Borges Philosophy Self Time Metaphysics

BORGES ANDPHILOSOPHY:Self, Time, and

Metaphysics

W.H. Bossart

PETER LANG

Studies in Literary Criticism and Theory

Hans H. Rudnick General Editor

vol. 16

PETER L4NG Nw York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern

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W. H. Bossart

808GII 4ND PUllOIOPUV

Self, Time, and Metaphysics

PETER LANG New York Washington, D.C./Baltirnore Bern

FrankFurt am Main Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford

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Bossart, W. H. (William H.). Borges and philosophy: self, time, and metaphysics / W. H. Bossart.

p. cm. -(Studies in literary criticism and theory; vol. 16) Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Borges, Jorge his, 1899- --Philosophy. 2. Borges, Jorge Luis, 189% --Knowledge-Metaphysics. 3. Self in literature. 4. Time in literature. 5. Metaphysics in literature.

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Borges and philosophy: self, time, and metaphysics / W. H. Bossart. -New York; Washington, D.C./Baltimore; Bern;

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CO n ten ts

Acknowledgments . vii

Introduction . 1

ONE . Philosophy and Daily Life . 15 Chance and Destiny . 15 Four Philosophical Tales .20

TWO . Reason and Reality. 43 Realism. 45 Nominalism .49 Esoteric Wisdom . 60

THREE . Time and Eternity. 79 Eternity. 79 Time. 87 Other Times. 97

FOUR . The Selfand Its Avatars. 109

Fate and the Individual. 131 Epiphany. 141 Failed Enlightenment. 146 The Selfas Aesthete . 110 The Selfand Society. 122

FIVE Becornin8 the Text. 155

Enlightenment as Conversion . 167 Immortality ' 155 Enlightenment as Destiny ' 160

Notes . 19 5

Bibliography ' 2 1 1

Index. 217

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GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IS HEREBY made to copyright holders for permission to use the following copyrighted material:

To Richard Burgin

CONVERSATIONS WITH JGRGE LUIS BORGES. Richard Burgin. New York: Holt,Rinehart Pc Winston, 1968.

To The Penguin Group (UK)

Approximately 3450 words from COLLECTED FICTIONS by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley (Penguin, 1998) Copyright 0 Maria Kodama, 1998 Translation and Notes 0 Penguin Putnam Inc, 1998.

Approximately 40 words from DOCTOR BRODIE’S REPORT by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley in collaboration with the author (Penguin, 1976) Copyright 0 Emect Editores S. A. and Norman Thomas di Giovanni, 1970, 1971,1972.

Approximately 135 words from the ‘Autobiographical Essay’ and 180 words from ‘Commentaries’ in THE ALEPH AND OTHER STOMFS 1933-1969 by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni (Dutton, 1970) English translations 0 1968, 1969, 1970 by Emect Editores S. A. and Norman Thomas di Giovanni; Copyright 0 1970 by Jorge Luis Borges and Norman Thomas di Giovanni.

‘A Yellow Rose’(7 lines)

‘Borges and I’ (1 1.5 lines)

‘Everything and Nothing’ (5 lines)

From SELECTED POEMS by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Alexander Coleman (Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1999) Translation 0 Kenneth Krabbenhoft, 1999.

... V l l l . B O K G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y

To Penguin Putnam Inc.

Selections from THE ALEPH AND OTHER STORIES 1933-1969 by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, copyright 0 1968, 1969, 1970 by Emect Editores, S. A. and Norman Thomas di Giovanni. Used by permission of Dutton, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

“Afterword” from DOCTOR BRODIE’S REPORT by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, copyright 0 1970, 1971, 1972 by Emect Editores, S. A. and Norman Thomas di Giovanni. Used by permission of Dutton, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

From COLLECTED FICTIONS by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley, copyright 0 1998 by Maria Kodama; translation copyright 0 1998 by Penguin Putnam Inc. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

“Borges and I” by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Kenneth Krabbenhoft, copyright 0 1999 by Maria Kodama; Translation copyright 0 1999 by Kenneth Krabbenhoft, “Everything and Nothing” by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Kenneth Krabbenhoft, copyright 0 1999 by Maria Kodama; translation copyright 0 1999 by Kenneth Krabbenhoft, “A Yellow Rose”, translated by Kenneth Krabbenhoft, copyright 0 by Maria Kodama; translation copyright 0 by Kenneth Krabbenhoft, from SELECTED POEMS by Jorge Luis Borges edited by Alexander Coleman. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

To Random House, Inc.

From TAO TE CHING by La0 Tsu, translated by Gia-Fu Fenh Pr Jane English, copyright 0 1997 by Jane English. Copyright 0 1972 by Gia-Fu & Jane English. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

From JORGE LUIS BORGES SELECTED POEMS 1923-1967 by Jorge h i s Borges, copyright 0 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 by Jorge Luis Borges, Emect Editores, S. A. and Norman Thomas di Giovanni. Used by permission of Dell Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc.

To Alastair Reid

Selections from his translations of four poems by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Unending Rose”, “I”, and “I Am” from Selected Poems, edited by Alexander Coleman. New York: Viking, 1999.

To The University of Texas Press

Selections from OTHER INQUISITIONS 1936-1952 by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Ruth L. C. Simms, Copyright 0 1964, renewed 1993.

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S . ix

I have also quoted in full “The Heart Sutra” translated by Edward Conze in BUDDHIST WISDOM BOOKS, Harper Tochbooks, 1972. Harper informed me that the rights to this translation were held by George Allen & Unwin. Unfortunately all correspondence to the address they gave me has been returned. I have been unable to find any other address through the many available channels. Please contact my publisher for any further inquiries.

JORGE LUIS BORGES Is GENERALLY ACKNOWLEDGED to be one of the great writers in the Spanish language in this century. On the wider literary scene, particularly in France and the United States, he is recognized as a modern master. However, one thing sets Borges apart from most of his contemporaries, and that is his fascination with philosophy, especially metaphysics.' Borges clearly has a genuine philosophical turn of mind; that is, he can appreciate and formulate rigorous philosophical arguments. Yet despite his undeniable facility in dealing with philosophical texts, Borges is sometimes poorly read in the original sources to which he refers. Some statements in his texts are taken from Macedonio Fern6ndez and others are extrapolations from his prized copy of Mauthner's dictionary of philosophy.2 One thing which makes Borges unique, however, is his ability to present the most abstract ideas imaginatively, in metaphors and symbols. He also exhibits a profound interest in metaphysical games, hoping all the while, that one of these games may turn out to be a relatively accurate description of reality. In this he is much like one of his favorite contemporary philosophers, Bertrand Russell, who combined an enduring love of metaphysics with a profoundly sceptical temperament. Like Russell, Borges wanders among the great masters seeking a firm purchase which he cannot find. He therefore expresses a nostalgia for metaphysics as he loses himself in its labyrinths.

In the works of Aristotle, meta physika originally meant the works which come after physics. Hence it came to mean the science, not of a particular kind of being like mind or nature, but of ultimate reality. So central is metaphysics to philosophical discourse, that, in the great philosophical systems of the West, the other principal branches of philosophy have been understood either as serving metaphysics or as issuing from it. For example, epistemology was developed in order to determine how it is possible to know what is really real, while logic was originally conceived as

2 . B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y ~

an onto-logic that spoke out the nature of being as it is in itself. But metaphysics eventually came under heavy criticism-in the eighteenth century with the reaction of British empiricism to Continental rationalism, and on the Continent itself with the Critical philosophy of Kant. Severed from the metaphysical investigations they were fashioned to serve, logic and epistemology eventually emerged as disciplines in their own right. Borges stands squarely in the middle of this crisis concerning metaphysics.

Borges declares: “If I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father’s library” (“Essay,” 209). By his own account, as a child he lived indoors. His father was a lawyer who was also a writer, a philosophical anarchist and a disciple of Herbert Spencer.3 He also taught psychology using William James’ shorter course in English (“Essay,” 204). English was one of the two languages commonly used in the house- hold since Borges’ paternal grandmother, who was English, lived with the family. At an early age Borges was bilingual as a reader and he first wrote in English. Borges describes his father as interested first in books on metaphysics and psychology, and second, in literature about the East.

He also, without my being aware of it, gave me my first lessons in philosophy. When I was still quite young, he showed me, with the aid of a chessboard, the paradoxes of Zeno-Achilles and the tortoise, the unmoving flight of the arrow, the impossibility of motion. Later, without mentioning Berkeley’s name, he did his best to teach me the rudiments ofidealism. (“Essay,” 206-207)4

In 1914 the Borges went to Europe so that Jorge and his sister could attend school in Geneva, living with their maternal grandmother while their parents traveled. Borges was forced to learn French. He also studied Latin and took up the study of German on his own (“Essay,” 215). Among the philosophical works he attempted to master was Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason but he was defeated by it (“Essay,” 216). Kant reappears throughout Borges’ thought, however, in his study of Kant’s great disciple, Schopenhauer, of whom he remarks:

Today, were I to choose a single philosopher, I would choose him. If the riddle of the universe can be stated in words, I think these words would be in his writings. I have read him many times over, both in German and, with my father and his close friend Macedonio Fernindez, in translation.” (“Essay,” 216-217)

Kant also reappears in Borges’ studies of a second Kantian disciple, Coleridge. At this time Borges also read Meyrink’s novel The Golem, which aroused his interest in the Cabala.5

Borges describes the major event of his return to Buenos Aires as his encounter with his father’s friend Macedonio Fernindez. H e acknowl-

. I N T R O D U C T I O N * 3

edges Macedonio’s greatest gift to him as making him read sceptically. In 1929 Borges won the Second Municipal Prize for Cuaderno San Martin, which enabled him to buy a set of the eleventh edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica, a principal source of much of the esoterica found in his tales. During this period he also met Alejandro Xul Solar, poet, painter, philosopher and inventor of languages, including a philosophical language in the manner of John Wilkes (“Essay,” 237). Xul’s influence appears frequently in Borges’ work, especially in his scepticism and conventionalism.

His interest in the various traditions of esoteric wisdom undoubtedly originated in his reading of Burton, Payne and Lane and later Meyrink. But they continued throughout his life. Thus he remarks to Milleret:

All knowledge is superficial. But nevertheless I had at home some thirty or forty volumes in French, German, and English. And on the Cabala, I think I had about a dozen, which I read and annotated with reference to other readings or studies or to my own reflections.. . .That is to say, I have not read these books to document myself or to put together an article; on the contrary, I began from curiosity and interest, and only afterward the idea came to me of using them also for literary or philosophical purposes. Why not? 6

Yet however broadly conceived Borges’ philosophical interests may be, they develop within a single overriding conceptual framework.

Across the latitudes and the ages, two immortal antagonists change their name and language: one is Parmenides, Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Francis Bradley; the other is Heraclitus, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, William James. In the arduous schools of the Middle Ages.. .the nominalists are Aristotle; the realists Plato.. . .As might be supposed, the passage of so many years multiplied the intermediate positions and distinctions to the point of infinity. Nevertheless, for realism the universals (Plato would say the ideas, forms) were fundamental; and for nominalism, the individuals.. . .7

Of the work of Heraclitus (d. 480 B.C.) only fragments remain. Even in antiquity he earned the names “The Dark One” and “The fiddler” for the oracular and obscure nature of his proclamations. The hidden law of nature, which Heraclitus claimed to have uncovered, is that all things live by conflict, which is essential to life and therefore something positive. He rejected the ideal of a peacehl and harmonious world as an ideal of death. Rather “war is the father of all” and “strife is justice.’’8 Heraclitus uses the metaphor of fire to describe the nature of the world, for fire lives only through destroying and is, like the world itself, in constant flux. Yet within this flux there remains an element of stability, the logos, which states the law governing the flux. “Listen not to me,” he says, “but to the

4 * B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y

ZO~OS.” Hence the logos, which in one of its usual meanings is account^' or “description,” is given a reality that is independent of whoever speaks it out. The logos is the logic which governs the cosmic flux. I t is, therefore, intelligent. This linking of logos, fire and intelligence reappears throughout the history of philosophy, in, for example, the natural light of which Descartes speaks, and it is central to many of the images employed by Borges.

In contrast to Heraclitus, Parmenides holds that the whole of reality consists of a single, unmoving and unchanging substance. For Parmenides and his followers the verb “to be” has only one meaning, namely, “to exist.” If one accepts the univocality of the verb “to be,” his challenge to Heraclitus becomes clear. For Heraclitus everything changes: fire becomes water, water becomes earth, and earth becomes fire. To say that something changes is to say that a thing can change its qualities, but how can one quality become another quality? This would mean that something can both be and not be, that something can come from nothing, and that something becomes nothing. But this violates the univocality of being. If the only acceptable meaning of “to be” is “to exist,” then change requires us to think a contradiction. Since only being can come from being and nothing can become something else, whatever is, always has been and always will be; that is, everything remains what it is. Hence there is only one eternal, underived and unchangeable being. This being must be continuous and indivisible and it must be immovable, for there is no empty space in which it could move. Finally, being and thought are one, for what cannot be thought cannot be; and what cannot be, i.e., non-being, cannot be thought. But the appearance of motion and change remains; that is, the sensible world of change is not identical with non-being and its status remains a problem which will occupy the energies of both Plato and Aristotle. For Borges the puzzles which Parmenides has left us are expressed more directly in the paradoxes of Parmenides’ follower Zeno and in the great monotheist of the seventeenth century, Spinoza.

Along with Descartes and Leibniz, Spinoza is considered to be one of the great masters of Continental Rationalism. A Jew who was exiled from the Synagogue in that most liberal of European cities, Amsterdam, for his “atheistic” philosophy, Spinoza made his living as a grinder of lenses. We have only fragments of Parmenides’ proem and these do not enable us to understand the relation between the way of knowing and the way of seeming, reality understood as an unmoving whole and the flux of appearance. This Spinoza undertakes to do. Spinoza is often called a “mystic,” but he is also a rationalist; that is, he eschews any purely emotional vision

* I N T R O D U C T I O N * 5

of or union with God, arguing instead that the only way to a union with the divine is through reason. Hence the way can be taught. This teaching is set out in a masterpiece of Western philosophy, the Ethics.

Spinoza begins by asking how reality might be conceived, that is, he seeks to provide an exhaustive conceptual description of the different classes into what is real, in any of the many senses of that term, might fall. Making use of a terminology derived from Aristotle and handed down by the Schoolmen and Descartes, Spinoza suggests that everything which enjoys any reality whatsoever will fall into one of two classes, substance and mode. Spinoza defines “substance” as “that which is in itself and is conceived through itself,” while “mode” is defined as “that which is in another thing through which also it is conceived.”9 This distinction is at first merely a distinction of thought and answers the question “What kinds of reality are conceivable?” He then goes on to argue that in thinking through this distinction the actual reality of substance emerges from its conception.

Spinoza establishes first a distinction between idea and ideatunz or, in a language more accessible to the contemporary reader, between the thought of a thing and the thing itself. In thinking about a triangle, for example, we must distinguish our awareness of the triangle from the triangle itself. The act of thought is the idea ofthe triangle, but it is neither extended in space nor does it have three sides and three interior angles. The triangle has its own kind of reality that is independent of the psychological act which thinks it, and which imposes certain conditions upon our thought. We cannot, for example, conceive of the triangle as having any more or less than three sides and three interior angles, just as we cannot conceive of a squared circle. But although the ideatum is essentially independent of the idea which thinks it, it may be dependent upon other essences. The triangle, for example, depends upon the essences point, line and plane through which it is conceived or known. Substance, however, as that which is in itself and conceived through itself, is essentially independent of all other essences.

These considerations also affect the actual existence of ideata. Since the essential triangle is essentially dependent upon an essential line and plane, an existing triangle will be existentially dependent upon an existing line and plane. Put in another way, just as I cannot comprehend the intellectual triangle without understanding the meaning of “angle,” “line” and “plane,” an actual triangle cannot exist except as being inscribed on an existing plane, a piece of paper say, by means of an existing instrument, a pencil. In the case of substance, however, there can be no question of an

6 . B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y

existential dependence since there is nothing on which it could depend. Thus substance exists necessarily. Nor is it relevant to object that while nothing may hinder substance from existing, merely thinking about it cannot bring it into existence, for Spinoza holds that thought does not affect its objects at all. Since ideata are independent of the ideas which think them, the most thought can do is inspect the nature of the objects which it entertains. We must be clear, however, what Spinoza means when he states that substance exists necessarily. Only a being in time can pass in or out of existence. Hence duration in time is characteristic of those dependent beings which Spinoza calls “modes.” As absolutely independent, substance cannot begin nor cease to be. Its existence is, therefore, eternal . I0

From this very elementary sketch of Spinoza’s conception of reality, it should not be too difficult to see some of the things which follow. Spinoza defines “God” as an absolutely infinite substance, having infinite attributes.” If we think out the definition of God, it becomes clear that since God contains an infinite number of attributes, and since it is by virtue of their different attributes that one substance would be distinguished from another, there can be only one substance. Furthermore, as dependent beings, modes are “in” something else through which they are also conceived. But since God is everything, modes can only be modifications of God. Thus Spinoza is a pantheist, and it was his pantheism that got him into trouble with Jewish orthodoxy.

There are three other consequences which follow from this view of reality and which are central to Borges’ preoccupations. The first of these is that reality may be seen both as natura naturata or nature and as natzwa natwans or God. Nature is conceived of as unfolding within the continual flux of time and the physical sciences seek to discover the efficient causes-those necessary and sufficient conditions-without which a given event or modal series could not occur. These are the events for which Borges employs the metaphor of Za tarde, whose sun is yellow. But such knowledge is always tentative and piecemeal since we can never get back to a first cause or a first moment of time. Perfect or complete knowledge is possible only when we contemplate reality under the aspect of eternity. From this point of view everything is seen as following from the nature of God as a logical conclusion follows timelessly from its premises. Furthermore, this highest kind of knowledge is for Spinoza a purely rational insight or intuition into the nature of the whole. Borges’ metaphor for this kind of rational intuition is Za hora sin sombra, the white light of high noon which casts no shadow. Finally, these considerations

* I N T R O D U C T I O N * 7

also have consequences for my knowledge of myself. Insofar as I see myself as immersed in the river of time, I can never know who I am, for I am as myriad a being as the circumstances which are involved in my formation. Seen under the aspect of eternity, however, I realize that what I call myself is nothing more than a particular aspect of the modal series which flows logically and eternally from God’s nature. In this moment of understanding the self vanishes as the phantom that it is.

The first two lines of his poem “Spinoza” allow Borges to work with multiple meanings of el cristal.12 As a lens grinder Spinoza worked with cristales in the physical sense. But “glass” can also takes on the meaning of “mirror” (espejo) and “rational insight” (Descartes’ lumen naturale). Spinoza’s hands are translucent even when he is dealing with physical objects, lenses. He labors in the darkness for light; that is, he seeks knowledge where there is at best opinion or hearsay. The afternoon, which is dying, is fearful and cold. All afternoons are equal to one another-they are all ephemeral, hardly distinguishable moments of the Heraclitean river of change. And this is why for Spinoza, who has the eye of his intellect on eternity, his hands and the hyacinth space which pale in the confines of the Ghetto, hardly exist. The “Ghetto” refers both to the Jewish quarter, which is cut off from the daily activities of the city, and to the constantly changing world of everyday life in which nothing endures. Spinoza is dreaming a clear labyrinth. Hence he is undisturbed by fame, that reflection of dreams in the dream of another mirror. The expression “clear labyrinth” is one of Borges’ famous oxymora or, as I prefer to call them, “inversions.” A labyrinth is by its very nature unclear. At one point Borges characterizes it as “a house built so that people could become lost in it.. . .”13 The expression “clear labyrinth,” then, must refer to the rather arduous turns of Spinoza’s thought as he tries to lead us to the “highest kind of knowledge,” the intuitive insight into the nature of God which would be akin to reaching the Minotaur in the labyrinth of Knossos. Neither fame, this reflection of dreams in a dream, nor the love of damsels disturb him. Free from metaphor and myth he works the arduous cristal, the infinite map of that which is all its stars. As we shall see, metaphor, myth and language in general are the means employed by human beings to make sense out of the world. They are faulty means yet, unless we reach Spinoza’s heights, they are all that we have as a means of “explanation.” One final point. Spinoza conceives of God or substance as infinite, hence the reference to the infinite map. But for Spinoza “infinite” does not mean a line which never ends or a series of numbers to which one more may always be added. That is the kind of infinity which is proper to

8 * B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

nature, substance seen under the aspect of time. From the point of view of eternity “infinite” is identical with independence, with the fact the substance is limited only by itself.14

Borges presents his understanding of Heraclitus in a second poem by the same name (OC, 2: 357). The poem is first of all a poetic rendering of experience seen as an everchanging river, an echo of the Hindu view that all is transitory, but there are some particularly Borgesian touches. In Borges’ writings the afternoon is frequently the time of human affairs. “Spinoza” tells us that all afternoons are the same. Here Borges speaks of a first and second twilight (crephsculos) suggesting that in effect there is no real distinction between them. Night is that other custom of time, the locus of purification and forgetfulness. This protracted image suggests a cyclical theory of time, one of ceaseless birth and rebirth.15 In “Spinoza” the philosopher is free from metaphor and myth, those devices by means of which one seeks to make sense of the ceaseless world of becoming, and therefore free to contemplate the eternal. Here it is the river of time itself which drags down mythologies and swords. “What weft or scheme is this, what river is this whose face is inconceivable” seems to reaffirm the cyclical nature of time and the submersion of the individual in its whirlpool. But not entirely, for there is also the suggestion, in accord with the teaching of Spinoza, that although I am carried away by this river I nevertheless am this river.16 In short, I am made from an unstable material, time. And perhaps its source lies in me; perhaps from my shadow surge the days, fatal and illusory. This last image introduces for the hypothesis of subjective idealism, that, in effect, this world is my illusion and my dream or that at least there is no clear distinction to be made between fiction and reality.

Finally, let’s look at a poetic rendering of esoteric knowledge (OC, 2: 263; SP, 193-195). The Golem legend is a theme which runs through much of Borges’ writing and he admits that the poem was anticipated in “The Circular Ruins.” The legend is introduced here through a reference to the Platonic dialogue, the Cratylus. This dialogue ties in with our discussion in a number of ways. Cratylus is a Heraclitean. The main theme of the dialogue is the relation of language to thought and to reality but it is also a discussion of the Heraclitean flux. The principal question is whether the names of things are merely a matter of convention or whether there is a natural relation between a thing and its name. In the dialogue both these views are criticized without a clear alternative being put forth. The impossibility of genuine knowledge of that which is constantly changing

* I N T R O D U C T I O N . 9

is, however, argued at the end of the dialogue, and this appears to anticipate Plato’s doctrine of forms as the only solution to this dilemma.

From Plato Borges now moves to the Cabala. There is a play on words here, for “cabal” in Spanish means “precise” or “complete,” and it is that kind of knowledge that practitioners of the Cabala seek to attain. The Cabala is a mystical interpretation of the Holy Scripture which stresses the secret importance of the script; creation via emanation; the supremacy of the human spirit over desire; the messianistic restoration of the world to a state of perfection; and the secret name of God.17 The next verse renders this connection to the Cabala explicit and ties this original language and its loss to the Fall, but it might equally be tied to Babel, the Babylonian city where the descendants of Noah, who spoke a single language, tried to build a tower to reach heaven. For this their words were made incomprehensible.’*

The poem goes on to refer to the “artifices” and naivete of man, which indicates that we are dealing here with the world as it is seen in those two twilights of dawn and late afternoon which constitute the Heraclitean flux. That flux hardly affects that other Jew, Spinoza, who also toils in the Jewish Quarter but who has retreated from the cares of daily life to pursue the highest form of knowledge.

The toil of this rabbi, Judah the Lion, is not merely one more human act which insinuates a vague shadow in a vague history, for his memory remains alive and verdant. Not merely insinuating a shadow suggests that, unlike most men, he seeks that knowledge which is available only in the white light of noon, Za hora sin sornbra. Rabbi Judah practices in Prague, which is the city of Kafka, and his experiment with the Golem is certainly “Kafkaesque.” Yearning to know that which God knows, that is, seeking complete and perfect knowledge, Judah Le6n experiments with permutations of letters and complex variations until he finally pronounces the Name which is the Key, the Gate, the Echo, the Host and the Palace (the secret name of God sought by the Cabalists) over a puppet to which, with a clumsy hand, he seeks to impart the mysteries. As one might expect of any newborn as of a person born blind who is given sight, this simu- lacrum is confronted by forms and colors which it does not understand. But gradually it finds itself in the “sonorous net” of before, since, yesterday, meanwhile, now, right, left, I, you, those and others-in short, the whole Heraclitean flux. What then can his creator teach this creature?

