eBook of George Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates: Vol. 3 of 4

Sokrates opens his case by declaring the thesis of the Absolute (Object sine Subject), against the Protagorean thesis of the Relative (Object cum Subject). Things have an absolute essence: names have an absolute essence:83 each name belongs to its own thing, and to no other: this is its rectitude: none but that rare person, the artistic name-giver, can detect the essence of each thing, and the essence of each name, so as to apply the name rightly. Here we have a theory truly Platonic: impressed upon Plato’s mind by a sentiment à priori, and not from any survey or comparison of particulars. Accordingly when Sokrates is called upon to apply his theory to existing current words, and to make out how any such rectitude can be shown to belong to them — he finds the greatest divergence and incongruity between the two. His ingenuity is hardly tasked to reconcile them: and he is obliged to have recourse to bold and multiplied hypotheses. That the first Name-Givers were artists proceeding upon system, but incompetent artists proceeding on a bad system — they were Herakleiteans who believed in the universality of movement, and gave names having reference to movement:84 That the various letters of the alphabet, or rather the different actions of the vocal organism by which they are pronounced, have each an inherent, essential, adaptation, or analogy to the phenomena of movement or arrest of movement:85 That the names originally bestowed have become disguised by a variety of metamorphoses, but may be brought back to their original by probable suppositions, and shown to possess the rectitude sought. All these hypotheses are only violent efforts to reconcile the Platonic à priori theory, in some way or other, with existing facts of language. To regard them as intentional caricatures, would be to suppose that Plato is seeking intentionally to discredit and deride his own theory of the Absolute: for the discredit could fall nowhere else. We see that Plato considered many of his own guesses as strange and novel, some even as laying him open to ridicule.86 But they were indispensable to bring his theory into something like coherence, however inadequate, with real language.

83 One cannot but notice how Plato, shortly after having declared war against the Relativity affirmed by Protagoras, falls himself into that very track of Relativity when he comes to speak about actual language, telling us that names are imposed on grounds dependant on or relative to the knowledge or belief of the Name-givers. Kratylus, pp. 397 B, 399 A, 401 A-B, 411 B, 436 B.

The like doctrine is affirmed in the Republic, vi. p. 515 B. δῆλον ὅτι ὁ θέμενος πρῶτος τὰ ὀνόματα, οἷα ἡγεῖτο εἶναι τὰ πράγματα, τοιαῦτα ἐτίθετο καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα.

Leibnitz conceived an idea of a “Lingua Characterica Universalis, quæ simul sit ars inveniendi et judicandi” (see Leibnitz Opp. Erdmann, pp. 162-163), and he alludes to a conception of Jacob Böhme, that there once existed a Lingua Adamica or Natur-Sprache, through which the essences of things might be contemplated and understood. “Lingua Adamica vel certé vis ejus, quam quidam se nosse, et in nominibus ab Adamo impositis essentias rerum intueri posse contendunt — nobis certé ignota est” (Opp. p. 93). Leibnitz seems to have thought that it was possible to construct a philosophical language, based upon an Alphabetum Cogitationum Humanarum, through which problems on all subjects might be resolved, by a calculus like that which is employed for the solution of arithmetical or geometrical problems (Opp. p. 83; compare also p. 356).

This is very analogous to the affirmations of Sokrates, in the first part of the Kratylus, about the essentiality of Names discovered and declared by the νομοθέτης τεχνικός

84 Plato, Kratyl. p. 436 D.

85 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”.

86 Plato, Kratyl. pp. 425 D, 426 B. Because Sokrates says that these etymologies may appear ridiculous, we are not to infer that he proposed them as caricatures; see what Plato says in the Republic, v. p. 452, about his own propositions respecting the training of women, which others (he says) will think ludicrous, but which he proposes with the most thorough and serious conviction.

87 Plato, Kratyl. p. 439 D. Ἆρ’ οὖν οἷον τε προσειπεῖν αὐτὸ ὀρθως, εἰ ἀεὶ ὑπεξέχεται;

88 Plato, Kratyl. p. 440 C. Compare pp. 436 D, 439 B.

Lassalle contends that Herakleitus and his followers considered the knowledge of names to be not only indispensable to the knowledge of things, but equivalent to and essentially embodying that knowledge. (Herakleitos, vol. ii. pp. 363-368-387.) See also a passage of Proklus, in his Commentary on the Platonic Parmenidês, p. 476, ed. Stallbaum.

