"Plato asks three important questions. First, if convention and custom are not reliable in producing correct words and fitting names, how is one to rehabilitate language so as to reestablish its proper relationship to the things it names? Second, if most people cannot be trusted to make correct names, who is to decide this matter? Third, if most people cannot discern the appropriateness or correctness of names, who is to decide this matter?" P&P, 102

Student: I'm tangled up in the "naming of things" issue, but it seems like I should be able to figure this out. If most people aren't qualified to divine the innate essence of things and appropriately name them, then how do we discern who is qualified? Aren't all mortals inherently flawed and thus unqualified? Am I missing something here?

Professor: No. I think that you are right on track. The fact the all mortals are flawed means that we are all "disqualified" to a degree. That is what distinguishes mortals from gods. There is that "hidden" knowledge that mortals can not understand completely. ('God works in mysterious ways' is the out that many use to deal with this.)

But in the naming of things, some mortals are more qualified than others. Whoever has the power to name has the power to create. Religion has used this distinction of qualification in rhetoric in some cases, while philosophy has also said that the philosopher is closer to the divine truth that the rest of us. Does that make sense? In some ways it is about power. The person or persons/institutions that determine who is qualified really have the power to determine "reality."

Student: (to self) I can't turn loose of this yet. I think this is going to go on for a while.