[A]ll of us who are engaged in scholarly work should have the courage, when necessary, to confess our ignorance or, at least, our uncertainty. It is useful to ask, now and then, the simple question: "But do we really know this?" The tendency today is to rely on a system, a theory, a 'synthesis,' which seems to provide all the answers and to claim an authority which will, almost inevitably, be challenged by the next generation. It is often tempting to write: "As X (or Y or Z) has shown conclusively, ...", but the question remains: "Has he really shown anything?" There are very few certainties in this business, and our ignorance is great, but there is comfort and truth in Grotius' reminder: etiam quaedam nescire magna scientia est.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Friday, November 03, 2017
But Do We Really Know This?
Editorial Board, "AJP Today," American Journal of Philology 108.3 (Autumn, 1987) vii-x (at x):