Note 85 — Chapter XXXI · KRATYLUS.

Plato, Krat. pp. 424-425. Schleiermacher declares this to be among the greatest and most profound truths which have ever been enunciated about language (Introduction to Kratylus, p. 11). Stallbaum, on the contrary, regards it as not even seriously meant, but mere derision of others (Prolegg. ad Krat. p. 12). Another commentator on Plato calls it “eine Lehre der Sophistischen Sprachforscher“ (August Arnold, Einleitung in die Philosophie — durch die Lehre Platons vermittelt — p. 178, Berlin, 1841).

Proklus, in his Commentary, says that the scope of this dialogue is to exhibit the imitative or generative faculty which essentially belongs to the mind, and whereby the mind (aided by the vocal or pronunciative imagination — λεκτικὴ φαντασία) constructs names which are natural transcripts of the essences of things (Proklus, Schol. ad Kratyl. pp. 1-21 ed. Boissonnade; Alkinous, Introd. ad Platon. c. 6).

Ficinus, too, in his argument to the Kratylus (p. 768), speaks much about the mystic sanctity of names, recognised not merely by Pythagoras and Plato, but also by the Jews and Orientals. He treats the etymologies in the Kratylus as seriously intended. He says not a word about any intention on the part of Plato to deride the Sophists or any other Etymologists.

So also Sydenham, in his translation of Plato’s Philêbus (p. 33), designates the Kratylus as “a dialogue in which is taught the nature of things, as well the permanent as the transient, by a supposed etymology of Names and Words”.