-
mary ones. It is worth pausing to note that the primary names are all
motion-related terms and that we are still firmly within a Heraclitean framework
here. There is a difficulty, however; since the primary names are not themselves
based on names, we need something else on which to base their expressive ability
(422d-e). At this point, Socrates introduces imitation, which is supposed to
explain how the primary names are able to express, and abruptly breaks up names
into their constituent letters and syllables: he asks, ‘If someone were able to imi-
tate the essence of each thing in letters and syllables, wouldn’t he express what
each thing itself is?’ (423e7-9). Letters, which earlier were either irrelevant or a
hindrance, become the theoretical grounding for the expressive ability of
names.50 Indeed, the legitimacy of etymology itself as a techne rests entirely on
the letters. The letters must play this foundational role since they are the basic
elements of names. At this point, it is clear that Socrates is endorsing the strong
version of the natural names thesis, that is, the natural correctness of a name con-
sists both [1] in its referring to a stable nature and [2] in its constituents, i.e., syl-

50 In Gonzalez’s analysis, the letters become the ‘only point of contact between language and

reality’ (1998, 75).

 65

lables and letters, being naturally suited to refer to the object in question. The
need to break up names into even smaller constituents is a direct result of the
internal orientation of [2].
Before demonstrating the imitation theory of letters, Socrates articulates its
necessary conditions, that is, he describes how the original name-makers would
have gone about using letters to imitate beings in the construction of the origi-
nally ideal language. A one-to-one mapping of letters to beings requires an initial
division of both the letters and being. Socrates claims it would be ‘most correct to
separate out the letters or elements (τὰ στοιχεῖα) first’ (424b8-10). After briefly
describing how that would work, Socrates claims that ‘having examined all these
things well, we’ll know how to apply each letter to what it resembles’ (424e4-5),
only ‘when we’ve separated out the beings to which it is necessary to apply
names’ (424c9-d2).51 In other words, the original name-makers needed prior
knowledge of being in order accurately to map the letters onto the things that
they are supposed to imitate. This is, and is meant to be, an unreasonably high
requirement, which is nevertheless absolutely necessary in terms of the theory.
Socrates claims that ‘connecting names to things in some other way would be
cheap and unsystematic (οὐ καθ᾿ ὁδόν)’ (425b).
Just after formulating the necessary conditions of the construction of the origi-
nal language, Socrates reflects on its implications for the methodology of etymol-
ogy. He and Hermogenes have been put in an impossible situation, whereby their
analysis of the names requires an understanding of the letters, but that requires
prior knowledge of being, which was the very reason they began investigating
names in the first place (425b-c). Socrates acknowledges both the absurdity and
the necessity: ‘Perhaps it will seem ridiculous (γελοῖα) to think that things come
to be expressed by being imitated in letters and syllables. Nevertheless, it is nec-
essary (ἀνἀγκη), since we have nothing better than imitation on which we might
have based the truth of primary names’ (425d1-3). Indeed, Socrates explicitly
fleshes out the reason why:
If someone is in any way ignorant about the correctness of pri-
mary names, it is surely impossible that he know about the
derivative ones, which of necessity express by means of the
others about which he knows nothing. Rather, it is clear that
the one who declares himself to be skillful (τεχνικόν) about
derivative names must be able to elucidate the primary names
above all and with perfect clarity. Otherwise he can be sure
that what he says about the others will be complete nonsense
(φλυαρήσει). (426a3-b3)
Socrates articulates here the structure of the discipline of etymology, the practice
of which both aims at and requires the knowledge of being. Socrates calls his
own suggestion ‘entirely outrageous and ridiculous (ὑβριστικὰ…καὶ γελοῖα)’

51 Socrates does allow that, in some cases, the mapping will involve syllables to beings and not

just letters to beings (424d6-7, 424e5-425a1).

