Limiting the Arbitrary: Linguistic Naturalism and its Opposites in Plato's Cratylus and Modern Theories of Language (review)

The volume is an in-depth discussion of the question of linguistic naturalism, or naturalness, in Plato’s dialogue Cratylus and a number of theories in Western linguistic tradition. In the ‘Introduction’ (1–10) the author introduces the problem of linguistic (un)- naturalness and provides a brief survey of the readings of the Cratylus. The main body of the volume is divided into two parts, each consisting of three chapters. Part 1 (11–89) is concerned with Plato’s work and Part 2 (91–200), with a continuation of the linguistic-philosophical discussion which he initiated in the work of such philosophers, writers, and linguists as Aristotle, Epicurus, Varro, Dante, René Descartes, John Locke, Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Roman Jakobson, Ferdinand de Saussure, George Orwell, Joseph Greenberg, Steven Pinker, or Noam Chomsky, to name only the major figures.

Each chapter of Part 1 is devoted to a portion of the Cratylus. Plato’s philosophical-linguistic divagations on (the lack of) linguistic arbitrariness are approached from the perspective of the opposition between nature and convention (Ch. 1), the problem of truth inherent in or absent from words (Ch. 2), and the problem of imitation and essence in naming (Ch. 3). Joseph carefully weaves his analytical thread through successive excerpts from Plato’s work, citing the original at length in his own translation. The analysis is painstakingly meticulous, and the problem is considered againsta larger background of the philosophical tradition of ancient Greece.

The first chapter of the second part of the volume, Ch. 4, offers a bird’s-eye view of the history of linguistic naturalism from Aristotle virtually to the present day. A claim is made that debates on certain problematic issues such as the arbitrariness of linguistic signs are indicative of the more basic problem of naturalness. Ch. 5 is concerned with the distinction between the natural and the standard, special attention being paid to the ideas of Dante, Saussure, Orwell, and Chomsky, all of which are said to be fictions. Finally, Ch. 6 looks at the issue of linguistic naturalism by discussing Jakobson’s and Trubetzkoy’s reaction to and rejection of Saussure’s notion of arbitrariness. An overview is presented of the proposed alternative, based on the concept of a ‘mark’, and of its continuation in the form of the theory of language universals, Chomsky’s ‘core’ and ‘periphery’, iconicity studies, and optimality theory.

Despite covering a wide range of topics and an enormous timespan, the book is coherent thanks to the main theme, namely the treatment of (un)naturalness in language and linguistics, a problem sometimes hidden under other concepts. The whole of Western linguistic thought since antiquity is viewed as a continuum, various aspects of which have been emphasized under various names atvarious moments. An index of names and terms helps readers orient themselves in this immensely informative and high-level contribution to understanding Western linguistics and its history.