This paper offers a philosophical investigation into the question of the truth of the name through the hermeneutic framework of Hans-Georg Gadamer. It contends that this question, already articulated in its earliest form within ancient Greek thought—most notably in Plato’s Cratylus—remains fundamentally unresolved. Within this context, Gadamer, in fact, reformulates the question of the truth of the name as the question of the being of the name for itself, and demonstrates how, in Cratylus, the being of the name remains dependent upon the “thing.”
Building on this reformulation, the paper demonstrates how Gadamer’s emphasis on the ontological status of the artwork—interpreted through the Greek concept of mimesis—opens a productive horizon for rethinking the name itself as a work of art. It is argued that the re-presentation of the familiar within artistic performance, whereby each instance attains a mode of being irreducible to mere repetition, constitutes a preliminary step toward articulating the being of the name as an artwork.

Furthermore, drawing upon Jean Grondin’s interpretation of the concept of Darstellung, and in light of his claim that the coming-into-being of the artwork is inseparable from its presentation—thus rendering it inherently performative, interpretive, epiphanic, and festive—the paper undertakes an analysis of these four dimensions in relation to the ontology of the artwork. It subsequently mobilizes these dimensions as a criterion for understanding the name as an artwork, ultimately demonstrating how each is instantiated within the being of the name itself.