66

and suggests that Hermogenes propose something better (426b6).52 The preced-
ing discussion backed Socrates into a corner and the argument here seems most
clearly to be a reductio ad absurdum of the natural names thesis.53
Despite this strong repudiation of the view, Socrates nevertheless demonstrates
the theory. Using the parodic strategy of amplification, this is just what one
would expect. The imitation theory of letters, widely misunderstood to be an
onomatopoeiac view about the phonemes, i.e., sounds of the letters, or the letters
themselves, rather concerns how we make the sounds of the letters with our
mouths, as Socrates’ descriptions make clear.54 The whole parody culminates in
this demonstration. A letter imitates reality through the physical motions of the
tongue and mouth in articulating it. The world is imitated by blowing, sucking,
pulsating and licking, that is, by taking it in one’s mouth.55 Rho is used by the
name-maker to imitate every kind of motion because ‘the tongue, in pronouncing
it, is least of all resting and most of all vibrating’ (426e4-5); sigma, phi, psi, and
zeta, are pronounced with ‘much expulsion of breath’ and thus imitate blowing or
breathing (427a1-3); the ‘compression and pressure of the tongue’ involved in
pronouncing delta and tau explain its imitation of stopping and resting (427a7-
b2); lambda, which requires a gliding of the tongue, imitates gliding, sliding and
smoothness (427b2-5); the production of the nu sound inside our mouths quali-
fies it for imitating interiors and insides, etc. (427c1-3); omicron signifies round-
ness (perhaps) because we make an ‘o’ with our mouth when pronouncing it
(427c4-6). The motions of the mouth imitate the motions of beings.56 We are thus
still within a decidedly Heraclitean framework with motions mapping onto and
imitating other motions. Indeed, it is not at all clear how the theory could be
made non-Heraclitean, since it is precisely the motions of the tongue and mouth
that imitate. How, for example, could mouthing the letters imitate, stable, eternal

52 See Bestor 1980, 319-320 and Williams 1982, 92, which rightly notes that the articulation of

the mimetic aspect of the theory is ‘loaded with irony and warnings’ and infers that ‘an attachment to
Cratylean mimēsis is banished by the conclusion of the Cratylus’.
53 See Anagnostopolous 1972, 723-726, which acknowledges the necessity of the move to the

level of the letters, but, despite clearly seeing the absurd consequences of the theory and even admit-
ting that Plato makes clear that he saw those consequences, still insists that the proposal is serious.
54 The vocal imitation is explicitly rejected as a candidate both because it would imply absurdly

that the onomatopoeiac ‘mooing’ and ‘baaing’ would count as naming cows and sheep respectively
(423b) and because sound is the provenance of music not name-making (423d). As music imitates the
sound of a thing, the letter is supposed to imitate a thing’s being (423e). Some commentators, e.g.,
Berger 1971, 223, have quoted the passage where Socrates articulates the vocal imitation thesis while
ignoring his very next statement, in which he rejects it out of hand. For those who seem to understand
Socrates’ claim here, see Bestor 1980, 319; Williams 1982, 84. The former speaks of ‘muscular like-
ness’ and the latter, more promisingly, of ‘the action of producing a certain vocal sound’.
55 The metaphorical implications of taking the world in one’s mouth indirectly verifies part of

the thesis that I am putting forth, namely, that the content of what names reveal about the world is
postulated—and not discovered—by the etymologist.
56 A curious exception to these explanations is iota which, it is said, imitates ‘all small, light (τὰ

λέπτα) things that can most easily penetrate everything’ (426e6-7); here, it seems, the thin, physical
composition of the letter has determined its meaning.
 67

and immutable forms? How could doing so imitate them insofar as they are sta-
ble, eternal and immutable? This seems impossible. The best that the theory can
do is, using the least violent motions of the mouth, imitate rest and stopping
within a larger framework of continual motion.57
The parody thus ends with a crescendo of demonstrations, and this ending is
clearly marked in several ways. First, Socrates declares, summing up, ‘This, Her-
mogenes, appears to me to be the theory of the correctness of names, unless
Cratylus has some other view’ (427c9-d2). Socrates thus connects the view he
has been articulating to Cratylus and submits it for the latter’s approval. Second,
Hermogenes, picking up on this, challenges Cratylus either to accept the view
being offered on his behalf or to reject it in favor of a different one. When so
challenged, Cratylus concedes that this is in fact the view that he endorses. Third,
twice here at the end, Socrates disclaims both ownership and endorsement of the
view. He says, ‘I would not positively affirm any of the things I have said. I
merely expressed the opinions which I reached with the help of Hermogenes’
(428a6-8) and ‘My good Cratylus, I myself have been wondering at my own wis-
dom all along, and I distrust (ἀπιστῶ) it’ (428d1-2). Socrates would hardly end a
seriously meant theory of language by foisting responsibility for it on someone
else while at the same time undermining the truth of its claims. Part of Socrates’
strategy seems to involve drawing Cratylus out of his silence and into a dialecti-
cal examination of his view. In this task, at least, Socrates is successful (see
Nightingale 2003).
That Socrates intends the imitation theory parodically is again also confirmed
by explicit argument. Socrates marshals three powerful arguments against Craty-
lus, when the latter takes over defense of the theory. First, the two Cratyluses
argument (432a-d) shows imitation, the only plausible candidate for mapping let-
ters onto the beings, to be particularly ill-suited to the task. Socrates argues that if
a name is an imitation and it must be a perfect imitation, then the distinction
between language and reality would simply collapse.58 A perfect imitation of
Cratylus would cease to be an imitation—it would be another Cratylus. In this
case, we would not even be able to tell the difference between a name and its ref-
57 An anonymous reviewer has suggested that one could preserve the strong version of the natu-

