We were only writing to each other about the nature of HET so neither of us was likely to go off and check our quotes. And since the point of our correspondence was related to the value of HET and not about who had once perched themselves on the shoulder of a giant, it was said only in passing as a methaphor on the way to describing the focus of his own course in the history of thought as taught by Sidney Weintraub. But look, while the quote is most often attributed to Newton, the final authority on everything, Wikipedia, provides another provenance entirely. The quote is moreover provided in both English and Latin and the date they give is 1159: 

"Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size."

("Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos, gigantium humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvenimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea.") [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants ] 

And who knows. Back then there may have been an intense correspondence amongst scholars that it wasn't Bernard who first said it at all but that it was really Peter Abelard or someone else even before that. 

However, when it came to teaching the history of thought, these people remain unsurpassed. How we should go about it today is still the question we need to answer for ourselves. 



Dr Steven Kates
School of Economics, Finance
    and Marketing
RMIT University
Level 12 / 239 Bourke Street
Melbourne Vic 3000

Phone: (03) 9925 5878
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