  Scholarly opinion has long been divided as to how Socrates’ own eventual position should be understood — as a qualified vindication of conventionalism, of naturalism, or of neither. If Socrates is read as actually dismissing naturalism, it is almost inevitable that his naturalistic etymological decodings of words, to which well over half the dialogue is devoted, should be taken as not seriously intended, and in fact as making fun of the entire etymological practice. This has been the majority position among interpreters for well over a century. It rests partly on the conviction that (a) the etymologies are ridiculous, and (b) Plato knew as well as we do that they are ridiculous.