Origins of language. It is asserted that the work reveals an issue crucial to his philosophy, namely his ambiguous response to language. Plato's most basic assertion is that words are mere imitations of reality and cannot be trusted to be an accurate mode of transmitting knowledge. Plato refuses to take a systematic position towards language by mingling the divine with the human and the conventional with the natural. The easily proven ambiguity of plato's theory of language is shown to be (...) the basis of many of the problems in his metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics. (shrink)