  Cratylus, who came to be known in antiquity as a proponent of universal flux, is not at all deterred by the flux content discovered in the existing Greek vocabulary, and interprets Socrates’ etymological marathon as vindicating his own naturalist stance. But from now on Cratylus’ extreme position will be under attack. He believes all names to be perfectly faithful descriptions of their objects, with the consequence that a string of sound embodying a less than accurate description of some object could never be that object’s name. As a further consequence he also holds, conversely, that a string of sound which did succeed in being the object’s name would be a guaranteed source of knowledge about it. These are the twin targets of Socrates’ critique.