The rabbi, now clearly identified as a cabalist, officiates over numen, which are spiritual entities sometimes described as inhabiting inanimate objects.19 Scholem tells us that the rabbi named his creature “golem.”20


But despite his spiritual prowess, the rabbi explains the universe in very prosaic terms: “This is my foot; this is yours; this is the rope.” At the end of several years this perverse creature was able, for good or bad, to sweep the synagog. There is here, the suggestion of an equation: that as man is to his creator, so the golem is to the rabbi and this is borne out by what follows. First, however, Borges introduces the element of chance. Perhaps there was an error in the writing or in the articulation of the sacred Name, for despite the rabbi’s high art of wizardry, his apprentice fails to master human speech. The creature’s eyes resemble less those of a man than of a dog and rather less a dog’s than those of a thing, which seems fitting in the case of a creator who deals with numina. There is something abnormal and coarse about the Golem, so much so that the rabbi’s cat hides itself. This, the poet tells us, is not in Scholem but he guessed it, nevertheless, over the years. Hence Borges introduces the theme of the inevitable intrusion of the author into his story or his poem. “Elevating to his God his filial hands, he copied his God’s devotions, or stupidly and smiling, hollowed himself out in oriental salams.”21 We have here the idea of an infinite cycle of creators and creatures which he presents in “The Circular Ruins.”

Realizing that his act of creation has failed, the rabbi acknowledges that true wisdom is inaction. This suggests the wisdom which takes place in the hour without shadows, Spinoza’s contemplation of reality under the aspect of eternity. This veiled reference to Spinoza is hrther borne out in the next stanza, which recalls reality seen under the aspect of time as an infinite series of causes and effects. Finally we return to the twilight and an inversion of the Golem’s imitation of its master’s devotions. For here as the rabbi gazes upon his creature the poet wonders how God might feel as he gazes upon his rabbi there in Prague. Thus the finite actor feels the need to create but he can create only phantasms and this is the source of art. Borges stresses at one and the same time the poverty of human creation and the speculation that perhaps it is all we have.22

In “Averroes’ Search” Borges imaginatively reconstructs the effort of the greatest of the Western Muslim philosophers to deal with the Poetics of Aristotle23 Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle were a powerful influence on Scholasticism, which means, of course, on the history of Western philosophy in general. Aristotle was first translated into Syriac by Christian Syrians and then into Arabic from the Syriac.24 Knowing neither Greek nor Syriac, this monumental scholar, whom the Schoolmen hon- ored simply as the “Commentator,” was twice removed from the language, not to mention the culture, of the Stagirite.25

. I N T R O D U C T I O N - 11

Averroes was an avowed rationalist even in matters of theology. One of his greatest tasks had been to oppose Algazel who criticized the rationalism of the philosophers in his Tahafut alfaIasqa. Algazel’s work elicited from Averroes a defense of philosophical reasoning in his Tahafut al-tahafut.26 This defense of reason and philosophy is most explicit in Averroes’ explication of the relation between philosophy and religion. The Koran is truth itself since it results from a miracle of God. But the Koran is also addressed to all human beings; hence it must contain something to satisfy all minds. There are, however, three categories of minds and corresponding sorts of people: first, those who demand demonstrative proofs and insist on attaining knowledge by going from the necessary to the necessary by the necessary: second, dialecticians who are satisfied with probable arguments: and, third, those for whom oratory, which calls upon the imagination and the passions, is sufficient.27 Thus there are three orders of interpretation and teaching: “at its peak, philosophy, which gives absolute knowledge and truth; immediately below that, theology, the domain of dialectical interpretation and of mere probability; and at the bottom of the scale, religion and faith, which should be left carehlly to those for whom they are necessary” (Gilson, 219). Averroes leaves no doubt where this first order of interpretation is to be found:

The doctrine of Aristotle is the supreme truth, because his intellect was the limit of the human intellect. I t is therefore rightly said that he was created and given to us by divine providence, so that we might know all that can be known. (quoted in Gilson, 220)

Since philosophy is the embodiment of truth, and since Aristotle is its grandest exponent, there should be nothing in the philosophy of Aristotle that does not yield to rational clarification. And here we turn to the task which Borges imagines Averroes undertaking. The night before two words had puzzled him at the beginning Poetics. They were ‘‘tragedy” and “comedy,” and in the whole world of Islam no one understood what they meant. The problem of understanding these words is rooted not so much in a separation in time of fourteen centuries, nor in the fact that Averroes was working with the translation of a translation. Rather it is grounded in a fact of Islamic culture itself.

Averroes and his colleagues have asked the traveller Albucasim to relate some of the wonders he encountered during his wanderings. One tale in particular provides the clue to the difficulty facing Averroes as he attempts to elucidate Aristotle’s words. Albucasim is taken to a house of painted wood where many people live. The house possesses a terrace on

12 . B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

which persons were playing the drum and the lute while others prayed, sang, conversed, fought and so forth. One of the assembled observes: “The acts of madmen are beyond that which a sane man can envision.” Albucasirn replies that these men were not mad; rather they were, according to the explanation of a merchant, representing a story.

No one understands or pretends to understand, and when Albucasim attempts to explain the concept of representation, he is met with the retort that since these people spoke, a single speaker would have sufficed. In sum, what is missing in the conceptual framework of Islam is the notion of imaginative representation as well as that of a theater in which representation takes place. But according to Aristotle all the poetic arts imitate or represent. Tragedy imitates the actions of men who are better, while comedy imitates the actions men who are worse than those we know today (1448 a16-18). Unable to appeal to the concept of representation or imitation, Averroes’ search for the elusive meaning of “tragedy” and “comedy” seems doomed to failure. Yet as a rationalist who sees Aristotle as the most perfect embodiment of human reason, Averroes must be confident of finding a suitable meaning for these terms. And near the end of Borges’ tale he does just that. He gives a speech in which he affirms as only natural a nostalgia for one’s own culture, in his case that of Islam, Spain and C6rdoba. He then concludes by affirming that the ancients and the Koran contain all poetry. Some time later he enters his library and something in what he had said reveals to him the meaning of these two obscure words. He concludes that Aristotle gives the name of “tragedy” to panegyrics, and that of “comedy” to satires and anantemas, both of which abound in the Koran.

At the end of his account the narrator observes that, feeling sleepy, Averroes unwound his turban, looked, in the mirror, and disappeared suddenly and with him the house, the books, the manuscript and the whole social-historical context in which the narrator had placed him. And he concludes:

In the preceding tale, I have tried to narrate the process of failure, the process of defeat .... I felt that the work mocked me, foiled me, thwarted me. I felt that Averroes, trying to imagine what a play is without ever having suspected what a theater is, was n o more absurd than I , trying to imagine Averroes yet with no more material than a few snatches from Renan, Lane and Ash Palacios. I felt, on the last page, that my story was a symbol of the man I had been as I was writing it, and that, in order to be that man, and that in order to write that story I had to be that man, and that in order to be that man I had to write that story, and so ad infiniturn. (And just when I stop believing in him, “Averroes disappears.) (OC, 1: 587-588; CF, 241)

* I N T R O D U C T I O N . 13

The primary message of “Averroes’ Search” is that there is no context- neutral standpoint from which one can consider the data of experience “objectively” or as they are “in themselves.” Rather all description and explanation takes place within a particular context or from a particular point of view. This echoes Nietzsche’s observation that every great philosophy is, in effect, autobiography and that there is no knowing which is not perspectival.28 This theme is reenforced throughout much of Borges’ work by the narrator’s assertion that he will do his best to refrain from interpretation and by his subsequent failure to carry out his promise. I t also underlies Borges’ observation that if he knew how a future generation would read our literature, he would know what the literature of the future will be like.29 There are also a number of subsidiary themes announced here, among them: the fascination with philosophical and theological issues; the primacy of reason over faith; and the suggestion that reading is also writing and writing is a kind of creating.

In the following chapters I will examine what led Borges to the sceptical relativism of “Averroes Search.” Chapter 1 first discusses two well- known tales which appear to be straightforward narratives. Two principal themes emerge: the interplay between chance and circumstance in determining human destiny, and the question of whether it is possible to distinguish clearly between faction and reality. The second part of the chapter expands these themes by examining four of Borges most philosophical stories. The first provides a general metaphysical picture of a reality whose order derives from chance. The second might be read as a description of everyday life in such a world. The third tale exhibits the underlying ontological structure of a life governed by chance. And the fourth suggests that given such a picture of reality, it is impossible to distinguish clearly between fiction and reality. Hence metaphysics, which claims to be knowledge of the really real, is revealed as a branch of fantastic literature. Chapter 2 discusses the conceptual framework in which Borges’ philosophical interests develop: the defense of reason, the struggle between nominalism and realism and the rise of scepticism. It then goes on to examine esoteric wisdom as an alternative to discursive reason and ends on a sceptical note. Chapter 3 takes up the nature of time, which Borges sometimes deemed the central question of metaphysics. I t concludes that there is no adequate metaphysical explanation of the nature of time, or of its other, eternity; there are only a number of theories. Hence there is no metaphysical knowledge of time but only opinion. Faced with the apparent impossibility of attaining firm and certain knowledge of any external reality, Chapter 4 turns to a second central Borghesian concern,


the self and its world. I t asks whether the individual, having failed to find sustenance in knowledge of an external world, can find satisfaction in a particular style of life. I t concludes with a discussion of two esoteric tales which seem to promise genuine enlightenment but which fail. Chapter 5 examines what Borges has to say about genuine enlightenment. I distinguish two modes of enlightenment and then go on to explain what Angelus Silesius’ exhortation to become the text must mean for Borges.

* O N E *

Philosophy and Daily Life

ALTHOUGH PHILOSOPHICAL THEMES ARE SELDOM absent from his narratives, not all of Borges’ tales are primarily “philosophical.” In the present section I would first like to examine two of his most popular and least esoteric tales to show that despite their apparent straightforward character, both express philosophical themes that are central to Borges’ oeuvre.

* C H A N C E A N D D E S T I N Y .

“The South” and “The Intruder” are separated by many years and by the apparent fact that the former is a “fantastic tale,” while the latter is a straightforward “narrative.” Yet these two stories have a good deal in common. Borges himself acknowledges that the former may be read as a narrative, and “The Intruder’’ contains, in muted form, many of the fantastic or metaphysical elements of “The South.”l In addition, Borges speaks of both these stories as perhaps his best story.2 Hence, despite their apparent differences, we should expect many central Borgesian themes to be woven into them.

“The South”

“The South”3 (OC, 1: 525-530; CF, 174-179) begins with a description of the protagonist’s ancestors, Johannes Dahlmann, his paternal grandfather, who arrived in Buenos Aires in 1871 and was a pastor of the Evangelical Church, and his maternal grandfather, Francisco Flores, who died on the frontier of Buenos Aires, run through with a lance by the Indians of Catriel. As secretary of a municipal library, Juan Dahlmann appears to be following in the footsteps of his paternal grandfather. But, perhaps driven to it by his Germanic blood-an allusion to German Romanticism of the nineteenth century-he has elected the lineage of his


ancestor of the romantic death. Dahlmann has managed to hold on to the shell of an old estancia in the South, which had belonged to the Flores family and that his duties and perhaps his indolence have prevented him from visiting. Then destiny steps in. Dahlmann acquires a copy of the Thousand and One Nights, the ultimate book of dreams, which reappears throughout Borges’ work. Anxious to examine it, he hurries home and, preferring not to wait for the elevator, rushes up the stairs. In his haste he bloodies his head on the edge of a recently painted window frame that has been left ajar. Dahlmann falls ill with fever and after a week is carried off to a sanitarium for x-rays. In the cab that takes him to the clinic Dahlmann thinks to himself that at last he will be able to sleep in a room other than his own. Eventually, the surgeon in charge advises Dahlmann that he is healing and will soon be able to leave. He decides to go to his estancia to convalesce. “Reality,” notes the narrator, as if to underline the straightforward nature of his narration, “is partial to symmetries and slight anachronisms; Dahlmann had come to the sanitarium in a cab, and it was a cab that took him to the station at Plaza Constituci6n.”

At the station Dahlmann notes that he still has thirty minutes and decides to drink a cup of coffee in a caf6 on the Calk Brasil where there is an enormous cat which allows itself to be caressed with some disdain. The cat is asleep and as he strokes the cat’s coat he thinks “that this contact was illusory, that he and the cat, were as though separated by a pane of glass, because man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.” On the train Dahlmann opens his copy of the Thousand and One N&hts, which reen- forces the view that what is taking place is a dream. This is made even stronger by Dahlmann’s impressions of the trip and the white sun of high noon that had already become the yellow sun which precedes nightfall, and which would soon turn red. These distractions are interrupted by the conductor who announces that the train will not be stopping at the usual station but at an earlier one.

Dahlmann descends from the train in the hope of hiring a vehicle at the general store which he spots some distance away. The store had been painted bright scarlet, which has weathered with age. Dahlmann decides to have something to eat while a carriage is being readied. His meal is interrupted, however, by a small wad of bread thrown at him from another table. The owner advises: Dahlmann not to pay any attention to those boys since they are half high. The dreamlike quality of what is taking place is hrther enhanced by the fact that Dahlmann is not surprised that the owner knows his name. Ultimately Dahlmann is challenged to a

P H I L O S O P H Y A N D D A I L Y L I F E . 17

duel with knives. The owner objects that Dahlmann is unarmed. But an old gaucho throws him a naked dagger, which lands at his feet. Thus, clutching a knife, which he would perhaps not know how to use, he goes out into the plain.

As we might expect from the conclusion of “Averroes’ Search,” there is no single, unambiguous reading of this tale. I t can be read as a straightforward narrative of the interweaving of chance and destiny. Dahlmann’s destiny is introduced in the brief discussion of his ancestors. Chance is represented by his accident and by the fact that the train does not make its usual stop. Finally, chance and destiny are brought together in the figure of the old gaucho who appears as if by accident but in whom Dahlmann sees a cipher of his South, that is, of his destiny. The second reading is that everything which happens after Dahlmann leaves the sanitarium is a dream or a delirium and that in fact he never leaves at all but dies in his sickbed.4 This reading is supported by Dahlmann’s impressions of both the cat and the gaucho. The former appears as if it were separated from him by a glass (un cristal) and with whom his contact is perhaps illusory, while the latter squats on the floor immobile as an object.

The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water or a saying is polishes by generations of humankind. He was small, dark, and dried up, and he seemed to be outside time, in a sort of eternity. (OC, 1: 528; CF, 178)

The gaucho is a counterpart of the cat with his knife replacing the cat’s claws. Next there are Dahmann’s impressions of the trip on the train in which he feels as if he were two men: the one who is traveling through an autumn day and another who was locked up in a sanitarium. The train does not make its “regular” stop, one which could be regular only for the conductor and not for Dahlmann. And, finally, Dahlmann notes that the owner of the general store resembles one of the male nurses in the sanitarium. But these two readings do not conflict with one another from a Borgesian point of view, for throughout his writings Borges maintains that fiction and reality interpenetrate one another and that there is no clear line of demarcation between them.

There is also a third plausible reading of the story, which is autobiographical. Like Dahlmann, Borges has both a European ancestor on his father’s side, his English grandmother, and several distinguished Argentine patriots on the side of his mother. He also has apparently opted for the paternal path by becoming a writer, yet he harbors a not so secret affection for the romantic heritage of his mother. Borges has also worked


in a municipal library, and the library is one of the central metaphors in his writing. Finally, Dahlmann’s “accident” is drawn from something which happened to Borges himself.5 Once again this reading is not at odds with the other two, since one of Borges’ favorite literary devices is to include himself, and sometimes the names of his friends, in his stories, thus blurring even hr ther the distinction between fiction and reality.

These readings suggest several themes: the contention that reading is writing in the sense that it completes and thereby determines the meaning of the story; the meeting one’s fate, which in this case is the challenge to a duel$ and there is also the mention of el crzstal (the glass) which appears to separate the cat from Dahlmann. We should also note the use Borges makes of color, particularly his description of light cited above. The “intolerable white sun of high noon,” “La hora sin sombra,” signifies the light of reason in its intuitive and perhaps mystical insight into reality. In contrast, the yellow sun, which precedes nightfall, characterizes the afternoon (Za tarde) in which the affairs of human beings take place. Thus we approach Borges’ preoccupation with eternity and time. Finally, there is the moment before nightfall when the sun turns red. Red and its variations also appear throughout Borges’ work, even in the names of his characters.

“The Intruder”

“The Intruder” (OC, 2: 403406; CF, 348-351) is based on the repetition of the same sequence, at first with negative results. Two brothers, the Nilsens, living in a tough area on the edge of Buenos Aires, are isolated from the rest of the town first by their ancestry-they are tall, wear their red hair long and keep to themselves. Denmark or Ireland probably ran in their blood. Cristiin, the older brother, brings home a woman, Juliana Burgos, to live with him. In this way he gains a servant but he also takes to squandering his money on her. At first Eduardo goes out with them but later he returns from a journey with a girl he picked up along the way. After a few days, he throws her out. Late one night Cristiin is preparing to leave for a party and tells Eduardo that he may do with Juliana as he pleases. From that time on they shared her.

The two brothers become increasingly quarrelsome and after discussing the situation, they decide to sell Juliana to a brothel. At daybreak they reach the brothel and Cristiin shares the money with Eduardo. But this situation also fails as a solution to their problem, for both continue to see Juliana at the brothel. Hence they buy her back and bring her home


once more. The final sequence is more successful. Eduardo returns from the saloon to see Cristiin yoking the oxen, ostensibly to take some hides to Pardo’s warehouse, which lies farther to the south. On the way, they skirt a growth of tall reeds. Cristiin remarks to his brother:

“Let’s go to work, brother. The buzzards’ll come in to clean up afker us. I killed ’er today. We’ll leave ’er here, her and her fancy clothes. She won’t cause any- more hurt.” (OC, 2: 406; CF, 351)

They embrace on the verge of tears, bound by one more link-”the woman they had cruelly sacrificed and their common need to forget her.”

Despite their apparent differences-the fantastic element of “The South” seems to be absent in “The Intruder”-there are a number of similarities. Although Borges characterizes “The Intruder” as a straightforward narrative, the narrator admits at the outset that he will give in to the temptation of “emphasizing or adding certain details.” Once again there is no unbiased reading-whether of actual events or of a story. Hence reading entails a certain amount of invention. Both stories also begin with an account of the protagonists’ forebears. Then there is the use of color, in this case the color red (colorado), to describe the two brothers. Predictably, the one successful action, Cristiin’s murderous act, takes place in the afternoon, which is usually the locus of human actions in Borges’ fiction. Furthermore, although the Nilsens and Dahlmann seem almost completely unalike, there are a t least two marked resem- blances between them: the destinies which they cannot avoid, and the fact that neither the brothers nor Dahlmann is much of a reader of books. The brothers have only one old Bible in their house, and although he works in a library, Dahlmann reads very little. As for destiny Borges observes that in “The Intruder” the reader knows what will occur at the end. And in the conversations with Burgin he remarks: “What I was trying to do was to tell an inevitable story so that the end shouldn’t come as a surprise” (Burgin, 63). But the major structural element which binds these two stories is destiny, which is symbolized by the dagger or elpufial. In an early prose poem the dagger symbolizes destiny. It was made by men-we cannot escape our antecedents, but it has a being which is active and dynamic-it plays with precision, wants to kill, dreams and has a premo- nition of homicide. The dagger is also an eternal archetype like a Platonic form.7 Yet although it plays a central role in “The South,” it is difficult to find an equal role for it in “The Intruder.” Certainly the brothers Nilsen carry daggers and it is possible that Juliana was killed by the thrusts of a dagger, but it does not seem to play the symbolic role that it does in “The


South.” If we look a little further, however, the connection between the two stories is not far to seek. The central images of Dahlmann’s fate are the cat and the gaucho and they are contrasted with Dahlmann and other human beings as thin,s having a kind of eternal existence in contrast to the temporal existence proper to human beings. Like the dagger, the cat and the gaucho, Juliana is also a thing. She is no one. She is treated as an object and displays a bestial subservience to her masters’ whims. Yet she determines the brothers’ fate.

* F O U R P H I L O S O P H I C A L T A L E S -

These stories are four of the most esoteric philosophical tales that Borges has written. The first provides a general metaphysical picture of a reality whose order derives from chance. The second can be read as a phenomenological description of everyday life in such a world. The third tale exhibits the ontological structure of a daily life which is governed by chance. And the fourth suggests how philosophy would hnction given such a picture of reality.

‘The Library of Babel”

In his autobiographical essay Borges refers to “The Library of Babel” as “Kafkian,” a tale which renders nightmarish his experiences in the municipal library in which he worked (243). Many years later, however, in the conversations with Burgin, he disparages Kafka and his own attempts to write i la Kafka (Burgin, xi). Given the fact that he has translated some of Kafka’s stories and the undeniable influence of Kafka on a good deal of his writing, these remarks may come as a surprise. They may stem in part from the fact that an older man is reflecting critically upon his past, and perhaps from the fact that he is speaking here of Kafka’s novels and not of the short stories. But they also reflect a basic difference between Borges and Kafka. In Kafka there is no rational solution to the puzzles his writings present to us. We learn that Joseph K. is condemned and that this condemnation is inexorable, but we never learn why or what this means. In contrast, a tale by Borges, no matter how fantastic it may seem, always offers a rational denouement. In his choice of literature from Quevedo to Shaw to the mystics, Borges always chooses reason over emotion.8

Borges writes of the “Library”:

I would say that there are two ideas. First, one which is not mine, which is a commonplace, the idea of an almost infinite variation of a limited number of


elements. Behind that abstract idea there is also (undoubtedly without having troubled myself about it very much) the idea of being lost in the universe, of not comprehending it, ofwanting to find a precise solution, the feeling of not knowing the true solution. (Charbonnier, 20)

To me the image of the library is the central philosophical metaphor of Borges’ work, for it populates so much of his writing and his life and unites his concern with words, languages, literatures, the Word and the Book.9 It is the locus of the labyrinthian journeys undertaken by each of us. I t also consolidates the themes of the poems we have just discussed and is a fictional treatment of the subject of “Pascal’s Sphere.” “The Library of Babel” opens as follows (OC, 1: 465471; CF, 112-118):

The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries. In the center of each gallery is a ventilation shaft, bounded by a low railing. From any hexagon one can see the floors above and below-one after another endlessly. The arrangement of the galleries is always the same: Twenty bookshelves, five to each side, line four of the hexagon’s six sides; The height of the bookshelves, floor to ceiling, is hardly greater than the height of a normal librarian. One of the hexagon’s free sides opens on to a narrow sort of vestibule, which in turn opens onto another gallery, identical to the first-identical in fact to all. To the left and right of the vestibule are two tiny compartments. One is for sleeping, upright; the other; for satisfying one’s physical necessities.10 Through this space, too, there passes a spiral stair- case, which winds upward and downward into the remotest distance. In the vestibule there is a mirror, which faithfully duplicates appearances. Men often infer from this mirror that the library is not infinite-if it were, what need would there be for that illusory replication? I prefer to dream that burnished surfaces are a figuration and promise of the infinite.. . . Light is provided by certain spherical fruits that bear the name “bulbs.” There are two of these bulbs in each hexagon, set crosswise. The light they give is insufficient and unceasing. (OC, 1: 465; CF, 112)

Perhaps the most striking image of this introductory passage is that of the lamps. Their spherical form suggests the earth and, as we shall see, the form of the library itself. The light which they emit is a metaphor for the or human reason, which as incessant drives us on to seek answers to questions which its insufficiency prevents it from providing. Hence it recalls the two twilights of Heraclitus in which the rabbi Judah labored and which Spinoza sought to escape. Then there is the image of the mirror that represents the unceasing and fearsome multiplication of the sensible world.

Like all men, the narrator has journeyed in his youth in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of all catalogues. He affirms that the library is interminable. The idealists argue that the hexagonal halls are a necessary


form of space, or at least of our intuition of space. This is a reference to the critical idealism of Kant who held that the forms of space and time are provided by the mind to the matter out of which reason constructs the empirical world. They contend that a triangular or pentagonal hall is inconceivable, presumably because the apriori form of space forbids this. We will encounter a similar claim in Tlon, namely, that materialism is unthinkable since language forbids its conception. The mystics claim that ecstasy reveals to them a round chamber containing a great book with a continuous back circling the walls of the room; but their testimony, we are told, is suspect and their words obscure. That cyclical book is God. The narrator repeats the classic dictum: “The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons, and whose circumfeerence is inaccessible.” We have here a depiction of Spinoza’s substance with one difference-while the clarity of its formal structure is beyond doubt, the details are lacking. One should also note Borges’ use of “cabal,” which has been translated here as “exact.”

In his essay, “Pascal’s Sphere,” Borges traces this image of a sphere “whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere” from Xenophanes through Parmenides, Plato, some Christian mystics, the Roman dc Za Rose and Dante to Copernicus, Bruno and Pascal (OC, 2: 14-17; 01, 5-8). His thesis is that universal history is a history of the different intonation of several metaphors. More specifically, however, Borges asks why the same metaphor should arouse admiration in Bruno and fear in Pascal. He suggests that it is because for Bruno the breaking of the sideral vaults of Aristotle’s cosmology was a liberation, while for Pascal the physical universe was abhorrent. Perhaps we might say that Bruno was a Heraclitean who rejoiced in the ongoing flux of the universe, while Pascal was weighed down by the block universe of Parmenides. In what sense, then, is this the same metaphor? The words are the same but do they have the same meaning? And could we have the same metaphor if each of its instantiations has a different meaning? Yet wouldn’t it be an oxymoron to speak of a metaphor that has no meaning whatsoever? What Borges seems to be suggesting is that there may be a common meaning to all these instantiations, but that such a meaning is abstract and is interpreted through our particular hexagonal situation. In short, we return to the conclusion of “Averroes Search,” namely, that all meaning depends upon the social-historical context in which the individual is located. The journeys which the narrator has undertaken represent his metaphysical and epistemological attempts to leave his native hexagon and obtain genuine knowledge of ultimate reality.

