Thesis advisor: John Sallis / This dissertation serves as an analysis of Plato's <italic> Cratylus </italic> that attends to the comedy of the text and the manner in which this comedy contributes to the text's philosophical analysis of language. Stated broadly, this dissertation shows how Socrates criticizes a certain view of language (which he calls the `tragic view') by showing the manner in which it binds human beings to opinions and mere appearances, thus severing them from the truth. Against this tragic view, Socrates develops what I call his `comic view' of language that frees human beings from their attachment to mere opinion by providing them with a glimpse of true Being. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / Today, professional philosophy is dominated by the assumption that literary language is either merely ornamental or that it even detracts from the purposes of philosophical discourse. Ancient philosophers, however, did not share this assumption. Thinkers like Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Plato all recognized that their manner of expression contributes to the philosophical purposes of a text in a way that does not merely confirm or illustrate what is said. This is why Plato couches his account of linguistic correctness (his only sustained treatment of linguistic meaning) in a thoroughly poetic dialogue—the Cratylus. Many scholars have recognized Plato’s debt to the literary tradition by trying to identify the provenance of his literary practices (such as etymologizing) in the Cratylus. And on the other hand, many have developed sophisticated interpretations of the dialogue’s arguments. However, no research adequately represents the expressly philosophical contribution made by Plato’s appropriation of the literary tradition in the Cratylus. My dissertation engages Plato’s appropriation of the literary tradition by looking at both his adoption of literary concepts and his enactment of literary practice. It does so with a focus on two philosophical questions that are fundamental to the Cratylus and yet have been neglected in the scholarship: (1) what exactly does Plato mean by “correctness,” and (2) why does he have Socrates demonstrate this correctness by etymologizing? The first chapter tackles the first of these questions by replacing the nearly universal understanding of “correctness,” as a correspondence between the semantic content of a name with a true description of the name’s referent, with an understanding based on the concept’s provenance in the literary tradition, a broader appropriateness of language to what is spoken about that I call “resonance.” Each subsequent chapter address a key instance where the standard understanding of correctness (and of etymology’s role in exhibiting correctness) is inadequate—and where an understanding of correctness as resonance makes more sense. The second chapter demonstrates that Cratylus makes positive philosophical contributions to an understanding of correctness as resonance through his own stylized use of language. Therein, I argue that Plato uses Cratylus’ style to express the idea that language’s correctness increases as it is made increasingly conspicuous in its insufficiency, thus precluding closure or reification of what is what is spoken about. The third chapter demonstrates that a crucial argument early in the dialogue is analogical in the strongest sense—that a correct understanding of the argument requires an understanding of the correctness (as resonance) of the argument’s analogues. Like Chapter 2, this demonstrates how language can be made meaningful, paradoxically, through a sort of destructive manipulation. The fourth chapter shows how the standard understanding of correctness cannot be true of Socrates’ paradigm instance of correctness, the Homeric god-given names, and how these names are more correct because they require us to seek their varied and unapparent resonances. And the final chapter shows how the entire dialogue is unified by a brief and previously overlooked allusion to a scene in the Iliad. This recognition provides the interpretive key to understanding the philosophical contributions made by the dramatic structure of the dialogue. Hence, this dissertation provides a renewed understanding of the dialogue’s central concern, correctness, and its central practice, etymologizing. Its interpretation is interesting for what it says about the relation of meaning to such diverse things as phonetics, context, language’s mode of expression, etc. And by demonstrating how this sophisticated account of meaning results from attention to Plato’s appropriation of his predecessors, my dissertation contributes to the growing scholarship that recognizes the philosophical import of Plato’s “literary” engagement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

A pesquisa propõe uma leitura do Crátilo de Platão. O interesse central está na estrutura argumentativa do diálogo com ênfase nas teses do naturalismo e convencionalismo lingüístico. O trabalho busca demonstrar que Platão concede vitória a um convencionalismo moderado. / The dissertation at hand offers a reading of Platos Cratylus with emphasis on its argumentative structure, particularly with what pertains to the doctrines of linguistic naturalism and linguistic conventionalism. The research strives to show that Plato credits victory to a moderate version of conventionalism.

