Ronald Simon

A Platonic Conception of Language: a Concept, or an Idea? Ronald Simon

This book is a type of prolegomena to Platonic conceptions of language. This book does not address at length all of the social and cultural issues that deserve a relevant book of their own. There is no deep moral message in this book. However, I want people to know something that I feel about appropriate criticism. Criticism and rebuke should be expressed in a kind fashion. If you do so, please do not leave a "trace". If you''re going to send the thing down, then do it in its appropriate season, please. At the time I wrote this book as a doctoral thesis, I was not completely aware of all the sources and influences that led me to write what I did. On looking through the dialogues themselves and other sources, I noticed that certain ideas that I thought might be my own had already been laid down by Plato or others. This is particularly true in the case of ''The Cratylus'', where possibly there might be a sort of abstract Sapir-Whorf idea contained therein. Many of the issues presented in the book are left slightly vague or open. I hope we can discuss them in the future: This is not a dialogue, but I hope that some day it could be so.