* P H I L O S O P H Y A N D D A I L Y L I F E . 23

The narrator next presents us with a puzzle: despite the orderliness of the Library-each hexagon has five shelves and each book has four hundred and ten pages-the letters on the spine do not indicate their content. Before going on to offer a solution to this paradox, he recalls two axioms which follow from the nature of the library: first, the Library exists ab aeterno. Concerning this truth, whose immediate corollary is the future eternity of the world, no rational mind can be in doubt. Borges also offers an argument from design which mimics Cleanthes in Hume’s Dia1ope-c “the universe, with its elegant appointments-its bookshelves, its enigmatic books, its indefatigable staircases for the traveller, and its water clos- ets for the seated librarian-can only be the handiwork of a god.” Second, the number of orthographical symbols is 25 (22 letters, empty space, comma and period).ll This second axiom made it possible for a librarian of genius to discover the fundamental law of the library, that all books, no matter how diverse, are made up of the same 25 elements. He also maintained that in the Library there are no two identical books. And from these two incontrovertible premises he concluded that the Library is a totality that contains all possible combinations of the twenty-odd orthological symbols. In short, the Library contains all books. Thus Borges parodies Leibniz’ principle of the identity of indiscernibles as well as his claim to have discovered a universal language, a nzatbesis universalis, and with it, since all experience is expressed and shaped by language, the structure of reality itself. 12 Finally, the totality of the Library reaffirms once again the basic Parmenidean-Spinozistic view of a monolithic block universe.

A number of projects resulted from viewing the Library as a totality containing all books. Since it is all-inclusive, there could be no problem whose solution does not exist in some hexagon. Hence much was said about the Vindications, books of apology and prophecy, which vindicate for all time the acts of every man in the universe. But these Vindications turn out to be ephemeral, in practice if not in theory, for the possibility of an individuals finding his Vindication, or perhaps a deceptive variation, is computable as zero.

Then there are the official inquisitors (sanctioned by church, state or learned institution). From time to time they will pick up the nearest book and leaf through its pages, in search of famous words with no expectation of discovering anything. Discouraged by these failures, others suggest that such searches be abandoned, and that men should shuffle letters until, by a stroke of luck, they produce the canonical texts. Confronted by this contextual anarchism, the authorities suppressed the sect in question. This pessimistic attitude gave rise in turn to the appearance of censors.


But book-burning is not a serious matter since the Library is so enormous that any human reduction of its content is infinitesimal. Finally there arose the superstition of the Man of the Book-the belief that somewhere there exists a book which is the compendium of all the rest.

Some thirty years later in Borges’ work the book of books does in fact turn up, in “The Book of Sand,” in a collection of stories with the same title (OC, 3: 69-71; CF, 480483). A seller of bibles visits the narrator, who points out with some vanity the high quality of his own collection. He has no apparent need for one more bible. The visitor, however, wants to show him a sacred book that comes from Bikaner. The narrator opens it by chance and notes that one page is numbered 40.514 and the facing page 999. His visitor admonishes him to look at it carefully for “you will never see it again.” And this is precisely what occurs. The narrator is unable to locate the same page twice and his visitor explains that the number of pages in the book is exactly infinite. After some brief negotia- tions and without much resistance on the part of the seller, a trade is arranged. Some time later, having passed many nights either without sleep or dreaming of the book, the narrator hides it in the National Library, where he had worked prior to his retirement. Thus the book of books, in which everything that takes place in the universe is equally without meaning, is returned to its righthl home.

Since everything that is possible is contained in the Library, to speak is inevitably to fall into tautologies. Here we encounter one of Borges’ favorite themes: there is nothing new, no novel ideas, literature or authors or as Gide put it: “Everything has been said, but since no one listened, we have to say it again.”l3 And yet despite the repetitiveness of one’s message, it is not clear that it will reach its audience. In some of the n possible languages, the symbol “library” allows the correct definition, but because the relation between a word and its meaning is purely conventional, “library” can mean “bread” or “pyramid” or anything else.

Finally, on the last page, Borges ties the theme of the conventionality of language and the continual repetition of forms and meanings to the relation between chance and destiny and the order which comes from chaos. First the narrator speculates on the future of the Library and of humankind and concludes that although humans are about to perish, the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, useless, incorruptible and secret. In this affirmation of the universe of Parmenides the narrator takes a moment to ponder the meaning of “infinite.” He rejects the ongoing infinite of Spinoza’s natural world, the perpetual flux of Heraclitus (as did Spinoza himself) as well as the idea that the universe is finite. He explains

- P H I L O S O P H Y A N D D A I L Y L I F E . 25

these rejections by introducing another of Borges’ favorite themes, the cyclical conception of time:

If an eternal traveler should journey in any direction, he would find after untold centuries that the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder-which, repeated, becomes order: the Order. My solitude is cheered by that elegant hope. ( OC, 1 : 471; CF, 11 8)

The image of the Library provides us with a seemingly oxymoronic combination of nominalism, since there are no two books which are identical, and Platonism, since we have here a limited number of forms which repeat themselves in succeeding generations. This suggests that time is fundamentally circular. Equally paradoxical is the coupling of chance and destiny, which we encountered in “The South” and “The Intruder,” for the narrator suggests that it is out of disorder that order arises. Then there is the metaphor of light as an expression of reason, a reason which is both incessantly demanding and insufficient. Finally, the suggestion that no matter how hard we try, we can never escape our hexagon reaffirms the contextualism of “Averroes Search.”

“The Lottery in Babylon”

“The Lottery in Babylon” recalls the “Library,” for it is the city in which the tower of Babe1 was constructed (OC, 1: 465471; CF, 101-106). As Jaime Alazraki puts it: “The library is the symbol of the chaos of the universe; the lottery shows this chaos translated into chance which rules human life.”’* The narration is in the first person and the narrator is about to leave the city by ship. During his time in Babylon he has been proconsul and slave. On his stomach there is a vermilion tattoo which is the second symbol, Beth. On nights when the moon is hl l , this letter gives him power over men whose mark is Giimmel, but it subordinates him to those of Aleph, who on moonless nights owe obedience to those marked with Giimmel. He tells us that he has known what the Greeks did not know, uncertainty. Imagine a life based upon the order suggested at the close of the “Library,” one which results from pure chance. It recalls the Pelasgian and Olympian creation myths according to which all things arose out of Chaos. I t is also a story of oxymora or inversions. Everyone is what he or she is and yet another: proconsul/slave, hero/coward.

Before his departure, the narrator relates a “history” of the predomi- nant cultural features of his society that are determined by its principal activity, the lottery, without any pretense at historical accuracy or scholar-


ship. The early lotteries were ones in which barbers sold squares of bone or parchment adorned with symbols in exchange for copper coins. A drawing took place and the winners received silver coins. The simplicity of these drawings doomed the lottery because they were not directed at all of man’s faculties, but only at hope. Hence a reform was needed and it took the form of the inclusion of some unfavorable tickets among the winners. This slight danger stimulated the public’s interest. At first fines were levied on those who drew unfavorable lots. Those who refused to pay were sentenced to a term in jail, and most opted for this alternative in order to defraud the Company, as those who governed the lottery had come to be called.

As the lottery developed, the Company omitted publishing the fines in favor of publishing the days of imprisonment that each unfavorable number indicated. The success was so great that the Company had to increase the unfavorable numbers. A further concern, which stemmed from the Babylonians’ love of logic and symmetry, was the desire that rich and poor should participate equally in the lottery. This was a question of a new order brought about by “a necessary stage of history”-clearly a lampoon of Marx and perhaps Hegel.15 The subsequent commotion caused by this change ultimately forced the Company to accept total power. Secondly, it made the lottery free, secret and general. Since the knowledge that certain happinesses were the product of chance would have diminished their virtue, the Company used the power of suggestion and magic. And to discover the intimate hopes and terrors of each individual, they employed astrologers end spies. “There were certain stone lions, there was a sacred latrine called Qaphqa, some cracks in a dusty aqueduct-these places, it was generally believed, gave access t o the Company.. . .” Thus the Company comes increasingly to resemble the Jesuit Order. The use of spies suggests the confessional, and the latrine called Qaphqa recalls the latrines of the Library and signals that we are in a world which is “Kafkaesque.” Finally, the Company does not answer complaints or charges against it directly, but through unofficial sources.

The doctrine that the lottery is an interpolation of chance in the order of the world and that the acceptance of error does not contradict chance, led some to the conclusion that chance should intervene at all stages of the drawing. Thus a drawing that decrees the death of a man might lead to a second that proposes a certain number of executioners among whom some can draw again to determine the name of the executioner, while others can draw a fifth time to reverse the sentence. “In reality the number of drawings is infinite. No decision is final, all branch into others.”


Borges expresses here his antipathy to the arbitrary power of institutions, which is based upon mere convention, and he anticipates as well, the parallel labyrinths of “The Garden of Forking paths.”

The final consequence was that chance entered into every aspect of life: The buyer of a dozen amphoras of wine is not be surprised if one of them contains a talisman or a snake, and the scribe who writes a contract almost always introduces some erroneous information. “I myself, in this hurried statement, have misrepresented some splendor, some atrocity.” Thus chance, which is also the author of order and destiny, is one reason why there can be no telling of a tale which is not colored by its teller, no wholly objective account of anything. As an instrument of chance, the author necessarily intrudes in his tale. This uncertainty also contaminates the history of the Company, since every book contains some discrepancy in each of its copies. Here Borges brings together two of his central themes: the nominalism of the “Library,” in which no two books are identical, and the suggestion developed in “Tlon,” that no clear line between the imaginary and the real can be drawn.

Finally, Borges appears to be sketching a genealogy of morals along Nietzchean lines. In the second essay of T h e Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche argues that rituals are more basic than their meanings. In the case of punishment Nietzsche observes that one must distinguish two aspects of punishment, the first which is relatively enduring, the custom, the act, the drama, and the second which is fluid, the meaning, the expectation. According to Nietzsche the procedure is older than its employ- ment in punishment and the latter is interpreted and projected into the procedure. As for the meaning, there is not one but several meanings; e.g., rendering harmless, preventing further harm, recompense to the injured, isolation of disturbance, inspiring fear, repayment, expulsion of a degenerate element etc. Thus punishment is overburdened by all kinds of utilities or meanings which have been superadded to its purely formal structure by the social-historical contexts in which it has been practiced.16 And so it is with the lottery, which remains constant through the changing meanings which attach themselves to it. This suggests, that ethical values, though they may be tied to certain practices which appear to be universal, are determined as to what they mean by the social-historical contexts in which these practices are carried out.

28 . B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y -

“Tbe Garden of Forking Paths”

According to the ontology of the “Library, order is born of chance. The “Lottery” provides a phenomenological description of how daily life might be lived in such a universe, What, then, is the underlying structure of such reality? “The Garden of Forking Paths” provides a set of images that suggest an answer to our question. Central among these is the image of the labyrinth (OC, 1: 472480; CF, 119-128).

In the “Prologue” Borges describes “The Garden” as a detective story in which the readers witness the preliminaries and the execution of a crime which they will not understand until the last paragraph. But to call a particular tale a detective story is not to limit it to an “entertainment,” for one of Borges’ models is Chesterton whose stories are certainly not without eschatological overtones. And for someone who sees every journey that he makes as a labyrinth, the whole of life becomes a series of “policiers.” The story begins with a statement of “fact”:

On page 242 of The History of the World War, Liddell Hart tells us that an allied offensive against the Serre-Montauban line (to be mounted by thirteen British divisions backed by one thousand four hundred artillery pieces) had been planned for July 24, 1916, But had to be put off until the morning of the twentyninth. Torrential rains, notes Capt. Liddell Hart, were the cause of that delay-a delay that entailed no great consequences. (OC, 1 : 472; CF, 119)

The narrator, however, is in possession of a statement signed by a Dr. Yu Tsun, which throws an unsuspected light on the whole affair. Yu Tsun’s declaration lacks its first two pages. Once again we are barred from learning the “whole truth” by something which is missing. This is another sign that every journey is labyrinthine in nature.

Borges writes here, as is often the case, in a style that is proper to a report and that recalls the style of Kafka. I t is the report of a case of espi- onage. A Chinese spy employed by Germany has just telephoned his German contact but the voice that answers in German is not that of Viktor Runeberg but that of Captain Richard Madden. Madden was clos- ing in on Yu Tsun; hence the latter’s task is clear. He must inform his chief in Germany of the precise location of the new British artillery park on the Ancre River. But with Captain Madden in pursuit, how was he to accomplish his task? Find someone whose name would indicate to the Germans the name of the site in question and draw attention to that name by killing him. Yu Tsun does so and then is captured by Madden.

Borges introduces his protagonists once again with a terse account of their past. Yu Tsun is a former professor of English at the Hochschule in


Tsingtao. Thus the relations between the Chinese protagonist, his German chief and Captain Madden are united in a single sentence. His actions, however, do not stem merely from the fact that he taught English at a German school, but also from the realization that his Chief held the people of his race in low regard. Hence Yu Tsun wanted to prove to his Chief that a yellow man could save the German armies. The actions of Madden are also rooted in his social-historical situation, for as an Irishman in the service of England he welcomed the opportunity to impress his superiors by capturing the Chinese spy.

Yu Tsun looks through his pockets and finds what he already knew he was going to find: some coins, a pencil, a handkerchief and a gun whose one bullet signifies the irrevocable nature of destiny. He finds in the telephone book the only name capable of transmitting the message. Once again chance is the author of destiny. The bearer of this name lives in the suburb of Fenton only half an hour away by train. Before leaving for the station Yu Tsun remarks to himself that he is a cowardly man, that he is acting both out of the need to prove something to his chief and to escape from Madden. As we might expect from “Averroes’ Search,” the judgment that a deed or a person is heroic or cowardly always depends upon the context in which the judgment is made. Coward/hero is just one of the many inversions with which this story abounds.

Among the passengers in the train there are some farmers, a woman dressed in mourning, a young man reading the Annals of Tacitus, a wounded and happy soldier. As the train pulls out of the station Yu Tsun looks through the window-another variant of el cristal-and sees Madden running to the end of the platform. Yu Tsun has gained the first round of battle through a favor of chance. At the station platform in Ashgrove, which is illuminated by a lamp, Yu Tsun encounters some boys whose faces are in shadow. The boys assume that Yu Tsun is going to the house of Dr. Stephen Albert, the well-known sinologist, and direct him to take the road to the left and at every crossroad to turn again to the left. Yu Tsun recalls that these instructions describe the procedure for discovering the center of certain labyrinths, and with this observation the central image of the story begins to unfold.17 Yu Tsun writes that he has some understanding of labyrinths since he is the great grandson of Ts’ui Pen, the governor of Yunnan who renounced worldly power in order to write a novel and create a labyrinth in which all men would loose themselves. He reflects on that lost labyrinth in various ways finally coming to understand it as a labyrinth of labyrinths which encompasses all and is, like the


book of books, one more image of the all-encompassing sphere of Parmenides and Spinoza.

Yu Tsun remarks to himself that it seems impossible that this day devoid of symbols and premonitions would be the day of his death. Yet there are symbols such as the low and circular moon and the vague yet living countryside, the remains of the day that affected him, and the slope of the road which eliminated any possibility of weariness. He describes the afternoon as intimate and infinite, which recalls Dahlmann’s journey to the South. The afternoon is also the time when events happen. But Yu Tsun is equally in the instant, for he also reflects that everything happens to a man precisely now, and he finds himself, for a time, to be an abstract perceiver of the world. Thus chance conspires with destiny to bring him to the house of Dr. Albert and the garden of forking paths.

Yu Tsun arrives at the garden and then at a library filled with oriental and occidental works-a complete library insofar as such a thing is possible in the Heraclitean flux in which we pass our days. He recognizes, bound in yellow silk, certain volumes of the Lost Encyclopedia. The project of an encyclopedia is to be comprehensive, a book of books. The library also contains a tall circular clock, which suggests that time is infinite in the sense of being circular. His host, Stephen Albert, had been a missionary before becoming a Sinologist. Albert tells Yu Tsun that his illustrious ancestor had abandoned everything to compose a book and a labyrinth. Finally, there is the irony that Albert, who has deciphered the labyrinth of Ts’ui Pen, has himself become a cipher through the offices of Yu Tsun. These inversions lead us to question other disconcerting details of the story: How is it that a yellow man finds himself in the service of Germany? How is it that a certain Mr. Albert, selected by chance from the telephone directory, is also a sinologist, and the very person who has understood the labyrinth of Ts’ui P h ? How is it that the young men whom Yu Tsun encounters after descending from the train know the road to Albert’s home? It is not, as some have suggested, that Borges unites the exact with the absurd since none of these facts are absurd in themselves. The disconcerting character of these events stems rather from the fact that Borges locates them in a space which makes them appear incomprehensible. This is the space of daily life to which Borges’ narrative style is perfectly adapted. But, ever the rationalist, Borges indicates to us a space in which it would be possible to understand the paradoxes of his story. This is the labyrinth of Ts’ui P&n.

The theme of the labyrinth is interrelated with at least three other fundamental Borgesian themes: (1) chance is destiny in the sense that it is


impossible to escape the past and one’s ancestry; (2) time is infinite in the sense of being circular, as a repetition of similar but not identical events, as we have learned from the “Library;” (3) the Library is the universe. We possess the labyrinth to elucidate these themes. In the space of daily life the passage to the labyrinth occurs via the advice to always double to the left in order to arrive at the home of Stephen Albert. The ontological space of the underlying labyrinth is introduced in Albert’s announcement that he has uncovered the labyrinth of Ts’ui PCn.

After Ts’ui PCn’s death his heirs found nothing more than a number of chaotic manuscripts which they wished to destroy. But his executor, a Taoist or Buddhist monk, insisted on their publication. This seems to be another intrusion of chance but in reality this offhand reference is charged with meaning. For who but a Taoist or Buddhist monk would be able to see in this apparent chaos a symbol of the ultimate meaningless of daily life, the world of S a m s ~ a ? Albert has discovered that the two tasks which Ts’ui Pen had set himself, to compose a novel and a labyrinth, are one- the book is a labyrinth of symbols, an invisible labyrinth of time. Albert has arrived at this conclusion by reflecting on two things: (1) that the labyrinth must be infinite and ( 2 ) a fragment of a letter. Once more something is missing. The letter was written on paper which was formerly crimson and is now a faded rose. I t says in part, “I leave to several futures (not t o all) my garden of forking paths.” Before discovering this letter Albert questioned himself about the ways in which a book could be infinite. He recalled the Thousand and One Nkhts “when the queen Scheherazade.. . begins to retell, verbatim, word for word the story of the 1001 Nights.” The phrase, “several futures,” however, suggests a bifurcation in time rather than one of space. That is to say, in contrast to other novels, in which one alternative eliminates the others, Ts’ui PCn opted, simultane- ously, for all. In this way he created diverse worlds which exist at the same time and from this we can explain the phrase “for various (not all)” as well as the apparent confusions of the novel. But to comprehend these confusions it is necessary to suppose the existence of a time which is different from the time of our mundane reality, the before, now and after of the Heraclitean flux and of Spinoza’s natura naturans. This time cannot be uniform, an absolute time in the manner of Newton, Kant or Schopenhauer. Rather Ts’ui Pen believed in an infinite series of times and in a growing network of divergent, convergent and parallel times. We do not exist in the majority of these times and cannot, therefore, represent these worlds except in our imagination. Nevertheless, this conception of


time is the ontological structure which underlies the everyday world. This is why the Library, the domain of the imagination, is the universe.

There is no doubt that Borges had read some accounts of the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. He mentions Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in his essay on Shaw. And perhaps he had read as well something about the Copenhagen School. I t is impossible, however, that this tale could have been influenced by Hugh Everett’s “many world proposal” which was first advanced in 1957.18 In any case, the conception of an infinite number of parallel worlds of this labyrinth of all labyrinths parallels the infinite number of books of the Library, no one of which is identical with any other. They both represent the endless number of contexts in which a state of affairs, an action or a person may be viewed. Thus we might view Yu Tsun as acting heroically, or out of cowardice, or tragically, in killing the barbarian who not only understood his people but the mag- num opus of his illustrious ancestor. The metaphor of this labyrinth of an infinity of parallel worlds also brings together the two ontologies of Parmenides and Heraclitus, for it seeks to think together radical flux in a single, albeit diverse, whole. Finally, however, in making the labyrinth a book, and in suggesting that it also represents the underlying ontological structure of the everyday world, Borges advances the thesis that there is no clear-cut distinction between fiction and reality.

“Tliin, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”

According to his conversations with Burgin, “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” is one of Borges’ favorite stories but it was excluded from his Personal Anthology because a friend believed it might put off too many of his readers (Burgin, 65). No doubt his friend was correct, for although it has ofren been discussed by commentators, the story is so loaded with allusions, collusions and farce that it is virtually impossible to identify and disentangle all its strands. For our purposes, however, a fairly protracted discussion of “Tlon” is unavoidable, for “Tlon” abounds with philosophical references. I t is a parody of philosophy and of several different philosophical discourses. “Tlon” is also the story in which Borges exhibits most forcehlly the contention that reality cannot be distinguished from fiction. Finally, in “Tlon” Borges employs to the utmost one of his favorite literary devices for erasing the line between the fictitious and the real, the juxtaposition of real and fictitious characters and events. I will begin by identifying some of these juxtapositions. Although I will have occasion to


mention others in connection with later stories, this will be the only extended discussion of this practice (OC, 1:431-443; CF, 68-8 1).19

On the first page Borges introduces his close friend and collaborator, Adolfo Bioy Casares, in conjunction with an alleged plagiarized version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, The Anglo-American Cyclopedia. On page 70 we are introduced to Silas Haslam, the fictional author of fictional works including History of the Land Called Uqbar, which figures in the catalogues of Bernard Quaritch’s book shop. Quaritch was an English bookseller and collector, and the fictional Haslam bears the family name of Borges’ English grandmother. Then there is mention of Lerbare und lesenswerthe Bemerkungen uber das Land Ukkbar in Klein-Asien, a fictional work by Johannes Valentius Andrea, (1586-1654), a German poet, satirist and theologian who De Quincey claims wrote the basic books of Rosicrucianism. On the same page we run into Carlos Mastronardi, a writer identified with Martin Fierro, a literary magazine that published some of Borges’ work. Then we meet Herbert Ashe, a fictitious engineer and acquaintance of Borges’ father, who plays a substantial role in the story. He is encountered in the hotel at Adrogut, a town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where the Borges family spent several vacations and which reappears elsewhere in Borges’ writings. On page 72, Nestor Ibarra, Borges’ friend and translator into French, appears as the author of an apocryphal “classic” article in the well-known French literary review, the N. R. F., of which Drieu La Rochelle was editor for a time. These two names are then followed by Alfonso Reyes, Mexico’s great poet, essayist and savant and also Mexico’s ambassador to Argentina, who took a personal interest in Borges’ work. Elsewhere Borges praises Reyes as the greatest Spanish prose stylist of the twentieth century.20 Finally, when the fabricators of Tlon are revealed in the “Postscript,” they include a cast of both real and fictitious characters: Herbert Ashe, whom we have already met; Gunnar Erfjord, another fictional character who appears in other stories;21 Hinton is sometimes identified as James Hinton, an English surgeon, theologian and philosopher and a member of the Metaphysical Society, but it is more likely Charles H. Hinton, author of The Fourth Dimension, which discusses time as a fourth dimension;22 Dalgarno, a Scottish philologist who dedicated himself to creating a universal language; and the philosopher George Berkeley. Two centuries later the fictional American millionaire, Ezra Buckley, learns of the project and hnds it. But the most outrageous juxtaposition of fiction and reality occurs when the narrator asserts:


I reproduce the article above exactly as it appeared in the Anthology of Fantastic Litevatuve (1940), the only changes being editorial cuts of one or another metaphor and a tongue-in-cheek sort of summary that would now be considered f l i p p a n ~ ~ 3 (OC, 1: 440; CF, 78)

But the “Postscript” is dated 1947 and was included in the original story. “Tlon” opens as a story about malevolent mirrors. Borges has often

spoken and written about his dislike and even fear of mirrors. In “Poetry” in Seven Nights, he observes:

It is truly awhl that there are mirrors: I have always been terrified of mirrors. I think that Poe felt it too .... We are accustomed to mirrors, but there is something terrifying in that visual duplication of reality.24

“Orbis tertius” is perhaps the central image in the title. It stands in contrast to the Nordic “Tlon” and the Arabic “Uqbar.” “Orbis Terrae” refers to the circle, the path, the sphere and the orbit of the earth. It may also refer to a later Gnostic view that an orbis tertius exists as an intermediary between the spiritual orbisprimus and the inferior orbis alter. This media- tion appears in the claim that the penetration of our world with objects from Tlon will eventually result in an orbis tertius. In a discussion of the Heimskringla, “one of the most important works of Islandic literature,” Borges remarks that I(ring1a heimsins means “the round ball of the world.”25 It may also refer to Ouspensky’s Tertium Owanum, which proposes a human evolution toward an idealistic vision of reality.