This thesis is about Plato‘s dialogue Cratylus, which is one of the earliest texts in the history ofphilosophy of language and has generated much interpretive controversy. In the dialogue, Platoexamines two theories on the correctness of names; conventionalism and naturalism. However,there is no clear positive outcome in the dialogue in regard to the debate betweenconventionalism and naturalism. Therefore, scholars have long been divided as to what Plato‘sown position on the correctness of names is. Another puzzling feature of the dialogue concernsthe etymological section, which has often been ignored or treated in isolation in modernscholarship. This section takes up about half of the dialogue and offers elaborate explanations ofa large number of words in the Greek language. Some recent studies of the Cratylus, however,are shedding much welcome light on the etymological section and the role it plays in thedialogue as a whole. In this thesis, I compare two competing interpretations of the etymologicalsection and discuss how an understanding of the etymologies can help us understand Plato‘sposition on the correctness of names and the purpose of the dialogue as a whole. In TimothyBaxter‘s interpretation, the etymological section should be read as a parody which amounts to aPlatonic critique of a mistaken attitude towards names and language found especially in thepoetry and philosophy in Plato‘s time. David Sedley, on the other hand, argues that theetymologies are seriously intended by Plato as a method of linguistic and historical analysis, amethod he himself endorsed and practiced. If the etymologies are taken seriously, Sedley argues,they show that Plato favored a form of naturalism in regard to the correctness of names. Afterproviding an outline and evaluation of these two interpretations, the thesis concludes with myown proposal. Although I disagree with some of Sedley‘s particular interpretations andarguments, I find myself in broad agreement with his general conclusions.

A pesquisa propõe uma leitura do Crátilo de Platão. O interesse central está na estrutura argumentativa do diálogo com ênfase nas teses do naturalismo e convencionalismo lingüístico. O trabalho busca demonstrar que Platão concede vitória a um convencionalismo moderado. / The dissertation at hand offers a reading of Platos Cratylus with emphasis on its argumentative structure, particularly with what pertains to the doctrines of linguistic naturalism and linguistic conventionalism. The research strives to show that Plato credits victory to a moderate version of conventionalism.

La thèse intitulée Proust et Platon se fonde principalement sur les affinités qui unissent les deux génies. Bien qu’il y ait un écart temporel considérable entre eux, on essaie d’élaborer un rapprochement à trois temps. Une première partie est consacrée à l’étymologie et la philosophie du langage, à savoir à l’effort de Proust et de Platon afin d’établir la rectitude du nom par rapport à la chose qu’il représente. Dans un tout premier temps, on met pour lors le langage à l’épicentre de notre analyse, en s’efforçant de localiser les différentes tendances –cratylisme, hermogénisme, naturalisme, conventionnalisme– dans un dialogue capital : le Cratyle. En deuxième lieu, c’est l’étymologie qui ranime toute cette effervescence linguistique, en représentant un sujet pivotal chez Proust et chez Platon : elle questionne l’emploi des mots et des noms, ainsi que leur relevance avec la chose qu’ils représentent. L’autre grande théorie linguistique proposée est l’hermogénisme, dû à la théorie d’Hermogène chez Cratyle. Il prétend mettre en avant la thèse centrale du disciple de Socrate qui soutient que les noms sont justes en fonction d’une convention entre les interlocuteurs qui les utilisent. Dans un deuxième temps, c’est l’amour dans toutes ses manifestations qui prend le relais. Il est question de l’œuvre la plus délectable de Platon, le Banquet. On va commencer en mettant en avant le propre rôle du banquet en tant qu’institution dans l’antiquité. Là on trouve sans aucun doute le champ le plus fécond afin de parler d’éros adolescent, de l’androgyne, mais aussi d’ἀγάπη. Mais le Banquet a aussi son côté aristophanesque : en attribuant au grand comédien l’articulation de son mythe le plus célèbre, Platon a voulu peut-être mettre en lumière le côté le plus parodique de l’éros. Toutefois, ce mythe paradisiaque déclenche aussi l’examen de bien des thèmes qui concerne l’homosexualité en Grèce d’antan. La partie proustienne sur l’amour se consacre dans un premier temps à l’importance du banquet mondain, lieu d’apprentissage social, érotique et artistique pour le narrateur. Ensuite, il repose sur les différentes manifestations de l’ἒρως et de l’ἀγάπη dans la Recherche : amitié, inversion, procréation artistique. La dernière étape de la deuxième partie est vouée à la mort et l’au-delà dans l’antiquité grecque et les trois narrations de descentes à l’enfer dans le corpus platonique. On va constater que la mort constitue au même titre que l’amour le leitmotiv incontournable de la Recherche également. Pour la partie finale, on a choisi un titre sans doute déconcertant : Δεύτερος πλοῦς, seconde navigation. Par là, on voudrait souligner l’effort de Platon et de Proust d’atteindre les vérités les plus inabordables en empruntant des sentiers iconoclastes : pour Platon, il s’agirait de la réminiscence, de l’esthétique idéale et du mythe, tandis que la section proustienne est axée sur le temps et la mémoire, l’esthétique et les diverses techniques narratives de la Recherche. On espère qu’à la fin de cette recherche les reflets contigus mis en évidence dans les œuvres de Platon et de Proust se seraient convertis en éclats miroitants. / The thesis entitled Proust and Plato is mainly based on the affinities between the two great figures of universal scope. Although there is a significant time gap between them, we have tried to develop an approximation in three distinct parts. The first part is devoted to etymology and philosophy of language, namely the effort of Proust and Plato to establish the correctness of the name against the thing it represents. At first, we put the language at the epicenter of our analysis, in an effort to locate the various tendencies, –cratylism, hermogenism, naturalism, conventionalism –, in a critical dialogue: the Cratylus. Secondly, it is etymology that revives the linguistic effervescence, representing a pivotal topic in both Proust and Plato: it questions the use of words and names, as well as their relevance with the thing they represent. The other great linguistic theory proposed is hermogenism, named after the theory of Hermogenes in the Cratylus, who argues that the names have been invented on the basis of an agreement between the people who use them. Secondly, it is love in all its manifestations that takes over: the focus is on the most delightful work of Plato, the Banquet. We will start by highlighting the role of the banquet as an institution in antiquity. These are without a doubt the mostappropriate surroundings to talk about pederasty, the androgyne, but also ἀγάπη. Nevertheless, the Banquet also has its Aristophanian side: by assigning to the great comedy writer the articulation of his most famous myth, Plato perhaps wanted to highlight the more satirical side of eros. However, this idyllic myth also triggers the review of many themes concerning homosexuality in ancient Greece. The Proustian part on love is dedicated initially to the importance of the aristocratic banquet, place of the social, romantic and artistic initiation of the Narrator. It is furthermore based on the different manifestations of ἒρως and ἀγάπη in the novel:friendship, homosexuality, artistic procreation. The last stage of the second part is dedicated to death and the beyond in Greek Antiquity and the three tales of nekyia in the Platonic corpus. We will underline the existence of it as a leitmotiv in the Proustian novel as well. The final section has a rather disconcerting title: Δεύτερος πλοῦς, a second navigation. Here, we would like to emphasize the effort of Plato and Proust to reach the most unfathomable truths by taking iconoclastic paths: for Plato, it would be reminiscence, Ideal aesthetics and myth, while the Proustian segment focuses on time and memory, aesthetics and the narrative techniques of the novel. We hope that at the end of this study the contiguous reflections highlighted in the works of Plato and Proust will have turned into dazzling sparkles.