The remarkable passage in the first book of Aristotle’s Metaphysica, wherein he speaks of Plato and Plato’s early familiarity with Kratylus and the Herakleitean opinions, coincides very much with the course of the Platonic dialogue Kratylus, from its beginning to its end (Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987 a-b).

How this is to be done, Sokrates professes himself unable to say. We may presume him to mean, that a true Artistic Name-giver must set the example, knowing these Forms or essences beforehand, and providing for each its appropriate Name, or Name-Form, significant by essential analogy.

89 Deuschle (Die Platonische Sprachphilosophie, p. 57) tells us that in this dialogue “Plato intentionally presented many of his thoughts in a covert or contradictory and unintelligible manner”. (Vieles absichtlich verhüllt oder widersprechend und missverständlich dargestellt wird.)

I see no probability in such an hypothesis.

Respecting the origin and primordial signification of language, a great variety of different opinions have been started.

William von Humboldt (Werke, vi. 80) assumes that there must have been some primitive and natural bond between each sound and its meaning (i.e. that names were originally significant φύσει), though there are very few particular cases in which such connexion can be brought to evidence or even divined. (Here we see that the larger knowledge of etymology possessed at present deters the modern philologer from that which Plato undertakes in the Kratylus.) He distinguishes a threefold relation between the name and the thing signified. 1. Directly imitative. 2. Indirectly imitative or symbolical. 3. Imitative by one remove, or analogical: where a name becomes transferred from one object to another, by virtue of likeness between the two objects. (Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechtes, p. 78, Berlin, 1880.)

Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, in his Etymology of the English Language (see Prelim. Disc. p. 10 seq.), recognises the same imitative origin, and tries to apply the principle to particular English words. Mr. F. W. Farrar, in his recent interesting work (Chapters on Language) has explained and enforced copiously the like thesis — onomatopœic origin for language generally. He has combated the objections of Professor Max Müller, who considers the principle to be of little applicability or avail. But M. Renan assigns to it not less importance than Mr. Wedgwood and Mr. Farrar. (See sixth chapter of his ingenious dissertation De l’Origine du Langage, pp. 135-146-148.)

“L’imitation, ou l’onomatopée, paraît avoir été le procédé ordinaire d’après lequel les premiers nomenclateurs formèrent les appellations.… D’ailleurs, comme le choix de l’appellation n’est point arbitraire, et que jamais l’homme ne se décide à assembler des sons au hasard pour en faire les signes de la pensée, on peut affirmer que de tous les mots actuellement usités, il n’en est pas un seul qui n’ait eu sa raison suffisante, et ne se rattache, à travers mille transformations, à une élection primitive. Or, le motif déterminant pour le choix des mots a dû être, dans la plupart des cas, le désir d’imiter l’objet qu’on voulait exprimer. L’instinct de certains animaux suffit pour les porter à ce genre d’imitation, qui, faute de principes rationnels, reste chez eux infécond.…

“En résumé, le caprice n’a eu aucune part dans la formation du langage. Sans doute, on ne peut admettre qu’il y ait une relation intrinsèque entre le nom et la chose. Le système que Platon a si subtilement développé dans le Cratyle — cette thèse qu’il y a des dénominations naturelles, et que la propriété des mots se reconnaîlt à l’imitation plus ou moins exacte de l’objet, — pourrait tout au plus s’appliquer aux noms formés par onomatopée, et pour ceux-ci mêmes, la loi dont nous parlous n’établit qu’une convenance. Les appellations n’ont pas uniquement leur cause dans l’objet appelé (sans quoi, elles seraient les mêmes dans toutes les langues), mais dans l’objet appelé, vu à travers les dispositions personnelles du sujet appelant.… La raison qui a déterminé le choix des premiers hommes peut nous échapper; mais elle a existé. La liaison du sens et du mot n’est jamais nécessaire, jamais arbitraire; toujours elle est motivée.”