The story opens without the familiar disclaimer about being able to produce an accurate narration and without any mention of missing pages or a possibly inaccurate document. “I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.” We appear to be dealing with another chance occurrence. The narrator, who clearly is Borges, is having dinner with Bioy Casares in a countryhouse they have rented. They are discussing the project of composing a novel in the first person, whose narrator would omit or disfigure the facts and indulge in contradictions which would allow a few readers-very few-to perceive a horri- fying or banal reality. From the depths of a corridor a mirror spies on them, and Bioy recalls that a heresiarch of Uqbar had declared that “mirrors and copulation are abominable, for they multiply the number of mankind.” Borges asks him the source the of the citation and he replies that it was reproduced in the Anglo-American Cyclopedia in its article on Uqbar. By chance the house has a set of this encyclopedia but the article on Uqbar is not to be found. The next day Bioy returns to Buenos Aires and calls to say that he has the article on Uqbar and is able to correct his


memory. The text actually reads: “For one of thosepostics, the visible universe was an illusion or, more precisely, a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are hateful because they multiply and proclaim it.” This theme of duplication runs throughout the story, for the Anglo-American Cyclopedia is a reimpression of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the volume which contains the article on Uqbar is piratical.

Before we continue with the plot of “TIon,” two terms merit some discussion. “Espejo” or “mirror” is a form of cristal or glass, and cristal, we recall from the poem “Spinoza,” sometimes symbolizes reason. Spinoza seeks perfectly adequate knowledge of reality or substance. The other symbol of reason current in the seventeenth century is light. The Library brings these two symbols together in the figure of the lamps that provide to its interior (the exterior is inaccessible) a light which is both incessant and insufficient and which is a symbol of human reason. Mirrors also symbolize the insufficiency of human reason, for they multiply without end the ceaseless Heraclitean flux of experience. Finally, encyclopedias, indeed books in general or language in general, take part in this deception. For Diderot and the encyclopedists the encyclopedia was to provide a compendium of human knowledge. But the story confronts us with a second encyclopedia which, being as exact as the first, ultimately undermines its credibility.

The second term is “heresiarch” which also suggests some kind of deception. Jain maintains that it suggests falsity (Jakn, 187).26 To my mind, however, Jatn’s reading is too narrow. “Heresiarch” suggests falsity only if there is an absolutely true vision or dogma. But given the finitude of human reason and the fact that each of us interprets the world from confines of his own hexagon (which to be sure is not private but a world of shared traditions), there can be no single true vision. Hence we are all heresiarchs. And that seems to be one of the messages of “Tlon.”

Bioy returns with the volume of the Cyclopedia which contains the article on Uqbar and they examine it together. Nothing seems out of the ordinary except for an extra four pages in comparison with the volume in the house they had rented. And yet in reading it over again they discovered that beneath its rigorous writing there was a fundamental vagueness. Borges is suggesting that multiple readings of any text will produce a feeling of vagueness. Rereading opens up the interstices in which different readings become possible. Of the geographical references only three- Khorasan, Armenia and Erzerum-are recognized; of the historical names only that of the imposter Magician Smerdis. The section on history relates that because of religious persecutions in the thirteenth century, the ortho-


dox took rehge on the islands of the delta. The section on language and literature notes that the literature of Uqbar was fantastic and never referred to reality, but to the imaginary regions of Mlejnas and Tlon. The three geographical references point to the region of Persia while the allusion to Smerdis refers to the usurper of the Persian crown in the sixth century B.C. (JaCn, 187-88). JaCn points out that the allusion to the religious persecutions coincides with the fact that at the beginning of the thirteenth century Armenia was returned to Turkey after a period of Christian rule. At this time the heretical Albigenses in southern France also suffered ruthless persecution (JaCn, 188). Back in Buenos Aires Borges and Bioy consult the National Library but find no mention of Tlon. Again the Library appears as the home of language and therefore the ultimate arbiter of truth.27 Carlos Mastronardi finds a set of the Cyclopedia in a bookshop but it does not mention Uqbar.

At this point Herbert Ashe enters the story. Ashe was an engineer with the southern railways. A man whose faded red beard recalls “The South,” “The Intruder,” and the crimson hexagon of the “Library,” he had been a friend of Borges’ father. Ashe died of a ruptured aneurysm and left a package in the bar of the hotel in Adrogut. It was written in English and contained 1,001 pages, an allusion to the Thousand and One Ni&2ts, and the narrator’s reaction to this discovery reinforces that allusion:

On one particular Islamic night, which is called the Night of Nights, the secret portals of the heavens open wide and the water in the water jars becomes sweeter than on other nights; if those gates had opened as I sat there, I would not have felt what I was feeling that evening.28 (OC, 1: 454; CF, 71)

The volume is entitled A First Encyclopedia of Tlon: Vol. X I . Hlaer t o Jang-r. On the first page and on a leaf which covered one of the colored plates was stamped a blue oval with the inscription Orbis Tertius. The narrator goes on to expound the concept of the universe according to Tlon. In the first place, the metaphysics of Tlon is congenitally idealist-its language, its religion and its literature all presuppose idealism. For the inhabitants of Tlon the world is not a coexisting and interdependent spatial plenum, but rather a heterogeneous series of independent acts in time. Furthermore there are no nouns in the conjectural Ursprache of Tlon, which is the ground of the contemporary languages and dialects. Instead there are impersonal verbs modified by monosyllabic prefixes or suffixes with an adverbial value; for example: there is no word corresponding to the word “moon” in English, but there is a verb which would be “to


moon.” Borges is preparing a parody of a fashionable practice in contemporary philosophy-to take language as the key to knowledge of what is. Crudely put, the assumption is that language gives us the world. Hence a study of language should reveal what can be given and how it is given. This particular passage seems to derive from the linguistic inventions of Borges’ friend Xul Solar.29 Borges might also be lampooning the language of Martin Heidegger whose statement “The nothing itself noth- ings,” was taken as an example of philosophical nonsense by Rudolph Carnap.30 These linguistic characteristics apply only to the languages of the southern hemisphere. In the north the primary unit is not the verb but the monosyllabic adjective and the noun is formed by an accumula- tion of adjectives. They do not say “moon,” for example but “round airy- light of dark.” Thus the literature of this hemisphere abounds in ideal objects which are brought into play and banished in a moment, according to poetic needs.31 The devices employed by the languages of both hemi- spheres are similar to those found in German, a language of which Borges is particularly fond.32 In the literature of the north there are poems made up of one enormous word which forms a poetic object created by its author. Finally, the fact that no one believes in the reality of nouns para- doxically results in their number being interminable. Once more, Borges is exhibiting the absurdity of making any discourse absolute. To do so, as Foucault has observed, always entails neglecting or covering over some aspect of experience with the result that what is suppressed is precisely what comes to the fore.33

It should come as no surprise that the classical culture of Tlon is com- prised of only one discipline, psychology, and that all other disciplines are subordinate to it. This is not as wild as it might first appear. Hume in his masterful analysis of human nature comes to precisely this conclusion; namely, that all reasoning can be explained in psychological terms as a “species of sensation.”34 More recently, early in this century, we witnessed the proliferation of a psychologism which sought to reduce all the sciences, human or physical and mathematical, to psychological laws. It was against this psychologizing of logical and arithmetical laws that Frege and later Husserl (as a result of Frege’s criticisms) did battle. This monism, namely the predominance of a single discipline, had the effect of invali- dating all science. Borges explains in Humean fashion why this is so.

Hume argued that all knowledge concerning matters of fact-things and events of the sensible world-requires that we connect the present state of affairs with the past and with the future. Without such a connection there could be no inference from past regularities to the present and


no predictions from the present to the future. This connection of present, past and future, Hume maintains, rests upon the principle of causality, which asserts that there is a necessary connection between these different moments of time. But when Hume turns his attention to this necessary connection, which makes all induction or empirical inference possible, he can find no justification for it. It is not a matter of logical inference which rests upon the principle that the denial of a true proposition will be self- contradictory; for the denial that the sun will rise tomorrow may run counter to past experience but is not logically contradictory. Nor can the principle of causality be founded upon experience because no necessary connection is ever perceived. Suppose, for example I have two billiard balls. I place one on a table and roll the other toward it until they collide. The “scientific” description of this event is that the motion of the first ball caused the second one to move by imparting some of its force to it. But the fact of the matter is that all that is perceived is precedence, the motion of the first ball precedes that of the second; contiguity, the first comes in contact with the second; and constant conjunction, which refers to the fact that we draw such causal inferences only after we have experienced this sort of event, or similar ones, repeatedly. In no case, however, is there any perception of necessary connection. In fact, each of our perceptions is individual and separable from any other. A second reason why experience cannot support or justify the casual principle is that all arguments based upon experience presuppose that principle. Hence justifying the causal principle by appealing to experience would plunge us into a circularity that is inevitably vicious. Hume, however, does not stop here, for he offers a psychological explanation of why we come to make such inferences. From past experience we have learned to associate the precedent motion and its subsequent impact with the motion of the second ball. Thus when we now see the first ball moving toward the second we are immediately led to associate the idea of the motion of the second with the impression of the motion of the first. Hence we anticipate psycholog- ically that upon impact the second ball will be moved, but the connection between the two motions is merely psychological.35 Our narrator’s description of causal explanation in Tlon is similar but less prolix.

To explain (or pass judgement on) an event is to link it to another; that joining- together on TIon, is a posterior state of the subject, and cannot affect or illurni- nate the previous state. Every mental state is irreducible: the simple fact of giving it a name-i.e., of classifying it-introduces a distortion, a “slant,” or “bias.” One might well deduce, therefore, that on TIon there are no sciences-or even any “systems of thought.”36 (OC, 1 : 436; CF, 74)

P H I L O S O P H Y A N D D A I L Y L I F E - 39

As we might expect, the sciences in the south meet the same fate as nouns in the northern hemisphere-that which seems to be excluded actually proliferates. Unable to provide justification, every philosophy becomes a Philosophie des Als Ob, a dialectical &awe. The allusion is to the work by Hans Vaihinger, one of the greatest Kant scholars and a figure to whom Borges owes much but whose name appears rarely in his writing.37 Bereft of the claim that science is real knowledge, the metaphysicians of Tlon seek neither truth nor plausibility but rather to astound. They maintain that metaphysics is a branch of fantastic literature. This statement, so often quoted as Borges’ own view, is the report of the narrator in one of Borges’ stories. But elsewhere Borges sets the matter straight:

I once compiled an anthology of fantastic literature. I admit that this work is one of the most insignificant items that a second Noah would have to save from a second deluge, but I admit the culpable omission of the unsuspected and greater masters of the genre: Parmenides, Plato, John Scotus Erigena, Albertus Magnus, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Francis Bradley.38

One of the philosophical schools also came to negate time. Borges cites Russell who proposes that the planet has just come into existence a few minutes ago, furnished with an illusory past. The Russellian hypothesis takes Hume a step further and suggests that there is nothing to pre- vent us from supposing that time is not real, since we are only in the present and our memories of the past and anticipations of the hture also occur in the present.39 Another school declared that the whole of time had already occurred and that our life is no more than the recollection or faint reflection, mutilated and falsified, of an unrecoverable process.40

In Tlon, as we might expect, materialism was worthy of scandal. In order to facilitate the understanding of this inconceivable thesis, an heresiarch conceived of the sophism of the nine coins, whose renown in Tlon matches that of the Eleatic aporias concerning the impossibility of motion.

On Tuesday, X is walking along a deserted road and loses nine copper coins. On Thursday, I” finds four coins in the road, their luster somewhat dimmed by Wednesday’s rain. On Friday, Z discovers three coins in the road. Friday morning, Xfinds two coins in the veranda of his house. (OC, 1: 437; CF, 75)

From this the heresiarch deduced the continuity of the nine coins. But this argument had little effect. In fact, most people did not even understand it since the language of Tlon resists formulating this paradox. It was said that this was a verbal fallacy that begs the question, for the verbs “find” and “lose” presuppose the identity of the first and last of the nine

40 * B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y -

coins. This is a parody of a common type of argument which accepts and rejects theses on the basis of what a given language is able to express. But there is no discourse which does not “beg the question,” if what we are looking for is wholly uninterpreted and unvarnished truth, since our language is part of and colored by the particular hexagon within which we make our attempts at understanding.

I now pass over certain details of the idealism of Tlon and go on to the influence of idealism on reality: In the ancient regions of Tlon, lost objects are frequently duplicated. These duplications are called hriinir. Furthermore, because the production of hriinir is systematic, expectation enters increasingly into what is discovered. We join here a thesis that has dominated much of the discussion in recent philosophy of science: that there are no brute facts but rather that the facts are discovered only within the practical or theoretical framework in which an investigation is carried out. Put more succinctly, there is no naive eye.41 Things not only become duplicated in Tlon; they also tend to become forgotten when they are not being observed. Hence we return from a limited “idealism,” which maintains that we experience that which we anticipate, to the more radical idealism of Berkeley for whom “to be is to be perceived.”

Tlon closes with a “Postscript” to which I alluded earlier. A letter from Gunnar Erfjord is discovered in a book by Hinton, which had belonged to Herbert Ashe. It explains that Tlon is a hoax which was per- petrated by a still existing society. In the beginning of the seventeenth century a secret society (which counted among its members Berkeley and Delgado) was formed with the suggestion that it invent a country. Each of the original masters was to elect a disciple who would continue his work. In 1824 in Memphis, Tennessee one of these affiliates had a conversation with the ascetic millionaire Ezra Buckley. Buckley was a freethinker, a fatalist, a nihilist and a defender of slavery, who suggested that they create a world instead of a country and that they keep the project secret. Buckley proposed that they produce an encyclopedia along the lines of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In 1914 the society delivered to its collaborators the last volume of the First Encyclopedia of Tliin. It was to be the basis for a more detailed edition written in one of the languages of Tlon. This revision of an illusory world was called Or& Tertius and one of participants in the project was Herbert Ashe.

In 1942 this fantastic world made its first intrusion into the “real” world of everyday life. Princess Faucigny Lucinge received her silverware from Poitiers.42 It included a compass with letters around the edge which corresponded to one of the alphabets of Tlon. The second intrusion was


the discovery, among the coins fallen from the pocket of a dead man, of a cone of bright metal the size of a die. I t was so heavy that a man was barely able to lift it. These small and very heavy cones are images of the divinity in certain regions of Tlon. In 1944 the forty volumes of the First Encyclopedia of Tlon were discovered in a Memphis library. Some of the more startling aspects of the Eleventh Volume (for example, the multiplication of hronir) had been eliminated, perhaps to persuade the reader that this world was not too different from our own. Ultimately, of course, Tlon increasingly takes over the world.

Thus Tlon comes to symbolize the arbitrary order imposed upon experience by human beings. In this sense, there is no real distinction between fiction and reality, for the latter often imitates the former. Rosicrucianism began as a fiction created by Johannes Valentius Andrea in whose image a number of secret societies were eventually founded in London, Vienna, Russia and Poland. The architecture of the Renaissance was painted before it was constructed. The space of Brunelleschi’s S. Spirito, for example, was influenced by the Florentine painters’ discovery of perspective. And the portraits of van Dyke transformed an England still crude and violent by providing to it the image of the gentleman. Finally, modern physics appears to have imitated Borges in the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which is prefigured in “The Garden of Forking Paths.”

The “Library” presents the metaphysical structure of a reality whose order derives from chance. The “Lottery” is a description of daily life as it is lived in such a world. The “Garden of Forking Paths” depicts an infinite number of parallel worlds which do not intersect one another. I t provides an ontology of everyday life. “Tlon,” however, looks at a particular kind of human activity, philosophical speculation, which seeks to uncover the true nature of the real. In short, it attempts to understand the order of the universe. But that order results from human activity which is perme- ated by chance. Hence the most any philosophy can do is capture an order in retrospect. Thus this order which we “discover” is really an order that we have made.

“The greatest sorcerer (writes Novalis memorably) would be the one who bewitched himself to the point of taking his own phantasmagorias for autonomous apparitions. Would not this be true of us?”

I believe that it is. We (the undivided divinity that operates within us) have dreamed the world. We have dreamed it resistant, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and secure in time; but we have allowed in its architecture tenuous and eternal interstices of unreason so we may know that it is falsc43


Among these interstices is the fact that our chief means of ordering is language. To depict the world, language would somehow would somehow have to transcend the world in order to view it “objectively.” But language is incapable of mirroring the world, for it is just one more thing in the world. This observation, made earlier by Nietzsche and more recently by Foucault, was also made by Borges in “A Yellow Rose.”

It was at that moment that the revelation took place: Marino saw the rose the way Adam must have seen it in Paradise. H e sensed that it existed not in his words but in its own timelessness. He understood that we can utter and allude to things but not give them expression, that the proud tall volumes that made a golden shadow in the corner of his room were not the world’s mirror, as his vanity figured, but simply other objects that had been added to the world.44

Borges concludes in “Avatars” that it is “hazardous to think that a coordination of words, and philosophies are nothing else, can really resemble the universe.” Hence when we see the world through language, we see it “through a glass darkly.” There is no way of checking the order of our words against the order of the universe, since that checking would entail the use of language. And yet he also cautions that it is hazardous to think that one of these famous coordinations might not resemble it a little better than the others. Which way, then, will Borges have it? Are the difficulties he raises concerning metapohysics confined to his “fictions,” or do they characterize as well our attempt to know the world as it “really” is?

* T W O *

Reason and Reality

I N PLATO AND ARISTOTLE, THE AZTEMPT to mediate between reality conceived of as unceasing change on the one hand, and as an unchangeable block universe on the other led to another major thematic opposition, one which fascinated Borges throughout his life. For Plato the ultimate nature of reality is in a sense Parmenidean; that is, the really real must be what it is and not another thing. And yet there remains the world of changing appearances to be accounted for. Appearances are clearly not nothing, for we live and carry out lives among them. Hence they must partake of what is really real in some way. In the Republic Plato's spokesman, Socrates, explains these different aspects of reality by distinguishing knowledge and belief. Knowledge claims to be certain; hence the objects of knowledge cannot be constantly changing into something else. Rather, they must be pure intelligible forms which are unchanging in their own nature but which render intelligible, insofar as this is possible, the changing appearances which are the object of belief. Geometry serves us well with examples as it did Plato. A Euclidean circle, for example, cannot be perceived by the senses for a number of reasons. A sensible circle is circumscribed by a sensible line that has width as well as length. But a Euclidean line is a pure intelligible form which has only length. Furthermore, every sensible circle has specific dimensions; that is, its circumference, radius and diameter can be assigned definite values. But the Euclidean circle has no particular values. It can be described only in general, abstract or formal terms: the diameter is twice the radius; the circumference can be calculated using the formula C = 2nr. These properties remain eternally the same and are therefore proper objects of knowledge. And though no sensible circle, square or triangle ever exhibits the immutable intelligible structure of these pure Euclidean forms, the objects of the sensible world nevertheless imitate or participate in these

44 - B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

intellectual natures, for it is because we can know the latter that we can deal with the former rationally. The difficulty, of course, is to make sense out of the metaphors of imitation and participation.’

For Aristotle, these metaphors harbor a fundamental paradox, one which Plato himself anticipated in the dialogue Parmenides. If each existing individual man is what he is by virtue of his participation in or imitation of the general and intelligible form “man,” there must be a third form “man” which serves to connect the sensible individual with the intelligible. But if these three forms are related to one another by virtue of resemblance or imitation, there must then be a fourth “man” to account for this resemblance and so on to infinity. Once these two realms have been conceived as disparate, the participation of the sensible in the intelligible, simply cannot be made clear. For this, and many other reasons, among which one must certainly count personal disposition, Aristotle rejects the Platonic separation of intelligible forms and sensible individuals. For Aristotle the real is the existing individual substance, e.g., the individual man. And though each human being is what he or she is by virtue of the form “human being,” that form exists only in the individual or as it is conceived of by the mind.

Thus Aristotle insists on thinking together from the beginning what Plato has separated. But Aristotle himself faces difficulties only one of which we need touch on here. As Etienne Gilson points out, it is not difficult to imagine that if Plato had lived long enough to read the first book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which criticizes the doctrine of forms, there might be another dialogue, the Aristoteles, in which Socrates would entangle Aristotle in hopeless difficulties.2 He might begin by asking the following questions to which Aristotle would be obligated to reply in the affirmative: “Tell me, Aristotle, do you really mean that there are certain forms in which individuals partake and from which they derive what they really are?” “And each form is one and yet present in each of these several individuals?” “But then one and the same thing will at one and the same time exist as a whole in many separate individuals, and will therefore be in a state of separation from itself.” Aristotle would deny this conclusion because he denies that forms have a subsistence apart from the individuals which they inform. This is why, although we conceive them as one, they can be predicated of many. But Aristotle not only faces the problem of explaining how one form can be in many places at once but also of clar- ifying how individuals can derive what they are essentially by participating in a form which in itself is not.

R E A S O N A N D R E A L I T Y . 45

* R E A L I S M *

I suggested that Borges’ rationalism might be one of the factors which contributed to his harsh appraisal of Kafka’s The Castle and The Trial. To a rationalist it would surely be preferable to explore a labyrinth, knowing that there is a path to its center, even though it may never be found, than to repeat endlessly a journey to a castle with no hope whatever of reaching one’s destination. In all its forms, rationalism claims to provide justification or support for the truth of its assertions. Knowledge, according to Plato, claims to be certain. And that is why Plato maintains that the proper objects of knowledge must be unchanging forms, for the changing is always becoming something else and we can, therefore, never be certain what it is. There is, of course, the possibility of attaining knowledge of change itself, as both Aristotle and modern science maintain. But if it is to be knowledge in the full sense of the term, that is, certain, its object will be the laws which govern change and they themselves must be unchanging.3 Belief, on the other hand, is proper to those objects which are always undergoing change and these are the sensible objects of everyday life. Hence it is reason or the intellect which is the faculty of knowledge, while the senses lead only to belief. Those philosophers who have influenced Borges-Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Russell-are all rationalists, for they all agree that only reason can be the source of necessary truth.4 The principal difference between them concerns how much we can really know. For Plato and Spinoza, for example, intellectual knowledge gives us both metaphysical knowledge of what is really real as well as knowledge of the sensible world insofar as it can be said to be “known” at all. For Hume reason is the source of certainty and hence of knowledge, but that knowledge is restricted to logical tautologies and can tell us nothing about either metaphysical or physical reality.

Human reason is primarily discursive; that is, it runs through a number of items and binds them together according to certain principles such as forms of logical inference or scientific laws. Rational arguments, for example, proceed according to the laws of a formal calculus, such as we find in logic or mathematics, to demonstrate that their conclusions follow with necessity fiom their premises. Thus the strength of rationalism lies in basing its demonstrations on widely accepted axioms, definitions and postulates that are supposedly available to us all. The principle of contradiction is often cited as such a principle. Simply put it says that no statement can be both true and false. I cannot, for example, both affirm and deny


the statement “De Gaulle is the president of France” without surrender- ing not only the ability to speak meaningfully, but also the very process of reasoning itself. But this principle is not by itself an adequate foundation for building a logical or mathematical calculus. I t must be supplemented by other axioms and/or patterns of inference. Hence unless a particular set of axioms and forms of inference is self-justifying in the sense of being self-evident, demonstration is based on mere convention.5 Furthermore, as Descartes insisted, each step in a demonstration must also be brought to intuitive clarity if we are to become certain of its correctness. For this reason many defenders of rationalism place a high value on rational intuition, that seeing which brings with it self-evident givenness, to paraphrase Edmund Husserl. The most obvious problem facing all claims of intuitive insight is how to settle disputes concerning opposing intuitions. Husserl was forthright on this point, for he maintained that if two intuitions contradict or conflict with one another, one of them must be false.6

Most advocates of rational intuition follow Plato in looking to mathematics and formal logic as paradigms of rational insight. But a number of developments suggest that neither mathematics nor logic exhibit the self- justifying character in question. Consider the work of Kurt Godel on the consistency and completeness of a logical system. One of the goals of such modern logicians as A. N. Whitehead and Bertrand Russell was to calcu- late all logical truths in a single system of logic and to reduce mathematical statements to statements of logic. Perhaps the most important property of a logical system is consistency. According to one definition, an axiomatic system is consistent if and only if it is not the case that both a sentence and its denial are theorems in the system; that is, the system must conform to the principle of contradiction. The axioms of a system are said to be independent of one another if and only if none of the axioms can be derived from the others. An axiom which is derivable from the other axioms of the system would not be an axiom, that is a first principle, but a theorem in the system. Finally, an axiomatic system is said to be complete if and only if every logical truth that can be formulated in the system can be proved as one of the theorems of the system. In 1931, however, Godel showed that any axiomatic system for arithmetic that is consistent is also incomplete; that is, certain truths of arithmetic cannot be derived from its hndamental axioms.7

In addition to the character of incompleteness which pervades mathematics and logic, these formal disciplines also generate paradoxes. By way of example, let us look at Russell’s paradox, since Borges knew Russell’s work and through him the work of George Cantor, who was

R E A S O N A N D R E A L I T Y - 47

instrumental in providing a set theoretic definition of number. Like Leibniz and Frege before him, Russell was a mathematical realist; that is, he held that the laws of logic are neither mere conventions nor empirically derived generalizations about the way in which we happen to think. We do not make-up these laws nor do we obtain them by generalizing from experience. We obtain them through our rational insight into their necessity and universality. Russell was intrigued by Cantor’s work, since Cantor proposed to define numbers in set-theoretical terms, and set theory is a discipline which both mathematicians and logicians claim as their own. But Cantor discovered a paradox inherent in set theory and in 1901 Russell went him one better by finding an even more disturbing paradox.

