Names and Nature in Plato's Cratylus

Rachel Barney is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.

"[Barney's] penetrating and sustained study of the Cratylus will be useful to any serious student of Plato or of ancient Greek language science. She concentrates on philosophical argument yet she does not overlook the literary aspects of Plato's dialogue." -- Malcolm D. Hyman, Harvard University

• Preface; Introduction: The Argument of the Cratylus; I. From Convention to Nature; I.1 Conventionalism; I.2 Subjectivism and Private Naming; I.3 The Significance of Conventionalism; I.4 Against Conventionalism; I.5 The First Stage of Naturalism: Names as Tools; II. The Second Stage of Naturalism: Function and Genre in the Etymologies; II.1 Rational Reconstruction; II.2 The Inspiration Episode; II.3 The Agonistic Display; II.4 The Etymologies as Agôn; II.5 Plato and Parmenides on the Deceptiveness of Language ; III. The Third Stage of Naturalism: Mimetic Correctness; III.1 Beyond Etymology; III.2 Mimesis and the Elements of Language; III.3 Craft and the Foundations of Correctness; IV. Natural Correctness Re-examined; IV.1 The Dianomê Argument; IV.2 On the Correctness of Images; IV.3 The Two Cratyluses; IV.4 The Sklêrotês Argument ; IV.5 The Names of the Numbers; IV.6 Conclusions About Correctness; V. From Names to Things; V.1 Against the Study of Names ; V.2 Language, Knowledge and Flux; VI. The Cratylus and After: Names and Logoi; VI.1 The Seventh Letter and the Weakness of Language; VI.2 Logos and Knowledge; Chapter VII: The Cratylus and After: False Statement; VII.1 False Statement in the Cratylus; VII.2 The Sophist on Syntax; VII.3 The Sophist on False Statement; Bibliography; Index