Abstract

At least once in life, we all have been asked to explain what exactly philosophy is, or what a philosopher does. Some of us will have tried the etymological way: philosophy is the love (philía) of wisdom (sophía), hence philosophers are the latter’s lovers. Did that work? May etymology succeed in revealing any inner meanings of words? And also, may etymology be a useful philosophical tool? A spectacular example of the use of etymology for philosophical purposes is given by Plato in the Cratylus. This is an amazing dialogue. It is not simply on language, but more precisely on the so-called “correctness of names.” The core question is: may names come to be given to things according to any “natural” criterion, other than simple convention and agreement, in the light of which their correctness ought to be judged? Needless to say, such a question gives Plato the opportunity to combine the linguistic issue with some broader epistemological, cosmological and metaphysical investigations. Plenty of etymologies are provided, in order to verify whether they really have something to say about the “nature” of their nominata. However, most of these etymologies are funny. Over the last two hundred years, scholars have considered them philologically embarrassing, unless they are nothing but a joke by means of which Plato might have intended to parodize etymologists. On the contrary, Sedley invites us to take them seriously: we had better believe that Plato regarded the Cratylus' etymologies as “exegetically correct,” when not also “philosophically correct.” In my paper, I explore these categories, and see whether, and in what sense, we can talk of an exegetical and philosophical correctness of the Cratylus' etymologicon.