ABSTRACT WHERE WE CANNOT SPEAK The poetry collection Where We Cannot Speak and the accompanying critical essay “Borges and the Golem Paradox: a Rhetoric of Silence?” explore the theme of language and silence. The poetry collection is written in the voice of the imaginary (but published) poet, Gershon Holtz, who reflects my Jewish heritage and upbringing. The poems articulate the silences of those oppressed by war and persecution, and also the silences of meditation and the ineffable, which can reside in the presence, absence, and margins of the poet’s voice. The collection is comprised of two sections: (i) “The Mantelpiece”, which delves into culture, conflict, and memory; and (ii) “The Beautiful Salon”, which reflects upon themes of place, time, loss, and responses to silences represented in visual art and poetry. The critical essay is concerned with the cabalistic figure of the golem—a human being made in an artificial way by magic art, through the use of holy names. Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges (famous for creating fictitious authors and books) wished that, of all his work, the first stanza of his poem “The Golem”, might be remembered. The essay provides a reading that demonstrates how the poem embodies Borges’ views on the nature of signification, language, and knowledge. The paradoxical outcome is that, just as the golem did not have the power of speech, language conceived of as an instrument for textual golem-making is silent in its capacity to represent the world. The essay concludes with some thoughts on my own poetic practice and links the essay with the poetry collection via the figure of the textual golem, Gershon Holtz. This fictional poet becomes a symbol for the problem of language and representation—interpreted both as what we cannot speak about, and the silences inherent in language itself.

The thesis deals with the question of the speech in Plato's dialogue Cratylus, from the perspective of philosophical thematization of the commitment of speech in the relationship between man and the world, as it gradually appears in individual ideas of the text. I deal with different approaches to the language of both Socrates' partners in the conversation, Hermogenes and Cratylus. They both prove problematic for various reasons. Hermogens see language as the work of human consensus and agreement, but it seems as he underestimate the importance of it and see it as something haphazard or arbitrary. The commitment of speech seemed to be precisely what Socrates were trying to bring Hermogens to. Names say what we consider the things to be. By being the smallest part of speech that makes sense, they can decide on its truth or falsity. Through speech, we relate to the being and we obtain a certain stability that enables us to know things and share that knowledge, which is definitely not happening arbitrarily. However, it should be borne in mind that the names show the convictions of the people who gave them to the things, and not something like the true nature of those things, as Cratylus would have believed, so that we cannot rely entirely on them for knowing things. Key words: Plato, Cratylus, speech,...

