ABSTRACT
After some further discussion, Cratylus is persuaded to admit that there may perhaps be incorrect names, but his conversion is only temporary and he suffers a number of relapses before the dialogue ends (e.g. 432A, 433C, 438C). The argument against false speaking has influenced him to such an extent that he cannot give it up even when Socrates has demonstrated in the clearest possible way that it is inconsistent to maintain both that all names are correct, and, what Cratylus wishes to say also, that the relation of names to things is one of representation or likeness (ο'μοιωμα). The view that all names are correct is one which Cratylus seems to have arrived at by means of the assumption that a name cannot be in any degree unlike the thing named, or, in other words, it cannot be in any way not that thing. But if a name is to be the likeness or image of a thing, it must in some fashion be unlike or not the thing, else it would be an exact copy of that thing. (Socrates illustrates this latter point by the example of the two Cratyluses at 432Bff.) Therefore if Cratylus wishes to retain a theory of naming by represen tation and likeness (a theory which he much prefers to naming by chance signs 434A), he will need to give up the view that there are no degrees of correctness in names. And he will also, by implication, need to give up the fallacious argument against false speaking which is associated with it.24
