ABSTRACT
Ever since young Socrates decided that philosophers should search the truth in words (logois) rather than through empirical observations (Plato, Phd. 99e4-100a3), Platonists have always stressed the essentially linguistic nature of philosophy. Hermes, the god traditionally associated with language because he is the messenger (hermēneus) of the gods (cf. Plato, Cra. 407e5-408b3), became their patron deity. Neoplatonists invoke him at the beginning of their treatises, since he is “the god who is in charge of words” (theos ho tōn logōn hegemōn, Hermēs) as Iamblichus puts it at the beginning of On the Mysteries of the Egyptians (1.4). In a similar vein, Ammonius thanks this “god of logos” for any success that he may have as an interpreter (hermēneus) of Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias at the beginning of his commentary (1.11). Proclus almost a ectionately refers to him as “our lord Hermes” (in Cra.117.68.12), because he is the “chorus-leader of philosophy”, who by means of philosophy and dialectic takes us to the Good itself ( eol. Plat. VI.22.98.147). In short, “Hermes, i.e. language (logos), is common to all, as the proverb has it”, Simplicius (in Epict. Ench. 132.40-41 [Dübner], my trans.) explains, because we all share the capacity for discursive reasoning and language (logos) that underlies philosophy.
