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Class 9: Literature

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Jorge Luis Borges: “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”

Class 9: Literature

Plot:Author Pierre Menard seeks to “produce pages which would coincide—word for word and line for line—with those of Miguel de Cervantes.”

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History of the New Quixote

Class 9: Literature

• Initially, Menard wanted to be Cervantes, but rejected it as “too easy.”

• “To be, in some way, Cervantes and to arrive at Don Quixote seemed to him less arduous—and consequently less interesting—than to continue being Pierre Menard and to arrive at Don Quixote through the experiences of Pierre Menard.”

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History of the New Quixote (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

• “To compose Don Quixote at the beginning of the seventeenth century was a reasonable, necessary and perhaps inevitable undertaking; at the beginning of the twentieth century it is almost impossible. It is not in vain that three hundred years have passed, charged with the most complex happenings—among them, to specify only one, that same Don Quixote.”

• Ultimately, Menard succeeds in reproducing only a small selection of the Quixote.

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Comparing the Quixotes

Class 9: Literature

• “The text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer. (More ambiguous, his detractors will say; but ambiguity is a richness.)”

• “Written in the seventeenth century, written by the “ingenious layman” Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical eulogy of history. […] Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an investigation of reality, but as its origin.”

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Comparing the Quixotes (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

• “Equally vivid is the contrast in styles. The archaic style of Menard—in the last analysis, a foreigner—suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his precursor, who handles easily the ordinary Spanish of his time.”

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Pierre Menard in Philosophical Context

Class 9: Literature

Levinson’s Historical Definition of Art “X is an artwork at t =df X is an object of which it is true at t that some

person or persons, having the appropriate proprietary right over X, nonpassingly intends (or intended) X for regard-as-a-work-of-art – i.e., regard in any way (or ways) in which objects in the extension of ‘artwork’ prior to t are or were correctly (or standardly) regarded.” (240)

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The meaning of a text is identified with the text’s utterance meaning: “The meaning that a work ends up conveying in its context of utterance (including who uttered it).”

Pierre Menard in Philosophical Context (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Levinson’s Hypothetical Intentionalism

• A work is more than its mere appearance. Art is something that is done.

- Found art: Fountain, Beach Art- Pop Art: Warhol, Lichtenstein

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If Barthes is correct, and the author and context of a work’s creation are not important to its interpretation, would Cervantes’ Quixote and Menard’s Quixote be the same work?

Pierre Menard in Philosophical Context (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Death of the Author

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Questions & Problems(1) What different properties would the Quixote have had

if Menard had simply copied it?(2) Could another author have written the Quixote 100

years before Cervantes? What sorts of properties would it have had?

Class 9: Literature

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Jorge J.E. Gracia: “Borges’s “Pierre Menard”: Philosophy or Literature?”

Thesis:“[L]iterary works are distinguished from philosophical ones in that their conditions of identity include the texts they express. Moreover, literary texts are distinguished from philosophical ones in that they express literary works.” (46)

Class 9: Literature

Background:

Gracia is responding to the postmodernist notion that there is no distinction between literary and philosophical works because philosophical works are literary works.

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Texts and Works

Class 9: Literature

• Text: “a group of entities used as signs that are selected, arranged, and intended by an author to convey a specific meaning to an audience in a certain context.” (46)- The entities, themselves, are not a text, but only when

considered in relation to a specific meaning.- “The marks on the paper on which I am writing, for

example, are not a text unless someone mentally connects them to a specific meaning.” (46)

- Transfiguration? Consider the views of Dickie, Margolis, and others.

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Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

• Work: “the meaning of certain texts.” (46)- Not all texts have meanings that qualify them as works:

No one thinks of the meaning of “The cat is on the mat” as a work.

• “[T]he text is the marks on the page I am looking at, the sounds I hear when someone reads “Pierre Menard” to me, certain images I imagine when I think about the marks on the page…” (47)

• “In contrast, the work “Pierre Menard” is the meaning those marks, sounds, or images are intended to convey.” (47)

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Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works

Class 9: Literature

• The conditions of identity of a literary work include the text of which it is the meaning; not so with philosophical works.- This is why no work of literature can ever be, strictly

speaking, translated. The text that expresses the literary work is essential to it.

- With works of philosophy, the text is not essential: I should be able to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in German, English, or whatever, and still get the meaning.

- “Shakespeare’s Hamlet could only have been written in English and Cervantes’s Don Quixote could only have been written in Spanish.” (47)

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Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Objections(1) All philosophical works and texts are also literary

works and texts. “All works and texts, and particularly philosophical ones, are to be viewed as literary or aesthetic works and texts; they are aesthetic or literary artifacts.” (48)

(2) All literary (and other) works and texts are philosophical in that they express ideas.

