Stoic philosophers, probably at least from the time of Chrysippus, were interested in Plato's Cratylus and were influenced by the dialogue. This is not directly attested in so many words, but its correctness is frequently and rightly assumed. Two points of similarity are self-evident. First and most significant is the Stoics' recourse to etymologising. We have copious evidence of Stoic etymologies, especially for the names of gods. Some of these etymologies are identical to ones advanced by Socrates in the Cratylus , and the principles involved are also identical: interpreting the name under investigation by aligning it with one or more words whose meaning is known, on the basis of phonetic similarity between the two sets of words. Thus the Stoics, like Plato's Socrates, explain the name Zeus and its inflection Dia by reference to zēn , ‘to live’, and dia meaning ‘because of’: the name Zeus signifies ‘the cause of life’. The second point of immediate similarity is the concept of elementary or primary sounds that signify things mimetically. Socrates advances this proposal as an analytical device for discovering whence names, that are compounded out of letters and syllables, derive their capacity for representing things correctly, i.e. as they really are (421c–425c). He then develops the hypothesis that the ancients took elementary sounds or letters to imitate things or properties of things, especially motion.
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