Seite - 376 - in The Complete Plato

another, the new name is as correct as the old—we frequently change the names of our slaves, and the newly-imposed name is as good as the old: for there is no name given to anything by nature; all is convention and habit of the users;—such is my view. But if I am mistaken I shall be happy to hear and learn of Cratylus, or of any one else. SOCRATES: I dare say that you may be right, Hermogenes: let us see;— Your meaning is, that the name of each thing is only that which anybody agrees to call it? HERMOGENES: That is my notion. SOCRATES: Whether the giver of the name be an individual or a city? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, now, let me take an instance;—suppose that I call a man a horse or a horse a man, you mean to say that a man will be rightly called a horse by me individually, and rightly called a man by the rest of the world; and a horse again would be rightly called a man by me and a horse by the world:—that is your meaning? HERMOGENES: He would, according to my view. SOCRATES: But how about truth, then? you would acknowledge that there is in words a true and a false? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And there are true and false propositions? HERMOGENES: To be sure. SOCRATES: And a true proposition says that which is, and a false proposition says that which is not? HERMOGENES: Yes; what other answer is possible? SOCRATES: Then in a proposition there is a true and false? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But is a proposition true as a whole only, and are the parts untrue? HERMOGENES: No; the parts are true as well as the whole. SOCRATES: Would you say the large parts and not the smaller ones, or every part? HERMOGENES: I should say that every part is true. 376