When M. Renan maintains the Protagorean doctrine, that it is not the Object which is cause of the denomination given, but the Object seen through the personal dispositions of the denominating Subject — he contradicts the reasoning of the Platonic Sokrates in the conversation with Hermogenes (pp. 386-387; compare 424 A). But he adopts the reasoning of the same in the subsequent conversation with Kratylus; wherein the relative point of view is introduced for the first time (pp. 429 A-B, 431 E), and brought more and more into the foreground (pp. 436 B-D — 437 C — 439 C).

The distinction drawn by M. Renan between l’arbitraire and le motivé appears to me unfounded: at least, it requires a peculiar explanation of the two words — for if by le caprice and l’arbitraire be meant the exclusion of all motive, such a state of mind could not be a preliminary to any proceeding at all. M. Renan can only mean that the motive which led to the original choice of the name, was peculiar to the occasion, and has since been forgotten. And this is what he himself says in a note to his Preface (pp. 18-19), replying to M. Littré: “L’Arien primitif a eu un motif pour appeler le frère bhratr ou fratr, et le Sémite pour l’appeler ah: peut on dire que cette différence résulte ou des aptitudes différentes de leur esprit, ou du spectacle extérieur? Chaque objet, les circonstances restant les mêmes, a été susceptible d’une foule de dénominations: le choix qui a été fait de l’une d’elles tient à des causes impossibles à saisir.”

90 Plato (in Timæus, p. 29 B) recognises an essential affinity between the eternal Forms and the words or propositions in which they become subjects of discourse.

Respecting social institutions and government, there is one well-known theory to which Sir James Mackintosh gave expression in the phrase — “Governments are not made, but grow”. The like phrase has been applied by an eminent modern author on Logic, to language — “Languages are not made, but grow”.91 One might suppose, in reading the second and third books of the Republic of Plato, that Plato also had adopted this theory: for the growth of a society, without any initiative or predetermined construction by a special individual, is there strikingly depicted.92 But in truth it is this theory which stands in most of the Platonic works, as the antithesis depreciated and discredited by Plato. The view most satisfactory to him contemplates the analogy of a human artist or professional man; which he enlarges into the idea of an originating, intelligent, artistic, Constructor, as the source of all good. This view is exhibited to us in the Timæus, where we find the Demiurgus, building up by his own fiat all that is good in the Kosmos: in the Politikus, where we find the individual dictator producing by his uncontrolled ordinance all that is really good in the social system; — lastly, here also in the Kratylus, where we have the scientific or artistic Name-giver, and him alone, set forth as competent to construct an assemblage of names, each possessing full and perfect rectitude. To this theory there is presented a counter-theory, which Plato disapproves — a Kosmos which grows by itself and keeps up its own agencies, without any extra-kosmic constructor or superintendent: in like manner, an aggregate of social customs, and an aggregate of names, which have grown up no one knows how; and which sustain and perpetuate themselves by traditional force — by movement already acquired in a given direction. The idea of growth, by regular assignable steps and by regularising tendencies instinctive and inherent in Nature, belongs rather to Aristotle; Plato conceives Nature as herself irregular, and as persuaded or constrained into some sort of regularity by a supernatural or extranatural artist.93

91 See Mr. John Stuart Mill’s Logic, Book i. ch. viii.

92 Plato, Republic, ii. p. 369 seq., where the γένεσις of a social community, out of common necessity and desire acting upon all and each of the individual citizens, is depicted in a striking way. The ἀρχη of the City (p. 369 B) as Plato there presents it, is Aristotelian rather than Platonic.

93 M. Destutt de Tracy insists upon the emotional initiative force, as deeper and more efficacious than the intellectual, in the first formation of language.

“Dans l’origine du langage d’action, un seul geste dit — je veux cela, ou je vous montre cela, ou je vous demande secours; un seul cri dit, je vous appelle, ou je souffre, ou je suis content, &c.; mais sans distinguer aucune des idées qui composent ses propositions. Ce n’est point par le détail, mais par les masses, que, commencent toutes nos expressions, ainsi que toutes nos connaissances. Si quelques langages possèdent des signes propres à exprimer des idées isolées, ce n’est donc que par l’effet de la décomposition qui s’est opérée dans ces langages; et ces signes, ou noms propres d’idées, ne sont, pour ainsi dire, que des débris, des fragmens, ou du moins des émanations de ceux qui d’abord exprimaient, bien ou mal, les propositions tout entières.” (Destutt de Tracy, Grammaire, ch. i. p. 23, ed. 1825; see also the Idéologie of the same author, ch. xvi. p. 215.)