ral names thesis, i.e. [1] and [2], along with the imitation theory of letters, if one drops one’s commit-
ment to Heracliteanism. If this were right, then it would substantially weaken my claim that the
parody functions as a reductio. This objection fails, in my view, because the imitation theory is itself
bound up with a Heraclitean world-view. For, assuming one’s metaphysics included eternally stable
objects, a deeper problem with the imitation theory would be that, while motion is varied and multi-
form, metaphysical stability seems constant and uniform, and only one sort of motion would be nec-
essary to imitate it. While this might work for Parmenidean monism, the imitative theory would seem
to lack the resources to accommodate a metaphysics with many such objects or to account for the dis-
tinction between being merely at rest, like a stone, and being eternally stable, like a form. Thus, even
if Plato is, in some sense, a Heraclitean about the physical world, names are used primarily to refer to
and attain knowledge of forms. The imitation theory of letters seems particularly ill-equipped to show
how this is possible.
58 Weingartner 1970, 12 clearly sees that the argument rules out the possibility of ‘perfect repre-

sentation regardless of what the mode of representation might turn out to be’.
68

erent. Second, Socrates presents the example of number as a counterexample to

any imitation theory (435b-c). It is impossible to come up with an imitative prin-
ciple that would explain the names for numbers. Third, the prior knowledge
requirement implies that there must be another way that being can be known such
that names cannot be the exclusive path to truth that Cratylus’ version of the nat-
ural names thesis takes it to be. The original name-makers needed to know the
nature of the beings to be imitated before mapping the letters onto them. Socrates
thereby reveals an incoherence in the theory: by asserting that names are the only
path to truth, Cratylus makes the originally correct assignment of names impossi-
ble. Socrates argues that Cratylus’ theory has cut off the possibility of the name-
makers ever acquiring the systematic knowledge required to name things
accurately: ‘how can we possibly say that the name-makers set down names with
knowledge before any names had been set down for them to know, if things can
only be learned through their names?’ (438b5-8). Socrates asserts the need for
independent standard of ‘the beings themselves’; as I put this above, Socrates
wants us to focus on the reference and not the meaning of names. One ought to
abandon etymology and rather pursue dialectic.
In terms of the larger reductio argument, since the theoretical underpinning of
etymology has been exposed as absurd, the argument is complete, and the ety-
mologist has no further recourse and no deeper level of analysis to which he can
appeal.

VI. The Implications of the Parody for Plato’s View of Language

To sum up the critical implications, the discipline of etymology has been
amplified to absurdity on all three levels: the arbitrariness of its methodology, the
illusoriness of its systematic breadth and the absurdity of the imitation theory on
which the discipline depends. On each level, Socrates parodies etymology by
homing in on and exploiting the various possibilities of analysis that etymology
offers; in doing so, he amplifies the logic of etymology to absurdity, exposing its
arbitrariness as a way of unpacking the true meaning of any given individual
name and as a way of revealing the truth about the world. The criticisms of ety-
mology are quite damning. It will be worth briefly summarizing them. First, the
methodology is arbitrary. There is no clear test for choosing amongst competing
etymologies; adding and removing letters from names allows one to derive any
given thing from any given name; and the proper direction of an etymological
derivation is undetermined. By choosing an arbitrary starting point, one could
seem to explain the whole range of existence. All of these methodological issues
are compounded by the fact that names undergo radical variability of meaning
over time. Second, the systematic scope and content of Socrates’ use of etymol-
ogy are shown to be in fact based on an arbitrary starting-point and thus no evi-
dence in favor of the truth of the etymological analyses and no defense against
Socrates’ methodological criticisms. Third, etymology must be grounded in
some theory that distinguishes primary and derivative names in order to justify
its methodology, but the only theory on offer is both absurd and committed to a
 69

