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In Plato's Cratylus, Hermogenes contends that the correctness of names is conventional. Appealing though this claim sounds to modern ears, it does not meet with approval in the Cratylus. Why? I argue that the conventionalism promoted by Hermogenes is discredited by unacceptable relativist implications because it incorporates the mistaken assumption that correct names are individuated exclusively by their phonetic composition.

The central argument of this article is that the underlying theme of the five reports entitled Cities & Names in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities is the fundamental inadequacy of names to signify cities. By challenging the taken-for-granted, common-sense idea that a name of a city corresponds to a well-defined urban entity, Calvino implicitly suggests that different cities cohabitate under the same name and that fundamentally names of cities are semiotically incorrect. The article is divided into two parts. The first expands on ideas about the correctness of proper names that since being presented in Plato's dialogue have prevailed in western thought. The second part consists of five commentaries on the deceptive conflation between a city and its name that runs through the five reports included in

This book explores the various views on language and its relation to philosophy in the Platonic tradition by examening the reception of Plato's Cratylus in antiquity in general, and the commentary of the Neoplatonist Proclus in particular.

Nearly all of us have studied poetry and been taught to look for the symbolic as well as literal meaning of the text. Is this the way the ancients saw poetry? InBirth of the Symbol, Peter Struck explores the ancient Greek literary critics and theorists who invented the idea of the poetic \"symbol.\" The book notes that Aristotle and his followers did not discuss the use of poetic symbolism. Rather, a different group of Greek thinkers--the allegorists--were the first to develop the notion. Struck extensively revisits the work of the great allegorists, which has been underappreciated. He links their interest in symbolism to the importance of divination and magic in ancient times, and he demonstrates how important symbolism became when they thought about religion and philosophy. \"They see the whole of great poetic language as deeply figurative,\" he writes, \"with the potential always, even in the most mundane details, to be freighted with hidden messages.\" Birth of the Symboloffers a new understanding of the role of poetry in the life of ideas in ancient Greece. Moreover, it demonstrates a connection between the way we understand poetry and the way it was understood by important thinkers in ancient times.

Plato uses word plays in the Phaedo as a literary technique with a double purpose: to illustrate the process of recollection that moves from the sensible particulars to the intelligible ideas and to remind his readers of the ideas discussed in the dialogue, spurring their recollective associations of unseen Forms, absence of pleasure and pain, and the absence of fear, with the traditional name of Hades. The swan song of philosophy is therefore revealed to be not a nightingale’s lament but rather an incantation against fear of death, a reminder of the true reality of the unseen intelligible world.

Plato's dialogue Cratylus focuses on being and human dependence on words, or the essential truths about the human condition. Arguing that comedy is an essential part of Plato's concept of language, S. Montgomery Ewegen asserts that understanding the comedic is key to an understanding of Plato's deeper philosophical intentions. Ewegen shows how Plato's view of language is bound to comedy through words and how, for Plato, philosophy has much in common with playfulness and the ridiculous. By tying words, language, and our often uneasy relationship with them to comedy, Ewegen frames a new reading of this notable Platonic dialogue.

El presente artículo contiene una lectura cruzada del Fedro y el Crátilo en la que se acaran algunos de sus ejes temáticos centrales con el fin de sacar a relucir las constantes del pensamiento platónico que ambos diálogos comparten. La descripción de la dialéctica presente en el Fedro encaja con una definición socrática del Crátilo que explicita que el nombre es un instrumento al servicio del dialéctico. Todo ello nos lleva a concluir que la técnica dialéctica, además de constituir el principal mecanismo regulador de la oratoria, se postula en los diálogos platónicos como un procedimiento de corrección que permite validar cualquier tipo de proposición y aproximar a la verdad los más variados discursos y representaciones de la realidad.

O presente trabalho parte da hipótese de que o debate sobre a Universalidade dos Direitos Humanos é, inexoravelmente, um debate linguístico sobre as convenções que devem (ou não) ser usadas como categorias modais de seus elementos operativos. O objetivo geral é a tentativa de confirmação da hipótese supra. Especificamente pretendemos demonstrar que: a) a construção da ideia de universalidade pode ser compreendida numa perspectiva histórica; b) ela depende de fatores externos às questões meramente jurídicas e; c) depende de um consenso mínimo para operacionalização das instituições que devem garantir determinados direitos humanos. Para tanto, pretende-se realizar uma análise bibliográfica de dados produzidos com análise exploratória de autores referência como Immanuel Wallerstein, Bartolomé Clavero, José Claudio Monteiro de Brito Filho e, em especial, a perspectiva de Jack Donnelly sobre uma Relativa Universalidade dos Direitos Humanos com ênfase na proposta de um consenso sobreposto.

For Plato, the crucial function of human cognition is to grasp truths. Explaining how we are able to do this is fundamental to understanding our cognitive powers. Plato addresses this topic from several different angles. In the Cratylus and Theaetetus, he attempts to identify the elemental cognitions that are the foundations of language and knowledge. He considers several candidates for this role, most notably, perception and simple meaning-bearing concepts. In the first section, we will look at Plato’s worries about semantic instability and its epistemic consequences. The central role of basic cognitions in Plato’s account of knowledge in the Theaetetus will be explored in the second section. In the final section, the relevance of Plato’s conception of cognition to modern discussions in the philosophy of language and epistemology will be noted.

El libro tiene tres capítulos. En el primero, se expone y evalúa la contribución a la historiografía de la lingüística de V. Thomsen, R. H. Robins y U. Eeo. El segundo capítulo está dedicado al papel de la retórica en la historia de la lingüística, al denominado programa de Platón que aparece en su diálogo Cratilo y a la importancia del Pigmalion de G. B. Shaw como manifestación del paradigma gramatical en la historiografía lingüística. En la última sección de este capítulo y en la primera sección del siguiente, hay una sugerente exposición sobre las relaciones entre la teoría de la arquitectura y la historia del pensamiento lingüístico. En el tercer capítulo se muestra cómo las biografías de M. Twain y S. Pepys pueden servir para ilustrar ciertos aspectos de la historiografía lingüística. Su cuarta sección contiene una breve exposición de la gramática de Port-Royal y de la lingüística cartesiana. En la siguiente sección podemos encontrar también una interesante exposición de las conexiones entre el mito de la torre de Babel, la biblioteca de Alejandría y el Cratilo de Platón. La última sección de este capítulo es una conclusión a todo el libro.