An Excerpt from Plato's The Cratylus
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T H E
C R A T Y L U S
03
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B A C K
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Socrates: And what will you call him who can do this, as you
called the others musician and painter? What will you call this man?
Hermogenes: I think, Socrates, he is what we have been looking
for all along, the name-maker.
Socrates: If that is the case, is it our next duty to consider
whether in these names about which you were asking--flow, motion, and restraint--the namemaker
grasps with his letters and syllables the reality [424b] of the things named and imitates their
essential nature, or not?
Hermogenes: Certainly.
Socrates: Well now, let us see whether those are the only primary
names, or there are others.
Hermogenes: I think there are others.
Socrates: Yes, most likely there are. Now what is the
method of division with which the imitator begins his imitation? Since the imitation
of the essential nature is made with letters and syllables, would not the most correct
way be for us to separate the letters first, [424c] just as those who undertake the
practice of rhythms separate first the qualities of the letters, then those of the
syllables, and then, but not till then, come to the study of rhythms?
Hermogenes: Yes.
Socrates: Must not we, too, separate first the vowels, then in their several classes the
consonants or mutes, as they are called by those who specialize in phonetics, ... ?
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The_Letter_Museum_THE_CRATYLUS_02
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