[pessimizer]

> Plato spoke of a golden age, now long lost, where the flaura and fuana were so plentiful that men didn't need to work.

That's an example of the belief that all things were known in a golden age, and that the process of discovery is actually rediscovery of the knowledge of the elders. Common in a lot of pre-modern societies that had ancestor-worship. In old B.C.E. pre-imperial Chinese philosophy, before deductive reasoning had been formalized/discovered, one of the basic tests of whether a thing was true was "conformity to the teaching and practice of the ancient sage kings." Which meant that you had to cite a mention in works about the ancients of the practice or belief that you were recommending, or grounds for a reasonable belief that they practiced it.

It's the opposite of Whig history.

[coliveira]

You don't need to go to old China to give an example of this phenomenon. Fundamentalist christians nowadays still have the same mindset, nothing can be true if it's not supported by their ancient texts.

[ARandomerDude]

> nothing can be true if it's not supported by their ancient texts

I'm probably what most people would call a fundamentalist Christian but your claim is wildly inaccurate. For example I know we're discussing this on HN even though the Bible says no such thing.

Everyone has an epistemology that includes multiple sources of knowledge. There is some form of knowledge that every person thinks is ultimately authoritative. In other words if two sources make competing claims, whom do I believe? This varies based on the credibility of the claimant and the reasons for the claim. For example, if a con-artist told you he would deposit $1M in your bank account if you give him your credentials, and an FBI agent told you the guy was a scammer, based on the facts and reputations of those involved you would probably believe the FBI agent. The greater the credibility of the source, the more confidence you have in their claims. At some point you reach a level of what you think is the ultimate foundation for what you know (even if that foundation is you).

The "fundamentalist" position is that God is the most credible being, given his infallibility and omniscience. If a person disagrees with God, no matter how fervently, my epistemology is that the person is mistaken and God is correct.

That is, however, very different from believing that the Bible is the only source of knowledge. In fact, the Bible explicitly states that there are other sources of knowledge (which common sense would also tell you), for example Psalm 19 and Romans 1.

[coliveira]

Your reasoning is circular: nobody is "disagreeing with God", because nobody knows what "God" thinks. Fundamentalists just follow ancient texts that present themselves as the "word of God".

[aksss]

I think that's a little different though - the Christian critique isn't that 'once everyone knew everything', but more that everything new presents challenges and opportunities to the human experience that are fundamentally no different than those that humans have always grappled with. Thus, every new challenge can be informed by principles in received wisdom. That's far less golden-agey, maybe more jaded or stoic. Read Ecclesiastes for instance: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%20...

"There is nothing new under the sun" comes from this. I've never read this as saying that in a material sense there is nothing new, but more that the base class library and the primitive types don't change, if I may accost you with a silly analogy.