Full Idea
If things cannot be learned except from their names, how can we possibly claim that the name-givers or rule-setters have knowledge before any names had been given for them to know?
Gist of Idea
Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge
Source
Plato (Cratylus [c.375 BCE], 438b)
Book Reference
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.153
A Reaction
Running through this is a hostility to philosophy of language, so I find it very congenial. We are animals who relate to the world before language takes a grip. We have full-blown knowledge of things, with no intervention of words.
Related Idea
Idea 13789 Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato]