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R.M. Van Den Burg, Proclus' Commentary on the Cratylus In Book Reviews / Th e International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 3 (2009) 154-201 161 R.M. Van den Burg, Proclus’ Commentary on the Cratylus in Context. Ancient Th eo- ries of Language and Meaning (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 239, $127, ISBN 9789004163799. In a notorious sentence, Richard Sorabji once remarked that Neoplatonists adhered to the “perfectly crazy” proposition that Plato and Aristotle are largely or entirely in agreement, but that this crazy proposition proved “philosophically fruitful.” It is with something of this spirit that Robbert Van den Berg (hereafter VdB) approaches the commentary of Proclus on Plato’s Cratylus.1 On the one hand, he has devoted a fi ne and sensitive monograph to the commentary and the history of etymological theories in previous Greek philosophy. Indeed this book seems to me to be a defi nitive study of the Cratylus commentary. On the other hand he thinks that Proclus, along with other Neoplatonists, got the central idea of the Cratylus “completely wrong” (xv, cf. 38-9, 79, 132). Plato, on VdB’s read- ing, presented a critique of the philosophical use of etymology and had a deep suspicion about the dialectical adequacy of natural language. Th e Neoplatonists, blithely missing this point, were happy not only to embrace the etymologies of the Cratylus but also to invent further etymologies of their own. Th is is a familiar feature of post-Iamblichean Neoplatonic texts, whose eff ect on the modern reader might be compared to that of the equally off -putting numerological proclivities of these same authors. Now, much as Dominic O’Meara has put Neoplatonic numer- ology within its proper intellectual context,2 VdB seeks to situate Proclus’ theory of names within the preceding tradition and Proclus’ own wider thought. Although VdB thinks Proclus has misunderstood Plato’s attitude towards natu- ral language, he allows that there is something right about Proclus’ approach. For the Cratylus is indeed intimately related to Platonic metaphysics, just as Proclus assumed. In his fi rst chapter VdB argues for a metaphysical reading of the Cratylus which is compatible with his reading of Plato as an etymological pessimist. He plausibly connects the Cratylus to remarks on naming found in the Sophist and Statesman (8-13). In those remarks, the Eleatic Stranger welcomes appropriate natural names for the items involved in collection and division. But he also shows awareness of the limits of these names, sometimes criticizing names for not divid- ing nature “at the joints” (e.g. the name “barbarian,” Statesman 262c-d), at other times saying that new names must be devised. Similarly, the Cratylus does accept that we can uncover the intentions of primordial name-givers—so that the task of etymologizing is not merely being mocked in the dialogue. But it then turns out that these name-givers had a mistaken philosophical outlook, being committed to 1) Th e commentary was recently translated in Sorabji’s Ancient Commentators Series: see B. Duvick (trans.), Proclus: On Plato Cratylus (London: 2007). 2) See D.J. O’Meara, Pythagoras Revived. Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford: 1989). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/187250809X12474505284026 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 12:39:44AM via free access 162 Book Reviews / Th e International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 3 (2009) 154-201 a Heraclitean theory according to which all things are in fl ux.3 Th us names are, in a sense, worse than mere empty symbols: they preserve a false philosophical view of the world and are thus apt to mislead anyone who does dialectic by analyzing names. VdB contrasts this position to that of Aristotle, who thought that natural language is conventional, but frequently a good guide to truth despite its limits. Th ere are several reasons why Proclus was never likely to read the Cratylus in this way. For one thing, there is the widespread tendency of ancient philoso- phers to assume that humans of previous ages surpassed us in their wisdom and insight. Plato himself seems to endorse this sentiment in other contexts (e.g. the opening sections of the Timaeus). Th us Proclus would not have been as ready as we are to think that the original name-givers could have been, by Plato’s lights, systematically mistaken. Furthermore, Neoplatonists tended in any case to see the physical realm as subject to fl ux. So on this score Proclus might have agreed with Plato’s name-givers, at least so far as physical things are concerned (more on this below). For another thing, VdB’s reading casts no doubt on the validity of the etymologies of divine names presented in the Cratylus, and it is clearly these etymologies that Proclus considered most important. In light of this, VdB may put too much emphasis on the Neoplatonic “misreading” of the Cratylus. Regarding what was, for them, the most important aspect of the