false metaphysical picture. Last, and most importantly, etymology can only ever
get at the meaning of a name, but it does not even broach the question of its ref-
erence, that is, it asks the wrong sort of questions. Socrates’ remedy is ‘to look to
something other than names’ (438d4-5), that is, to abandon etymology, if one
wants to attain the ‘truth about beings’ (438d7-8).
I hope to have shown that Plato’s parody of the discipline of etymology func-
tions as a reductio ad absurdum of the natural names thesis. Though the initial
formulation is unclear, the version of the thesis that Socrates’ etymologizing pur-
ports to defend encompasses two claims: [1] the natural correctness of a name
consists in its referring to a stable nature and [2] the natural correctness of a
name consists in its constituents, i.e., syllables and letters, being naturally suited
to refer to the object in question. To repeat, if the natural names thesis is true,
then etymology is a systematic techne, one that reveals the truth about beings
through an analysis of names. If it is a techne, then it must have a consistent
methodology. If etymology does have a consistent methodology, then it must
derive from or answer to the systematic way that names reveal the world. If
names reveal the world in a systematic way, then this systematicity must be
grounded in a theoretical basis whereby names connect to world. The attempt to
articulate such a theoretical basis, i.e., the imitation theory of letters, is shown to
be absurd; therefore etymology is no techne and the natural names thesis is false.
However, the significance of the parody is not entirely negative—for there is
both an absurd way and a serious way in which words are the path to philosophi-
cal truth.
The dialogue only gestures at a positive view about names, and I can only
sketch an account here. Names are in the end shown to be both conventional and
natural, but not in the ways that Cratylus and Hermogenes have in mind. The
weaker version of the natural names thesis holds that names are natural in their
ability to refer beyond themselves to stable natures, that is, they are capable of
reference. However, Socrates shows that names are also conventional, in the
sense that the shared use of a name allows us to discuss its referent in the pursuit
of knowledge, though the particular letters and syllables in a name are irrelevant
to such reference (434b-435a).59 Recall that Socrates assigns the dual function of
names as teaching and dividing being (388b-c). The theory that Socrates devel-
ops on Cratylus’ behalf deemphasizes the interpersonal, educative function, such
that the metaphysics of the world can be read off names abstracted from their use
in conversation; knowing the name thus obviates the need for inquiry. In the
dialectical discussion with Cratylus, Socrates highlights and restores the interper-

59 In Bestor’s view, the irrelevance of the letters makes Plato a conventionalist (1980, 322-327).

In one sense, I agree that it does, but recall that Hermogenes’ articulation of the view is coupled with
Protagorean relativism and that Socrates’ refutation insists on the stability of the objects of reference
(385e-386e). The point of making this connection is not that Hermogenes’ view logically implies rel-
ativism but that his view divorces names from their context in the shared pursuit of knowledge and
conceives of correctness only in terms of agreement amongst speakers about use (see also Silverman
1992, 34-35).
70

sonal, educative function (see 428e5, 434b-435a, 435e-436a), even getting

Cratylus to claim that education is the primary task of a name (435d4). Socrates
is at pains to show that names will not accomplish this task on their own. Indeed,
given the endemic ambiguity of names (437a-d) and the unreliability of those
who set them down (436b-e), names will never be more than imperfect guides to
the metaphysics of the universe. Only through a certain kind of use—dialectical
question and answer (390c-d)—will names be able to teach and divide being.
This kind of use, however, requires shifting one’s focus away from names (and
their internal constituents) and towards the things to which names refer. Names
are, in short, subordinate to the things themselves: ‘If then it’s really true that one
can learn about things both through names and through themselves, which would
be the better and clearer way of learning?’ (439a5-7). Socrates is suggesting here
that even if names are imitations in the way that Cratylus claims they are, ety-
mology would still be methodologically inferior to dialectic, since dialectic
focuses its inquiry on the thing itself and not the imitation, i.e., the name.
Socrates demurs on giving a full account of the proper way to learn and make
discoveries about beings, on the grounds that ‘it is too large a topic’, but he
insists on the methodological priority of the beings themselves (439b4-8). To
restate a point from above, we should be seeking knowledge of justice itself, not
of the meaning of the name, ‘justice’.
On my reading, Socrates is firmly committed to [1], which ties natural correct-
ness of a name to a stable nature. In short, a naturally correct name has an actual
referent. This is, I take it, a minimal implication of accepting [1]. A naturally
incorrect name would be one that has no naturally stable referent: e.g., discred-
ited scientific concepts like ‘humor’, nonsense words like ‘loopdid’, or terms
picking out arbitrary aggregates like ‘barbarian’ (see Stm. 262d-e). Some schol-
ars have wanted to go further, attributing to Plato the more robust view that one
ought to try to construct an ideal language, or at least a technical terminology, in
which all names are precisely defined. This would, in a sense, achieve [2] by
other means.60 According to this view, Plato wants us to use the results of dialec-
tical analyses to establish an ideal language, wherein each name is precisely
defined by an account of the essence, the what-it-is, of the thing to which it

