Tags
Cratylus, Derrida, Grammar, Language, linguistics, Names, Plato, Saussure, semiotics, Wittgenstein
This week, following Gadamer, I read Plato’s Cratylus, and was frankly astonished at what I found there – specifically the prefiguration of some of the ideas most critical to my philosophical project. I’m not sure why I’m astonished – it seems like every philosophical enterprise ever conducted is some variation on “climbing to the top of a mountain and finding Plato already there, waving gaily” – but I still want to talk about the two elements that struck me most about the Cratylus – names and their rectification.