Cratylus | Page 7

and puzzling mankind
by an ironical exaggeration of their absurdities. Such were
Aristophanes and Rabelais; such, in a different style, were Sterne, Jean
Paul, Hamann,-- writers who sometimes become unintelligible through
the extravagance of their fancies. Such is the character which Plato
intends to depict in some of his dialogues as the Silenus Socrates; and
through this medium we have to receive our theory of language.
There remains a difficulty which seems to demand a more exact answer:
In what relation does the satirical or etymological portion of the
dialogue stand to the serious? Granting all that can be said about the
provoking irony of Socrates, about the parody of Euthyphro, or
Prodicus, or Antisthenes, how does the long catalogue of etymologies
furnish any answer to the question of Hermogenes, which is evidently
the main thesis of the dialogue: What is the truth, or correctness, or
principle of names?
After illustrating the nature of correctness by the analogy of the arts,
and then, as in the Republic, ironically appealing to the authority of the
Homeric poems, Socrates shows that the truth or correctness of names
can only be ascertained by an appeal to etymology. The truth of names
is to be found in the analysis of their elements. But why does he admit
etymologies which are absurd, based on Heracleitean fancies, fourfold
interpretations of words, impossible unions and separations of syllables
and letters?
1. The answer to this difficulty has been already anticipated in part:

Socrates is not a dogmatic teacher, and therefore he puts on this wild
and fanciful disguise, in order that the truth may be permitted to appear:
2. as Benfey remarks, an erroneous example may illustrate a principle
of language as well as a true one: 3. many of these etymologies, as, for
example, that of dikaion, are indicated, by the manner in which
Socrates speaks of them, to have been current in his own age: 4. the
philosophy of language had not made such progress as would have
justified Plato in propounding real derivations. Like his master Socrates,
he saw through the hollowness of the incipient sciences of the day, and
tries to move in a circle apart from them, laying down the conditions
under which they are to be pursued, but, as in the Timaeus, cautious
and tentative, when he is speaking of actual phenomena. To have made
etymologies seriously, would have seemed to him like the
interpretation of the myths in the Phaedrus, the task 'of a not very
fortunate individual, who had a great deal of time on his hands.' The
irony of Socrates places him above and beyond the errors of his
contemporaries.
The Cratylus is full of humour and satirical touches: the inspiration
which comes from Euthyphro, and his prancing steeds, the light
admixture of quotations from Homer, and the spurious dialectic which
is applied to them; the jest about the fifty-drachma course of Prodicus,
which is declared on the best authority, viz. his own, to be a complete
education in grammar and rhetoric; the double explanation of the name
Hermogenes, either as 'not being in luck,' or 'being no speaker;' the
dearly-bought wisdom of Callias, the Lacedaemonian whose name was
'Rush,' and, above all, the pleasure which Socrates expresses in his own
dangerous discoveries, which 'to-morrow he will purge away,' are truly
humorous. While delivering a lecture on the philosophy of language,
Socrates is also satirizing the endless fertility of the human mind in
spinning arguments out of nothing, and employing the most trifling and
fanciful analogies in support of a theory. Etymology in ancient as in
modern times was a favourite recreation; and Socrates makes merry at
the expense of the etymologists. The simplicity of Hermogenes, who is
ready to believe anything that he is told, heightens the effect. Socrates
in his genial and ironical mood hits right and left at his adversaries:
Ouranos is so called apo tou oran ta ano, which, as some philosophers

say, is the way to have a pure mind; the sophists are by a fanciful
explanation converted into heroes; 'the givers of names were like some
philosophers who fancy that the earth goes round because their heads
are always going round.' There is a great deal of 'mischief' lurking in
the following: 'I found myself in greater perplexity about justice than I
was before I began to learn;' 'The rho in katoptron must be the addition
of some one who cares nothing about truth, but thinks only of putting
the mouth into shape;' 'Tales and falsehoods have generally to do with
the Tragic and goatish life, and tragedy is the place of them.' Several
philosophers and sophists are mentioned by name: first, Protagoras and
Euthydemus are assailed; then the interpreters of Homer, oi palaioi
Omerikoi (compare Arist. Met.) and the Orphic poets are alluded