Plato’s Cratylus by David Sedley An overview of the Platonic epistemology through his language theories

Abstract

This paper aims at providing a summary account of the main contents of David Sedley's book Plato’ Cratylus, through a review with a primarily descriptive purpose and some critical observations at times. The speculations on language formulated by the author are grouped into three theoretical strands - result of a personal choice – concerning (1) the etymological section; (2) the theory of flux and Forms and (3) a linguistic account of the dialectical method, in order to clarify the fundamental theses supported in Sedley’s work. The paper concludes with a more comparative part, in which - taking up the themes mentioned above - an attempt is made to place the author's writing within a brief status quaestionis of the famous Platonic dialogue, subject of linguistic interest since ancient times until nowadays