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- “In the case of Critique of Pure Reason, historians of philosophy and philosophers are concerned with the understanding of the ideas it proposes, and with the truth value of the ideas and the validity and soundness of the arguments it contains.” (48)

- With Hamlet, we may still be concerned with ideas, but not with arguments.

Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Replies to ObjectionsReply #1: In practice, we do make such distinctions: we treat them differently regarding their aims and functions.

- Consider Walton’s “Categories of Art”

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Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Rejoinder: There’s nothing essentially different about them: we just treat them differently.

- The form of poetry is essential to its identity: “The fact is that poetry involves certain structures, punctuation, and rhythm that stand out in contrast with the form of expression generally used in philosophical texts and works.” (48)

Reply #2: Poetry

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Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

“My Papa’s Waltz”Roethke; 1942, 1948

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.Meter Rhythm

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Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

- Although these forms are particularly pertinent in poetry, even prose still seems to depend on the text to a large degree.† Rhyme: “The Springfield tire fire”† Alliteration: “Pirates of Penzance”† Consonance: “The hearer of horror”† Assonance: “Hide the child five times.”

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Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

- “My contention is that there is still a sense in which the identity of prose literary works depends on the texts they express, a fact that does not apply to philosophical works, and that also affects the identity conditions of literary texts and works.” (48-49)

† Terms in different languages are not always equivalent.

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- Philosophical vocabulary is overwhelmingly technical, restricting use and meaning.

- Literary vocabulary uses terms in their ordinary sense, with open-ended meaning.

Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Differences in Literary and Philosophical Works and Texts(1) The Nature of Vocabulary

- Philosophical vocabulary uses abstruse terms: meaning is not directly related to common human experience.

- Literary vocabulary is founded on common human experience.

(2) Rarity of Terms

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- Literature is highly rhetorical: it aims to have a certain effect on audiences beyond the grasping of certain ideas.

- Different languages have certain structures, with word-order (and unusual word order in particular) having different rhetorical effects.

- Word order in philosophy is only an issue of clarity.

Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Differences in Literary and Philosophical Works and Texts(3) The Order of Words

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- Style depends on historical circumstances.- Style is historically relative: what is a common style

in one period is archaic in another.- “Style is of the essence in literature. The style of an

author is fundamental to the consideration of the author and his or her work.” (50)

- “[A]lthough a text of philosophy may have a certain style […] philosophers do not generally think that what they are doing is essentially related to the style they use.” (50)

Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Differences in Literary and Philosophical Works and Texts(4) Style

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- Literature is culturally embedded.

Literary and Philosophical Texts and Works (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Differences in Literary and Philosophical Works and Texts(5) Cultural Symbols and Icons

- Consider Margolis’ Culturally-Emergent Entities

- “The language of philosophy is supposed to be transcultural and universal. Philosophers aim to communicate with the whole world, independently of elements peculiar to particular cultures.” (50)

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Pierre Menard

Class 9: Literature

Problems in Translation• Original Spanish: “La obra visible que ha dejado este

novelista es de fácil y breve enumeración.”• English Translation: “The visible work left by this novelist

is easily and briefly enumerated.”- Words change form in translation: “enumeración”

(noun) becomes “enumerated” (verb); “breve” (adjective) becomes “briefly” (adverb).

- Words change connotation in translation: “fácil” has a negative connotation, “easy” does not.

- The translation of a common word in one language is an uncommon word in another: “enumeration.”

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Pierre Menard (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Problems in Translation• Original Spanish: “Son por lo tanto, imperdonables las omisiones y

adiciones perpetradas por Madame Henri Bachelier en un catálogo falaz que cierto diario cuya tendencia protestante no es un secreto ha tenido la desconsideración de inferir a sus deplorables lectores—si bien éstos son pocos y calvinistas, cuando no masones y circuncisos.”

• English Translation: “Impardonable, therefore, are the omissions and additions perpetrated by Madame Henri Bachelier in a fallacious catalogue which a certain daily, whose Protestant tendency is no secret, has had the inconsideration to inflict upon its deplorable readers—though these be few and Calvinist, if not Masonic and circumcised.”

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Pierre Menard (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Problems in Translation- This sentence is very long in English, but is not

particularly long in Spanish.- Translation into English requires adding punctuation

to break up the sentence.- Word order: the Spanish version begins with the verb

‘to be’ – one cannot begin an English sentence (very easily) with “are” or “is”.

- Again, the translation of a common word in one language is an uncommon word in another: “inconsideration.”