Russell began with a principle that seems to be intuitively clear and which is usually called the axiom ofabstraction. This axiom states that for any specifiable property, there is a set of things that have that property. If, for example, the property is being a cat, “Then there exists a set such that whatever x may be, x is a member of it if and only if x is a cat.” Consider further a property common to some sets, that of being members of themselves; for example, the set of all sets that have more than one member has more than one member and is, therefore, a member of itself. Some sets also have the property of not being members of themselves, and this is where the difficulty arises. Consider the set of all sets which are not members of themselves. If it is a member of itself, then it ir not a member of itself; and if it is not a member of itself, then it is a member of itself. Russell himself was not very disturbed by this, for he believed that set theory could be restored to consistency in a form adequate for mathematics by revealing what he took to be the source of all such paradoxes.8 Russell calls this source “the vicious circle principle” and he formulates it as follows:

If, provided a certain collection had a total, it would have members only defin- able in terms of that total, then the said collection has no totaL9

Russell’s paradox clearly violates the principle because it defines the set of all sets which are not members of themselves by referring to the totality of all such sets, to which the set being defined would thus belong. But as Stephen Barker points out, Russell’s rejection of such definitions is really out of hand.

Yet Russell’s avowed philosophy was that of realism, and realism offers no philosophical rationale for rejecting impredicative definitions [definitions which, in defining a thing, refer to some totality to which the thing being defined


belongs]. If a set has independent reality, then why may not members of the set be redefined by reference to the set itself? (Barker, 87)

There are, of course, other approaches to solving the paradoxes of set theory. But only the realist approach promises, and fails to deliver, a defense of mathematical and logical laws as providing certain knowledge of an intelligible reality. Hence Barker concludes:

If sets are abstract entities which really exist independently of the mind, awaiting discovery by it, then one would expect to be able to produce some single, clearly best theory ofsets. It no longer seems plausible to suppose that this can be done. (Barker, 9 1 )

Godel’s results and the logical paradoxes of set theory put in doubt the claim that the fundamental principles of mathematics and logic can be established on the basis of some sort of rational insight into their intrinsic nature. On the contrary, these principles appear to be conventions that are grounded, if it makes any sense to speak of a “ground” in this connection, in a free act of postulation-an act of the imagination, if you will. This is why Borges finds chess so fascinating, for it is both rigor- ously rational and based on convention.10 Furthermore, we now know that there are many alternative and non-standard logics.” Hence the question arises, “If we are to choose a single formal logical system, which shall we choose and on what grounds?” To reply “On the grounds of its intrinsic rational self-evidence” clearly begs the question.

Finally, even if agreement were to be reached as to the formal nature of rational demonstration, a problem would remain as to its content, for a valid logical argument tells us only that ifits premises are true, its conclusion follows with necessity from the premises. I t cannot, and does not pretend to, establish the truth of the premises themselves. Thus in the well-known example drawn from Aristotle’s syllogistic logic, given that: (a) all men are mortal and (b) Socrates is a man, it is not difficult to conclude that Socrates too is mortal. But it is equally possible to conclude from: (a) all alligators have pink feet and (b) Socrates is an alligator, that he too has pink feet. Logic, therefore, is not primarily concerned with the content of its statements and the truth of its conclusions but with the formal validity of its inferences.

Given the early successes of modern deductive logic, however, there was hope of establishing as well a logic of induction, which reasons from the particular to the universal. By 1879 Frege had discovered an algo- rithm, a mechanical proof procedure, which is complete for elementary deductive theory. This suggested that it might also be possible to discover

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a similar procedure for inductive logic. Unfortunately this turned out not to be the case. Hillary Putnam sums up the situation as follows:

Today, a host of negative results, including some powerful considerations due to Nelson Goodman, have indicated that there cannot be a completely formal inductive logic. Some important aspects of inductive logic can be formalized (although the adequacy of the formalization is controversial), but there is always a need for judgments of ‘reasonableness’. . . .Today, virtually no one believes that there is a purely formal scientific method.. . . l2

Thus it appears that the pure intelligible form of Platonic realism engenders two sets of difficulties. First there are the paradoxes which arise in the realm of the intelligible itself. And then there is the problem of explaining the relation of the intelligible forms and the sensible particulars.

* N O M I N A L I S M *

In contrast to Plato, Aristotle, begins with a diversity which he seeks to unify in knowledge. Aristotle asserts the primacy of the individual over the general; substance is the real and it is individual. Form exists either in the individual or in the intellect but not in itself and apart from the mind and the sensible world. But form still retains a certain degree of primacy, for as that which constitutes the individual as what it is, form is the proper object of knowledge. Thus a problem arises, for, as individual, reality appears to transcend knowledge.13 Furthermore, since individual substance exists in the sensible world, it is subject to change. Hence it is incumbent on Aristotle to provide both an explanation of change and to take time seriously. The former problem is dealt with in his doctrine of causality while the latter is addressed in his analysis of time.

To account for change Aristotle introduces four causes, which are usually explained in terms of the creation of an artifact by its maker, the sculptor, for example. The material with which the sculptor works is one cause of the finished work, for the form of his work will differ if it is executed in bronze which must be cast, in marble which must be chided, or in clay which can be freely molded by the hand. The formal cause of the sculpture is the conception which the sculptor has in his mind and according to which he imposes form on matter. The efficient cause is the actual activity of the sculptor-the casting, carving or molding of the material; the activity which realizes the imposition of form on matter. The final cause is the intention that initiates the sculptor’s activity in the first place. I mention these because we shall see that the restriction of the notion of


cause was a significant step in the development of Aristotelianism into modern nominalism.

Time, Aristotle tells us, is divisible and therefore consists of parts. Always “one part of it has been and is not, while the other is going to be and is not yet.’’14 Time is “just this-number of motion in respect of ‘before’ and ‘after”’ (Physics, IV, 11,219b2). Hence there can be no time where there is no motion. But it is only through the indivisible “now” that the parts of time exist.

But the ‘now’ corresponds to the body that is carried along [in motion], as time corresponds to the motion. For it is by means of the body that is carried along that we become aware of the ‘before and after’ in the motion, and if we regard these as countable we get the ‘now.’ Hence in these also the ‘now’ as substratum remains the same (for it is what is before and after in movement), but what is predicated ofit is different; for it is in so fir as the ‘before and after’ is numerable that we get the ‘now.’ (Physiq IV, 11,219b22-28)

The “now,” then, both divides and continues time as a point may end and begin a line. Hence Aristotle advocates a linear conception of time, one which characterizes also Spinoza’s natura naturata, and which continues to dominate our thought to such an extent that Heidegger characterizes it as the common concept of time.15

The Status of Universals

To understand how Aristotelianism developed into nominalism, we need first to situate this development in the context of the controversy which arose in the Middle Ages over the status of universals or essences. The controversy has its roots in the conflict between Plato and Aristotle over the status of forms or archetypes. Nominalism holds that there are no universal essences in reality and that the mind cannot even frame a concept or image which corresponds to any universal or general term. Rocellinus, with whom this position is closely associated, went so far as to insist that universal terms such as those which indicate genus or species (e.g.,

man,” “tree,” “city,” “house”) as well as all collective terms have no objective reality which corresponds to them. They are mere words orflu- tus vocis, puffs of air. In contrast realism maintains that what a general or abstract term names is an independent and unitary reality. Platonic realism maintains that universal forms exist “prior” to existing individuals and are the patterns according to which individuals are made. Aristotelian realism maintains that universals exist both in individual things or substances and as conceptions in the intellect. In the Middle Ages William of Champeaux

C‘


was a champion of the view that universals exist independently of individual things and of the mind, while Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle in maintaining that universals have no being apart from the existence of the individuals in which they inhere. They are, however, intelligible without the supposition of existence and function in God’s mind as patterns according to which he creates individual things, and in the human mind as objects of knowledge. Finally, conceptualism takes a stance between nominalism and realism. It was defended by Peter Abelard who held that universals exist in the mind as subjects of discourse or as predicates which may be properly affirmed of individual things. These predicates are not arbitrary inventions or constructions of the mind, but reflect similarities among individual things. The concept “male” for example, reflects a similarity between Peter, Paul and John. Conceptualism’s commonsensical appeal is also its downfall, for it can be pushed, without too much difficulty, to either of the extremes of nominalism or realism. The problem is to determine just what a concept is about. If the concept reflects a real similarity, then the property in question must exist in the things of which it is predicated and we return to some form of realism. If it does not, we return to nominalism.

Aristotle thought of the universe as an eternal and closed system but he was also a keen observer and interested as much in diversity as in unity. This interest was cultivated by many of his Medieval followers and, combined with the instability of the Medieval version of conceptualism, led eventually to the triumph of Rocellinus’ radical nominalism. The cardinal event which precipitated the development and acceptance of nominalism was what has often been called “the rise of the new science,” and its leading player was Galileo Galilei. Aristotle offered four different senses of “cause” to account for change. Agreeing with Aristotle that physics studies motion, Galileo sought to show that all motion, celestial motion as well as local, terrestrial, motion, is governed by a single set of laws which can be expressed mathematically. This project was completed by Newton drawing on the work of Galileo and Descartes. For our purposes, I will mention only two consequences of Galileo’s reconceptualization.

Galileo distinguished between what he called “primary qualities,” such as extension, figure, solidity, motion and rest, which can be dealt with quantifiably, and “secondary qualities,” such as color, taste and heat and cold which cannot be quantified directly. The former actually characterize physical or material substance, while the latter exist only in the subject which perceives them-the result of a particular configuration of matter in motion. Thus the heat and color of my coffee are secondary


qualities which exist only in the perceiver, but they can be explained in terms of primary qualities-as the result of the motion of a particular group of molecules in the first case, and in terms of the laws governing the nature of light and its behavior in the second. Hence the new scientific view of the world was interested only in efficient causality, that aspect of Aristotelian causality which can be quantified. The second consequence was a reduction, though not an elimination, of the number of Aristotelian substances. For Descartes, for example, who was both a mathematician and physicist as well as a metaphysician, reality can be completely circumscribed in terms of three substances: matter, which is the object of the new science; mind, without which knowledge would be impossible; and God as the ultimate reality on which both mind and matter depend. Knowledge, for Descartes, is fundamentally an intuitive inspection of the essential forms of these three substances by the mind. This is possible, he maintains, because the ideas of these substances are purely intellectual, innate in the human intellect itself. At this point, then, we have not strayed so far from Platonic realism. The next step in the development of nominalism is the empiricist critique of the doctrine of innate ideas, in which Hume completed the work begun by Locke and Berkeley.

Hume’s primary weapon against Cartesianism is his theory of ideas.16 According to Hume the “furniture of the mind” can be divided into two classes, impressions and ideas.

The difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions, and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning; such as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse, excepting only, those which arise by sight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or uneasi- ness it may occasion. (Treatise, 1)

From this passage it appears that Hume is maintaining that all our ideas are derived from impressions and that clearly seems to be false. What impression, for example, gives rise to the idea of Pegasus or the unicorn? But the hypothesis of a one-to-one correlation between impressions and ideas does hold in a more restricted domain that emerges when we consider Hume’s distinction between simple and complex ideas-a distinction which he takes over from Locke.

Simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of no distinction nor separation. The complex are the contrary to these, and may be distinguished

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into parts. Tho’ a particular colour, taste, and smell are qualities all united together in this apple, ‘is easy to perceive they are not the same, but are at least distinguishable from one another. (Treatise, 2)

Hume’s discussion of complex impressions and ideas is far from clear but he seems to have something like this in mind. All impressions and ideas can be divided into simple and complex. Complex ideas can be analyzed into their simple components and all simple ideas are derived from simple impressions. No rational proof of this principle can be given because Hume is an empiricist and not a rationalist in the Cartesian sense. Hence he can rely only on experience and experience never gives us certainty. To potential opponents of his theory, Hume’s challenge is to find a counter- example to his thesis (Treatise, 3 4 ) .

When we turn to the impact of Hume’s theory on the doctrine of innate ideas we must be clear on one point. Hume is not simply arguing that without some sensible impressions we would have no ideas at all. Such a view is certainly compatible with the innateness hypotheses of Plato, Descartes and Leibniz, who would quite willingly admit that innate ideas are dormant until the occurrence of sensible impressions awakens them. But Hume is defending a much stronger principle, namely:

That all our simple ideas in theirFrst appearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which are correspondent t o them, and which they exactly represent. (Treatise, 4)

This does indeed seem to be incompatible with the theory of innate ideas. Hume’s dismantling of Cartesianism is both simple and elegant.

Descartes acknowledges that substance, whether it be matter, mind or God, is non-sensible. Hence it cannot be known through the senses but only through those abstract intellectual ideas which are innate in reason. But since Hume claims to have shown that in fact we have no such ideas, these substances, if they exist at all, must remain unknowable. The last qualification is an important one, for Hume is not offering a disproof of the existence of these substances. He is arguing only that there can be no philosophical defense of our belief in them. Indeed he tends on other grounds to believe in matter and the Newtonian description of its behavior. On the matter of God he is less ~anguine . ’~ And in the case of the self he finds on introspection that he can never catch himself “without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception” ( Treatise, 252). He then concludes:

The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures

54 * B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y ~

and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it a t one time, nor identity in different; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the place, where these scenes are represented, or of the materials, of which it is compos’d. (Treatise, 253).

What consolation such a passage must have given to Borges with his ingrained distaste for the cult of the self and personal immortality. But contra to what Borges sometimes suggests, Hume does not lend his support to the idealist thesis, for the question of the existence or non-existence of matter is an issue which lies beyond the ken of philosophy. Hume also has misgivings about his treatment of the self and particularly the issue of personal identity, but finding no way to go beyond his present position opts to forego any unwarranted speculation. l8

Borges maintains that nominalism has triumphed today, and that its triumph is a particularly English triumph. In his essay “The Nightingale of Keats,” where Borges defends the Platonic thesis that “the individual is somehow the species,” he discusses Coleridge’s observation that men are born Aristotelians or Platonists, and that the English mind was born Aristotelian.

For that mind, not abstract concepts but individual ones are real; not the generic nightingale, but concrete nightingales. I t is natural, perhaps inevitable, that in England the “Ode to a Nightingale” is not understood correctly. (OC, 2: 97; 61, 129-1 30)

Yet the inadequacy of nominalism as a philosophy has been revealed by the scientific attitude that aided and abetted its rise. Modern science focuses on quantity and its mathematical expression, but mathematics deals with the very ideal objects which nominalism wishes to reject. The scientific attitude also emphasizes the observation of and generalization from facts which are particular. But there can be no observation unless we already have at least a rudimentary theory about what will count as a meaninghl fact. Karl Popper observes:

I believe that theories are prior to observation as well as to experiments, in the sense that the latter are significant only in relation to theoretical problems. Also, we must have a question before we can hope that observation or experiment may help us in any way to provide an answer .... I do not believe, therefore, in the ‘method of generalization’, that is to say, in the view that science begins with observations from which it derives its theories by some process of generalization or induction. I believe, rather, that the function of observation and experiment

- R E A S O N A N D R E A L I T Y . 55

is the more modest one of helpin to test our theories and to eliminate those which do not stand up to tests ....

Borges and Kant

Given this state of affairs as well as his acquaintance with Russell, who wandered from Platonism to Humean scepticism in his lifetime, it is not surprising to find in Borges a scepticism regarding the truth of any philosophical system. Nevertheless, he frequently acknowledges a reality which is independent of the thinking and perceiving subject but which resists any attempt to capture it in words. In a late poem, “The Other Tiger,” Borges opposes to the tiger of the poem the one that’s real, the one whose blood runs hot. Yet in naming it and trying to fix its world in words, it too becomes a fiction (OC, 2: 202-203; SP, 119). And in “Avatars of the Tortoise,” in a passage to which I have already referred, Borges brings the idealist thesis explicitly to the fore.

Let us admit what all idealists admit: that the nature of the world is hallucinatory. Let us do what no idealist has done: let us look for the unrealities that confirm that nature. We shall find them, I believe, in the antinomies of Kant and in Zeno’s dialectic. (OC, 1: 258; 01, 120)

On this same page, however, after declaring that philosophies are no more than a coordination of words, Borges also warns that it is nevertheless hazardous to think that one of these coordinations does not resemble the universe more than the others. These passages suggest that there is a reality that exists independently of me but which I cannot know; for knowing entails the use of language, and the opacity of language-the fact that it is one more thing in the world-inevitably distorts the very reality it seeks to bring into focus. In conu-ast to this unknowable reality, the world is indeed a dream structured by the orders we have woven into it. And yet we continue our incessant quest for knowledge of that which lies beyond all knowledge. At this juncture, then, Borges seems quite close to the critical idealism of Kant.

Kant’s central thesis is that the mind structures experience according to certain universal and necessary laws. To know these laws is, in effect, to know in advance the general features of any possible experience. In the transcendental deduction, which contains his argument for this thesis, Kant makes use of the Cartesian cogito according to which the existence of the thinking subject is self-guaranteeing. Kant argues that a self-identical subject is the underlying condition of the very possibility of having an experience. To become aware of an experience as “mine,” I must be able


to connect the data of that experience to one and the same self-consciousness. This is so even where the data are already connected among themselves. Thus in our syllogism about Socrates and mortality premises and conclusion are logically connected to one another. But this connection would be as good as nothing to me unless I were able to keep the premises before my consciousness as I draw the conclusion from them. In the absence of such a self-identity, I would have as diverse a self as the data of which I am conscious. He also accepts a version of Descartes’ doctrine of innate ideas, ideas that are not derived from sense-experience but that arise out of the intellect itself. Finally Kant takes over Descartes’ observation that ideas can be considered merely as modifications of thought or as representing an objective world. However, he parts company with Descartes on two central epistemological issues: the view that sensation is confused thought, and the claim that abstract innate ideas are the source of our knowledge of substances that are not given to us directly in sensible experience. Kant admits that we can conceive the possibility of an infinite, intuitive intelligence which would act spontaneously in creating its objects. But such a conception has no real meaning for us, since we cannot comprehend what it would be like to think in such a fashion. As intelligent, we are finite and our reason functions discursively.

Thus Kant agrees with Hume that we can have no knowledge of anything that transcends sense-experience. He also agrees that there are no necessary connections, between substances and their properties or between causes and their effects, to be discovered in experience. Hence all necessity lies on the side of the mind. For Hume this necessity is twofold: there is logical necessity, which characterizes propositions that result from the analysis of complex ideas into their simple constituents. And then there is psychological necessity, as in the case of causal inference, where the appearance of an event that has been constantly conjoined with another event leads the mind by the gentle force of association to form the idea of the latter and to anticipate its subsequent appearance. For Kant, however, not all necessity is subjective. Hume’s failure to understand this explains his inability to give a satisfactory account of the common distinction between subjective and objective experience.

According to Kant, discursive reason, operating to certain principles originating in the mind, orders the data of experience in such a way that knowledge is possible. Hence we can have certain knowledge of the world insofar as that knowledge is about how we organize the raw data of experience into a public world of objects. Such knowledge is knowledge of things as they are molded by human activity and not of things as they are

* R E A S O N A N D R E A L I T Y . 57

in themselves and unaffected by the human mind. Thus the general laws of science are about human experience in general, since we contribute those laws to experience. This is why metaphysics, as the science of what things really are in themselves, is impossible. Nevertheless, the human disposition to raise metaphysical questions cannot be overcome, for it is rooted in reason’s desire for final answers. Nor should it be overcome, for it is reason’s demand for unconditional knowledge that inspires and reg- ulates our inquires into the nature of the sensible world. In two stories Borges provides his own defense of Kant’s dictum: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”20

In “Funes, His Memory” the narrator recalls his encounters with Ireneo Funes, whom he has met while on vacation with his cousin (OC, 1: 485490; SP, 131-137). This recollection is to be part of a volume dedicated to Funes who has died at the age of twenty-one. Their first meeting takes place on a sultry afternoon. The importance of the meeting is hrther underscored by the south wind which brings an elemental rain. The narrator’s cousin asks the time and Funes replies accurately and without hesitation. As a young boy he was well-known for always knowing the correct time without having a watch. Before their next meeting Funes is thrown from a horse, paralyzed, and remains bedridden.

On this next visit the narrator has begun the study of Latin. Funes has heard that the narrator is studying Latin and sends him a flowery note asking to borrow one of his volumes and a dictionary so that he may master Latin. Somewhat astounded by Funes’ naivetk, he nevertheless sends him Pliny’s Naturalis historia and the Gradus ad Parnassus of Quicherat. Suddenly he is called home because of his father’s illness and goes to retrieve his books from Funes. He is let into a darkened room by Funes’ mother, Maria Clementia, a name we will encounter again as the name of the library in “The Secret Miracle.” He hears Funes speaking in Latin. Ireneo enumerates for the narrator, in Latin and Spanish, the various cases of prodigious memory enumerated by Pliny and expresses astonishment that such cases should be considered amazing. He recounts what occurred after he was thrown from the horse.

When he fell, he’d been knocked unconscious; when he came to again, the present was so rich, so clear, that it was almost unbearable, as were his oldest and even his most trivial memories. It was shortly after that he learned that he was crippled; of that fact he hardly took notice. He reasoned (or felt) that immobility was a small price to pay. Now his perception and his memory were perfect. (OC, 1: 408; CF, 135)


Like the cat and the gaucho in “The South,” Funes is able to concentrate the Heraclitean flux into the richness of the present moment. But this concentration is not achieved by means of conceptual knowledge, for Funes is also the quintessential nominalist. Thus he rejected Locke’s proposal for a universal language in which each individual thing would have its own name as to general, too ambiguous. This rejection is rooted in Funes’ inability to be anything but a nominalist. Thus nominalism, in the most radical form to which it can be pushed, demonstrates its own impossibility. Without conceptualization, no knowledge, no coherence of experience is possible. But pure rationalism, the rationalism of Parmenides, for example, also demonstrates its hopelessness and with it the other half of Kant’s proclamation. In “The Immortals,” a story he wrote with Bioy Casares, the absurdity of Cartesian rationalism is made explicit.21 The story opens with an epigraph by Rupert Brooke:

And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.

In the summer of 1923 Bustos Domecq receives a copy of the novel- ette 17.le Chosen One, from its author, Camilo N. Huergo. He sketches out the narrative. An English rancher, Don Guillermo Blake, has devoted much of his energy to Plato. He concludes that we are like the prisoners in the allegory of the cave, that the five senses obstruct or deform the apprehension of reality and that if we could free ourselves of them, we would see the world as it is-endless and timeless. He has a son by one of the farm girls so that the boy may one day become acquainted with reality. He deprives him of his senses and amputates his hands and feet. The boy is kept alive physically by a series of contraptions. The irony is, of course, that were he to encounter any profound truths, he would never be able to communicate them. “Fully liberated [he] was cut off from all human contact.” Don Guillermo dies. The son goes on living in a dusty shack, which the narrator of the story, accidentally or intentionally, sets afire with a still lighted cigarette.

Since he is getting on in years, Bustos goes to see the eminent geron- tologist, Dr. RaGl Narbondo for a check-up. After waiting some time in the office, he seeks out the doctor. He enters a room in which there are four cubes that resemble pieces of furniture. The doctor arrives and explains to Bustos that these were human beings. Now they are immortals. He offers Bustos the opportunity to become one of them. Bustos returns home, changes his address to the New Imperial Hotel, and, in a disguise, sits down to give an account of these facts.

. R E A S O N A N D R E A L I T Y . 59

The story recounts the result of a purely introspective rationalism; namely, that “concepts without intuitions are empty.” Thus both rationalism and nominalism end in metaphysical positions that confirm the thesis of Tlon-that metaphysics is a branch of fantastic literature. This suggests that there are no ultimate truths to be encountered on these two paths, that they are in fact not paths to the truth at all but labyrinthso complex that any access to their center is impossible. In his essay, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,” Borges suggests that there is no classification of the universe that is not arbitrary and conjectural. “But the impossibility of penetrating the divine scheme of the universe cannot dis- suade us from outlining human schemes, even though we are aware that they are provisional.” Thus Borges has also learned well Kant’s message concerning metaphysics: as a science it is doomed though as a natural disposition it cannot be eradicated.

