The Impostor Of The Cratylus. Galen And Proclus On Etymology

In the late-antique interpretation of Plato’s Cratylus the voice of Galen emerges as that of a dissident. The physician – a great, if not uncritical, admirer of Plato – provides a full demonstration of the fact that etymology has no place in scientific discourse because its role is that of a mere impostor. Against him, albeit not explicitly, there is the position of Proclus, the Neoplatonic commentator of the Cratylus. In the history of Neoplatonism after Porphyry, it was thanks to Iamblichus – who did not actually write any commentary on the Cratylus – that this text came to be included in a list of dialogues that every aspiring Platonist was supposed to study. The aim of this paper is to show how difficult it is for the Neoplatonists to accept Galen’s assessment of etymology. What we know of Iamblichus' interpretation is that in his view the Cratylus teaches about names, and this also holds for Proclus. We can deduce, therefore, that the Cratylus was believed to study reality through the names of things, because names refer primarily to immaterial Forms. And this is an assumption that comes from a long tradition in which Galen is ignored, even though to our eyes he seems to be a more accurate Platonist.