Κρατύλος

Cratylus

Author

Plato

Language

Classical Attic Greek

Year

c. 390-370 BCE

Country

Classical Athens

Genre

Speech / Dialogue

graeco-romanidealismphilosophy

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Cratylus is the name of a dialogue by Plato. Most modern scholars agree that it was written mostly during Plato's so-called middle period. In the dialogue, Socrates is asked by two men, Cratylus and Hermogenes, whether names are "conventional" or "natural", that is, whether language is a system of arbitrary signs or whether words have an intrinsic relation to the things they signify.