M. Renan enunciates in the most explicit terms this comparison of the formation of language to the growth and development of a germ:— “Les langues doivent êtres comparées, non au cristal qui se forme par agglomération autour d’un noyau, mais au germe qui se développe par sa force intime, et par l’appel nécessaire de ses parties”. (De l’Origine du Langage, ch. iii. p. 101; also ch. iv. pp. 115-117.)

The theory of M. Renan, in this ingenious treatise, is, that language is the product of “la raison spontanée, la raison populaire,” without reflexion. “La reflexion n’y peut rien: les langues sont sorties toutes faites du moule même de l’esprit humain, comme Minerve du cerveau de Jupiter.” “Maintenant que la raison réfléchie a remplacé l’instinct créateur, à peine le génie suffit-il pour analyser ce que les l’esprit des premiers hommes enfanta de toutes pièces, et sans y songer” (pp. 98-99). This theory appears to me very doubtful; as much as there is proved in it, is stated in a good passage cited by M. Renan from Will. von Humboldt (pp. 106-107). But there are two remarks to be made, in comparing it with the Kratylus of Plato. 1. That the hypothesis of a philosopher “qui compose un langage de sang-froid,” which appears absurd to Turgot and M. Renan (p. 92), did not appear absurd to Plato, but on the contrary as the only sure source of what is good and right in language. 2. That Plato, in the Kratylus, takes account only of naming, and not of the grammatical structure of language, which M. Renan considers the essential part (p. 106: compare also pp. 208-209). Grammar, with its established analogies, does not seem to have been present to Plato’s mind as an object of reflexion; there existed none in his day.

Looking back to the Politikus (reviewed in the last chapter), we find Plato declaring to us wherein consists the rectitude of a social Form: it resides in the presiding and uncontrolled authority of a scientific or artistic Ruler, always present and directing every one: or of a few such Rulers, if there be a few — though this is more than can be hoped. But such rectitude is seldom or never realised. Existing social systems are bad copies of this type, degenerating more or less widely from its perfection. One or a Few persons arrogate to themselves uncontrolled power, without possessing that science or art which justifies the exercise of it in the Right Ruler. These are, or may become, extreme depravations. The least bad, among all the imperfect systems, is an aggregate of fixed laws and magistrates with known functions, agreed to by convention of all and faithfully obeyed by all. But such a system of fixed laws, though second-best, falls greatly short of rectitude. It is much inferior in every way to the uncontrolled authority of the scientific Ruler.94

94 See Plato, Politik. pp. 300-301.

That which Plato does for social systems in the Politikus, he does for names in the Kratylus. The full rectitude of names is when they are bestowed by the scientific Ruler, considered in the capacity of Name-giver. He it is who discerns, and embodies in syllables, the true Name-Form in each particular case. But such an artist is seldom realised: and there are others who, attempting to do his work without his knowledge, perform it ignorantly or under false theories.95 The names thus given are imperfect names: moreover, after being given, they become corrupted and transformed in passing from man to man. Lastly, the mere fact of convention among the individuals composing the society, without any deliberate authorship or origination from any Ruler, bad or good — suffices to impart to Names a sort of significance, vulgar and imperfect, yet adequate to a certain extent.96 The Name-giving Artist or Lawgiver is here superseded by King Nomos.

95 Plato, Kratyl. p. 432 E.

96 Plato, Kratyl. pp. 434 E, 435 A-B.

This unsystematic, spontaneous, origin and growth of language is set forth by Lucretius, who declares himself opposed to the theory of an originating Name-giver (v. pp. 1021-1060). Jacob Grimm and M. Renan espouse a theory, in the main, similar.

