Note 41 — Chapter XXXI · KRATYLUS.
Reading edition
Plato, Kratylus, p. 429 C. Steinhart (Einleit. zum Krat. pp. 549-550) observes that both Kratylus and Hermogenes are represented as understanding seriously these etymologies which are now affirmed to be meant as caricatures.
As specimens of Plato’s view respecting admissible etymologies, we find him in Timæus, p. 43 C, deriving αἴσθησις from ἀΐσσω: again in the same dialogue, p. 62 A, θερμὸς from κερματίζειν. In Legg. iv. 714, we have τὴν τοῦ νοῦ διανομὴν ἐπονομάζοντας νόμον. In Phædrus, p. 238 C, we find ἔρως derived from ἐῤῥωμένως ῥωσθεῖσα.
Aristotle derives ὄσφυς from ἰσοφυές, Histor. Animal. i. 13, p. 493, a. 22: also δίκαιον from δίχα, Ethic. Nikom. v. 7, 1132, a. 31; μεθύειν — μετὰ τὸ θύειν, Athenæus, ii. 40. The Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Περὶ Κόσμου (p. 401, a. 15) adopts the Platonic etymology of Δία-Ζῆνα as δι’ ὃν ζῶμεν
Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, c. 9, p. 948, derives κνέφας from κενὸν φάους.
The Emperor Marcus Antoninus derives ἀκτίς, the ray of the Sun, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐκτείνεσθαι, Meditat. viii. 57.
The Stoics, who were fond of etymologising, borrowed many etymologies from the Platonic Kratylus (Villoison, de Theologiâ Physicâ Stoicorum, in Osann’s edition of Cornutus De Naturâ Deorum, p. 512). Specimens of the Stoic etymologies are given by the Stoic Balbus in Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, ii. 25-29 (64-73).
Dähne (in his Darstellung der Judisch-Alexandrinischen Religions-Philosophie, i. p. 73 seq.) remarks on the numerous etymologies not merely propounded, but assumed as grounds of reasoning by Philo Judæus in commenting upon the Pentateuch, etymologies totally inadmissible and often ridiculous.