Kant maintains that there is a universal conceptual framework which determines how we construct an ordered world out of Hume’s disparate data. But developments in modern symbolic logic suggest that Kant’s table of logical judgments, from which he attempts to derive these laws of construction, is really arbitrary. And developments in relativity theory force us to relinquish Kant’s claim that the space of the phenomenal world is necessarily Euclidean, while quantum mechanics has placed in doubt his theory of a uniform and universal causality. Hence this universal framework is not forthcoming.22 This leaves us with a necessary self- identical epistemological subject and a plethora of conceptual frameworks or discourses which are largely empirical in nature.23 Looked at in this way, the various ways of ordering the world become so many ‘‘useh1 fic- t ion~,~’ to recall Vaihinger’s expression. They are points of view or perspectives which enable us to make sense of the world but none of them is universal-the world seen, if not from the point of view of God, from the point of view of human consciousness in general. Hence we return to the thesis that it is impossible to draw a clear line between fiction and reality with the result that any and every picture of reality becomes available for “serious” exploration, including many which might be shunned by the “true believers” of academic ph i lo~ophy .~~ Thus Borges’ position resembles that of the great Persian poet Omar whom he describes in his essay on Edward Fitzgerald. Omar was, among other things, a skilled astronomer and the author of a famous treatise on algebra but:

The arcana of numbers and stars do not exhaust his attention; in the solitude of his library he reads the texts of Plotinus, who in the vocabulary of Islam is the


Egyptian Plato or the Greek Master,. . . They call him a proselyte of Alfarabi, who believed that universal forms did not exist outside of things, and of Avicenna, who taught that the world was etern al.... He is an atheist, but he knows the orthodox interpretation of the Koran’s most difficult passages, because every cultivated man is a rheologian, and faith is not a requisite. (OC, 2: 66; 01, 79-80)

* E S O T E R I C W I S D O M -

Like one of the inhabitants of the Library, Borges sets out on a number of metaphysical quests within the confines of his hexagon. To be sure there is sometimes the illusion that he is traversing other hexagons such as the mystical traditions of the East. But unlike the more naive travelers of the Library, Borges clearly recognizes that these “alien” traditions are made accessible only by assimilating them to his own point of view. He does not, therefore, take any of these traditions as expressions of “the truth.” Thus at the conclusion of Other Inquisitions he observes:

As I corrected the proofs of this volume, I discovered two tendencies in these miscellaneous essays.

The first tendency is to evaluate religious or philosophical ideas on the basis of their aesthetic worth and even for what is singular and marvelous about them. Perhaps this is an indication of a basic skepticism. The other is to presuppose (and to verify) that the number offables or metaphors ofwhich men’s imagination is capable is limited, but that these few inventions can be all things for all men, like the Apostle. (OC, 2: 153; OI,201)

The first tendency seems to place Borges among those metaphysicians of Tlon who do not seek truth but rather the astounding. I t has led some commentators to insist that Borges’ approach to philosophy and religion is uncompromisingly and unfailingly aesthetic. The second tendency has led one of his philosophical commentators to maintain that Borges is an avowed Platonist. But it is dangerous to identify Borges with any of the routes which he travels.25

The Passa.e to Esoteric Wisdom

In “Avatars of the Tortoise” Borges praises Schopenhauer as the philosopher who may have come closest to an accurate description of reality. Schopenhauer is also a disciple of Kant. There are a number of themes in Schopenhauer which reappear in Borges: Platonism; Neoplatonism and Gnosticism; Hinduism and Buddhism; the distinction between the

* R E A S O N A N D R E A L I T Y . 61

human and the animal perception of the world; the notion of a single author or dreamer of the world; and the importance of the aesthetic attitude. Finally, and in keeping with the last point, Schopenhauer is an admirable stylist, a trait not lost on the young Borges reading him for the first time in Geneva. Schopenhauer’s masterpiece, T h e World as Will and Idea, begins with Kant’s distinction between the phenomenal world and the world of noumena or things as they are in themselves. I t opens with the declaration that “the world is my idea.”26 “Idea” is an English mistranslation of “ Vorstellung,” which is usually translated into English as “representation” but which is more accurately rendered as “presentation.” Schopenhauer agrees with Kant that the phenomenal world in which we live out our lives is a product of data from an unknown source, and the order that we, as human beings, impose upon those data. Again following Kant, Schopenhauer distinguishes between two sorts of presen- tations, concepts and intuitions. The world consists of intuitive presenta- tions which have been ordered by abstract concepts. Finally, Schopenhauer concurs with Kant’s insight into the nature of space and time, that they are forms antedating in the mind the sensible data which are located in them.

Schopenhauer goes on to distinguish human experience from that of the brutes. Human beings have the ability to reflect on their experience and this distinguishes them from the lower animals. A cat, for example, experiences a world of interconnected events but it has no experience of a past, present and future that are causally connected, for it is unable to reflect on space, time, and the concept of cause. Its awareness is, therefore, wholly in the present like the cat in “The South.”27 In contrast, human beings live in the temporal flux of the phenomenal world which is the product of the interaction between a human subjectivity and things as they are in themselves. Finally, under the influence of the Oriental scholar F. Mayer, Schopenhauer came to identify the phenomenal world as Maya, a world of illusion and pain in which both subjects and objects are equally mere appearance.

Despite his Kantian heritage, Schopenhauer maintains that the primary use of concepts is not theoretical, as Kant held, but practical. “The great value of conceptions lies in the fact that by means of them the original material of knowledge is more easily handled, surveyed, and arranged” ( 2 : 258). Concepts omit a great deal but their simplification is essential to the formation and communication of knowledge. Hence Schopenhauer anticipates the brasher view of his follower, the young Nietzsche, that in order to function the organism must simplify, narrow


its perspectives, lie. But given this view of how concepts function, how can metaphysics be done at all? Schopenhauer’s reply is that its possibility rests upon discovering a hndamental intuition at the level of perceptive knowledge, one which yields direct insight into the reality which underlies phenomena. The clue to such an insight lies in the activity of the will. Kant maintained that the reality underlying the sensible world was unknowable, that knowledge or theoretical philosophy was limited to the world as phenomenon. But there is also an ethical dimension to experience which, though it does not lend itself to theoretical knowledge, makes itself felt in the phenomenon of moral obligation. For to recognize that I ought to perform a specific action is to acknowledge that, in addition to being a cognitive subject, I am also a free will which may or may not carry out the obligation in question.2s Both Kant and Schopenhauer agree, however, that no intuition of the knowing self is possible. And Borges quotes with approval Schopenhauer’s indictment of self-knowledge. “The knower himself cannot be known precisely as such, otherwise he would be the known of another knower” (OC, 2: 24; 01, 18-19). For Schopenhauer, however, the phenomenal evidence for the reality of the Will is not restricted to the individual but is found everywhere. I t is the will to live, an endless striving which continues without satisfaction, and this is reflected in human life. Human beings seek happiness but happiness is never fulfillment, for each “fulfillment” leads to further desire. Hence genuine happiness can only be the deliverance from pain and desire (1: 411-12). At this point Schopenhauer invokes the Eastern doctrine that happiness is best understood negatively, as deliverance from the phenomenal world, which is illusion and a veil of tears. Deliverance is possible because the human mind has the ability to develop beyond what is required for the satisfaction of its biological and practical functions. The first mode of deliverance is temporary and once again Schopenhauer follows the lead of Kant.

According to Kant, aesthetic judgments must be distinguished from logical judgments. A logical judgment like “This shirt is red” refers a representation to an object. An aesthetic judgment, however, refers the representation to the subject and its feeling of pleasure or pain.29 Most aesthetic judgments merely report some personal pleasure or satisfaction, but Kant singles certain of them out as “judging the beautiful” (note, 37; 203). Such judgments include judgments about works of art and their distinguishing feature is that the satisfaction they report is “disinterested.” By “interest” Kant means the pleasure or satisfaction that is bound up with the existence of an object or with a desire to possess it. Thus judg-


ments of taste must be distinguished from other value judgments of pleasure and of the good-for pleasure excites an interest and the good implies a concept of what the object judged ought to be, while judgments of beauty do not formulate or connect concepts at all. They are purely con- templative, and our satisfaction in the beautiful “is alone a disinterested and free satisfaction” (44; 209).

Since it is disinterested, aesthetic satisfaction does not depend on individual preferences or other idiosyncrasies. Hence we often speak as though beauty were actually a property of the object. This is why we are inclined to say “This is beautiful” rather than “This gives me a disinterested satisfaction.” Since it is formulated without concepts, such a judgment cannot claim to be objectively universal but it does lay claim to a subjective universality. This is possible, Kant explains, because aesthetic satisfaction is grounded in a certain condition of mind which is possible for all rational beings to achieve. All rational beings are capable of cognition, and cognition requires the cooperation of the understanding and the imagination. Kant maintains that when these faculties are not in the service of any specific cognition, they can still play at knowing, thus enjoying their harmony without being tied to any specific intuitions or concepts. This pleasure is the experience of beauty. The beautiful object is one whose form or principle of order causes a “more lively play of both mental powers” and a sharpened awareness of their harmony” (54; 219). Since all rational beings can achieve this state of mind, beauty is univer- sally accessible.

But what is it in an object which provides this disinterested and uni- versally accessible satisfaction? When the concept of an object preexists the object and enters into its production, the object has a purpose or an end. “But,” Kant observes,

an object, or a state of mind, or even an action is called purposive, although its possibility does not necessarily presuppose the representation of a purpose, merely because its possiblilty can be explained and conceived by us only so far as we assume for its ground a causality according to purposes, i.e., in accordance with a will which has regulated it according to the representation of a certain rule (55; 220).

In brief, when we experience an object as an end-in-itself, we have what Kant calls “purposiveness without purpose.” Such an experience evokes that free and harmonious play of the imagination and the understanding which gives us aesthetic satisfaction. Thus for Schopenhauer in aesthetic experience I become detached from all practical matters and am freed, at


least temporarily, from the slavery of the Will. This theory of escape through aesthetic contemplation is linked by Schopenhauer to a metaphysical theory which embodies Platonic Ideas. The Will, Schopenhauer maintains, embodies itself in these Ideas which stand in turn to individual natural things as archetypes to their copies. Aesthetic contemplation, however, is only a temporary respite from the slavery of the Will. A more lasting release can be achieved, however, through renunciation of the Will to live, which manifests itself in egoism, self-assertion and conflict.

Coleridge is important to an understanding of Borges’ thought for a number of reasons. He is the aesthetic philosopher par excellence, the coiner of the phrase “a willing suspension of disbelief” to describe the aesthetic attitude. Furthermore, Borges is fond of quoting Coleridge’s observation that all men are born either Aristotelians or Platonists.30 Finally, Coleridge’s own philosophical position puts the lie to this division, for Coleridge is a Kantian and Kant sought to bring these antagonists together. In two essays on Coleridge however, Borges provides a clear indication of where his thought is going. In “The Flower of Coleridge” and “The Dream of Coleridge” Borges is preoccupied once again by the relation between the imaginary and the real and the possibility that reality may imitate a dream. In the former Coleridge asks (OC, 2: 17-19; 01,9-12):

If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke-Ay!-and what then? (OC, 2: 17; OZ, 9)

In the latter Borges examines Coleridge’s account of having dreamed “Kubla Khan’’ before having written it. Both these discussions take place within the wider context of Platonic archetypes and their repeated recurrence over time.

“The Flower of Coleridge” opens as follows:

Around 1938 Paul Valiry wrote that the history of literature should not be the history of the authors and the accidents of their careers or of the career of their works, but rather the history of the Spirit as the producer and consumer of literature. He added that such a history could be written without the mention of a single writer. (OC, 2: 17; OI, 9)

Borges goes on to note that Emerson suggested that one person wrote all the books, and that Shelly expressed the opinion that all poems were episodes or fragments of a single infinite poem, written by all the poets on earth. The anonymity of literature is a recurrent theme in Borges, but


here he is primarily concerned with the striking fact that three different and unrelated authors have come up with the same thought. Borges compares Coleridge’s flower to the protagonist of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine who returns from the future with a wilted flower. In Henry James’ unfinished novel The Sense of the Past the symbolic link between the real and the imaginary (the present and the past) is not a flower but a picture that mysteriously represents the protagonist. Ralph Pendrel returns to the past and experiences the very moment in which the artist was painting his portrait, but his return is also a condition of the existence of the painting. “The cause follows the effect, the reason for the journey is one of the consequences of the journey.”

In “The Dream of Coleridge” Borges places this dream alongside several others: the dream of the violinist and composer, Giuseppe Tartini, who dreamed that the Devil was playing a prodigious sonata on the violin and who awoke to play Trill0 del Diavolo from memory; R. L Stevenson who recounts that his dreams gave him the plots of Olalla and Jekyll and Hyde; and the uneducated and aged shepherd Caedmon, who was called in a dream to sing. He replied that he did not know how to sing and was told: “Sing about the origin of created things” (OC, 2: 20-23; 01, 13-17). Finally, and more remarkable in its relation to Coleridge’s dream, is an account from Rashid al-Din’s General History of the World which relates that Kubla Khan built a palace according to a plan that he had seen in a dream. Coleridge, who was unaware that this palace was derived from a dream, dreamed a poem about the palace. How then are we to account for this? To explanations that rests upon either coincidence or the supernatural, Borges prefers the possibility that an unknown Platonic archetype was gradually entering the world. Thus Borges reaffirms here what he has already suggested in the opening line of “Pascal’s Sphere,” that universal history may be the history of a few metaphors. But as this essay demonstrates, these metaphors or forms do not necessarily retain the same meaning as they reappear. On the contrary, though they may be formally identical, these Platonic archetypes to vary their meaning according to the context in which they make their appearance.

Neoplatonisvn and Gnosticism

Plato maintains the primacy of the intellect and of the intelligible over the senses and the sensible, and of the general-the form, the archetype, the species-over the individual. The sensible world is a changing and imperfect reflection of an unchanging world of forms or archetypes which give


to sensible things whatever meaning and being they enjoy. These forms themselves are eternal. Like the Euclidean circle or triangle, they neither come into nor pass out of being, nor do they change their essential nature. The world of forms, however, also enjoys an hierarchical deploy- ment. At the apex Plato postulates a highest form to which he gives the name the “One” or the “Good.” Plato presents his view most accessibly in the allegory of the cave.

Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width. Conceive them as having their legs and necks fet- tered from childhood, so that they remain in the same spot, able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads. Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance between them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet shows have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.. . . See also, then, men car- rying past the wall implements of all kinds that rise above the wall, and human images and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent. (Republic, VII, 514)31

Socrates goes on to explain that we are for the most part like these prisoners in that we see only images of sensible things and not the things themselves. One possible interpretation of this is that we live in a world formed by stereotypes and hearsay, not looking directly at what is around us but seeing and hearing only what “they” want us to see and hear.32 And if one of us were forced to turn around to see the fire and the sensible things themselves, to take a fresh look at the world, his eyes would ache and he would seek to return to the images with which he is familiar. Suppose, however, that someone forced this person to ascend the passage and enter into the sunlight. He would be blinded and unable to see the things around him. The analogy should be clear. For the most part we experience only images of sensible things. The fire in the sensible world is the light which illuminates sensible things in that quasi-reality which they enjoy. Beyond the cave is the world of the intelligible forms and the sun symbolizes the highest of the forms, the Good or the One, by means of which all the other forms gain their intelligibility.

Since the forms according to which the universe was constructed are eternal, time comes into being with the creation of the universe. In the Timaeus Plato offers us a “likely story’’ as to the creation of the universe. Such a story is all we can expect, since the sensible world is an object of belief and not of knowledge. In this story Plato posits a benign deity, the


demiurge, who brings the archetypes together with a primitive matter called “the receptacle.” Since change characterizes the sensible world it will also characterize its unity which is time. “Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call time” (37D). He does, however, occasionally provide us with some hrther insight into what his theory of time might be. At the end of the Republic, for example, he recites a reincarnation myth, the myth of Er, to explain the fate of the soul before and after death. This suggests that time, as an object of belief and never of knowledge, is circular. This conception of time became fixed in certain traditions of Greek philosophy. Thus Nemesius tells us that the Stoics believed that

Socrates and Plato and each individual man will live again, with the same fiiends and fellow-citizens. They will go through the same experiences and the same activities. Every city and village and field will be restored, just as i t was. And this restoration of the universe takes place not once, but over and over again- indeed to all eternity without end. Those of the gods who are not subject to destruction, having observed the course of one period, know from this everything which is going to happen in all subsequent periods. For there will never be any new thing other than that which has been before down to the minutest detai1.j3

Plotinus is a central figure in the development of both the rational and mystical strains in Neoplatonism. He is mentioned frequently by Borges, and his thought enables one to understand how Borges can move effortlessly from philosophical issues to the mystics of Gnosticism and the Cabala. For Plato, the One or the Good is itself a form somehow containing or unifying all the others. The clarification of the relation between the supreme form and these other forms remained a problem for Plato as did the relation between the world of forms and the sensible world. In contrast to Plato, Plotinus makes the One into a wholly transcendent first principle, thus seeking to avoid the problem of explaining how the supreme principle of reality can itself enjoy the same nature as that which it unifies.

The philosophy of Plotinus is an attempt to conceive the Platonic picture of reality as a single hierarchical structure, which although it is eternal, is nevertheless living and organic. As one of his more astute commentators has put it:

In this cosmos there are two-movements, one of outgoing or descent, the auto- matic creativity of the higher which generates the lower as a necessary reflex


action of its own contemplation. This is the proper cosmic movement by which the various levels of reality are eternally brought into being. Then there is the movement of return, ascent and simplification by which Soul, the traveller of Plotinus’s universe, passes up through all the stages of being to final union with the First Principle.34

Plotinus’ discourses may be read both as philosophical and as religious treatises. Hence Plotinus explains the manner in which what is proceeds from his first principle either as a logical procession from the One or as an emanation from the Good. Consider, for example, his reasoning in regard to the One. He begins by presupposing that the origin must transcend that which it originates-just as the object of thought must be outside the thinker. The One, then, is without form, limit or any determination whatever, for any determination would compromise its unity. Hence it cannot even be said that the One thinks, for all thinking entails the distinction between thought and its object and would, therefore, introduce diversity into sheer unity. Nor can we ascribe self-consciousness to the One, for that would also entail diversity. Finally, we cannot even say “The One is,” without introducing the duality of subject and predicate into the first principle, which is the source of unity in everything else. The One, then, is quite literally too Good to be. This characterization of the One is, however, largely negative and is supplemented in a positive manner when we consider that the One is also the Good.35 No predicates can be applied to this first principle since it is better and greater than the realities which flow from it. “Its excellence goes beyond the resources of our thought and language. I t is absolutely single and simple because I t is infinitely perfect” (Armstrong, 181).

From the One the whole order of derived reality-the Divine Mind, Soul and material universe-proceeds, and this procession is logical and eternal as it is in Spinoza when, that is, we are considering God or Substance under the aspect of eternity. Plotinus’ favorite metaphor to describe this process is that of the radiation of light or heat from sun or fire. In this he goes back to Plato’s analogy of the sun as the visible symbol of the form of the Good. Plotinus explains why an absolutely simple and self-contained transcendent perfection gives rise to diversity:

If The First is perfect, utterly perfect above all, and is the beginning of all power, it must be the most powerful of all that is,. . . How then could the most perfect remain self-set-the First Good, the Power towards all, how could it grudge or be powerless to give itself, and how at that would it still be the Source? (V, 4, 1)


In other words, anything which is gains its power from its unity with itself, from being what it is, and hence ultimately from the One. And this generation of the many from the One cannot cease so long as any possible being is unrealized. Hence this “great chain of being” reaches from the purely transcendent One through Reason and Soul to Nature. But differentiation and diversity also require privation and privation, which is measured by the distance from the One, is the only evil which Plontinus admits. I t is only in this sense, namely that it is deprived of form, that matter is evil for Plotinus. But though matter is metaphysically evil, the visible universe is not morally evil, and Plotinus defends its goodness against the gnostics who held it to be evil and made by evil powers.

Those, then, that censure the constitution of the Cosmos do not understand what they are doing or where this audacity leads them. They do not understand that there is a successive order of Primals, Secondaries, Tertiaries, and so on con- tinuously to the Ultimates; that nothing is to be blamed for being inferior to the First; that we can but accept, meekly, the constitution of the total, and make our best way towards the Primals, withdrawing from the tragic spectacle, as they see it, of the cosmic spheres-which in reality are all suave graciousness. (II,9, 13)

Thus a rational world, which is the kind of world implied by the One, must exhibit all degrees of imperfection which arise from specification and diversity. And we can do no more to alleviate this imperfection than strive for a union with the One which is our source.

In her book on the gnostic texts, discovered at Ng Hammadi in 1945 but not published in English until 1977, Elaine Pagels finds at least three striking differences between many of these gnostic texts and the beliefs of orthodox Jews and Christians. For the latter God is wholly other than his creatures, while at least some of the gnostics hold that self-knowledge is knowledge of God, that, in effect, the self and the Godhead are identical. Furthermore, “the ‘living Jesus’ of these texts speaks of illusion and enlightenment, not of sin and repentance. Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide who opens access to spiritual understanding. But when the disciple attains enlightenment, Jesus no longer serves as his spiritual master” (Pagels, xx). This relation of teacher to student is reminiscent of the Socratic tradition and of Buddhism.36 Finally, orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is both Lord and the Son of God and remains, therefore, forever distinct from the rest of humanity, while in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, for example, Jesus tells Thomas that they both received their being from the same source (Pagels, xx).

In both the gnostic and neoplatonic traditions, then, the divine and the human are inevitably linked together. Hence what takes place here on

70 * B O K G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

earth is a symbol of what is occurring on a larger scale in the universe: the earth and each of its creatures is a microcosm of the greater macrocosm. But Plotinus also differs from the gnostics, for he is a rational mystic like Spinoza. The world and our experience of it is are rational guides to the nature of ultimate reality and our union with that reality. In the Ennead in which he criticizes the gnostics for being too otherworldly, Plotinus also criticizes the irrationality of their mysticism:

For to say ‘Look to God’ is not helpful without some instruction as to what this looking imports: it might very well be said that one can ‘look‘ and still sacrifice no pleasure, still be the slave of impulse, repeating the word ‘God‘ but held in the grip of every passion and making no effort to master any. Virtue, advancing towards the Term and, linked with thought, occupying a soul, makes God manifest: ‘God’ on the lips without a good conduct of life, is a word. (11, 9 , 15)

Although the gnostics are not the only “heretics” he ~ ~ S C U S S ~ S , ~ ~

Borges’ principal interest here seems to lie in the heretical character of gnostic thought. He makes this connection in “Tlon”, and it is also clear from what he says about his earliest encounter with the gnostics. “I learned also what desperate and admirable men the gnostics were, and I became acquainted with their fervid speculations .”38 Perhaps the best example of this interest is the essay, “A Vindication of the False Ba~i l ides .”~~ To vindicate, Borges explains, is to summarize and justifi or prove the worth of Basilides’ views, especially in the light of later developments. Borges draws on Irenaeus for his account of Basilides, admitting that Irenaeus may not be the most trustworthy source. This speculation is supported by Pagels who points out that until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, our knowledge Gnosticism came chiefly from its severest critics.

According to Borges, who admits that his own account may not be accurate, Basilides maintains that there is at the origin of the universe a nameless and uncreated divinity, the pater innatus, in the midst of the pleroma or plenitude, surrounded by Platonic archetypes, intelligibles and universals. From the repose of this changeless deity emanate seven shadows. They create a first heaven from which a second emanates, which contains angels, potentates and thrones. From this second emanates a third and so on. The ruler of the last one is the Jehovah of the Scriptures. In the cosmology of Valentius this last world, our world, comes about as an incidental result of celestial wars. I t is no more than a futile by-product of a celestial event-an imperfect copy of the Pleroma which imprisons sparks of the divine essence. From this view there develops an esoteric form of Christianity. The unchanging source sends a savior of the divine


spark which is imprisoned in humanity. This savior assumes an illusory human form which dies on the Cross. His divine essence then returns to the Pleroma by means of the knowledge or pzosis that is the secret teaching which Christ imparts to humanity.

Borges finds two commendable features in these cosmologies: an explanation of evil in the world through the gradual degradation of divinities, and the idea that the creation of the world is an incidental and insignificant event. This is entirely in keeping with his views on the insignificance of the self and of its uniqueness and originality, as well as his horror at the thought of personal immortality. His interest in esoterica and heresy is not, of course, limited to gnosticism. In his early tale “The Masked Dyer, Hakim el Merv” the following dictum is attributed to Hakim:

The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and confirm it. Revulsion, disgust, is the fundamental, and two rules of conduct (between which the Prophet left men free to choose) lead us to it: abstinence and utter licentiousness-the indulgence of the flesh or the chastening of it. (OC, 1 , 327; CF, 43)

For Borges, then, these gnostic visions of the world are valuable primarily because they place in doubt our commonplace view of things. They are fantastic, and metaphysics, we are told in Tlon, is a branch of fantastic literature. Thus these fantastic hypotheses challenge the dogmatism of reason but, in my view, not its primacy. Indeed Borges generally seems to prefer the more “rational” mystics like Angelus Silesius and Spinoza to the more emotionally inclined.40 This preference for reason over emotions is also evident in his treatment of the Cabala.

The Cabala

The Cabala derives its name from the Hebrew “Kabba2”which means “to receive.” It is a mystical interpretation of the Holy Scripture which stresses coming in contact with God directly, the secret meaning of Scripture, creation through emanation, the supremacy of the human spirit over desires, the messianic restoration of the world to a perfect state and the secret name of God. Thus in cabalistic thought .the visible world is likened to a veil which can be lifted through these esoteric teachings. The two principal works mentioned in Borges’ discussions are the Zohar or Book of Splendor, and the Sefer Yetsirah or Book of Creation. Didier Jatn’s


brief description of the cabalistic cosmology is based on the work of Scholem.

