Note 34 — Chapter XXXI · KRATYLUS.

See a good passage of Winckelmann, Prolegg. ad Platon. Euthydemum, p. xlvii., respecting Protagoras and Prodikus, as writers and critics on language.

Stallbaum says, Proleg. ad Krat. p. 11:— “Quibus verbis haud dubié notantur Sophistæ; qui, neglectis linguæ elementis, derivatorum et compositorum verborum originationem temeré ad suum arbitrium tractabant”. Ibid. p. 4:— “In Cratylo ineptæ etymologiæ specimina exhibentur, ita quidem ut haudquaquam dubitari liceat, quin ista omnia ad mentem sophistarum maximeque Protagoreorum joculari imitatione explicata sint”.

In spite of these confident assertions, — first, that the Sophists are the persons intended to be ridiculed, next, that they deserved to be so ridiculed — Stallbaum has another passage, p. 15, wherein he says, “Jam vero quinam fuerint philosophi isti atque etymologi, qui in Cratylo ridentur et exploduntur, vulgo parum exploratum habetur”. He goes on to say that neither Prodikus nor Antisthenes is meant, but Protagoras and the Protagoreans. To prove this he infers, from a passage in this dialogue (c. 11, p. 391 C), that Protagoras had written a book περὶ ὀρθότητος τῶν ὀνομάτων (Heindorf and Schleiermacher, with better reason, infer from the passage nothing more than the circumstance that Protagoras taught ὀρθοεπείαν or correct speaking and writing). The passage does not prove this; but if it did, what did Protagoras teach in the book? Stallbaum tells us (p. 16):— “Jam si quæras, quid tandem Protagoras ipse de nominum ortu censuerit, fateor unâ conjecturâ nitendum esse, ut de hâc re aliquid eruatur”. He then proceeds to conjecture, from the little which we know respecting Protagoras, what that Sophist must have laid down upon the origin of names; and he finishes by assuming the very point which he ought to have proved (p. 17):— “ex ipso Cratylo intelligimus et cognoscimus, mox inter Protagoræ amicos exstitisse qui inepté hæc studia persequentes, non e verbis et nominibus mentis humanæ notiones elicere et illustrare, sed in verba et nomina sua ipsi decreta transferre et sic ea probare et confirmare niterentur. Quid quidem homines à Platone hoc libro facetissimâ irrisione exagitantur,” &c. I repeat, that in spite of Stallbaum’s confident assertions, he fails in giving the smallest proof that Protagoras or the Sophists proposed etymologies such as to make them a suitable butt for Plato on this occasion. Ast also talks with equal confidence and equal absence of proof about the silly and arbitrary etymological proceedings of the Sophists, which (he says) this dialogue is intended throughout to ridicule (Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, pp. 253-254-264, &c.).