Note 1 — Chapter XXXI · KRATYLUS.
Reading edition
In the arguments put into the mouth of Hermogenes, he is made to maintain two opinions which are not identical, but opposed. 1. That names are significant by habit and convention, and not by nature. 2. That each man may and can give any name which he pleases to any object (pp. 384-385).
The first of these two opinions is that which is really discussed here: impugned in the first half of the dialogue, conceded in the second. It is implied that names are to serve the purpose of mutual communication and information among persons living in society; which purpose they would not serve if each individual gave a different name to the same object. The second opinion is therefore not a consequence of the first, but an implied contradiction of the first.
He who says that the names Horse and Dog are significant by convention, will admit that at the outset they might have been inverted in point of signification; but he will not say that any individual may invert them at pleasure, now that they are established. The purposes of naming would no longer be answered, if this were done.