From Plato's 'Cratylus' to Emmanuel Levinas' 'God and Philosophy': The problem of language for philosophy

The purpose of this work is to induce classical scholars to think further and differently about the Cratylus and its importance in Plato's corpus, as well as to open the eyes of writers on Wittgenstein, Barthes and Derrida regarding the debt owed by these writers to that dialogue.; My starting point is an attempt to assess Plato's role in the developing consciousness, among Greek thinkers, of "language" as an entity for study; and to explore the more specific issue of Plato's part in developing formal grammatical awareness and terminology. It assesses Plato's concern as exemplified by the Cratylus for the reliability of language as an instrument for philosophy. Since philosophy in Plato is centered on seeking Truth and pursuing an ethical life, then in the Cratylus Plato is focusing on how effective words are for seeking truth and defining ethics.; The first five chapters focus directly on language issues raised by the Cratylus, in ever-widening directions. Thus from the problem of defining key terms in the dialogue to the issue of Socratic etymologizing I turn to the larger problem of physis (nature) and nomos/thesis (law or convention) as variously discussed both within and outside the dialogue, and to the array of characters in and beyond other Platonic dialogues whose presence, in being referenced within the Cratylus , make it clear how important the dialogue is to the sweep of Plato's concerns.; The last four chapters argue that the problems left unsolved by the end of the dialogue are picked up by Wittgenstein and in turn by the other subsequent writers I discuss. I contend that each of them, without recognizing or at least without acknowledging it, recapitulates and/or advances the concerns which Plato introduces to us. Thus all of them are treated virtually as if they are examinations of the Cratylus.1; Moreover, the last of them brings the circle back to its beginning. If language is problematic when the referents are ourselves, how much more problematic will it be if the reference point is a Divinity that speaks a different language! Thus as Wittgenstein, Saussure, Barthes and Derridas carry us further into the problematic of language, the application of that problematic to moral matters in which the reference point is Divinity brings us back to one of Plato's initial obsessions---and that is where the discussion arrives with Levinas' essay.; 1My post-Cratylean focus is essentially limited to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, Barthes' Elements of Semiology and several essays from his The Rustle of Language, Derrida's Speech and Phenomena, Of Grammatology and "Plato's Pharmacy"; and Levinas' "God and Language." Other works are mentioned in passing.