Cratylus (383-387)

Hermogenes. Here is Socrates; shall we take him as a partner in our discussion?

Cratylus. If you like.

Hermogenes. Cratylus, whom you see here, Socrates, says that everything has a right name of its own, which comes by nature, and that a name is not whatever people call a thing by agreement, just a piece of their own voice applied to the thing, but that there is a kind of inherent correctness in names, which is the same for all men, both Greeks and barbarians. So I ask him whether his name is in truth Cratylus, and he agrees that it is. And what is Socrates’ name? I said. Socrates, said he. Then that applies to all men, and the particular name by which we call each person is his name? And he said, Well, your name is not Hermogenes,[*] even if all mankind call you so.

Hermogenes. Now, though I am asking him and am exerting myself to find out what in the world he means, he does not explain himself at all; he meets me with dissimulation, claiming to have some special knowledge of his own about it which would, if he chose to speak it out clearly, make me agree entirely with him. Now if you could interpret Cratylus’s oracular speech, I should like to hear you; or rather, I should like still better to hear, if you please, what you yourself think about the correctness of names.

Socrates. Hermogenes, son of Hipponicus, there is an ancient saying that knowledge of high things is hard to gain; and surely knowledge of names is no small matter. Now if I had attended Prodicus’s fifty-drachma course of lectures, after which, as he himself says, a man has a complete education on this subject, there would be nothing to hinder your learning the truth about the correctness of names at once; but I have heard only the one-drachma course, and so I do not know what the truth is about such matters. However, I am ready to join you and Cratylus in looking for it. But as for his saying that Hermogenes is not truly your name, I suspect he is making fun of you; for perhaps he thinks that you want to make money and fail every time. But, as I said, it is difficult to know such things. We must join forces and try to find out whether you are right, or Cratylus.

Hermogenes. For my part, Socrates, I have often talked with Cratylus and many others, and cannot come to the conclusion that there is any correctness of names other than convention and agreement. For it seems to me that whatever name you give to a thing is its right name; and if you give up that name and change it for another, the later name is no less correct than the earlier, just as we change the names of our servants; for I think no name belongs to any particular thing by nature, but only by the habit and custom of those who employ it and who established the usage. But if this is not the case, I am ready to hear and to learn from Cratylus or anyone else.

Socrates. It may be that you are right, Hermogenes; but let us see. Whatever name we decide to give each particular thing is its name?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. Whether the giver be a private person or a state?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. Well, then, suppose I give a name to some thing or other, designating, for instance, that which we now call man as horse and that which we now call horse as man, will the real name of the same thing be man for the public and horse for me individually, and in the other case horse for the public and man for me individually? Is that your meaning?

Hermogenes. Yes, that is my opinion.

Socrates. Now answer this question. Is there anything which you call speaking the truth and speaking falsehood?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. Then there would be true speech and false speech?

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. Then that speech which says things as they are is true, and that which says them as they are not is false?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. It is possible, then, to say in speech that which is and that which is not?

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. But is true speech true only as a whole, and are its parts untrue?

Hermogenes. No, its parts also are true.

Socrates. Are the large parts true, but not the small ones, or are all true?

Hermogenes. All, in my opinion.

Socrates. Is there, then, anything which you say is a smaller part of speech than a name?

Hermogenes. No, that is the smallest.

Socrates. And the name is spoken as a part of the true speech?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. Then it is, according to you, true.

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. And a part of false speech is false, is it not?

Hermogenes. It is.

Socrates. Then it is possible to utter either a false or a true name, since one may utter speech that is either true or false?

Hermogenes. Yes, of course.

Socrates. Then whatever each particular person says is the name of anything, that is its name for that person?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. And whatever the number of names anyone says a thing has, it will really have that number at the time when he says it?

Hermogenes. Yes, Socrates, for I cannot conceive of any other kind of correctness in names than this; I may call a thing by one name, which I gave, and you by another, which you gave. And in the same way, I see that states have their own different names for the same things, and Greeks differ from other Greeks and from barbarians in their use of names.