The cabalistic cosmology presupposes (like the gnostics) a recondite God, beyond all comprehension and understanding, without name or appellatives, boundless, forever beyond human grasp, the Primordial Nothingness. This is the eyn sof(the Infinite) of the cabalists. According to one of the most obscure and essential mysteries of the doctrine, this Infinite or Boundless Nothingness, out of its own Primordial Will, condescends to Express or Reveal itself. Ex nihilo, that is, out of Nothing, out of the very Substance of God (according to certain traditions) the World is created, God reveals itself. Thus Creation appears as an act of Revelation, as God’s language or means of expression, of revealing itself into Himself. (Jakn, 97)

In “A Vindication of the Cabala” Borges states that he does not want to vindicate the doctrine but rather the hermetic or cryptographic procedures to which the doctrine gives rise, such as reading the lines of the Holy Scripture from right to left and then from left to right, the substitu- tion of certain letters for others, and the assignment of numerical values to the letters (Disczdn, OC, 1: 209-212). Thus despite his insistence on the mysterious nature of the Cabala, what Borges finds interesting here is the logical structure which underlies the interpretations of the texts. Borges underlines the mystical and irrational nature of the Cabala by comparing it with the doctrine of the Trinity-“a deformation to which only the horror of a nightmare could have given birth.” Divorced from the concept of redemption this doctrine of three persons in one appears entirely arbitrary. But considered as a necessity of faith, its inner logic is revealed to us. For without a trinity, or at least a duality, Jesus would appear to be no more than a fortuitous delegate of God rather than God’s appearance to humanity.41 What interests Borges is that a book, be it the Bible or the Koran, should be taken as the literal presence of God to his creatures. The Cabalists take Genesis to have been deliberately written by an infinite intelligence who dictated word for word what it proposed to say. Borges notes that in the Christian tradition Origen attributed three meanings to Scripture: an historical, a moral and a mystical, corresponding to the body, the soul and the spirit, while John Scotus Erigena attributed to Scripture an infinite number of meanings. For the Muslims the Koran is an attribute of God and therefore infallible. Such views make Scripture an absolute text in which the collaboration of chance is calcula- ble as zero. We have here some of the great Borgesian themes: the world as a text; the Book of books; the power of the word (particularly the verb); the meaning of a text as arising from the interaction between the


text and its reader; the unreality or quasi-reality of the sensible world; and the relation between microcosm and macrocosm.

In the “Prologue” to Artifices Borges observes that despite the German and Scandinavian names, “Death and the Compass”

takes place in a Buenos fires of dreams: the twisting “rue de Toulon” is the Paseo de Julio; “Triste-le-Roy” is the hotel where Herbert Ashe received, yet probably did not read, the eleventh volume of an imaginary encyclopedia (OC, 1: 483; CF, 129).

What follows is a mixture of “fantasy” and “reality”-a point emphasized by the reference to Herbert Ashe, one of the founders of Tlon. The story is once again a detective story. It is interesting that Borges places his most extensive presentation of the Cabala in a policier. The Cabala is the truth, for it is the hidden word of God. The protagonist, Lonnrot, is the rationalist, a kind August Dupin, who employs the Cabala to piece together the truth about the crimes.42

The story opens with Lonnrot and Commissioner Treviranus investi- gating the murder of Doctor Marcel Yarmolinsky, the night of December third, in the Hotel du Nord-a tower which brings together the hateful whiteness of a hospital, the numbered chambers of a prison and the general appearance of brothel. Towers are another recurring image in Borges’ writing, and the juxtaposition suggests perhaps that prisons, hospitals and brothels are equally valuable or valueless. Yarmolinsky is the delegate from Pod6lsk to the Third Talmudic Congress. He is the author of a number of books, copies of which are found in his closet. Treviranus believes that he has found a motive. The Tetrarch of Galilee is also a delegate to the con- ference and was known to possess the world’s finest sapphires. Treviranus speculates that a thief found his way to Yarmolinsky‘s room by mistake. Lonnrot objects that in this hypothesis chance plays too large a role.

A police detective discovers a sheet of paper in Yarmolinsky’s type- writer. On it is written: Thefirst letter of the Name has been written. This prompts Lonnrot to take Yarmolinsky’s books home for closer examination. They include: A Vindication of the Kabbalah, a Study of the Philosophy of Robert Fludd, a literal translation of the Sefer Yeyirah, a Biography of Baal Shem, a History of the Hasidic Sect, a treatise in German on the Tetragrammaton, and one on the names of God in the Pentateuch. Robert Fludd’s name is spelled “Flood” in the OC and “Fludd” or “Flud” in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Fludd (1574-1637) was educated at Oxford and was a mystic and a medical doctor who maintained that physical reality and spiritual reality are iden-


tical. He was the most important English Rosacrucian of his time. The Sefer Yetsirah together with the Zohar form the central text of the Cabala. Baal (the name of a Canaanite god of fertility) Shem Y Tobh is the founder of the modern Hasidic Sect, a mystical sect founded originally in the third century A.D. The Tetragrammaton is the holy name of God in four letters, which the Jews of the third century abstained from pro- nouncing, either out of fear or reverence. The Pentateuch consists of the first five books of the Bible. From his studies Lonnrot learns a number of things including: that God has a secret name in which His ninth attribute, Eternity, is the immediate knowledge of everything under the sun that will be, that is, and that was in the universe. The editor of the Jiidi.de Zeitung writes about Lonnrot’s studying Yarmolinsky’s works for a clue to his murder. A second murder verifies Lonnrot’s conviction that the hidden Name of God is at the center of the crimes.

The second murder takes place on the night of January third in the western part of the city. In front of a dilapidated paint and hardware store the police find a man in a poncho with a deep knife wound in his chest. He is Daniel Simon Azevedo, another Jew, but also a thief and the last of a generation who knew how to handle a knife but not a gun. On the conventional red and yellow diamond shapes of the shop’s wall was chalked: The second letter of the Name has been written. Lonnrot surmises that a third crime is going to occur. He knows that a certain Gryphius has called Treviranus with an offer to communicate the facts concerning the two sacrifices of Yarmolinsky and Azevedo for a reasonable remuneration. He was unable to say any more and the line went dead. Lonnrot and Treviranus go to the tavern above which Gryphius lived. The owner, Black Finnegan (perhaps a not too oblique reference to Joyce), is a reformed Irish criminal now concerned with and almost weighed down by respectability. Finnegan tells them that Gryphius was the last person to use his phone that night and that two harlequins, very drunk and with whom Gryphius exchanged some words in Yiddish, hustled him into a coup6 and headed toward the docks. One of the harlequins had scrawled an obscene drawing and over it the words: The last letter of the Name has been written. In Gryphius’ room there is a book, Philops hebraeopacus, in which Lonnrot finds the following passage: “The Jewish day begins at sundown and lasts until the sundown of the following day.” Twilight signifies once again the two twilights of Heraclitus, the time when porten- tous things occur, the time of destiny.

The newspapers publicize the apparent ineptness of the police, and Red Scharlach, the leading gunman of the Southside, boasts that in his


part of town such crimes never occur. Scharlach has sworn to revenge the death of his brother for which Lonnrot was responsible. Then there is a break in the case. Treviranus receives a letter and a map of the city from someone who signs himself “Baruch Spinoza.” The letter predicts that there will be no fourth murder because the locations of the first three crimes formed “the perfect points of a mystical equilateral triangle.” Treviranus reads this geometrical reasoning and sends the material on to Lonnrot. The expression moregeometrico refers to Descartes and Spinoza who sought to demonstrate the conclusions of their philosophies in geo- metric form. Lonnrot studies the map with the aid of a pair of dividers and a compass. There was a symmetry in time-the three crimes occurred on the third of December, January and February-and in space. But Lonnrot sees through this ruse as he pronounces to himself the word “Tetragrammaton”-a word he has only recently acquired, which warns us that Lonnrot may not enjoy a mastery of the occult doctrines in which he is dabbling.

Thus Gnnro t predicts a fourth crime will occur at the one cardinal point of the compass which is missing-the south-and, in keeping with temporal symmetry, on the third of March. His journey by train to the southern district recalls Dahlmann’s journey in “The South.” The train comes to a stop and Lonnrot gets off. Again we have the two twilights of Heraclitus as well as Tsu Pen’s journey to Ashgrove.

The thought occurred to him that only one dawn and one sunset (an ancient glow in the east and another in the west) were all that separated him from the hour yearned for by the seekers of the Name. (OC, 1: 504; CF, 153)

Lonnrot arrives at the abandoned villa of Triste-le-Roy, which he had deduced to be the location of the last crime. He finally is able to let himself into the garden which is a labyrinth of Borgesian symbols: one bal- cony appears to reflect another; double outer staircases crossed at each landing, and a two-faced Hermes casts a monstrous shadow. This Hermes also anticipates the imminent appearance of the bust of Janus, Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces enable him to be the guardian of gates and doors. Janus symbolizes, the two different readings of the “clues” in our story, that of Llinnrot, which has now come to an end, and that of Red Scharlach, which is about to begin. Then there is a series of conhsed events which, as in “The South,” announces a change. He opens a window and a “round yellow moon outlined two clogged fountains” (“The Garden of Forking Paths”); he comes to identical courtyards and several times to the same courtyard (the labyrinth); he climbs dusty stairways to


circular anterooms where he is multiplied to infinity in facing mirrors (“Tlon” and the “Library”). Lonnrot is now experiencing the infinite unreality of the world of appearances to which his feeble knowledge of the Cabala has proven an untrustworthy guide.

The denouement is rapid. Scharlach’s men apprehend Lonnrot and Scharlach explains the series of events. Scharlach and his men, including Azevedo, had planned the theft of the Tetrarch’s sapphires. But Azevedo got drunk, blundered in to Yarmolinsky’s room, and had to kill him. Scharlach then read in the Judische Zeitung that Liinnrot was seeking a clue to the murder in Yarmolinsky’s writings and guessed that Lonnrot believed the Hasidim were to blame. The clues suggested that the series of crimes was threefold, but Scharlach threw in repeated clues so that Lonnrot would reason that it was fourfold, including the suggestion that the murders really occurred on the fourth of each month, since the Jewish day begins and ends at sundown.

At this point Lonnrot reconsiders for the last time the problem of these symmetrical and periodic murders and replies to Scharlach: “There are three lines too many in your labyrinth. I know of a Greek labyrinth that is but one straight line that is invisible and endless.”43 Scharlach replies, “The next time I kill, I promise you the labyrinth that consists of a single straight line that is endless.” He then steps back and fires.

The most immediate message of “Death and the Compass, is that neither words nor events are bearers of an unambiguous meaning. Their meaning is always relative to the context in which they are set. Like Averroes, for whom the Koran is truth itself, Lonnrot possesses the esoteric teachings of the Cabala as a sure guide to the mystery which confronts him. Their cases differ to be sure, for Averroes is thoroughly steeped in the traditions of the Koran, while Lonnrot is a mere dabbler in the esoteric doctrines of the Cabala. But this difference is no more than a nuance for two reasons. First both Averroes and his opponent Algazel draw on the Koran to support their positions, which suggests that there is no unambiguous reading of that holy work even where both readers are thoroughly familiar with its texts. Second, and even more important, both Lonnrot and Averroes are misled by their “infallible” guides because while the truth may exist for a divine intellect, it eludes the grasp of the human mind. Borges makes this even clearer by placing the Cabala in a fictional situation where it plays the role of a false clue. And then there is Borges’ remark that Scharlach and Lijnnrot may be the same man.44 Both men have the color red in their names and both are rationalists. The only difference benveen them is the content of their thought, and logical rea-


soning, we have seen, is in and of itself indifferent to its content. This suggests that one man is possibly all men, a variation on the theme of microcosm and macrocosm.

In Borges’ writings reason usually appears under one of four guises: Platonic realism, nominalism, Kantian synthesis and esoteric wisdom. In three of its manifestations reason fails to keep its promise to provide knowledge of ultimate reality, metaphysical knowledge. Only Kant’s position is exempt from this failure since Kant himself criticizes any attempt to know things as they are in themselves. This failure of metaphysics-not merely in literature but also in life-becomes even more evident when we turn to the nature of time.

* T H R E E *

Time and Eternity

I N A NOTABLE KEFLECTION ON TIME St. Augustine asks:

What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I d o not know. Yet I say with confidence that I know that if nothing passed away, there would be no past time; and if nothing were still coming, there would be no future time; and if there were nothing at all, there would be n o present time.

But, then, how is it that there are two times, past and future, when even the past is now n o longer and the future is now not yet? But if the present were always present, and did not pass into past time, it obviously would not be time but eternity. If, then, time present-if it be time-comes into existence because it passes into time past, how can we say that even this ZJ, since the cause of its being is that i t will cease to be? Thus, can we not truly say that time is only as it tends toward nonbeing?l

Time appears to flow like a river from the past through the present to the future. Thus it exhibits both passage and directionality. But doesn’t this conception of time lead to paradoxes that suggest that time thus conceived is ultimately unreal? Since the notion of time offers us so many problems, perhaps we should look elsewhere for a beginning to our inquiry. For Plato and Plotinus time is born of and contrasted with eternity. Hence eternity may promise a firmer footing for an inquiry into the nature of time.

E T E R N I T Y

“Eternity” is derived from the Latin “aeternus,” which is derived, in turn, from “aevum,” which has the same root as the English words “ever” and “aye.” The original sense of the word is that of everlasting existence. And this is probably also how it is understood in ordinary language. But without some explanation of what it would mean to exist in this way, that doesn’t tell us very much. Furthermore, in philosophy the notion of ever-


lasting existence is sometimes expressed by “sempiternal,” while “eternal” is reserved for the notion of “timelessness.” “Timeless,” however, can have a number of meanings and I can only delineate some of the most important here.

In English and other Indo-European languages there is a usage described as the “timeless present.” To say, for example, “Five is a prime number” or “The sum of the interior angles of a triangle equals two right angles” does not convey something about the present in contrast to the past or the future. Rather such sentences appear to assert that what they say is true without any consideration of time whatsoever. The same kind of timelessness is intended by any putative necessary knowledge. “The hydrogen atom contains only one proton” expresses a necessary connection between being a hydrogen atom and having one proton. There is, however, no suggestion that the hydrogen atom exists out of time, but rather that whenever and wherever it exists, it will have one proton.

A related but somewhat different notion of timelessness appears in Parmenides’ The Way of Truth. He says of the One: “It neither was nor at any time will be, since it is now all at once a single whole.” Since both Parmenides and Zeno argued against the reality of change, this statement cannot mean that the One exists only for a moment. Rather it must mean that the One cannot be described in a language that employs tenses. The One exists all a t once because it involves no temporal succession of earlier and later. This sense of “eternal” also reappears in Plato who applied it to the Forms as in Tinzaeus 37E6-38A6 where he contrasts the created world with its timeless archetype. Unlike Parmenides and Zeno, however, Plato does not deny the reality of time. He says only that time came into being with the creation of the sensible world, and that temporal things are never in a state of being because they are always becoming. The connection with necessity that Plato claimed for timeless eternity, Aristotle claimed for sempiternity. This was inevitable since he maintained that the Forms have no being apart from their existence in the temporal world of becoming. Hence he denies that time has come into being; it has always been. Time, we recall, is the numbering of motion. In the case of sempiternal things, however, there is no change or motion, no distinction between possibility and actuality (Physics 203b30, 196b10). Therefore they exist always. Apparently he had in mind not only mathematical objects but also God, the sun and the stars.

These Greek conceptions of eternity undergo a transformation when they reappear in Christian theology. Augustine, for example, writes in the Confessions of God’s “ever-present eternity” ( x l , 13) and says that for

T I M E A N D ETERNITY. 81

God “all years stand a t once.” In the final chapter of De Consolatione Philosophiae Boethius explains:

Eternity is the complete possession of eternal life all at once-a notion that becomes clearer from comparison with things temporal. For whatever lives in time moves as something present from the past to the future, and there is nothing placed in time that can embrace the whole extent of its life at once. It does not yet grasp tomorrow, and it has already lost yesterday. And even in the life of today you do not live longer than in the transitory moment. That, then, which is subject to the condition of time, is still not such as may be rightly judged eternal. For though its life be endless, it does not grasp and embrace the extent of it all at once but has some parts still to come .... And so, if, following Plato, we wish to give things their right names, let us say that God is eternal, but the world everlasting.2

This notion reappears in Aquinas, citing Boethius, who says that there are two marks of eternity, namely, that the eternal has neither beginning nor end and that eternity has no succession, being all at once (Summa Theologica, I, x, 1).

In “History of Eternity” Borges provides us with his most concen- trated consideration of the subject.3 The title, like the “New Rehtation of Time,” appears to be paradoxical but here it really isn’t, for Borges is going to discuss, not eternity itself, but two conceptions of eternity, the Platonic, represented here by Plotinus, and the Christian. In the “Prologue” Borges notes that it would have been more reasonable to begin with the hexame- ters of Parmenides but he begins instead with Plotinus. He doesn’t tell us why, but it is not difficult to guess. About the One of Parmenides there is not really very much to say. Hence Borges’ discussion of Plotinus centers not about the One or the Good, but about Divine Mind, which is the first emanation from the One. In short, confronted by a choice between a discussion of sheer eternal unity and an eternity with content, Borges opts quite naturally for the latter. The “Prologue” also contains an interesting aside:

I don’t know how I could have compared Plato’s forms to “immobile museum pieces” and how, reading Scotus Erigena and Schopenhauer, I did not sense that they are alive, powerful and organic. I understood that without time there is no motion (the occupation of different places at distinct moments); I did not understand that neither could there be immobility (the occupation of the same place at distinct moments). (OC, 1: 351)

Borges opens his essay by observing that according to Plotinus, if one wishes to interrogate and define the nature of time, one must first know eternity, which, as everyone knows, is its model. He then inverts the order


of the investigation and begins with time, for time is an earth-shaking and urgent problem, while eternity remains a game or a tired hope.

The first difficulty is that of determining the direction of time. The common belief is that it flows from the past toward the hture, but the contrary is no less logical as we see in this verse from Unamuno:

Nocturno el rio de las horasfluye desde su manantial que es el mariana eterno.. .

Nocturnally the river of hours flows from its source which is the eternal tomorrow.. .

Both views, observes Borges, are equally probable and equally unverifi- able. Unamuno’s verse also recalls the Scholastic view of time as a flow from the potential to the actual as well as Whitehead’s eternal objects, which constitute “the kingdom of the possible” and which ingress into time. A second difficulty is that of synchronizing the individual time of each person with general mathematical or world time. And then there is the problem posed by the paradoxes of the Eleatics, here formulated in terms of time: it is impossible that in eight hundred years of time a stretch of fourteen minutes will elapse, because first seven minutes will have had to elapse, and before those seven, three and a half minutes, and before those three and a half, a minute and three quarters and so on to infinity. Russell, Borges notes, rebuts that argument by affirming the reality of infinite numbers that are given all at once and not as the terminus of an unending enumerative process. But these abnormal numbers of Russell are actually “a fine anticipation of eternity, which also does not allow itself to be defined by the enumeration of its parts.” Hence time proves to be too slippery a point of departure for an understanding of the concept of eternity, and we return to a discussion of eternity itself.

Borges attributes the first conception of eternity to the Greeks and finds it fully articulated in Plotinus.4 Plotinus tells us that the objects of the soul are successive, now Socrates then a horse, that always an isolated thing is conceived while thousands are lost; but Divine Intelligence embraces all things. The past is in its present as is its hture. As I noted above, we are dealing here not with the first principle of all there is but with the first born of the One, Divine Intelligence. Nothing happens in this world in which all things persist, “quiet in their felicity.” Borges then goes on to defend the Platonic view, but this defense is once again qualified; more like a tentative stroll through one of the labyrinths of meta-

* T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y . 83

physics than a commitment to a truth or a dogma. The actress Miriam Hopkins, he observes, is not constituted by her physical make-up, which would not really distinguish her from anyone else, but by the species or form which marks her as unique.5 The materialism of the day-the result of the new science-fails to make those qualitative distinctions which would explain or at least describe this particular beauty and talent. He also invokes Keats’ nightingale and Schopenhauer’s cat with whom we are already familiar. Finally Borges mentions several familiar objections to the Platonic doctrine, among them: the problem of participation and the problem of accounting for how these archetypes mingle among themselves. None of these problems may be insoluble, but since the archetypes are made in the image of the creatures who are their source, they repeat the very anomalies they seek to resolve.

Just as the “Fifth Ennead” underlies this first eternity, the central text underlying the second is the eleventh book of Augustine’s Confessions. Borges, however, names Irenaeus, whom we have already met in our discussion of Gnosticism, as the author of this version. The first version requires the Platonic thesis; the second, the mystery of the Trinity and the doctrines of predestination and reprobation or censure by God. Once again, eternity appears as the product of human beings. And, unless humans are in some sense one with the Godhead, as in Spinoza for example, it could not be otherwise. For even if there were an eternal godhead which could think itself in its eternity, as finite we could never become privy to those thoughts.

Borges repeats his earlier remarks on the Trinity:

Its conception of a father, a son and a specter, articulated in a single organism, appears to be a case of intellectual teratology, a deformation to which only the horror of a nightmare could give birth. Hell is a mere physical violence, but the three inextricable Persons entail an intellectual horror, a suffocating infinity, us specious as that of contraposed mirrors. (My emphasis) (OC, 1: 354)

To renounce the Trinity, however, would turn Jesus into an incident of history, rather than the imperishable and continuous auditor of our devotions, And if the Son is not also the Father, redemption is not a direct and divine work. If redemption is not eternal, neither will it be God’s sacrifice of having denigrated Himself by becoming human and having died on the cross.

The eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit is Irenaeus’ arrogant6 decision: the invention of an act without time, a mutilated


zeitloses Zei twort , which we can discard or venerate, but not discuss. (OC, 1: 360)

Thus from the moment that Irenaeus inaugurates it, the Christian eternity begins to differ from the Alexandrine eternity of the neoplatonists. It becomes a world apart, one of the nineteen attributes of the mind of God. Liberated from popular veneration, the archetypes ultimately become eternal ideas in whose image the creative Word brings things into being. Thus the mind of God becomes the subject of endless theological discussions, not the least of which is the debate about predestination ab aeterno. Augustine, however, rejected the notion that some are predestined to enter heaven. Noting that by virtue of having descended from Adam, we are all sinners, he concluded that we all merit fire without pardon. Yet God will save us all, though His attention will linger on the virtuous lives. Finally, with John Scotus Erigena we return to a Neoplatonic pantheism: to an indeterminable God who perceives neither sin nor evil and in whom God’s creatures, including time and the devil, return to the primary unity.

In the third part of this essay Borges remarks that the first conception of eternity is grounded in (Platonic) realism that is so far from our being that “I disbelieve all its interpretations including my own.” The second conception is grounded in nominalism which we practice sans le savoir. For us nominalism “is like a general premise of our thought, an acquired axiom. Hence the inutility of commenting upon it.” Borges’ observation that he would disbelieve all interpretations of realism including his own suggests that his flirtation with Platonism is only a game. But nominalism comes off no better in the context of this paragraph, since Borges speaks of it as an acquired axiom. This is an intentional oxymoron since axioms are supposed to be universal truths that are implicit in the intellect of any rational being. This oxymoron suggests that all truths are relative to specific conceptual frameworks. Hence it reaffirms the contextualism with which “Averroes’ Search” ends.

Borges now goes on to juxtapose two quotations. The first is George Santyana’s observation: “To live is to lose time: we can recover or retain nothing except under the form of eternity.”7 The second comes from Lucretius and is an observation on coitus which recalls the opening of L(Tlijn”:

When a thirsty man tries to drink in his dreams but is given n o drop to quench the fire in his limbs, he clutches at images ofwater with fruitless effort and while he laps up a rushing stream he remains thirsty in the midst. Just so in the midst of love Venus teases lovers with images. They cannot glut their eyes by gazing on

- T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y . 85

the beloved form, however closely. Their hands glean nothing from those dainty limbs in their aimless roving over all the body. Then comes the moment when with limbs entwined they pluck the flower of youth. Their bodies thrill with the presentiment ofjoy, and it is seed-time in the fields Venus. Body clings greedily to body; moist lips are pressed on lips, and deep breaths are drawn through clenched teeth. But all to no purpose. One can glean nothing from the other, nor enter in and be wholly absorbed, body in body;. . .g

Hence in these two paths of eternal presentation and temporal succession we can expect to encounter nothing but labyrinths. The mode of this striving for eternity, Borges observes, is nostalgia. Finally, in the last section of this essay, he offers his own “theory” of eternity, which is less a theory than a phenomenological description of La hora sin sonzbra, that moment in which eternity is encountered. It first appears in EL idionza de Los arjentinos as “Sentirse en muerte.” But since it is repeated in the “New Rehtation of Time,” I will discuss it in connection with that essay.

To conclude these brief remarks on eternity I would like to look at two of Borges’ later poems which present much of our discussion with striking economy and beauty. The first is entitled “Ewig-lzeit,” which is the German word for “eternity.” The second is “Everness.” The original title is in English and was coined by John Wilkins, the seventeenth century English churchman and creator of a universal philosophical language .9

Borges remarks somewhere that the eternity promised by “Everness” is Platonic, while that proclaimed in ‘Ewkkeit” is the fruit of human memory and also of man’s rebellion before death.”lo Although I give the English translations, my comments are directed to the Spanish text.

Everness

One thing does not exist: Oblivion. God saves the metal and he saves the dross, And his prophetic memory guards from loss The moons to come, and those of evenings gone. Everything is: the shadows in the glass Which, in between the day’s two twilights, you Have scattered by the thousands, or shall strew, Henceforward in the mirrors that you pass. And everything is part of that diverse Crystalline memory, the universe; Whoever through its endless mazes wanders Hears door on door click shut behind his stride, And only from the sunset’s farther side Shall view a t last the Archetypes and the Splendors.”