Dès sa découverte en 1962, le Papyrus de Derveni, le plus ancien manuscrit d'Europe, n'a pas cessé de soulever des interrogations majeures relatives à la transmission, à l'interprétation et à la fonction des textes orphiques. Le Papyrus de Derveni nous fournit aussi un témoignage de premier ordre quant à l'influence de la philosophie présocratique sur les doctrines orphiques. Cette thèse est la première édition critique française du Papyrus de Derveni. Celle-ci comprend un apparat critique complet ainsi que des notes au texte. Ce travail de recherche propose aussi une étude monographique du Papyrus de Derveni. Nous avons porté une attention toute particulière à l'analyse du poème orphique, aux techniques exégétiques employées et aux thématiques philosophiques de l'écrit contenu dans le Papyrus de Derveni. Nous avons, en outre, comparé les doctrines cosmologiques et philosophiques proposées par son auteur avec les théories d'Héraclite d’Éphèse, d'Anaxagore de Clazomènes, de Diogène d'Apollonie et Archélaos d’Athènes. / Since his discovery in 1962, the Derveni Papyrus, the most ancient manuscript of Europe, has rase full of major questions about the transmission, the interpretation and the function of the orphic texts. The Derveni Papyrus offers us an emblematic testimony about the influence of Presocratic Philosophy on the orphic doctrines. This thesis is the first french critical edition of the Derveni Papyrus with a critical apparatus and notes on the text. This research paper also provides a monographic study of this document. We especially focused our attention on the orphic poem quoted by the author of the Derveni Papyrus, on the exegetical technics he employed and on the philosophical doctrines he proposed. We particularly compared the cosmological and philosophical theories of the Derveni Papyrus author with that of Heraclitus of Ephesus, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Diogenes of Apollonia and Archelaus of Athens.

La singularité et la fonction holoparénétique particulièrement efficace des fragments de Tyrtée et de Kallinos, trop longtemps négligées par une tradition philologique étroitement homérocentrée, imposaient d’elles-mêmes que l’on revienne sur le texte de ces deux poètes-savants du VIIe siècle a. C. et, pour ce faire, que l’on s’en tienne à la lettre des manuscrits sans d’entrée de jeu s’en offusquer, et que l’on étudie pour elle-même, en ses profondeurs linguistiques, la diction qui fut la leur et qui pour la première fois, concomitamment à Archiloque, usa du mètre élégiaque. Or, outre que le fonctionnement dialectal et rythmique de leurs fragments se révèle plus fluctuant qu’il n’y paraît, leur organisation intrinsèquement « stanzaïque » reposant sur des systèmes d’échos plus phoniques que lexicaux, ainsi que l’usage répétitif de la forme rythmiquement marquée des participes moyens-passifs en -me/noj/-(o/)menoj, sont deux traits qui nous fondent à penser que c’est un « rythme sonore », ou plus précisément « phonico-pragmatique », qui devait en être le moteur. Aussi est-ce pourquoi, puisqu’on reconnaît de plus en plus unanimement au Cratyle (dialogue éminemment poiétique de Platon) un savoir linguistique aussi fiable que véritable, j’ai cherché à travers lui une méthode qui permette d’appréhender un tel état de langue. Le parcours herméneutico-philologique qui en découle, mené à l’intérieur d’un système de correspondances phonico-syllabiques centré sur le radical du verbe me/nw « rester, tenir bon », permet de se frayer un chemin dans la dimension intra- et infra-linguistique de la diction parénétique de Tyrtée et de Kallinos afin de mieux comprendre les raisons et la nature d’une efficacité qui hérite à l’évidence de traditions non narratives. / The singularity and the most effective holoparenetic function of Tyrtaeus’ and Kallinos’ fragments, too long neglected by a philological tradition narrowly focussed on the homeric model, imposed themselves for a return to the text of these two wise-poets of the VIIth century B. C. and, to do this, required that we stick to the letter of the manuscripts without first take offense, and that we study for itself, in its depths language, the diction which was theirs and that for the first time, concomitantly with Archilochus, used the elegiac meter. Now, apart from their being dialectically and rhythmically more fluctuating than it looks, their organization inherently “stanzaic”, based on echoes which are more phonic than lexical, as well as the repeated use of the rhythmically marked form of the medio-passive participles in -me/noj/-(o/)menoj, are two features that underpin us to believe that it is a "sound " or more precisely "phonico-pragmatic" rhythm which was to be their driving force. For that reason and since it is more and more established that we must trust the linguistics of Plato’s Cratylus, I have been looking through it for a method that tackles such a state of language. The resulting hermeneutic and philological journey, through out a whole system of phonico-syllabic correspondences turning around the verbal stem of me/nw “to stand firm”, helps clear a path into the intra- and infra-linguistic dimension of Tyrtaeus’ and Kallinus’ parenetic diction in order to understand better the reasons and the nature of an efficiency that inherits obviously non-narrative traditions.