Plato intended his theory as serious, but his exemplifications as admissible guesses. He does not cite particular cases as proofs of a theory, but only as illustrating what he means.
I cannot therefore accept as well-founded this “discovery of modern times,” which represents the Platonic etymologies in the Kratylus as intentionally extravagant and knowingly caricatured, for the purpose of ridiculing the Sophists or others. In my judgment, Plato did not put them forward as extravagant, nor for the purpose of ridiculing any one, but as genuine illustrations of a theory of his own respecting names. It cannot be said indeed that he advanced them as proof of his theory: for Plato seldom appeals to particulars, except when he has a theory to attack. When he has a theory to lay down, he does not generally recognise the necessity of either proving or verifying it by application to particular cases. His proof is usually deductive or derived from some more general principle asserted à priori — some internal sentiment enunciated as a self-justifying maxim. Particular examples serve to illustrate what the principle is, but are not required to establish its validity.[42] But I believe that he intended his particular etymologies as bonâ fide guesses, more or less probable (like the developments in the Timæus, which he[43] repeatedly designates as εἰκότα, and nothing beyond): some certain, some doubtful, some merely novel and ingenious: such as would naturally spring from the originating afflatus of diviners (like Euthyphron, to whom he alludes more than once[44]) who stepped beyond the ordinary regions of human affirmation. Occasionally he proposes alternative and distinct etymologies: feeling assured that there was some way of making out the conclusion — but not feeling equally certain about his own way of making it out. The sentiment of belief attaches itself in Plato’s mind to general views and theorems: when he gives particular consequences as flowing from them, his belief graduates down through all the stages between full certainty and the lowest probability, until in some cases it becomes little more than a fanciful illustration — like the mythes which he so often invents to expand and enliven these same general views.[45]
[42] See some passages in this very dialogue, Krat. pp. 436 E, 437 C, 438 C.
Lassalle remarks that neither Herakleitus nor Plato were disposed to rest the proof of a general principle upon an induction of particulars (Herakleitos, p. 406).
[43] Spengel justly remarks (Art. Scr. p. 52) respecting the hypotheses of the Platonic commentators:— “Platonem quidem liberare gestiunt, falsâ, ironiâ, non ex animi sententiâ omnia in Cratylo prolata esse dicentes. Sed præter alia multa et hoc neglexerunt viri docti, easdem verborum originationes, quas in Cratylo, in cæteris quoque dialogis, ubi nullus est facetiis locus, et seria omnia aguntur, recurrere.”
This passage is cited by K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. d. Platon. Phil. Not. 474, p. 656. Hermann’s own remarks on the dialogue (pp. 494-497) are very indistinct, but he seems to agree with Schleiermacher in singling out Antisthenes as the object of attack.
The third portion of Lehrsch’s work, Ueber die Sprachphilosophie der Alten, cites numerous examples of the etymologies attempted by the ancients, from Homer downwards, many of them collected from the Etymologicon Magnum. When we read the etymologies propounded seriously by Greek and Latin philosophers (especially the Stoic Chrysippus), literary men, jurists, and poets, we shall not be astonished at those found in the Platonic Kratylus. The etymology of Θεὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ θεῖν, given in the Kratylus (p. 397 D), as well as in the Pythagorean Philolaus (see Boeckh, Philolaus, pp. 168-175), and repeated by Clemens Alexandrinus, is not more absurd than that of θεὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ θεῖναι, given by Herodot. ii. 52, and also repeated by Clemens, see Wesseling’s note. None of the etymologies of the Kratylus is more strange than that of Ζεὺς-Δία-Ζῆνα (p. 396 B). Yet this is reproduced in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Treatise, Περὶ Κόσμου (p. 401, a. 15), as well as by the Stoic Zeno (Diogen. Laert. vii. 147). The treatise of Cornutus, De Nat. Deor. with Osann’s Commentary, is instructive in enabling us to appreciate the taste of ancient times as to what was probable or admissible in etymology. There are few of the etymologies in the Kratylus more singular than that of ἄνθρωπος from ἀναθρῶν ἂ ὅπωπεν. Yet this is cited by Ammonius as a perfectly good derivation, ad Aristot. De Interpret. p. 103, b. 8, Schol. Bekk., and also in the Etymologicon Magnum.
[44] Compare Plato, Euthyphron, p. 6 D. Origination and invention often pass in Plato as the workings of an ordinary mind (sometimes even a feeble mind) worked upon from without by divine inspiration, quite distinct from the internal force, reasoning, judging, testing, which belongs to a powerful mind. See Phædrus, pp. 235 C, 238 D, 244 A; Timæus, p. 72 A; Menon, p. 81 A.
[45] I have made some remarks to this effect upon the Platonic mythes in my notice of the Phædon, see [ch. xxv. p. 415], ad Phædon, p. 114.
Sokrates announces himself as Searcher. Other etymologists of ancient times admitted etymologies as rash as those of Plato.