Socrates. Now, Hermogenes, let us see. Do you think this is true of the real things, that their reality is a separate one for each person, as Protagoras said with his doctrine that man is the measure of all things—that things are to me such as they seem to me, and to you such as they seem to you—or do you think things have some fixed reality of their own?

Hermogenes. It has sometimes happened to me, Socrates, to be so perplexed that I have been carried away even into this doctrine of Protagoras; but I do not at all believe he is right.

Socrates. Well, have you ever been carried away so far as not to believe at all that any man is bad?

Hermogenes. Lord, no; but I have often been carried away into the belief that certain men, and a good many of them, are very bad.

Socrates. Well, did you never think any were very good?

Hermogenes. Very few.

Socrates. But you did think them so?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. And what is your idea about that? Are the very good very wise and the very bad very foolish?

Hermogenes. Yes, that is my opinion.

Socrates. Now if Protagoras is right and the truth is as he says, that all things are to each person as they seem to him, is it possible for some of us to be wise and some foolish?

Hermogenes. No, it is not.

Socrates. And you are, I imagine, strongly of the opinion that if wisdom and folly exist, it is quite impossible that Protagoras is right, for one man would not in reality be at all wiser than another if whatever seems to each person is really true to him.

Hermogenes. Quite right.

Socrates. But neither do you believe with Euthydemus that all things belong equally to all men at the same time and perpetually,[*] for on this assumption also some could not be good and others bad, if virtue and its opposite were always equally possessed by all.

Hermogenes. True.

Socrates. Then if neither all things belong equally to all men at the same time and perpetually nor each thing to each man individually, it is clear that things have some fixed reality of their own, not in relation to us nor caused by us; they do not vary, swaying one way and another in accordance with our fancy, but exist of themselves in relation to their own reality imposed by nature.

Hermogenes. I think, Socrates, that is the case.

Socrates. Can things themselves, then, possess such a nature as this, and that of their actions be different? Or are not actions also a class of realities?

Hermogenes. Certainly they are.

Socrates. Then actions also are performed according to their own nature, not according to our opinion. For instance, if we undertake to cut anything, ought we to cut it as we wish, and with whatever instrument we wish, or shall we, if we are willing to cut each thing in accordance with the nature of cutting and being cut, and with the natural instrument, succeed in cutting it, and do it rightly, whereas if we try to do it contrary to nature we shall fail and accomplish nothing?

Hermogenes. I think the way is as you suggest.

Socrates. Then, too, if we undertake to burn anything, we must burn not according to every opinion, but according to the right one? And that is as each thing naturally burns or is burned and with the natural instrument?

Hermogenes. True.

Socrates. And all other actions are to be performed In like manner?

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. And speaking is an action, is it not?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. Then if a man speaks as he fancies he ought to speak, will he speak rightly, or will he succeed in speaking if he speaks in the way and with the instrument in which and with which it is natural for us to speak and for things to be spoken, whereas otherwise he will fail and accomplish nothing?

Hermogenes. I think the way you suggest is the right one.

Socrates. Now naming is a part of speaking, for in naming I suppose people utter speech.

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. Then is not naming also a kind of action, if speaking is a kind of action concerned with things?

Hermogenes. Yes.

Socrates. But we saw that actions are not merely relative to us, but possess a separate nature of their own?

Hermogenes. True.

Socrates. Then in naming also, if we are to be consistent with our previous conclusions, we cannot follow our own will, but the way and the instrument which the nature of things prescribes must be employed, must they not? And if we pursue this course we shall be successful in our naming, but otherwise we shall fail.

Hermogenes. I think you are right.

Socrates. And again, what has to be cut, we said, has to be cut with something.

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. And what has to be woven, has to be woven with something, and what has to be bored, has to be bored with something?

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. And then what has to be named, has to be named with something?