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Identity, Identification, and Causation

Class 9: Literature

• “Pierre Menard” is a literary work because its text is part of its identity conditions, with the result that it cannot be translated.

• The text of “Pierre Menard” is literary because the work it expresses depends on it essentially.

Questions(1) Is this merely the position that philosophy is independent

of the medium of which it is presented, and literature is not?

(2) Is the criterion of philosophy too strong, leaving out most of what we call philosophy?

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Identity, Identification, and Causation (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

(1) Is this merely the position that philosophy is independent of the medium of which it is presented, and literature is not?• Philosophical works are not entirely independent of

texts – no work can exist unless there is a text to express it. However, philosophical works, unlike literary ones, are not tied to particular texts. Philosophical works, unlike literary ones, ought to be able to be expressed through different texts, and the different texts should not alter their identity as works.

• German words are essential to the text of Critique of Pure Reason, but not to the work.

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Identity, Identification, and Causation (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

(2) Is the criterion of philosophy too strong, leaving out most of what we call philosophy?• “If applied strictly, the criterion I have suggested

appears to disqualify much that is considered philosophy and make it literature.” (53)

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Identity, Identification, and Causation (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

• “I shall assume that the conditions of being X, the conditions of knowing X, and the conditions of there being an X are not necessarily the same. It is one thing to be human, another to know that something is human, and still another to cause something human.” (53)

Conditions of Causation• “A text is a group of entities used as signs, which are

selected, arranged, and intended by an author to convey a specific meaning to an audience in a certain context. This means, of course, that a text is causally dependent on its author, audience, and context.” (53)

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Identity, Identification, and Causation (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Conditions of Causation• “The lines, sounds, and whatever, that an author uses to

compose a text, are by themselves not a text. To be a text they have to be used for a definite purpose that is related to an audience and a context.” (54)

- The conditions of being a text and the conditions required to bring a text into being are not the same.

- As the conditions of causation of a text is dependent on its author, audience, and context, we already find a difference between literary and philosophical texts.

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Identity, Identification, and Causation (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Conditions of Identification• In at least some cases, the conditions of the knowledge of a

philosophical work includes the conditions of identity of a literary work. Textual elements allow us to grasp philosophical works effectively.

(1) Many philosophical claims require heuristic devices that make them clear.

(2) Humans often need to have their emotions moved before they are capable of understanding.

(3) All works are known through texts, being linguistic entities and culturally-embedded structures.

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Identity, Identification, and Causation (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

Conditions of Identification• “[I]n order to know the philosophical work, the text must

include elements that are characteristic of literary rather than philosophical texts.” (54)

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Problems

Class 9: Literature

• Since every literary text expresses a literary work, do philosophical texts, then, express literary works?

- Ontological problem: Something like Descartes’ Discourse on Method is both a philosophical work and text, and a literary work and text.

- Epistemological problem: How do we then separate the literary from the philosophical?

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Solutions

Class 9: Literature

Two-Text/Two-Work Alternative

- The philosophical work is a certain meaning that includes a text among its conditions of identity.

- The literary work is a certain meaning that includes a text among its conditions of identity.

- The literary text is the text whose meaning the literary work is.

- The philosophical work will be translatable; the literary work will not.

• Descartes’ Discourse on Method is two works and two texts.

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Solutions (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

One-Text/One-Work Alternative

- The literary textual devices required for knowledge of the philosophical work are ancillary, and not a part of the identity conditions of a separate literary work.

- If there is no literary work, there is no literary text.

• There is only one work and one text in Descartes’ Discourse on Method.

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Solutions (cont’d)

Class 9: Literature

One-Text/One-Work Alternative• This alternative is certainly more economical than the Two-

Text/Two-Work Alternative, and dissolves the epistemological question stated earlier.

• But we now have a different epistemological problem: how to tell when we have a philosophical work expressed by a philosophical text with literary devices, and when we have a literary work and literary text.

- This will probably be a matter of degree. Some philosophical works will be heavily dependent on literary devices, others less so, and others not at all.

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Borges’ “Pierre Menard”

Class 9: Literature

• Is Borges’ story more like Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason or Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or Montaigne’s Essays?

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Questions & Problems(1) Consider Levinson’s discussion of word-sequence

meaning, utterer’s meaning, ludic meaning, and utterance meaning: when Gracia equates the “work” with “meaning,” which of these is he talking about?

(2) What sort of interpretation does Gracia seem to endorse? Is he closer to Barthes or Levinson in this regard?

(3) On Gracia’s theory, would a translation of Borges’ story be a different work? What would Levinson or Margolis say about this?

(4) Is a translator an interpreter?

Class 9: Literature

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Class 9: Literature