Cratylus’ Silence About Linguistic Correctness

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This article addresses the longstanding puzzle of what Cratylus’ silence means. It argues that Plato’s Cratylus goes silent to convey his position regarding the correctness of names, and it does this by demonstrating how Cratylus is silent in imitation of a literary trope for portraying the significance of a character’s silence. The philosophical payoff of this imitation is that, for Cratylus, correctness consists not in saying, but in showing.