It will be seen that in both these cases the Platonic point of view comes out — deliberate authorship from the scientific or artistic individual mind, as the only source of rectitude and perfection. But when Plato looks at the reality of life, either in social system or in names, he finds no such perfection anywhere: he discovers a divine agency originating what is good; but there is an independent agency necessary in the way of co-operation, though it sometimes counteracts and always debases the good.97 We find either an incompetent dictator who badly imitates the true Artist — or else we have fixed, peremptory, laws; depending on the unsystematic, unauthorised, convention among individuals, which has grown up no one knows how — which is transmitted by tradition, being taught by every one and learnt by every one without any privileged caste of teachers — and which in the Platonic Protagoras is illustrated in the mythe and discourse ascribed to that Sophist;98 being in truth, common sense, as contrasted with professional specialty. In regard to social systems, Plato pronounces fixed laws to be the second-best — enjoining strict obedience to them, wherever the first-best cannot be obtained. In the Republic he enumerates what are the conditions of rectitude in a city: but he admits at the same time that this Right Civic Constitution is an ideal, nowhere to be found existing: and he points out the successive stages of corruption by which it degenerates more and more into conformity with the realities of human society. As with Right Civic Constitution, so with Right Naming: Plato shows what constitutes rectitude of Names, but he admits that this is an ideal seen nowhere, and he notes the various causes which deprave the Right Names into that imperfect and semi-significant condition, which is the best that existing languages present.99

97 Plato, Timæus, p. 68 E.

98 See my remarks on the Politikus, in the last chapter: also Protagoras, p. 320 seq.

Compare Plato, Kriton, p. 48 A. ὁ ἐπαΐων περὶ τω δικαίων, ὁ εἷς.

In the Menon also the same question is broached as in the Protagoras, whether virtue is teachable or not? and how any virtue can exist, when there are no special teachers, and no special learners of virtue? Here we have, though differently handled, the same antithesis between the ethical sentiment which grows and propagates itself unconsciously, without special initiative — and that which is deliberately prescribed and imparted by the wise individual: common sense versus professional specialty.

99 See the conditions of the ὀρθὴ πολιτεία, and its gradual depravation and degeneracy into the state of actual governments, in Republic, v. init. p. 449 B, vii. 544 A-B.

100 Plato, Kratyl. p. 429.

Ammonius, Scholia εἰς τὰς Κατηγορίας of Aristotle (Schol. Brandis, p. 60, a. 10).

Τινές φασι μηδὲν εἶναι τῶν πρός τι φύσει, ἀλλὰ ἀνάπλασμα εἶναι ταῦτα τῆς ἡμετέρας διανοίας, λέγοντες ὅτι οὕτως οὐκ ἐστὶ φύσει τὰ πρός τι ἀλλὰ θέσει … Τινὲς δέ, ἐκ διαμέτρου τούτοις ἔχοντες, πάντα τὰ ὄντα πρός τι ἔλεγον. Ὧν εἶς ἦν Πρωταγόρας ὁ σοφιστής· … διὸ καὶ ἔλεγεν ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι τινὰ ψευδῆ λέγειν· ἕκαστος γὰρ κατὰ τὸ φαινόμενον αὐτῷ καὶ δοκοῦν ἀποφαίνεται περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων, οὐκ ἐχόντων ὡρισμένην φύσιν ἀλλ’ ἐν τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς σχέσει τὸ εἶναι ἐχόντων.

Now this doctrine is dealt with in the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and Kratylus. In the Theætêtus,101 Sokrates examines it at great length, and proposes several different hypotheses to explain how a false proposition might be possible: but ends in pronouncing them all inadmissible. He declares himself incompetent, and passes on to something else. Again, in the Sophistês, the same point is taken up, and discussed there also very copiously.102 The Eleate in that dialogue ends by finding a solution which satisfies him (viz.: that τὸ μη ὂν = τὸ ἕτερον ὄντος). But what is remarkable is, that the solution does not meet any of the difficulties propounded in the Theætêtus; nor are those difficulties at all adverted to in the Sophistês. Finally, in the Kratylus, we have the very same doctrine, that false affirmations are impossible — which both in the Theætêtus and in the Sophistês is enunciated, not as the decided opinion of the speaker, but as a problem which embarrasses him — we have this same doctrine averred unequivocally by Kratylus as his own full conviction. And Sokrates finds that a very short argument, and a very simple comparison, suffice to refute him.103 The supposed “aggressive cross-examiner,” who presses Sokrates so hard in the Theætêtus, is not allowed to put his puzzling questions in the Kratylus.104