Take The Unknowable Truth with a Grain of Salt
“We might possibly be wrong about this.”
I’ve shared with you The Unknowable Truth’s Epistemic Contract—it’s our agreement regarding how I approach knowledge, and how I’ll try to represent facts in my essays. The very fact that I call this entire thought experiment The Unknowable Truth might be a red flag that everything here is made up, and you should be wary of what you read. Or you may find the plain admission that this work is flawed as a signal representing the author’s intellectual honesty, and you might read on feeling you’re in good hands. Either way, I encourage you to take what you read, here or anywhere, with a grain of salt.
The original use of the term “take it with a grain of salt” comes from ancient Rome, I’ve learned from Reader’s Digest. Pliny the Elder wrote in his book Natural History that King Mithridates VI formulated a concoction to inoculate himself from poison by mashing walnuts, figs, and “leaves of rue” together, along with “the addition of a grain of salt.” Perhaps the salt made the mash more palatable.
Mithridates possessed a paranoia that people wanted to kill him, justifiably considering he continuously picked fights with the Roman Empire and slaughtered enemies by the tens of thousands. His particular obsession with toxins may have started because an assassin poisoned his father. Also, Mithridates liked to poison his rivals, and he feared reprisals. To discourage enemies from attempting to poison him, Mithridates made the existence of his concocted antidote well-known, and the mythical substance became known as mithridate.
The legend of mithridate long outlived Mithridates himself. Throughout antiquity, some have speculated that the key ingredients in the king’s potion were actually small, non-lethal doses of poisons used to help Mithridates develop an immunity. Fueling the legend is the fact that, after being decisively defeated in battle, Mithridates attempted suicide by poison but failed to die. His attendants had to finish the job with a blade, according to the World History Encyclopedia.
Historian Marc Hayden is skeptical that Mithridates ever developed a real immunity to poison. Mithridate was probably no more effective than a strong multi-vitamin. Instead, Mithridates counted on the legend of his poison immunity to discourage would-be assassins from even trying. Hyden attributes the king’s failed suicide attempt to his large physical build and speculates that he shared a single dose of the poison with his two daughters. You have to take the legend of Mithridates with a grain of salt.
The connection between the legend of Mithridates and the figurative meaning of the phrase “take it with a grain of salt” as an idiom for expressing skepticism is murkier yet. During the Renaissance, classical texts like Pliny the Elder’s Natural History resurfaced, and fragments of the language entered common speech. But by the 17th century, the phrase had evolved.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites a passage from J. Trapp’s 1647 Commentary on the Epistles, and the Revelation of John the Divine, in which the author entreats readers with “texts of Scripture” that are “intermixed with pertinent histories,” but warns, “This is to be taken with a grain of salt.” The phrase’s context isn’t well-defined, which suggests it may have already circulated in the vernacular. Scholars interpret the usage of the idiom as Trapp’s invitation for readers to treat his interpretation with skepticism—or at least independent thought.
J. Trapp warned his readers that he might be wrong about the conjectures in his text. I find that kind of intellectual modesty refreshing, and I’ll try to emulate it here with The Unknowable Truth.
That said, I’ve recently learned that in the final passage of the Unabomber’s numbered, 232-paragraph manifesto, the author throws in a final caveat. “Just one possible weak point needs to be mentioned,” he writes. “… we might possibly be wrong about this.”
So, you know, take it with a grain of salt.