Sign-In
Cart
Plato's Cratylus: By Zeus! A Tragic-Comedy About the Possibility of a Common-Field of Truth
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781968044787
Publisher: Recursive Publishing
Published: Dec 21 2025
Pages: 154
Weight: 0.61
Height: 0.33 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Part of Poetic Philosophy Presents: Narrative Translations Designed for Accessibility
What if the meaning of language were not just a technical question, but a civic test of whether truth can be shared at all?
In this groundbreaking new translation of Plato's Cratylus, Jason Kassel brings forward the poetic, political, and philosophical drama embedded in Plato's exploration of naming, meaning, and truth. Going beyond conventional line-for-line approaches, this edition offers a line-for-concept rendering that preserves Plato's argument in its original sequence while restoring the metaphorical power that shaped his dialogues for an Athenian audience.
Plato's Cratylus asks: Can names be correct by nature? Or are they simply conventions - changeable, arbitrary, and subject to domination? The dialogue opens with Socrates, Cratylus, and Hermogenes standing together not as scholars, but as hoplites in a battlefield of speech - each bearing a spear of logos, a shield of reason, and the hope of forming a phalanx of understanding. Across this richly layered conversation, Plato explores the mythic roots of words, the politics of naming after war, and the philosophical stakes of whether meaning can truly be shared.
This translation introduces a new conceptual anchor: the common-field of truth. More than a metaphor, it is Plato's answer to the crisis of language. For without a shared space of meaning, there can be no justice, no law, no love - and no reason to speak at all.
Highlights include:
A complete rethinking of logos as a civic and ethical structure, not merely a word or reason.
Restoration of Plato's dramatic metaphors: the ship, the battlefield, the dialectician-as-pilot.
Literal retention of ritual oaths like By Zeus! to signal sacred speech and civic obligation.
Integration of the Greek concept koinōnia (communion) as the underlying logic of the dialogue.
A cross-disciplinary resonance with Kant's communis sensus - the shared sense that underlies aesthetic judgment, moral law, and public reason.
Written for students, educators, and thoughtful readers outside of academic philosophy, this edition includes:
A five-part Introduction outlining the translation method and conceptual stakes.
A detailed Glossary of Translation Choices, explaining terms like slave-name, phalanx of logos, shipwright of truth, and lawgiver.
A full, accessible rendering of the Greek text using poetic, dramatized English - without losing philosophical clarity.
For those who care about language, truth, civic life, and the possibility of standing together under the eyes of the gods - this Cratylus will resonate.
This is Plato the dramatist. Plato the lawgiver. Plato the poet of truth's last stand.
Also from
Kassel, Jason
Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: An Overture to a New Philosophy
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Paperback
Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra - A Mountain Overture (Translated as Dynamite): A Poetic Rendering of Nietzsche's Vision with Symbolic Guide
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Paperback
American History in the Age of Slavery: Presidents Washington and Adams (1793-1801)
Kassel, Jason
Paperback
Machiavelli's The Prince: A Renaissance Narrative of Fortuna and Virtue
Machiavelli, Niccolò
Paperback
American History in the Age of Slavery: Continental Congress through the Election of 1792
Kassel, Jason
Paperback
Also in
Fiction Anthologies
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Robert M.
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Hardcover
James Weldon Johnson: Writings (Loa #145): The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man / Along This Way / Essays and Editorials / Selected Poems
Johnson, James Weldon
Hardcover
Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Shelley, Mary
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Stoker, Bram
Paperback
Sez I to Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank and Malachy McCourt
McCourt, Frank
McCourt, Malachy
Hardcover
Here in New England: Unforgettable Stories of People, Places, and Memories That Connect Us All.
Allen, Mel
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Sophocles
Euripides
Aeschylus
Paperback
Learn Russian with Beginner Stories: Interlinear Russian to English
Hyplern, Bermuda Word
Gettys, Serafima
Van Den End, Kees
Paperback
Obvious Adams -- The Story of a Successful Businessman: New Business Edition
Updegraff, Robert R.
Paperback
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings: Poems, Tales, Essays, and Reviews
Poe, Edgar Allan
Hardcover
Bookin' in the Big House: What I Learned Leading a Women's Prison Book Club
Devoto, Pat Cunningham
Paperback
Japanese Folktales for Language Learners: Bilingual Legends and Fables in Japanese and English (Free Online Audio Recording)
Sato, Anna
Sato, Eriko
Paperback
The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, volume 1
Fager, Anders
Cubas, Cristina Fernández
Pedraza, Pilar
Paperback
The Serpent Mound, Adams County, Ohio (Facsimile Reprint)
Randall, E. O.
Randall, Emilius Oviatt
Paperback