Cratylus

Hermogenes. Here is Socrates; shall we take him as a partner in our discussion?

Cratylus. If you like.

Hermogenes. Cratylus, whom you see here, Socrates, says that everything has a right name of its own, which comes by nature, and that a name is not whatever people call a thing by agreement, just a piece of their own voice applied to the thing, but that there is a kind of inherent correctness in names, which is the same for all men, both Greeks and barbarians. So I ask him whether his name is in truth Cratylus, and he agrees that it is. “And what is Socrates’ name?” I said. “Socrates,” said he. “Then that applies to all men, and the particular name by which we call each person is his name?” And he said, “Well, your name is not Hermogenes, even if all mankind call you so.”

Hermogenes. Now, though I am asking him and am exerting myself to find out what in the world he means, he does not explain himself at all; he meets me with dissimulation, claiming to have some special knowledge of his own about it which would, if he chose to speak it out clearly, make me agree entirely with him. Now if you could interpret Cratylus’s oracular speech, I should like to hear you; or rather, I should like still better to hear, if you please, what you yourself think about the correctness of names.