If we are to believe that there are inherent “truths” to this world, how do we go about discovering them? Are they to be found at the foundation, within the archaic wisdom of past civilizations? Are they to be discovered through a future technology or science, ready to grant us the key to some insight? How do we navigate this dilemma of ours? Are we to walk the path of tradition, the wisdom “tried and true”, and “grope the dry bones of the past” as Emerson begrudgingly wrote, or are we to pioneer for ourselves new visions of the world, first in their order? The way may not be forward or backward, but another direction.
In his 1927 letter, “The Ethics of Higher Studies”, addressed to the members of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Étienne Gilson, a French philosopher and scholar of Medieval Studies, wrote about our need for an honest relationship with “truth”. The problem, he said, lies in our perception that truth is tied to time.
“There is a sure recipe for holding the attention and winning the hearts of young people; namely, to invite them to the wrecking of old codes and of ancient idols...that they have…a duty to trample down all the old standards of conduct and knowledge and to lay down the bases for new ones…”
This idea, that we must “trample down” the old, has become a rite of passage for each generation. We desperately, in our youth, want be a part of some great shift, some great revelation of truth that is discovered and actualized for the first time in history. This process is for good reason, as it often creates ground-breaking or necessary amendments to our society. But it can also elude to a false relationship between truth and time. Gilson continues:
“Certainly, there was since a superstition that all that was old was true, but we are now suffering from the contrary and no less dangerous superstition that all that is old is false and all that is new is true. In fact, time has nothing to do with truth. New truth can and must replace old errors, but it cannot replace older truths.”
So, why do we assume the march of time reveals with it a greater truth? Or in the case of the nostalgic: that truth is slowly but steadily lost to time, hidden away in the obscurity of our past, slipping away like sand through the hands of some eternal keeper? Why, as a collective, do we have such an issue parsing truth from time?
Maybe our problem lies in the difference between the Greek Chronos and Aion. Chronos, also known as “Father Time”, personifies the chronological, the linear; a past, present, and future perspective. Aion, however, represents circular, or unbounded time. Maybe, we must place our perception of truth in the later sphere rather than the former. Gilson offers us a portal into this perspective, where truth owes no answer to time.
“Let us…keep our minds open to every truth, whether it be old or new; let us joyously submit to it, whatever may be the time or the direction from which it comes. Be ready always to yield to it, resolved to stick to it, and it will spare you the burden of yielding to anybody or anything else. Truth will make you free; submission to it will make you great.”
If something is rooted in truth, let us embrace it. Welcome the visions of tomorrow in the same breath as the wisdom of the past, so long as they both observe the timelessness of truth. The reality may be that truth is separate from time; that time has nothing to do with it.
Keep diving,
A.J.
(Head over to the Substack to leave your thoughts on this week’s topic. My point in doing this project is to nurture a community based in intellectual curiosity.)
I especially enjoyed the first passage from Gilson, where he touches on the angst which drives the younger generation's yearning to dismantle old truths. I find this to be a natural progression, as you yourself refer to the desire to be a part of some "great shift". It's almost as if "teenage rebellion" and youthful naivety carry on into a person's 20's. This also happens to be the time when individuals gain more social and political power, which allows for actual movement and advancement of ideologies and "new truths", for the betterment or detriment of society. I, myself, felt the pull of this unconscious force in my early 20's. I think youthful hubris drives a lot of it: the idea that "parents" and "old fogies" can't possibly understand. Could it be this same sentiment that is also acting on a larger time-scale, threatening centuries-old truths?
This got me thinking about Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” and this passage in particular:
“The stories get passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the sayin goes. Which I reckon some would take as meanin that the truth can’t compete. but I dont believe that. I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It don't move about from place to place and it dont change from time to time. You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt. You cant corrupt it because that's what it is.”
You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt. Do you agree? Do you think the truth eventually makes its way out? Or can it gradually be changed by subsequent generations?