Abstract
The characteristic of signs, whatever they may be, is that they are used as a substitute for thoughts and things. But how can we bring together the three vertices of the triangle, language-mind-things, if we insist from the outset on the need to use signs to achieve this ? To gauge the difficulty (especially for a realist), the lecture focused on a rereading of the Cratylus, particularly in light of recent warnings and interpretations [2] of Socrates' efforts to decide (in vain) between the essential naturalness of language (Cratylus) and the conventional nature of words (Hermogenes). We recalled the arguments put forward to conclude that, decidedly, no, " to know names is not to know things ", and that no deciphering, however philological and coherent, is independent of an ontological choice, for to judge without language the truth of language, one must first have learned to know realities.
