Plato On Truth And Falsity In Names1

J. V. Luce

doi:10.1017/S0009838800024630

Plato On Truth And Falsity In Names1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

J. V. Luce

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J. V. Luce: Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin

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In Cratylus 385 b-c Plato argues that if statements () can be true or false, names (),2 as parts () of statements, are also capable of being true or false. From Aristotle onwards this view has often been challenged,3 and R. Robinson put the case against it trenchantly when he wrote:4

This argument is bad; for names have no truth-value, and the reason given for saying that they do is a fallacy of division. No one in the dialogue points out that it is bad. … Nevertheless it is fairly probable that Plato saw or at least felt that it is a bad argument, quite different in quality from those he later produces against the nature-theory.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , December 1969 , pp. 222 - 232

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800024630 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1969

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² In the Greek conception of , as R. Robinson has pointed out (‘The Theory of Names in Cratylus', Plato's, Rev. Int. de Philos. xxxii, 1955, 1–16), ‘there lay undistinguished at least five notions that are distinct now: the proper name, the name, the word, the noun, and the subject of predication’ (p. 2). After discussion of possible Greek equivalents for ‘word’ and ‘language’ he concludes that ‘it is usually better to say that the Cratylus is about names than to say that it is about language’ (p. 3). I shall follow his lead and use ‘name’ for .Google Scholar

³ See, for example, Aristotle Cat. 4. 2^a7- 430^a26-^b2. Also Grote, Plato (2nd edn.), ii, 502 n. e.; Steinthal, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, 108.

⁴ ‘A Criticism of Plato's Cratylus’, Philos. Rev. lxv (1956), 328.Google Scholar

⁵ ‘On Rational Philosophy of Language: the Programme in Plato's Cratylus Reconsidered’, Mind lxxvi (1967), 6.Google Scholar

¹ De-Vries, G. J., ‘Notes on some Passages of the Cratylus’, Mnem. S. iv, viii (1955), 291, agrees.Google Scholar

¹ Compare the intrusive at Sph. 237 d 2.

² Méridier's version (Budé Cratylus) is verysimilar: Alors, le nom qui fait pantie du discours vrai, on l'énonce?

³ Essai sun le ‘Cratyle’, 52.

¹ In c 14 the variant presumably arose from ignorance of this idiom.

² LSJ s.v. III. Cf. Ast, Lexicon Platonicum, s.v. : adjectivi instar ponitur.

³ I.G. iii. 1308. Plato was aware of this possibility! See Cra. 397 b 5.4 Lorenz and Mittelstrass, art. cit. 5.

¹ These passages show that in the Cra. is by no means restricted to the grammatical sense of ‘verb’, as defined at Sph. 262 a, though it could be so taken at 425 a and 431 b. Cf. p. 229 n. 1.

² 396 a 2: .

³ Cra. 394 d, 398 c, 409 c, 412 c, 415 d. Cf. 403 a, 404 b, 406 a, 414 a.

⁴ See, for example, Cra. 425 d, 438 d.

¹ Cra. 432 d 11–433 a 2, with its ‘tying-up’ reference back to 393 d-e.

² See Burnet, edn. of Euthphr. Ap. Cri., ad loc., on the ‘redundant’ commonly added after verbs of naming, and Ast, Lexicon Platonicum s.v. etwai for examples. may be grammatically redundant, but it brings out the point that the name is conceived as stating what the object actually is.

¹ Hackforth, R., Plato's Examination of Pleasure, 14.Google Scholar

¹ The definitions in 262 a are usually taken to mean that is to be equated with ‘noun’ and with ‘verb’, but this may well be an over-grammatical interpretation. Stenzel (Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, R.-E. s.v. Logik, vol. xiii, tots, and Plato's Method of Dialectic, tr. D. J. Allan, 126–7) maintains that even in the Sophist is not restricted to ‘verb’ but covers any kind of assertion. He points out that at Sph. 257 b the predicate ‘not-big’ is called a and refers to 251 a-b where and are used of predicates. Runciman, Plato's Later Epistemology, to8, n. 3, also questions whether ‘noun’ and ‘verb’ are legitimate translations.

² As, for example, Diès thinks (Budé Theaetetus 3rd edn., Notice 145). Contra, Runciman, op. cit. 121.

³ Lorenz and Mittelstrass, art. cit. 8: ‘But one has to be careful to discriminate clearly between the revelation achieved by names and the one achieved by sentences, because sentences always reveal something about objects (Soph. 262 d) whereas only “correct” names reveal objects for what they are (Crat. 422 d), i.e. place individuals under an appropriate concept’. We may add that the more intimate relationship between name and nominate may be signalled by c. acc. (261 e 5) in contrast with the revelation of the assertorial statement where c. gen. is used (262 d 2).

⁴ Aristotle in the De Interpretations starts from the Sophist's distinction between and , and, in connection with his definition of introduces the problem of the significance of parts of compound names. With cf. the many places in the Cra. where the ‘intended meaning’ of a name is expressed by e.g. 395 b 8, 401 C2, 410 b 8, 414 a 3, 414 d3, 418 d 5, 421 b 7. Aristotle covers the same ground in Poet. 20, 1457a10–14, but without the concept of .

¹ An. Post. 2, 10, 93^b31. Ross, ad loc., takes to mean ‘noun-like phrase’.

¹ Sph. 224 C, 225 a, 229 d, 267 b 1–2, 267 d 4-e 2; Plt. 260 e, 264 d, 275 d-e, 276 a-b.

³ See Cra. 424 d-425 b; Plt. 277 c.

⁴ See Adam, , edn. of Republic, vol. 2, 157–8, and the instructive remarks of Cross and Woozley, Plato's Republic, 220–4.Google Scholar

⁵ This suggestion is based on the indications of passages like Euthd. 277 e, Phd. 115 e, Rep. 522 a, Ep. 7. 342 a-b. For word study as a propaideutic to philosophy see the judicious remarks of Goldschmidt, Essai, 194 9.

¹ Cf. the sophisticated account of in Phlb. 38 b ff., with its picture of the soul as a book in which true and false accounts may be written (39 a).