This picture is derived from Greek mythology: the blind giant Orion carried his servant Cedalion on his shoulders to act as the giant’s eyes.

Standing on the shoulders of giants is a metaphor that means “Using the understanding gained by major thinkers who have gone before in order to make intellectual progress.”

It is a metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) and expresses the meaning of “discovering truth by building on previous discoveries.” This concept has been traced to the 12th century, attributed to Bernard of Chartres. Its most familiar expression in English is by Isaac Newton in 1675: “If I have seen  further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

The attribution to Bernard of Chartres is to John of Salisbury. In 1159, who wrote in his Metalogicon: “Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature.” However, according to Umberto Eco, the most ancient attestation of the phrase dates back to Priscian cited by Guillaume de Conches.

According to medieval historian Richard William Southern, Bernard was comparing contemporary 12th century scholars to the ancient scholars of Greece and Rome:

The phrase “sums up the quality of the cathedral schools in the history of learning, and indeed characterizes the age which opened with Gerbert (950–1003) and Fulbert (960–1028) and closed in the first quarter of the 12th century with Peter Abelard. [The phrase] is not a great claim; neither, however, is it an example of abasement before the shrine of antiquity. It is a very shrewd and just remark, and the important and original point was the dwarf could see a little further than the giant. That this was possible was above all due to the cathedral schools with their lack of a well-rooted tradition and their freedom from a clearly defined routine of study.”

The visual image (from Bernard of Chartres) appears in the stained glass of the south transept of Chartres Cathedral. The tall windows under the Rose Window show the four major prophets of the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel) as gigantic figures, and the four New Testament evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) as ordinary-size people sitting on their shoulders. The evangelists, though smaller, “see more” than the huge prophets (since they saw the Messiah about whom the prophets spoke).

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From which “giants” can you learn what you need to know to accelerate your personal growth and professional development?

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