Complete Works (28 page)

H
ERMOGENES
: I believe he is.

S
OCRATES
: Do you think that every man is a rule-setter or only the one who possesses the craft?

H
ERMOGENES
: Only the one who possesses the craft.

S
OCRATES
: It follows that it isn’t every man who can give names, Hermogenes, but only a namemaker, and he, it seems, is a rule-setter—the kind
[389]
of craftsman most rarely found among human beings.

H
ERMOGENES
: I suppose so.

S
OCRATES
: Come now, consider where a rule-setter looks in giving names. Use the previous discussion as your guide. Where does a carpenter look in making a shuttle? Isn’t it to that sort of thing whose nature is to weave?

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

[b] S
OCRATES
: Suppose the shuttle breaks while he’s making it. Will he make another looking to the broken one? Or will he look to the very form to which he looked in making the one he broke?

H
ERMOGENES
: In my view, he will look to the form.

S
OCRATES
: Then it would be absolutely right to call that what a shuttle itself is.

H
ERMOGENES
: I suppose so.

S
OCRATES
: Hence whenever he has to make a shuttle for weaving garments of any sort, whether light or heavy, linen or woolen, mustn’t it possess the form of a shuttle? And mustn’t he put into it the nature that [c] naturally best suits it to perform its own work?

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And the same holds of all other tools. When a craftsman discovers the type of tool that is naturally suited for a given type of work, he must embody it in the material out of which he is making the tool. He mustn’t make the tool in whatever way he happens to choose, but in the natural way. So it seems that a blacksmith must know how to embody in iron the type of drill naturally suited for each type of work.

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: And a carpenter must embody in wood the type of shuttle naturally suited for each type of weaving.

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Because it seems that there’s a type of shuttle that’s naturally [d] suited to each type of weaving. And the same holds of tools in general.

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: So mustn’t a rule-setter also know how to embody in sounds and syllables the name naturally suited to each thing? And if he is to be an authentic giver of names, mustn’t he, in making and giving each name, look to what a name itself is? And if different rule-setters do not make [e] each name out of the same syllables, we mustn’t forget
⁷
that different blacksmiths, who are making the same tool for the same type of work, don’t all make it out of the same iron. But as long as they give it the same form—even if that form is embodied in different iron—the tool will be
[390]
correct, whether it is made in Greece or abroad. Isn’t that so?

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Don’t you evaluate Greek and foreign rule-setters in the same way? Provided they give each thing the form of name suited to it, no matter what syllables it is embodied in, they are equally good rule-setters, whether they are in Greece or abroad.

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Now, who is likely to know whether the appropriate form of shuttle is present in any given bit of wood? A carpenter who makes it or [b] a weaver who uses it?

H
ERMOGENES
: In all likelihood, Socrates, it is the one who uses it.

S
OCRATES
: So who uses what a lyre-maker produces? Isn’t he the one who would know best how to supervise the manufacture of lyres and would also know whether what has been made has been well made or not?

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Who is that?

H
ERMOGENES
: A lyre-player.

S
OCRATES
: And who will supervise a ship-builder?

H
ERMOGENES
: A ship’s captain. [c]

S
OCRATES
: And who can best supervise the work of a rule-setter, whether here or abroad, and judge its products? Isn’t it whoever will use them?

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And isn’t that the person who knows how to ask questions?

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: And he also knows how to answer them?

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And what would you call someone who knows how to ask and answer questions? Wouldn’t you call him a dialectician?

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes, I would.

S
OCRATES
: So it’s the work of a carpenter to make a rudder. And if the [d] rudder is to be a fine one, a ship-captain must supervise him.

H
ERMOGENES
: Evidently.

S
OCRATES
: But it’s the work of a rule-setter, it seems, to make a name. And if names are to be given well, a dialectician must supervise him.

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: It follows that the giving of names can’t be as inconsequential a matter as you think, Hermogenes, nor can it be the work of an inconsequential or chance person. So Cratylus is right in saying that things have natural names, and that not everyone is a craftsman of names, but only [e] someone who looks to the natural name of each thing and is able to put its form into letters and syllables.

H
ERMOGENES
: I don’t know how to oppose you, Socrates. It isn’t easy for me suddenly to change my opinion, though. I think you would be
[391]
more likely to persuade me if you showed me just what this natural correctness of names you’re talking about consists in.

S
OCRATES
: My dear Hermogenes, I don’t have a position on this. You have forgotten what I told you a while ago, namely that I didn’t know about names but that I would investigate them with you. And now that we
are
investigating them, you and I, at least this much is clearer than before, that names do possess some sort of natural correctness and that it isn’t every man who knows how to name things well. Isn’t that right? [b]

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: So our next task is to try to discover what this correctness is, if indeed you want to know.

H
ERMOGENES
: Of course I do.

S
OCRATES
: Then investigate the matter.

H
ERMOGENES
: How am I to do that?

S
OCRATES
: The most correct way is together with people who already know, but you must pay them well and show gratitude besides—these are the sophists. Your brother Callias got his reputation for wisdom from [c] them in return for a lot of money. So you had better beg and implore him to teach you what he learned from Protagoras about the correctness of names, since you haven’t yet come into any money of your own.

H
ERMOGENES
: But it would be absurd for me to beg for Protagoras’ “Truth,” Socrates, as if I desired the things contained in it and thought them worthwhile, when I totally reject them.

S
OCRATES
: Well, if that doesn’t suit you, you’ll have to learn from Homer [d] and the other poets.