60 Given that the imitation theory of letters is part of Plato’s parodic attack on etymology and

given the arguments verifying the parody, it seems clear that Plato is not endorsing imitation as a
principle for the construction of an ideal language. However, the parody and supporting arguments do
not directly attack or target the possibility of an ideal language. Some scholars claim that what we are
meant to take from the parody is that an ideal language ought to be established, even if we cannot
count on using etymology to return to an original one. Philosophers could simply abandon ordinary
language and, using the results of dialectic, either establish an ideal language, or, less ambitiously,
use such a language as a regulative ideal in order to establish a technical terminology. The first view
is Kretzmann’s: he argues that Plato advocates ‘the project of a precise, perfectly systematic concept-
notation, an artificial language…as the embodiment of the results of Platonic dialectic’ (1971, 137).
Baxter endorses the less ambitious model: he suggests that Plato sets a ‘prescriptive ideal’ that
philosophers, through dialectical inquiry, ought to strive for; that ideal would, on his view, have a
‘mathematical model’ and radically depart from ordinary language (1992, 48, 54).
 71

refers. However, I suggest that the implications of the attack on the imitation the-
ory of letters generalize in such a way as to reveal the more ambitious achieve-
ment of an ideal language to be impossible and the less ambitious aspiration to
establish a fixed technical terminology to be misguided.
First, in order to be developed, an ideal language would require a full taxon-
omy of being in advance; this renders the motivation for an ideal language inco-
herent. Either the ideal language will be established on the basis of knowledge
achieved through names or in some other way; either way, the knowledge and its
acquisition are prior to and independent of the ideal language (see Partee 1972,
130-131). Once we are in possession of full systematic knowledge, attempting to
establish an ideal language no longer makes sense, since the systematic knowl-
edge of being is presumably what we wanted in the first place—if it can be had
using ordinary language, why bother with an ideal one? Similar considerations
apply to a technical terminology: once the work of inquiry is done using the ordi-
nary name and we have precise knowledge of the object, why do we need a tech-
nically precise name? The systematic knowledge requirement shows that the
ideal language aspiration wants names already to have done the work of inquiry
for us so that we no longer need to inquire at all.61
Second, an ideal language would have to exist a-temporally to achieve and
maintain fixity; this is impossible. In the parody, time and again, the tendency of
names to shift in composition and meaning over time is highlighted as an enor-
mous obstacle to etymology and is the feature of language that makes the recov-
ery of the original names so important. Part of the ideal language aspiration seeks
to exempt names from convention and its ‘corrupting’ influences. But Plato
seems certain that this is not possible. He has Socrates adduce a counter-exam-
ple, which shows that fixity is not necessary either for teaching or for dividing
being, the dual functions of names.62 If we needed an ideal language or a techni-
cal vocabulary in order to do these things, we would be in real trouble: Socrates
claims that attempting to prevent convention and change from infecting the pre-
cision and fixity of an ideal language or a technical terminology would be like
hauling a boat up a very sticky ramp or, in other words, a quixotic enterprise
(435c).
Third, an ideal language would have to eliminate all ambiguity, but this simply
not possible. The ambiguity of names is endemic and can be seen as operative on
three levels: First, names themselves are ambiguous in meaning, in that they can
be analyzed in different and incompatible ways. Second, names are ambiguous in

61 The only use, it seems, for an ideal language would be to express already established truths

(435dff.). In an ideal language, inquiry is impossible.

