1. The argument Hermogenes makes in Cratylus is the argument that language is conventional, he asserts that the idea of the “name” is a concept in flux, a product of social decisions. It is free following and always changing. Hermogenes firmly disagrees with the notion that a name can be given by nature. Whereas the argument Socrates is attempting to make suggests that there is a language of truth, an origin if you may. That at the very essence of all objects or beings is a “true” name, thus Socrates asserts that the name of an object comes from the object itself, latter becoming corrupted as time goes on. Contemporarily, the argument Hermogenes makes is generally accepted; basically because arguments attempting to define an origin to language have subsequently been shied away from. This is not to say that Socrates argument has lost significance it provides an important juxtaposition and offers a wider understating about the thinking of language.
2. Ronald Barthes’s
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Ferdinand De Saussure’s notion that signs are arbitrary and their values are not intrinsic but instead constituted through difference is a claim that directly stems from his semiological view of linguistics. For Saussure language is a social fact. Saussure argues against the notion that the signifier and signified can be separated. He argues that there is a lack of definitive or intrinsic meaning from the sign itself therefore meaning is produced from the relationship between the signifier and signified, thus they cannot be separated. The value of symbols and images move past plain signification there must be a semiotic and reciprocal relationship between both components for meaning to be produced and recognized. The value itself as Saussure states is “entirely relative” this is a direct result of the arbitrariness of signs, if in fact signs are not arbitrary then there must be a limited or “restricted” amount of value. But as observations of different languages suggest this is not the