Cratylus

Cratylus holds that names belong to things by nature, the same for Greeks and barbarians, and that correctness in language is a real standard rather than a convention. His position is uncompromising and a little unnerving: if everything flows and words must capture it, then even speaking becomes precarious. He matters because he pushes Socrates past ordinary definitions into the question of whether language can be true at all, setting the stakes for the whole inquiry.