4.0293 Borges (and Foucault, and Kierkegaard) (3/56)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 17 Jul 90 18:31:46 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0293. Tuesday, 17 Jul 1990.
(1) Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 21:00 CDT (20 lines)
From: Alvin Snider <ASNIDEPD@UIAMVS>
Subject: Foucault on Borges
(2) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 07:56 EST (13 lines)
From: THEALLDF@TrentU.CA
Subject: qUERY ON bORGES AND FOUCAULT
(3) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 13:17 EDT (23 lines)
From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet>
Subject: Borges
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 21:00 CDT
From: Alvin Snider <ASNIDEPD@UIAMVS>
Subject: Foucault on Borges
Michel Foucault's quotation of Borges in _The Order of Things_ (which
Peter Junger is now puzzling over, as I did a few years back) comes from
an essay on "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins," available in
_Other Iquisitions, 1937-1952_ (Austin, TX, 1964). Wilkins is best
known as the author of a universal language scheme, _An Essay towards a
Real Character and a Philosophical Language_ (1668), and Borges
hilariously parodies his elaborate taxonomies with his invention of "a
certain Chinese encyclopedia," which divides animals according to the
scheme Foucault quotes. The Foucault- Wilkins connection is discussed
in an article by Sidonie Clauss, "John Wilkins' _Essay_: Its Place in
the 17th- Century Episteme," _Journal of the History of Ideas_ 43
(1982): 531-53.
--
Alvin Snider
University of Iowa
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 07:56 EST
From: THEALLDF@TrentU.CA
Subject: qUERY ON bORGES AND FOUCAULT
The passage by Borges which Peter Junger cites from Foucault is from
"The Analytical Language of John Wilkins". The Spanish title is "El
lenguaje analitico de J.W.". It was published in 1941. A translation of
it can be found in Borges:A Reader, ed. Monegal & Reid, p.142 (where
the reference to the original Spanish publication can be found in an
endnote) or in Other Inquisitions 1937-1952, p.103.
Donald Theall
THEALLDF@TRENTU.CA
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------27----
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 13:17 EDT
From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet>
Subject: Borges
The Borges quotation in Foucault is from ``The Analytical Language of
John Wilkins,'' in his collection *Other Inquisitions*.
Compare this from Kierkegaard, *Repetition*, translated by Walter Lowrie
(Princeton UP, 1941), 56:
A wit has said that one might divide mankind into officers,
serving-maids and chimney sweeps. To my mind this remark is not only
witty but profound, and it would require a great speculative talent to
devise a better classification. When a classification does not ideally
exhaust its object, a haphazard classification is altogether
preferable, because it sets imagination in motion. A tolerably true
classification is not able to satisfy the understanding, it is nothing
for the imagination, and hence it is to be totally rejected, even
though for everyday use it enjoys much honor and repute for the reason
that people are in part very stupid and in part have very little
imagination.
John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University