Page - 384 - in The Complete Plato

SOCRATES: Then the work of the carpenter is to make a rudder, and the pilot has to direct him, if the rudder is to be well made. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: And the work of the legislator is to give names, and the dialectician must be his director if the names are to be rightly given? HERMOGENES: That is true. SOCRATES: Then, Hermogenes, I should say that this giving of names can be no such light matter as you fancy, or the work of light or chance persons; and Cratylus is right in saying that things have names by nature, and that not every man is an artificer of names, but he only who looks to the name which each thing by nature has, and is able to express the true forms of things in letters and syllables. HERMOGENES: I cannot answer you, Socrates; but I find a difficulty in changing my opinion all in a moment, and I think that I should be more readily persuaded, if you would show me what this is which you term the natural fitness of names. SOCRATES: My good Hermogenes, I have none to show. Was I not telling you just now (but you have forgotten), that I knew nothing, and proposing to share the enquiry with you? But now that you and I have talked over the matter, a step has been gained; for we have discovered that names have by nature a truth, and that not every man knows how to give a thing a name. HERMOGENES: Very good. SOCRATES: And what is the nature of this truth or correctness of names? That, if you care to know, is the next question. HERMOGENES: Certainly, I care to know. SOCRATES: Then reflect. HERMOGENES: How shall I reflect? SOCRATES: The true way is to have the assistance of those who know, and you must pay them well both in money and in thanks; these are the Sophists, of whom your brother, Callias, has—rather dearly—bought the reputation of wisdom. But you have not yet come into your inheritance, and therefore you had better go to him, and beg and entreat him to tell you what he has learnt from Protagoras about the fitness of names. HERMOGENES: But how inconsistent should I be, if, whilst repudiating Protagoras and his truth (‘Truth’ was the title of the book of Protagoras; compare Theaet.), I were to attach any value to what he and his book affirm! 384