H
ERMOGENES
: And where does Homer say anything about names, Socrates, and what does he say?

S
OCRATES
: In lots of places. The best and most important are the ones in which he distinguishes between the names humans call things and those the gods call them. Or don’t you think that these passages tell us something remarkable about the correctness of names? Surely, the gods call things [e] by their naturally correct names—or don’t you think so?

H
ERMOGENES
: I certainly know that if they call them by any names at all, it’s by the correct ones. But what passages are you referring to?

S
OCRATES
: Do you know where he says that the Trojan river that had single combat with Hephaestus is “called ‘Xanthos’ by the gods and ‘Skamandros’ by men”?
⁸

H
ERMOGENES
: I certainly do.

[392]
S
OCRATES
: And don’t you think it’s an awe-inspiring thing to know that the river is more correctly called ‘Xanthos’ than ‘Skamandros’? Or consider, if you like, when he says about a certain bird that

The gods call it ‘chalcis’ but men call it ‘cymindis
’.
⁹

Do you think it’s an inconsequential matter to learn that it is far more correct to call this bird ‘
chalcis
’ than to call it ‘
cymindis
’? What about all the similar things that Homer and the other poets tell us? For example, [b] that it is more correct to call a certain hill ‘Murine’ than ‘Batieia’?
¹⁰
But perhaps these examples are too hard for you and me to figure out. It is easier and more within human power, I think, to investigate the kind of correctness Homer ascribes to ‘Skamandrios’ and ‘Astyanax’, which he says are the names of Hector’s son. You know, of course, the lines to which I refer.
¹¹

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Which of the names given to the boy do you suppose Homer thought was more correct, ‘Astyanax’ or ‘Skamandrios’?

H
ERMOGENES
: I really can’t say. [c]

S
OCRATES
: Look at it this way. If you were asked who gives names more correctly, those who are wiser or those who are more foolish, what would you answer?

H
ERMOGENES
: That it is clearly those who are wiser.

S
OCRATES
: And which class do you think is wiser on the whole, a city’s women or its men?

H
ERMOGENES
: Its men.

S
OCRATES
: Now you know, don’t you, that Homer tells us that Hector’s son was called ‘Astyanax’ by the men of Troy?
¹²
But if the men called him [d] ‘Astyanax’, isn’t it clear that ‘Skamandrios’ must be what the women called him?

H
ERMOGENES
: Probably so.

S
OCRATES
: And didn’t Homer also think that the Trojans were wiser than their women?

H
ERMOGENES
: I suppose he did.

S
OCRATES
: So mustn’t he have thought that ‘Astyanax’ was a more correct name for the boy than ‘Skamandrios’?

H
ERMOGENES
: Evidently.

S
OCRATES
: Well, let’s investigate why it is more correct. Doesn’t Homer himself suggest a very good explanation when he says

He alone defended their city and long walls?
¹³
[e]

For because of this, you see, it seems correct to call the son of the defender ‘Astyanax’ or lord of the city (
astu, anax
) which, as Homer says, his father was defending.

H
ERMOGENES
: That seems right to me.

S
OCRATES
: It does? You understand it, Hermogenes? For I don’t understand it yet myself.

H
ERMOGENES
: Then
I
certainly don’t.

S
OCRATES
: But, my good friend, didn’t Homer also give Hector his name?
[393]

H
ERMOGENES
: What if he did?

S
OCRATES
: Well, it seems to me that ‘Hector’ is more or less the same as ‘Astyanax’, since both names seem to be Greek. After all, ‘lord’ (‘
anax
’) and ‘possessor’ (‘
hekt
ō
r
’) signify pretty much the same, since both are names for a king. Surely, a man possesses that of which he is lord, since it is clear that he controls, owns, and has it. But perhaps you think I’m [b] talking nonsense, and that I’m wrong to suppose that I’ve found a clue to Homer’s beliefs about the correctness of names.

H
ERMOGENES
: No, I don’t think you’re wrong. You may well have found a clue.

S
OCRATES
: At any rate, it seems to me that it is right to call a lion’s offspring a ‘lion’ and a horse’s offspring a ‘horse’. I’m not talking about some monster other than a horse that happens to be born from a horse [c] but one that is a natural offspring of its kind. If, contrary to nature, a horse gave birth to a calf, it should be called a ‘calf’, not a ‘colt’. And if something that isn’t a human offspring is born to a human, I don’t think it should be called a ‘human’. And the same applies to trees and all the rest. Don’t you agree?

H
ERMOGENES
: I agree.

S
OCRATES
: Good. But you had better watch out in case I trick you, for by the same argument any offspring of a king should be called a ‘king’. But it doesn’t matter whether the same thing is signified by the same [d] syllables or by different ones. And if a letter is added or subtracted, that doesn’t matter either, so long as the being or essence of the thing is in control and is expressed in its name.

H
ERMOGENES
: How do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: It’s something fairly simple. You know that when we speak of the elements or letters of the alphabet, it is their names we utter, not the letters themselves, except in the case of these four
e, u, o
, and
ō
.
¹⁴
We make names for all the other vowels and consonants, as you know, by [e] uttering additional letters together with them. But as long as we include the force or power of the letter, we may correctly call it by that name, and it will express it for us. Take ‘
b
ē
ta
’, for example. The addition of ‘
ē
’, ‘
t
’, and ‘
a
’ does no harm and doesn’t prevent the whole name from expressing the nature of that element or letter which the rule-setter wished to name, so well did he know how to give names to the letters.