dialogue, they read Plato more or less the way that VdB does.4 VdB has enlightening things to say about why Neoplatonists, or at least post- Iamblichean Neoplatonists, were so determined to hold on to the divine names and to etymologize them. Th at they did so might at fi rst come as a surprise, given the ineff ability of the gods. But in fact it is the very transcendence of the divine that made etymology so important. As VdB points out, Plotinus was able largely to dispense with etymology because he was an “epistemic optimist.” He thought that we can uncover the nature of the Forms and the divine realm through rational inquiry, because a part of our soul always remains in contact with this higher realm (67, 73, 86). By contrast later Platonists, who rejected Plotinus’ doctrine of the undescended soul,5 thought that the divine would remain unaccessible to us unless it were somehow revealed. Th eurgy is one way that Iamblichus and other Platonists thought this could be brought about. An example from Proclus that VdB mentions several times is statues of the gods, which perform the same func- tion as names by “resembling” the gods. Here Platonist epistemology supports a widespread religious and cultural commitment, namely the immense respect that was paid both to divine names and to statues (74, 111). It’s tempting to say that this attitude functions as an endoxon which Proclus seeks to vindicate. 3) Here VdB is following D.N. Sedley, Plato’s Cratylus (Cambridge: 2003). 4) He agrees with Sedley that the divine etymologies are basically endorsed by Plato: see 117. 5) On this see C.G. Steel, Th e Changing Self. A Study on the Soul in Later Neoplatonism: Iambli- chus, Damascius and Priscianus (Brussels: 1978). Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 12:39:44AM via free access Book Reviews / Th e International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 3 (2009) 154-201 163 But one should not assume that all Greek thinkers were enthusiastic users of etymology, for divine names or names in general.6 As VdB points out, the Platonist stance may be an inheritance from the Stoics, who decisively rejected convention- alism and even invented the word etymologia (34). Quite possibly in reaction to the Cratylus, the Stoics used etymology to uncover the insight of original name-givers, which for them had subsequently been obscured by the development of Greek language. Of course, the Stoics made no ontological distinction between divine and physical realms, such that names could adequately represent the former and falsely the latter (this, as we have seen, is eff ectively VdB’s reading of Plato). Th is is relevant to VdB’s interesting chapter on the linguistic views of Porphyry, whose remarks about names are a sort of miniature version of his incorporation of Aristo- tle within a Platonist philosophy. Porphyry seems to endorse Aristotle’s conven- tionalism regarding names, and he was criticized for this by Iamblichus (71). But this conventionalism went hand-in-hand with his strategy of assigning Aristotelian philosophy, and especially the organon with its treatment of language, to our lower physical realm. Th e aforementioned Stoic position may have played arole here. If Porphyry followed a Stoicizing account of etymology, he may also have followed the link they drew between even divine names and physical phenomena (74). As on so many other issues, the works of Proclus give us our best extant evi- dence for the post-Porphyrian consensus on the correctness of names, originated by Iamblichus. And among Proclus’ works, of course, it is the Cratylus commen- tary that addresses the question most extensively. However Proclus did not claim that the aim (skopos) of the Cratylus was names or their correctness. Rather, he read it as a dialogue about psychology: name-giving is simply a central example of the “generative activity and assimilative power of souls” (96). Because souls are, as Plotinus put it, on the horizon between the sensible and intelligible worlds, the names they give are of two kinds. Th e names of eternal things manifest our capac- ity for knowledge (they are given kat’ epistêmên), whereas names of physical things manifest a kind of opinion (doxa) and are subject to chance (98-101). Proclus puts this point to use in his account of the diff erent characters in the dialogue. Cratylus insists on natural correctness of names but errs in assuming that all things are in fl ux, whereas Hermogenes fails to lift his gaze above the realm of changing par- ticulars and thus assumes that all names are correct only by convention (102). VdB thus suggests that for Proclus Hermogenes would represent the Aristotelian position (106). Th e two-world metaphysics also allows Proclus to explain, for instance, variation in natural languages: two words that are the same in form and correctly signify the same thing might nonetheless diff er in their “acoustic matter” 6) In the pre-Plotinian period a strikingly critical stance towards natural language is shown by Galen (56-8).
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