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Knowledge and Flux in Plato's Cratylus (438–40)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

M. T. Thornton
M. T. Thornton
Affiliation:
Victoria College, Toronto
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Extract

The etymologizing which forms the torso of the Cratylus gives way, in the final pages, to an interesting, but brief, discussion of Heraclitean Flux. The transition is made on pages 437–8. Knowledge of reality through names has proved elusive because the names yield contradictory theses (411ff. versus 436–7). This being so, it is argued that the truth is only to be obtained by a direct acquaintance with reality (ta onta, 438E).

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , March 1970 , pp. 581 - 591
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1970

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References

1 G. E. L. Owen, ‘The Place of the Timaeus in Plato's Dialogues’, in R. E. Allen (ed.) Studies in Plato's Metaphysics (London, 1965), p. 323, n. 3. (Reprinted from the Classical Quarterly, 1953.)

2 H. F. Cherniss, ‘The Relation of the Timaeus to Plato's Later Dialogues’, in R. E. Allen (ed.) op. cit., p. 358. (Reprinted from the American Journal of Philohgy, 1957.)

3 Cherniss, op. cit., p. 359.

4 A. Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will (London, 1963), pp. 196–7.

5 Sir David Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas (Oxford, 1951), pp. 20–1.

6 This is a revised version of a paper read to the Greek Philosophy Seminar, at the University of Toronto, in April 1969. I am grateful to the Seminar's members for their helpful criticism.