In chapters five and six of Book I, Quintilian carefully maps out
proper usage, drawing on analogy, etymology, and rational arguments to establish
the proper usage. These chapters are reminiscent of Socrates’s review of the
origins of names and their true meanings in Cratylus.
Though I found most of Cratylus pedantic, I can easily imagine Plato’s
audience listening to these passages being read with interest, perhaps even laughter. After all, Plato often included in-jokes in his dialogues, and modern readers are not part of the "in" crowd. They'd fly right over our heads.
Unlike Quintilian, for whom the litany of proper usage seems
sufficient to his task, the education of the young, Plato ends his long list with
an explanation of how knowing the proper names can be used in dialectic to trip up an opponent, thus revealing his own method of deconstruction as well
as complicating his theory of language. Language is referential, yes, but it
refers to what I can convince you it refers to.
Quintilian ends these chapters by drawing an analogy between
“common usage” as a means of deciding on whether a specific word or phrase is
acceptable, and “common usage” to decide moral issues. If it's not a good idea for one, it's not a good idea for the other.
He doesn’t go as far as
Plato in condemning democracy. Instead, he argues that the common usage of
learned men should take precedence over the common usage of the masses, on the
surface as elitist an outlook as Plato’s. However, I think we have to be
careful when we play the “elitist” card. As soon as I thought "elitist" while listening to The Institutes of
Oratory, I reminded myself that for elite Roman citizens, learned men often
meant the Greek slaves who tutored their sons, and intriguing convolution of class, ethnicity, and education. (The most elitist language in
that sentence refers to gender, doesn’t it?
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