Abstract

This excellent new monograph does everything it promises: it sets the excerpts we have of Proclus's teaching on the Cratylus in their proper historical setting, carefully laying out what Proclus thought Plato's dialogue accomplishes in light of the questions the intervening philosophical tradition had posed. This alone would justify the use in the title of the otherwise tired "in Context" trope; but van den Berg does much more. In recounting the steps that bring us from Plato's Cratylus to Proclus's Cratylus, van den Berg provides a comprehensive history of ancient accounts of names and naming. The work thereby richly earns its subtitle as well.The first of van den Berg's book's many virtues is the attention it gives to Plato's Cratylus itself. In chapter one, van den Berg persuasively argues that Plato is engaged in a different sort of project than his many successors: Plato's concern is with how names can be incorrectly assigned, and his answer hinges on the contention that such assignments reflect the divisions in being that they presuppose. Everyday language, crafted on the model of the sensible world, is thus an altogether unreliable guide to ultimate reality. This stands in stark