Plato's Cratylus, Athena, and the Individual Rational Soul. Philosophical Projections on Traditional Theology

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relevance of the etymologies of Athena's epithets as described by Plato in his Cratylus. The etymological study of the goddess' names shows Athena's characteristics, which seem to refer back to some of the fundamental issues of Plato's philosophy. More precisely, Pallas Athena could be conceived of as she who dances fully-armed with a harmonic motion tending upward, as well as the one who thinks divine things: these attributes allegedly refer to the nature of individual rational souls as described, for example, in Plato's Timaeus. Through appropriate textual comparisons between these dialogues, the paper will try to show how seriously Plato intended to present the section of the Cratylus devoted to the etymologies of the divine names and how this kind of study served as a preparatory investigation for more complex philosophical issues, to be considered, at a later stage, with more suitable instruments, namely dialectics and knowledge of ideas.