The APS is pleased to announce that S. Montgomery Ewegen has just published Plato’s Cratylus: The Comedy of Language with the Indiana University Press.

Congratulations, Shane.

This is so convincing a reading of Plato’s Cratylus that it may well open up discussion of the dialogue and make it much more widely studied than it is presently. —Drew A. Hyland, Trinity College

Plato’s dialogue Cratylus focuses on being and human dependence on words, or the essential truths about the human condition. Arguing that comedy is an essential part of Plato’s concept of language, S. Montgomery Ewegen asserts that understanding the comedic is key to an understanding of Plato’s deeper philosophical intentions. Ewegen shows how Plato’s view of language is bound to comedy through words and how, for Plato, philosophy has much in common with playfulness and the ridiculous. By tying words, language, and our often uneasy relationship with them to comedy, Ewegen frames a new reading of this notable Platonic dialogue.