62 Socrates refers to the words for ‘hardness’ in Attic and Etrerian, σκληρότης and σκληροτήρ

respectively (434cff.), and, most importantly, he gets Cratylus to admit that he understands what they
mean. Thus, despite presence in both names of an allegedly alien lambda, which is meant to indicate
softness, and the differences between the words (sigma versus rho) that should alter their signifi-
cance, Socrates manages to use both to pick out the notion of hardness and to communicate this
notion to Cratylus.
72

reference, since—assuming a Platonic account—they are used both to refer the

stable natures, or essences, and the objects and properties which owe their unity
to the stable natures.63 Third, however precisely one defines a name, it cannot be
guaranteed that the definition will mean the same thing to everyone; unless the
essence can simply be read off the definition, there will be a gap between the
meaning and the reference of the name.
In short, ordinary, imperfect names are sufficient for philosophical inquiry, and
Plato is no radical revisionist about ordinary language.64 The Heraclitean and the
Parmenidean, by contrast, must be. The important or relevant difference for Plato
is not between ordinary language and technical language as such but between dif-
ferent uses of language and their relation to the stable natures that make reference
possible at all. The possibility of successful reference is parasitic on the existence
of a stable nature, that is, the principle of unity that makes that object or property
fit to be considered as a unified individual and not merely a collection of objects
or properties. The ordinary use of language refers explicitly to individual objects
and properties and implicitly to the stable natures, whereas the dialectical use
explicitly aims at and refers to the stable nature in order to attain knowledge of
them. Put differently, the ambiguity of names is a pregnant one. Thus, the dialec-
tician can exploit what is implicit in ordinary discourse—that names refer implic-
itly to the stable natures. Dialectical inquiry puts names to philosophical use in a
dialogue that attempts to understand the referents themselves.65
Names are thus imperfect tools for our inquiries. But they are nevertheless nec-
essary. In the absence of direct access to justice itself, we must rely on names for
our epistemic contact with it. Further, such access, through noetic vision, could
likely only come through the process of dialectical inquiry.66 Since the meaning
63 In the Phaedo, Socrates distinguishes between the name, which refers to the form, and the

eponym, which refers to the participants (102a ff.). Silverman, taking his bearings from this passage,
argues that the point of the Cratylus is to demonstrate ‘by misdirection’ the necessity of this distinc-
tion, i.e., ‘that a given name refers to or signifies by nature a Form, and that the same name refers to
or signifies by convention all those entities that ‘participate’ in that Form’ (1992, 26-27). My account,
while in some ways similar, is more dynamic. The crucial difference is between different uses of
names: see below.
64 Thus I disagree with Barney’s reading, which holds that ‘our ordinary language…is deceptive

because its names embody a thoroughly mistaken conceptual scheme’ (1998, 95). In my view, Plato’s
point is just the opposite: a name, even in its ordinary use, points us implicitly in the direction of the
stable natures themselves (see also Gonzalez 1998, 87, 309n50). Barney’s point might hold if Plato
genuinely believed that names systematically embodied the flux doctrine. At most, Socrates concedes
that it seems to him that many names were given based on the belief in the flux doctrine (439b10-d1).
Even in that case, some others were given based on at least one other alternative metaphysical view,
and we are left with ‘the civil war among names’ (438d2).
65 Analyzing the ordinary use of a name may well get us to the meaning in a given language, but

it will get us no closer to knowing the referent. The point is not that the ordinary use of ordinary lan-
guage is sufficient for philosophical inquiry but that the philosophical, or dialectical, use of ordinary
language is necessary.
66 Direct access to justice via noetic vision would obviate the need for discussion and may be

considered the goal of dialectical analyses (see Silverman 2001, 26). Given that we cannot, unlike the
gods, ‘hold’ our mind’s gaze on the forms indefinitely, it may be that philosophical discussion will be
 73

of a name changes over time, it will not be possible to capture perfectly the
nature of a being in a timelessly true definition. We will be able to formulate def-
initions that are adequate to a particular dialectical context and that reveal—at
least partly—the nature of the object of inquiry. This is obviously not to deny
definition a place in the pursuit of knowledge; it is, however, to deny that it is the
final end of inquiry.

VII. Conclusion
My main aim has been to show how the parody of etymology is meant to func-
tion as an argument against a particular view of names, the strong version of the
natural names thesis, and to show the serious defects of etymology as a method-
ology. On my interpretation, Plato wants us to endorse a weaker version of the
natural names thesis and to turn away from names in order to focus our efforts on
attaining knowledge of the natures themselves through dialectic. This under-
standing of the parody has further implications for Plato’s attitude toward an
ideal language. I argue that, for reasons that have to do with the imperfection and
variability in names, Plato thinks that the more ambitious achievement of an ideal
language is impossible and the less ambitious aspiration to establish a fixed tech-
nical terminology is misguided. In the end, for Plato, the role of names in inquiry
is itself ambiguous: they both open up the possibility of philosophical insights
about beings and at the same time restrict our attempts at formulating and
expressing them.
Department of Philosophy
Marquette University
Milwaukee WI 53201

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