Naming and convention

Use in the book

B 8 does not merely give a new definition of birth. It argues that mortal things have no absolute coming-to-be or final extinction: mixture and interchange occur, and humans attach the name birth. Naming is thus part of the philosophical problem. Ordinary experience of a new organism or object is not denied, but its familiar verbal interpretation must be examined.

B 9 extends that distinction by describing combinations in human, animal, bird, and plant forms. People call the compound's appearance birth and its separation an ill-starred doom. The speaker admits that he too uses customary language, even as the printed text says that the customary designation is not right. The admission is a valuable reading rule: a later reference to something being born need not revoke the argument against creation from nothing. One must ask whether the language describes a compound or its enduring constituents.

Naming is not always error. B 172 identifies Love through the names Gladness and Aphrodite used among mortals, making ordinary recognition a route into a larger account. B 105 names thought in relation to the blood about the heart; its report of what humans call thought accompanies a positive explanatory claim. Thus the vocabulary of calling can distinguish, connect, or qualify rather than merely expose falsehood.

The poem's own lexical variety matters. Divine names, familiar objects, and terms of bodily life communicate relations that an artificially uniform modern terminology would suppress. The introduction's warning about physis is exemplary: in B 8 its sense is birth, while in B 63 and B 110 the local wording invites a different emphasis on formation or constitution. Translation must follow usage rather than assign one English word mechanically.

Places to read

1. B 8.1–4Birth is expressly identified as a human name for mixture and interchange.
2. B 9.1–5The speaker accepts customary expressions while qualifying their correctness.
3. B 17.22–24Gladness and Aphrodite are names through which Love is recognized.
4. B 105.1–3The phrase about what humans call thought accompanies a physiological identification.
5. Introduction VI (editorial discussion)The editor explains why physis at B 8 is translated as birth.

Translation in this edition

B 9 contains important supplements, including ‹λέγουσι› and the negative ‹οὐ›. The printed qualification of customary naming is therefore not secure letter-for-letter transmitted wording. Its agreement with B 8 is philosophically illuminating but does not remove that textual qualification.