On Exactitude in Science

Last updated

"On Exactitude in Science", or "On Rigor in Science" (Spanish: "Del rigor en la ciencia") is a one-paragraph short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

Contents

Plot

The story, credited fictionally as a quotation from "Suárez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658", describes an empire where cartography becomes so exact that only a map on the same scale as the empire itself will suffice. Later generations come to disregard the map, however, and as it decays, so does the land and society beneath it. [1]

Publication history

The story was first published in the March 1946 edition of Los Anales de Buenos Aires as part of a piece called "Museo" credited to "B. Lynch Davis", a joint pseudonym of Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares. It was collected later that year in the 1946 second Argentinian edition of Borges' Historia universal de la infamia ( A Universal History of Infamy ). [2]

The story is no longer included in current Spanish editions of the Historia universal de la infamia, as since 1961 it has appeared as part of Borges' collection El hacedor . [3]

The names "B. Lynch Davis" and "Suárez Miranda" would be combined later in 1946 to form another pseudonym, B. Suárez Lynch, under which Borges and Bioy Casares published Un modelo para la muerte, a collection of detective fiction. [2]

Influences and legacy

"On Exactitude in Science" elaborates on a concept in Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno Concluded : a fictional map that had "the scale of a mile to the mile." One of Carroll's characters notes some practical difficulties with this map and states that "we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well." [4]

"What a useful thing a pocket-map is!" I remarked.

"That's another thing we've learned from your Nation," said Mein Herr, "map-making. But we've carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?"

"About six inches to the mile."

"Only six inches!" exclaimed Mein Herr. "We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all ! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!"

"Have you used it much?" I enquired.

"It has never been spread out, yet," said Mein Herr: "the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight ! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."

from Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, Chapter XI, London, 1895

Italian writer Umberto Eco expanded upon the theme, quoting the story as the epigraph for his short story "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1", collected in his How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays. [4] [5]

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard cited "On Exactitude in Science" as a predecessor to his concept of hyperreality in his 1981 treatise Simulacra and Simulation . [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorge Luis Borges</span> Argentine writer (1899–1986)

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl.Fictions) and El Aleph, published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Umberto Eco</span> Italian semiotician, philosopher and writer (1932–2016)

Umberto Eco was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes.

"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th-century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentinian journal Sur, May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future. The first English-language translation of the story was published in 1961.

<i>The Name of the Rose</i> Historical novel by Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory. It was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolfo Bioy Casares</span> Argentine novelist (1914–1999)

Adolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fantastique novel The Invention of Morel.

H. Bustos Domecq is a pseudonym used for several collaborative works by the Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Map–territory relation</span> Relationship between an object and a representation of that object

The map–territory relation is the relationship between an object and a representation of that object, as in the relation between a geographical territory and a map of it. Mistaking the map for the territory is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone confuses the semantics of a term with what it represents. Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that "the map is not the territory" and that "the word is not the thing", encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse conceptual models of reality with reality itself. These ideas are crucial to general semantics, a system Korzybski originated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silvina Ocampo</span> Argentine writer (1903–1993)

Silvina Ocampo was an Argentine short story writer, poet, and artist. Ocampo's friend and collaborator Jorge Luis Borges called Ocampo "one of the greatest poets in the Spanish language, whether on this side of the ocean or on the other." Her first book was Viaje olvidado (1937), translated as Forgotten Journey (2019), and her final piece was Las repeticiones, published posthumously in 2006.

<i>Celine and Julie Go Boating</i> 1974 French film by Jacques Rivette

Céline and Julie Go Boating is a 1974 French film directed by Jacques Rivette. The film stars Dominique Labourier as Julie and Juliet Berto as Céline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emir Rodríguez Monegal</span>

Emir Rodríguez Monegal, born in Uruguay, was a scholar, literary critic, and editor of Latin American literature. From 1969 to 1985, Rodríguez Monegal was professor of Latin American contemporary literature at Yale University. He is usually called by his second surname Emir R. Monegal or Monegal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorge Luis Borges bibliography</span>

This is a bibliography of works by Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet, and translator Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986).

<i>Simulacra and Simulation</i> 1981 book by Jean Baudrillard

Simulacra and Simulation is a 1981 philosophical treatise by the philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, in which he seeks to examine the relationships between reality, symbols, and society, in particular the significations and symbolism of culture and media involved in constructing an understanding of shared existence.

Bonini's paradox, named after Stanford business professor Charles Bonini, explains the difficulty in constructing models or simulations that fully capture the workings of complex systems.

aUI is a philosophical, a priori language created in the 1950s by W. John Weilgart, Ph.D. a philosopher and psychoanalyst originally from Vienna, Austria. He described it as "the Language of Space", connoting universal communication, and published the fourth edition of the textbook in 1979; a philosophic description of each semantic element of the language was published in 1975.

<i>Sylvie and Bruno</i> 1889 novel by Lewis Carroll

Sylvie and Bruno, first published in 1889, and its second volume Sylvie and Bruno Concluded published in 1893, form the last novel by Lewis Carroll published during his lifetime. Both volumes were illustrated by Harry Furniss.

Norman Thomas di Giovanni was an American-born editor and translator known for his collaboration with Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill</span>

Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill, who normally went only by his surname, Fogwill, was an Argentine short story writer, novelist, and businessman. He was a distant relative of the novelist Charles Langbridge Morgan. He was the author of Malvinas Requiem, one of the first narratives to deal with the Falklands War. Fogwill died on August 21, 2010, from a pulmonary dysfunction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argentine humour</span>

Argentine humour is exemplified by a number of humorous television programmes, film productions, comic strips and other types of media. Everyday humour includes jokes related to recurrent themes, such as xenophobic jokes at the expense of Galicians (Spaniards) called chistes de gallegos, often obscene sex-related jokes, jokes about the English, the Americans, blonde women, dark humour, word and pronunciation games, jokes about Argentines themselves, etc.

<i>The Book of Fantasy</i> 1940 anthology of short stories and poetry

The Book of Fantasy is the English translation of Antología de la literatura fantástica, an anthology of approximately 81 fantastic short stories, fragments, excerpts, and poems edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Silvina Ocampo. It was first published in Argentina in 1940, and revised in 1965 and 1976. Anthony Kerrigan had previously translated a similar work by the same editors, Cuentos breves y extraordinarios (1955) as Extraordinary Tales, published by Herder & Herder in 1971. The 1988 Viking Penguin edition for English-speaking countries includes a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Estela Canto</span> Argentine writer, journalist and translator

Estela Canto was an Argentine writer, journalist and translator best known for her relationship with Jorge Luis Borges.

References

  1. J. L. Borges, A Universal History of Infamy (translated by Norman Thomas de Giovanni), Penguin Books, London, 1975. ISBN   0-14-003959-7.
  2. 1 2 "1946 | Borges Center". Archived from the original on 2013-01-24. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
  3. "1960". Borges.pitt.edu.
  4. 1 2 Edney, Matthew H. (2009). Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843. University of Chicago Press. p. 353n39. ISBN   978-0-226-18486-9.
  5. Eco, Umberto (1995). How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 95–106. ISBN   978-0-547-54043-6.
  6. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-01-14. Retrieved 2021-03-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)