Arbitrary Names

Are there any names which witness of themselves that they are not given arbitrarily, but have a natural fitness?

The names of heroes and of men in general are apt to be deceptive because they are often called after ancestors with whose names, as we were saying, they may have no business; or they are the expression of a wish like Eutychides (the son of good fortune), or Sosias (the Saviour), or Theophilus (the beloved of God), and others.

But I think that we had better leave these, for there will be more chance of finding correctness in the names of immutable essences;—there ought to have been more care taken about them when they were named, and perhaps there may have been some more than human power at work occasionally in giving them names.

We should begin with the consideration of the Gods, and show that they are rightly named Gods.

I suspect that the sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven, which are still the Gods of many barbarians, were the only Gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes.

Seeing that they were always moving and running, from their running nature they were called Gods or runners (Theous, Theontas).

When men became acquainted with the other Gods, they proceeded to apply the same name to them all.

Hesiod speaks of a golden race of men who came first.

Golden men means they are good and noble. This is because he further says that we are the iron race.

He would say that the good men of our own day are of golden race.

The good are wise. That’s why I totally believe that he called them demons, because they were daemones (knowing or wise).

In our older Attic dialect, the word itself occurs.

He and other poets say truly, that when a good man dies he has honour and a mighty portion among the dead, and becomes a demon; which is a name given to him signifying wisdom.

I say too, that every wise man who happens to be a good man is more than human (daimonion) both in life and death, and is rightly called a demon.

The name is not much altered, and signifies that they were born of love. The heroes are demigods.

All of them sprang either from the love of:

• a God for a mortal woman, or
• a mortal man for a Goddess

Think of the word in the old Attic, and you will see better that the name heros is only a slight alteration of Eros, from whom the heroes sprang.

Either this is the meaning, or, if not this, then they must have been skilful as rhetoricians and dialecticians, and able to put the question (erotan), for eirein is equivalent to legein.

Therefore, in the Attic dialect the heroes turn out to be rhetoricians and questioners.

The noble breed of heroes are a tribe of sophists and rhetors.

But can you tell me why men are called anthropoi?—that is more difficult.

That is to say, you trust to the inspiration of Euthyphro.

Your faith is not vain; for at this very moment a new and ingenious thought strikes me, and, if I am not careful, before to-morrow’s dawn I shall be wiser than I ought to be.

Now, attend to me; and first, remember that we often put in and pull out letters in words, and give names as we please and change the accents. Take, for example, the word Dii Philos; in order to convert this from a sentence into a noun, we omit one of the iotas and sound the middle syllable grave instead of acute; as, on the other hand, letters are sometimes inserted in words instead of being omitted, and the acute takes the place of the grave.

The name anthropos, which was once a sentence, and is now a noun, appears to be a case just of this sort, for one letter, which is the alpha, has been omitted, and the acute on the last syllable has been changed to a grave.

The word “man” implies that other animals never examine, or consider, or look up at what they see, but that man not only sees (opope) but considers and looks up at that which he sees, and hence he alone of all animals is rightly anthropos, meaning anathron a opopen.

We will examine the natural fitness of the word psuche (soul), and then of the word soma (body)

Those who first used the name ‘psuche’ meant to express that the soul when in the body is the source of life, and gives the power of breath and revival (anapsuchon), and when this reviving power fails then the body perishes and dies.

This they called psyche.

I can discover something which will be more acceptable to the disciples of Euthyphro, for I am afraid that they will scorn this explanation.

The soul holds and carries and gives life and motion to the entire nature of the body.

Anaxagoras says that mind or soul is the ordering and containing principle of all things

Then you may well call that power phuseche which carries and holds nature (e phusin okei, kai ekei).

This may be refined away into psuche.

It is so; but I cannot help laughing, if I am to suppose that this was the true meaning of the name.

You mean soma (the body).

That may be variously interpreted; and yet more variously if a little permutation is allowed. For some say that the body is the grave (sema) of the soul which may be thought to be buried in our present life; or again the index of the soul, because the soul gives indications to (semainei) the body; probably the Orphic poets were the inventors of the name, and they were under the impression that the soul is suffering the punishment of sin, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is incarcerated, kept safe (soma, sozetai), as the name soma implies, until the penalty is paid; according to this view, not even a letter of the word need be changed.

Yes. There is one excellent principle which, as men of sense, we must acknowledge,—that of the Gods we know nothing, either of their natures or of the names which they give themselves.

But we are sure that the names by which they call themselves, whatever they may be, are true. And this is the best of all principles; and the next best is to say, as in prayers, that we will call them by any sort or kind of names or patronymics which they like, because we do not know of any other. That also, I think, is a very good custom, and one which I should much wish to observe.

Let us, then, if you please, in the first place announce to them that we are not enquiring about them; we do not presume that we are able to do so; but we are enquiring about the meaning of men in giving them these names,—in this there can be small blame.

We begin with Hestia, according to custom.

What is the meaning of Hestia?

The first imposers of names must surely have been considerable persons; they were philosophers, and had a good deal to say.

Even if you analyze foreign names, a meaning is still discernible.

For example, ‘ousia’ is by some called esia. By others, osia.

The essence of things should be called estia, which is akin to the first of these (esia = estia), is rational enough.

There is reason in the Athenians calling that estia which participates in ousia.

For in ancient times we too seem to have said esia for ousia, and this you may note to have been the idea of those who appointed that sacrifices should be first offered to estia, which was natural enough if they meant that estia was the essence of things. Those again who read osia seem to have inclined to the opinion of Heracleitus, that all things flow and nothing stands; with them the pushing principle (othoun) is the cause and ruling power of all things, and is therefore rightly called osia.