The purpose of this series is to explore the relationship between world and word. Our emphasis will be on ancient texts—above all, Homer, Plato, and the Bible—but we will not shy away from the contemporary scene, in which it is sometimes claimed that both speech and its absence, silence, are violence and in which the use of “the wrong word” can lead to severe social, professional, and sometimes legal consequences.

Does language contain truth in itself? And whether or not it does, at what level are the words we use natural and at what level are they a matter of convention? Plato’s Cratylus provides the earliest in-depth discussion of these matters, and it turns out that we can learn something about our own linguistic problems today by considering this neglected dialogue.

This event is co-sponsored by the Galileo Center at Columbia Law School and will be held in the Law School, room JG102B. It is the second in our Fall 2023 lecture series Language Rights and Wrongs.