What could a natural correctness of words possibly be? Starting from this question Socrates in Plato's Cratylus discusses the question 'What is the nature of words?' Socrates' answer is that we use words in order to 'teach one another something, dividing things as they are'. He then draws the following analogy: If words were products of a word-maker, the dialectician, 'the man who know how to pose and answer questions', had to judge whether the wordmakers' work is well done. The dialectician knows the 'idea of naming', that is the ideal way of using language which aims at answering Socratic What-is-F?-questions. In ordinary discourse, we use words in order to express our beliefs about what we call 'F'. In the dialectical discourse, we examine our ordinary way of talking in order to answer What-is-F?-questions. Thus, the dialectical way of using words amounts to a process of clarifying our beliefs.