Essay --

Nathan VailNovember 8, 2013Dr. ReeveMeaning and Language Platos CratylusPlato was a pioneer in nearly all the topics philosophers have dealt with ever since the fourth century BCE. Language is no exception. Plato was perhaps the first person to rule the philosophy of terminology in the Cratylus, a subject that, since the German philosopher and logician Gottlob Frege, analytic philosophers have been extremely interested in language. The dialogue doesnt tackle all of the problems of language, but it directs its attention toward the questions How to words get sum? Do they exist a priori in nature or do we agree on the basis of convention? To answer this question is to try out how words (or signs) get their power to communicate and to establish something fundamental round what language is. The obvious starting point is that someone has to say that a sound represents a particular item. If I say, Guhgaska, that means nothing, it is gibberish. But if I say the name Plato, then that has meaning, especially if the listener knows what that sound/symbol is a reference to. In this paper I plan on showing that Socrates encourages Cratylus to adopt some of Hermogenes views, and vice versa, through a informal dialectic that adopts both points for consideration (which are unmistakably sophist). What Socrates concludes the dialogue with is a mixture of naturalist and conventional claims, and nominalist and realist philosophies. Cratylus was a devout follower of Heraclitus, the antediluvian patriarch Greek philosopher who said that you dirty dogt step into the same river once, and you cant talk about things because they keep changingyou can solitary(prenominal) point at them with your finger. As we are introduced to Cratylus, we discover that he thinks a name is ... ...(making them concede to certain points to the others argument), language is then naturalistic and conventional, and this, it turns out, is the most logical and pragmatic approach. There may be an arbi ter of words and grammar, but not even she or he can stop words that spring naturally into existence. For example, every language has some form of onomatopoeia, but in different languages the sounds they are act to imitate vary wildly. In one way, Cratylus is correct in take for granted that words and symbols have a nature and attempt to represent quarrys in the external world. Yet imitation cannot match the original form of the objectso there is a degree of failure. The rest of the language is set(p) by convention (numbers, grammar, etc.) and through the dialectic between Cratylus and Hermogenes, Socrates creates a married couple between nominalist and realist philosophy.