September 4, 2010

#1,803

By suppressing certain liturgies we suppress particular certainties.
To fell sacred groves is to erase divine footprints.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 297

2 comments:

  1. The original Spanish is:

    Al suprimir determinadas liturgias suprimimos determinadas evidencias.
    Talar bosques sagrados es borrar huellas divinas.

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  2. This was a difficult aphorism to translate.

    The word translated here as "certainties" is only an approximation of the Spanish evidencias. In the singular, it can be translated as "evidence," and corresponds to our idea of legal proof (circumstantial evidence, direct evidence, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, etc.). However, the use of the plural here indicates that Gómez Dávila had in mind another definition of evidencia which is (roughly) "something that is evident and cannot be doubted" or "the state of being evident and indubitable." In English, evidence has no plural form, and so "certainties" seemed to be the best fit here.

    The word evidencia also seems to play an important role in Gómez Dávila's epistemology.

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