  There remains, Socrates points out, the question where the original name-makers would have got their knowledge from. Obviously not from the study of names, he points out (438a–b). It is only a short step from this to agreeing that no intermediacy, of names or anything else, between the would-be knower and the object known can do anything but impede the learning process. Rather, Socrates proposes, reality should be directly studied in its own right. Some have thought that Plato is here proposing an altogether non-linguistic mode of philosophizing, although his remarks can in fact be adequately understood as merely denying that names should be studied in the pursuit of knowledge, without any accompanying denial that they should even be used.