The god of this poem conserves the world in its memory. Furthermore, like the God of Augustine, it conserves not only the metal but also the


dross. That dross includes the thousands of reflections that one’s face has left and will continue to leave in mirrors between morning and evening- those two twilights of Heraclitus-that which will be and which has been. These images recall those reflections of reflections which pass before the prisoners in Plato’s allegory of the cave. We have seen from "Furies," that for human beings memory is never a sufficient ground of knowledge. Intellectual concepts must be added to memory if there is to be knowledge or even a coherent experience. The memory in question, however, is crystalline, which suggests that it is not human but divine-the immediate and rational intuition of everything in the present moment. It is the lucid apprehension of all, which is denied to man and for which Spinoza labored, the ultimate goal of the incessant and insufficient light of human reason. The allusion to the Library continues in the images of “arduous and unending corridors” and “doors which close to your passage.” This last phrase also reaffirms the inviolability of our destiny which is determined by our past. Only beyond the sunset, that is beyond those two twilights in which human events take place, will one come to see the archetypes and the splendors. Thus the poem appears to hold out hope for some sort of ultimate enlightenment beyond this veil of tears.

Ewigkeit

Turn on my tongue, 0 Spanish verse; confirm Once more what Spanish verse has always said Since Seneca’s black Latin; speak your dread Sentence that all is fodder for the worm. Come, celebrate once more pale ash, pale dust, The pomps of death and the triumphant crown Of that bombastic queen who tramples down The petty banners of our pride and lust. Enough of that. What things have blessed my clay Let me not cravenly deny. The one Word of no meaning is Oblivion, And havened in eternity, I know, My many precious losses burn and stay: That forge, that night, that risen moon aglow. (OC, 2: 306; Poems, 189)

In “Ewiglzeit,” as Borges points out, memory still plays a role, but now there is a new tone, for it is not divine memory that prevents oblivion from running its course, but the human act of resistance in the face of that succession which leads ultimately to death. The juxtaposition of these two poems provides, therefore, an eloquent transition to that moving image of eternity called “time.”

T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y 87

* T I M E *

Just as it is difficult to discuss eternity without referring to time, discussions of time are usually coupled with discussions of space. Why this is so is clear from our discussion of Plato and Aristotle. For Plato time is “the moving image of eternity.” It is the type of being which characterizes the world of becoming, which is sensible and therefore spatial. Aristotle makes this connection even more explicit since time is the numbering of motion, and motion is a change of place. The custom of speaking of space and time together persists in Descartes, Newton, Leibniz and Kant through relativity theory in which time is often taken to be inextricably involved with space. Consider, for example, the opening paragraph of a notable address delivered to the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, at Cologne, September 1908 by H. Minkowski:

The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.12

Although this view of space-time has not completely won the day, I will often speak of time and space since they are so often dealt with together.

The PassaJe of Time

The notion of time as a succession or passage is perhaps the most commonly accepted conception of time. But although many philosophers accept this characterization of time, they often disagree among themselves on other issues. One of the most important is the debate as to whether time is absolute or relational in nature. The issue is complex and persists today. What is at stake, however, can be seen quite clearly in one of the greatest intellectual exchanges in Western thought-the correspondence between Leibniz and Clarke-in which the great Continental rationalist defends a relational theory of space and time, while Clarke defends Newton’s absolute theory. To understand the debate, we must first understand something of Leibniz’ metaphysics.

Descartes reduced the number of Aristotelian substances to three, mind, matter and God. But the notion of “substance” carries with it con- notations of independence and self-sufficiency. Furthermore, the essential nature of substance-its essence for Descartes or its form for Aristotle-tells us what properties a thing must have to be that kind of


thing and no other. Hence its essence or form also distinguishes a substance from all other substances. But then a problem arises, for given the independence and self-sufficiency of substance, it is difficult to see how two substances can have anything in common. And if they do not have anything in common, it is even more difficult to see how they can affect one another or interact in any way. Thus there emerged from Descartes’ metaphysics the problem of mind-body interaction, a problem which still haunts philosophers today. Spinoza solved this problem by opting for a rigorous monism. Since God is conceived as an infinite substance having an infinite number of attributes, there can be only one substance, for any other putative substance could be characterized only by attributes which God already possesses. Hence everything which is, is either an attribute of God or a modification of God under one of its attributes (Part 1, prop. 15). We know God under two of its attributes, thought and extension. All adequate ideas are modifications of God under the attribute of thought, and all adequately conceived extensions are modifications of God under the attribute of extension. Mind and body do not interact but there is nevertheless a certain correspondence between them. Since the attributes of a substance state what that substance must be like in order to be what it is, wherever there is a modification of substance under one of its attributes, there will be corresponding modifications under all its other attributes. Thus the modal series of thoughts and extensions parallel one another. Leibniz, however, opted for a plurality of substances. If we begin once again with the notion of a substance as being independent and self- sufficient, and if we postulate a plurality of substances, how are we to explain their interaction and the apparent fact that things affect or act on one another? Leibniz’ answer agrees in part with Spinoza: they do not and cannot interact.

Leibniz begins by criticizing Descartes who identified matter, the ultimate substance of nature, with extension or space. If substance is independent and self-sufficient, it cannot be spatial, since space is infinitely divisible. The same argument would apply to time, since between any two points in time, there are an infinite number of points. Furthermore, in the Cartesian scheme of things extension or matter is inert; that is, it does not have the power to move itself, and motion is the central causal factor in the new science. Hence Leibniz looks for another way to characterize substance. According to Leibniz, the universe consists of an infinity of simple and unique substances which he calls “monads,” to stress both their independence from one another and their isolation. These monads are to be thought of as points of “force.” To fill out this somewhat

. T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y . 89

abstract schema Leibniz turns to our experience of consciousness. Only in consciousness do we have a direct experience of power or force. Hence each monad must possess some degree of consciousness, with the most complicated of these substances experiencing apperception or self-consciousness. The real causes of our representations are to be found, not in physical objects existing independently of consciousness, but in preceding representations in the same consciousness. Nevertheless the succession of representations in each consciousness represents a physical universe from a particular point of view. It is as though each of us lives in a private movie theater whose films portray a causally connected world of spatio-temporal events, with the proviso that we are really seeing only our own private data.

Thus for Leibniz, as for Spinoza, there are two ways of looking at the world. The first, which is both our commonsense view as well as that of science, sees a world of spatio-temporal events which are causally interconnected. This is the world ofphenomena or things as they appear to us. But neither our commonsense view of things nor its sophisticated scientific revision deals with noumena or things as they are in themselves, nor can they answer such metaphysical questions as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" The noumenal world is accessible to reason alone. The phenomenal world is, however, a sensible representation of the noumenal world in which it is grounded. Hence its features must be capable of being understood from a noumenal point of view. Space, time and material bodies are the primary features of the phenomenal world. Space is defined as a set of relations which material bodies have to one another, while time is the relation of the successive states of consciousness of a single monad or "the order of non-contemporaneous things." From the point of view of metaphysics, each monad is a point having no dimension. On the phenomenal level, sensible objects do indeed enjoy spatio-temporal relations, but these relations are not due to the fact that they are located in an absolute space, since it is impossible to determine the location of any phenomenal object without taking into consideration its relation to other objects in its proximity. Thus there is no such thing as an absolute above, to the left of, to the right of and so on. For example, the monitor which faces me as I write is located to the right of the computer and to the left of the printer. But from another vantage point, say that of the printer, the monitor lies between it and the computer while I am to the printer's left.

In contrast to Leibniz, Newton is more concerned with answering the question, "What concepts of space and time do we need for physics?"

9 0 . B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y

than with questions of metaphysics. Newton conceives of space and time as infinite and independent entities. There are, therefore, absolute positions in space and time which are independent of the objects that occupy them. Much of the exchange between Leibniz and Clarke concerns the nature of space. Even one of the major discussions of time brings in space as well. I would like to focus on that exchange for a moment to provide at least a taste of the debate. Leibniz is attacking both the concept of an absolute spacetime and the concept of the void. The two are closely connected, for a void presupposes that space is independent of things located in space and the concept of absolute space at least suggests the possibility of a void. Leibniz provides a summary of his argument in the fifth paper:

In order to prove that space, without bodies, is an absolute reality; the author [Clarke] objected, that a finite material universe might move forward in space. I answered, it does not appear reasonable that the material universe should be finite; and, though we should suppose it to be finite; yet 'is unreasonable it should have motion any otherwise, than as its parts change their situation among themselves; because such a motion would produce n o change that could be observed, and would be without design. 'Is another thing, when its parts change their situation among themselves; for then there is a motion in space; but it consists in the order of relations which are changed. The author replies now, that the reality of motion does not depend upon being observed; and that a ship may go forward, and yet a man, who is in the ship, may not perceive it. I answer, motion does not indeed depend upon being observed; but it does depend upon being possible to be observed. There is no motion, when there is no change that can be observed. And when there is n o change that can be observed, there is n o change at a11.13

Thus Leibniz argues first that a meaningful difference must in principle make a difference in the observable world. To say that God might have created the world a day earlier or have placed it in a different part of space, or that the whole physical universe might move through the void at a given rate of speed, is meaningless unless we can say what observable difference such states of affairs would make. At this point the great rationalist is also a solid empiricist. I t is clear from his argument that for Leibniz events enjoy a spatio-temporal position only through their relations to other events. Time, then, is not an absolute line on which we can locate and date different events. Rather, the time-series is constructed out of the relations of simultaneity and succession which events bear to one another.

Clarke defends Newton on these points by drawing upon the laws of motion, in particular the concept of inertia. He argues that there would be an observable difference if the entire universe were to begin to move,

T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y . 9 1

or were suddenly to stop or if heavenly motion were circular as Aristotle held. He writes:

'Is affirmed, that the motion of the material universe would produce no change at all; and yet no answer is given to the argument I alleged, that a sudden increase or stoppage of the motion of the whole, would give a sensible shock to all the parts: and 'is as evident, that a circular motion of the whole, would produce a vis centrifuga in all the parts. (101)

And later in the same reply, he says with regard to the passage by Leibniz quoted above:

Neither is it sufficient merely to repeat his assertion, that the motion of a finite material universe would be nothing, and (for want of other bodies to compare it with) would produce no discoverable change: unless he could disprove the instance which I gave of a very great change that would happen; viz. that the parts would be sensibly shocked by a sudden acceleration, or stopping of the motion of the whole ... (104-105)

It is difficult to declare either side the winner. It might be argued that some sort of absolute space and time is required for Newton's physics, as Newton himself clearly believed, but that Leibniz' metaphysical discussion is superior. In the light of contemporary relativity physics, however, Leibniz may have won the day. In any case, Leibniz' position is one step toward the conclusion that time is in some sense unreal. Kant takes a further step in this direction while at the same time taking a step back. And Borges appeals to Kant's arguments against the metaphysical reality of time.

According to Kant, space and time are a priori forms, that is, modifications of the mind, under which all sense perception takes place. Space is the form of the perception of outer things, while time is the form of inner experience, the form of consciousness itself.14 Space and time, then, are empirically real since they are the conditions under which sense-experience, in human beings at least, takes place. In this Kant seems to be agreeing with Newton. But space and time are also transcendentally ideal, that is, they are forms originating in the mind and have therefore no independent existence. Here he is in agreement with Leibniz (A28/B44). Kant offers several arguments to support this view. I shall give only those which are somewhat intuitively clear and which apply to time as well as space. The first of these states that space and time are individual wholes which are presupposed by their parts, for all parts of space are parts of one and the same space, just as all moments of time are moments of one and the same time (A25/B39; A32/B48). Kant seems to be maintaining

92 . B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y s

here that any spatial location can be determined only in relation to space as a whole; that each space is a part of one single space and thereby gains its location. In the case of time, any time, whether it be present, past or future, can be located only in one single temporal continuum. A time not so located could not be coherently experienced. These arguments support the contention that space and time are wholes, and they appear to support Newton as well. The second argument, however, withdraws this support for Newton, for it seeks to show that space and time are a priori wholes. This must be so, Kant argues, for although we "can never represent t o ourselves the absence of space,. . . we can quite well think it empty of objects" (A24/B39). In the case of time he observes that we "cannot, in respect of appearances in general, remove time itself, though we can quite well think time as void of appearances" (A31/B46). If Kant is suggesting that we can have intuitions of an empty space and an empty time, he seems clearly to be mistaken. If he means only that we can form concepts of an empty space and an empty time, he may be correct but then the argument does him no good here; for what he wants to show is that we actually experience the apriority of space and time. In my view, Kant is arguing that although we can replace the content of space and time, think it away in the sense of replacing it with other data by, for example, turning our attention to a new empirical field, or remembering or anticipating or imagining something else, we can never alter or "think away" space and time themselves. They are, therefore, the forms under which all perceiving, imagining etc. take place.

The most Kant has shown at this point is that space and time are a priori wholes, forms which the mind contributes to the perception of the empirical world. Thus they are empirically real because we impose them upon the empirical world. He has not shown, however, that they are not also metaphysically real; that is, that the noumenal world of things in themselves does not have spatio-temporal features. Hence he has not yet refuted Newton's theory of absolute space and time. His refutation appears much later in the Critique, in the "Antinomies," where he exhibits the paradoxes which result from maintaining that the world as it is in itself, as contrasted with the empirical world which is, as regards its most general features, our construction, has spatio-temporal features. Let's look at the first antinomy as it concerns time, for it is perhaps the clearest of the four, and it strongly influenced Borges.

Each of the antinomies confronts a thesis with an antithesis, and the form of argument is that of a reductio ad absurdum; that is, the thesis begins by assuming that the antithesis is true, and then goes on to show


the absurdities that result from this assumption. And the antithesis argues against the thesis in the same manner. The thesis of the first antinomy is that the wodd has a beyinning in time, while the antithesis denies that the world has a beginning in time. If there is no beginning in time, then up to the present moment an eternity has elapsed. But the infinity of a series consists in the fact that it can never be completed (A427/B355). Hence it is impossible that an infinite series of temporal events has passed away and the world must have a beginning in time. But in defense of the antithesis consider the thesis that the world has a beginning in time. This means that the world must have come into being at a particular moment of time. But in empty time no coming to be of a thing is possible, "because no part of such a time possesses, as compared with any other, a distinguishing condition of existence rather than of non-existence" (A428/B456). Here Kant echoes one of Leibniz' arguments against Newton; namely, that in empty time there can be no distinction of one moment of time from any other so that coming to be at a particular point in empty time would be impossible. For Kant this means not only that we cannot know whether things as they are in themselves have spatio-temporal characteristics, but also that we can know that they d o not, for the attribution of spatio-temporal characteristics to things in themselves results in the antinomies. It suggests as well, that although they are empirically real by virtue of the fact that we must impose them upon the data of experience, space and time are also metaphysically unreal.

BordesJ CcRef~taton" of Time

In his sympathetic reviews of unsuccessful attempts to deal with time and in his most extended attempt to deal with the problem himself, Borges observes that in the end all these efforts are unsatisfactory. Thus in pursuing or reviewing them, he is once again wandering in labyrinths without getting to the center of the maze. As Borges observes, the title, "A New Refutation of Time," is even more paradoxical than "History of Eternity" (OC, 2: 135-153; 01, 180-199). It is what the logicians call a contradictio in adjecto. But avoiding this contradiction is impossible since to write about the unreality of time, one must use language, and our language is saturated with time. He also remarks that the thesis he is going to expound is as old as the paradoxes of Zeno or the questions of King Milinda. The essay is actually two articles, the second a revision of the first. Borges has simply joined them together in the hope that reading two similar texts might "facilitate the understanding of an undocile subject."


The first essay opens with the observation that throughout a life dedicated to literature "I have perceived or sensed a refutation of time, which I myselfdisbelieve, but which comes t o visit me at night and in the weary dawns with the illusory force of an axiom (my emphasis)." The coupling of "illusory force" with "axiom" suggests once again that there are no self-evident truths but only conventional ones. Nevertheless, the instinct to do metaphysics urges us on. Borges claims to have derived the argument from Berkeley's idealism and Leibniz' principle of the identity of indiscernibles. But the connection between Berkeley and Leibniz is never made quite clear, and Borges' exposition contains some misstatements, particularly concerning Hume.

The fundamental principle of Berkeley's idealism is to be is to be perceived. Berkeley attacks the Cartesian doctrine of material substance that was supposed to account for the continuous and independent existence of sensible objects. Without matter, the sensible world is reduced to the world as it is perceived by minds or "spirits." Nevertheless, Berkeley affirms the continuous existence of sensible objects, and argues that even if we are not perceiving them, God continues to perceive them. Borges' argument then calls upon Hume who, denying all abstract or general ideas, can find no place for matter, God or personal identity.

Berkeley affirmed personal identity because "I myself am not my ideas, but something else, a thinking active principle" (Dialogues, 3). Hume, the skeptic, rehted it and made each man "a bundle or collection of perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity" (Treatise, I, 4, 6; OC, 2: 138; 01,184)

Here Borges affirms too much, for Hume does not claim to have refuted the doctrine of personal identity but merely to be unable to account for it. And this continues to trouble him in the "Appendix" to the Treatise, for without a self or a material substance we are left with a world of evanes- cent impressions. Borges now suggests that if we follow out the logical implications of this critique, it will lead to the denial of the continuity of time:

I deny, with the arguments of idealism, the vast temporal series that idealism admits. Hume has denied the existence of absolute space, in which each thing has its place;l5 I deny the existence of one time, in which all events are linked together. To deny coexistence is no less difficult than to deny succession. (OC, 2: 140; 01, 185)

How is this denial supported? Although he does not mention it, Borges is making use of Hume's claim that the complex can be reduced to the sim-

. T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y - 9 5

ple and that simples are unique and different from one another, for whatever can be distinguished can be separated. He is also making use of the conversation between the Bactrian King Milinda (Meander) and the Buddhist monk Nagasena. One of Buddhism's attractions for Borges is that it is both an idealism and a radical nominalism.16 A second is its denial of the reality of the self or ego. According to the Buddhists, what we in our ignorance imagine to be a self-substance endowed with a personality, wisdom beholds as only five skandhas or aggregates. Anything a person may think of as his own, appropriate or depend on must fall into these five groups which are: material (the physical body as well as material possessions); a feeling; a perception; an impulse; an act of consciousness. The false belief in an individual personality results from the invention of a self over and above these five heaps. In one of the conversations with Nagasena, Milinda questions him about the illusory nature of the self, asking him:

If, most revered Nagasena, no person can be apprehended in reality, who then, I ask you, gives you what you require by way of robes, food, lodging, and med- icines? Who is it that consumes them? Who is it that guards morality, practises meditation, and realizes the [four] Paths and their Fruits, and thereafter Nirvana?. . .For, if there were no person, there could be no merit and no demerit; no doer of meritorious or demeritorious deeds, and no agent behind them; no fruit of good and evil deeds, and no reward or punishment for them. If someone were to kill you, 0 Venerable Nagasena, he would not commit any murder.17

Nagasena replies by asking the King how he came to Nagasena. The King answers that he came by chariot. Nagasena then begins to interrogate the King as to what a chariot is. Is it a pole, the wheels, the yoke, the flagstaff? And he concludes from the King's replies that he can find no chariot at all, just the mere sound "chariot." The King replies that

it is in dependence on the pole, the axle, the wheels, the flagstaff, etc. that there takes place this denomination "chariot", this designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation and a mere name.

And Nagasena concludes:

It is just so with me. In dependence on the thirty-two parts of the body and the five Skandhas there takes place this denomination "Nagasena", this designation, this conceptual term, a current appellation and a mere name.

We have here, in the second century, a clear statement of the radical nominalism of Rocellinus and Hume.

If we combine Hume's description of experience with the nominalism of Nagasena, it is not difficult to see how Borges arrives at his "rehta-

9 6 . B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

tion" of time. Borges introduces Leibniz' principle of the identity of indiscernibles, according to which there cannot be two things in the universe exactly alike, and combines it with a version of the Platonic doctrine of forms. If each state that we live is absolute, then there can be no such thing as contemporaneity or succession. Nor does the recurring memory of one and the same thing, the Recoleta cemetery and one's family in Borges' example, testify to the flow of time. For one thing cannot have a spatio-temporal location which is different from that of another thing without this difference distinguishing them as two different things. Hence where the same thing is remembered, we do not have a passage of time, but the presence of a self-identical Platonic form.

The revision of this first article adds little that is new except for additional references to, for example, Sextus Empiricus, Schopenhauer and Bradley, which strengthen the notion that we are dealing once again with an argument that appears repeatedly throughout history like a Platonic archetype. It does, however, add a much-quoted final paragraph and a "Note to the Prologue." I shall quote the former in full:

And yet, and yet-To deny temporal succession, to deny the ego, to deny the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret assuagements. Our destiny (unlike the hell of Swedenborg and the hell of Tibetan mythology) is not horrible because of its unreality; it is horrible because it is irreversible and iron- bound. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river; it is a tiger that mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, alas, is real; 1, alas, am Borges. (OC, 2: 149; 01, 197)'s

Thus we return to the Heraclitean flux and its ceaseless passage but with a difference, for here Borges recognizes that he is this passage and not merely its victim. The "Note to the Prologue" underscores this recognition, for it recounts briefly the encounter between Milinda and Nagasena. Finally, there is an enigmatic coda drawn from the great German mystic, Angelus Silesius. The Spanish text as well as the English translation give it in the original German, which underscores its hermetic character.

Freund, es i n auchgenug. Zm Fall du mehr willst hen,

Sogeh und werde selbst die Schrift und selbst das Wesen.

Angelus Silesius, Cherubinischer Wandersmann (1675), W, 263.

Friend it's now sufficient. In case you wish to read more, Then go and become yourself the text and essence.


- O T H E R T I M E S *

The notion of time's passage and the image of time as a river, as well as the debate as to whether time is absolute or relational, are discussed for the most part within the conceptual framework bequeathed to us by Aristotle and developed by Newton-the concept of time as linear. There are, however, other conceptions of time of which at least three are relevant to Borges' concerns.

Space-Time

I have already quoted briefly from Minkowski's paper on space-time. We must now consider his proposal a little more carefully, though not in technical detail, for it has some interesting connections to Borges. According to Newtonian mechanics, the world changes from moment to moment, but at any given moment the world is in a well-defined (though not fully known) state commonly referred to as "now." Hence for most of us, though we may know nothing of Tibet or Tasmania or Mars, it still makes sense to ask what might be happening in any of these places now, that is, at the same time that we are asking the question. Einstein's special theory of relativity challenges this assumption. According to Einstein, the only thing in the universe which is not relative to the standpoint of the observer-the one thing which remains constant for all observers-is the speed of light.19 What this means can be seen more clearly if we imagine that we are chasing an object. Suppose my daughter has just left my house and is heading home in her car. She has forgotten some important items and I go out to try and catch her. Though I may not succeed in overtaking her, I at least hope to diminish the rate at which she is receding from me by virtue of my own motion toward her. Thus the relative speed between me and her car disappearing in the distance clearly depends upon my own state of motion. If, however, we replace my daughter's car by a pulse of light, this no longer holds. No matter how much effort I put into overtaking the light pulse, I can make no gain, for its speed remains constant and is not affected by or relative to my own state of motion.

One important consequence of the constancy of the speed of light is that the notion of an absolute present-a "now" that refers to the present of all observers-must be given up. Suppose, for example, that an astro- naut conducts an experiment with pulses of light at the moment that he passes by an earthbound colleague. At this moment he sends two pulses of light in opposite directions, toward the front and toward the rear of his

98 - B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

spaceship. He sees both pulses strike the ends of the ship at the same time, for the tremendous speed of the spaceship relative to the earth has no effect on the speed of the light pulses as observed from the rocket. The observer on earth also sees the two pulses of light travel at the same speed relative to him, but from his frame of reference the rocket is in motion- the front end appears to be retreating from its pulse while the rear end is advancing to meet its pulse and the rear pulse arrives first. Hence the two events, which are simultaneous when viewed from the rocket, are not simultaneous when viewed from the earth. This means that simultaneity, the now, has no universal meaning. Hence some events may appear as past to one observer, present to a second, and in the future to a third.

Time dilation appears to open up the theoretical possibility of time travel. This possibility recalls Borges' two pieces on Coleridge as well as his fondness for Wells' The Time Machine. But there are at least two obstacles to time travel. First "it would consume enough energy to power our present technology for millions of years" (Davies, 42). Second,

a sequence of two causally connected events will always be witnessed in the same order. If the firing gun causes the target to smash, then no observer, irrespective of his state of motion, will see the target smash before the gun is fired. The correct causal relationship is only maintained, though, because of the rule that observers cannot break the light barrier and travel at superluminal speeds.. . .The causal chaos threatened by visiting one's own past seems to be a fictional possibility only (my emphasis). (Davies, 42-43)20

This would no doubt be welcomed by Borges who, though he indulges in fictional excursions of this kind, seems to be committed to the destiny created by past events.

A second point of interest is Minkowski's proposal that we cease thinking of space and time and think instead about spacetime. Davies suggests that one intuitive way of understanding spacetime is to consider the spacetime extension of the human body, which has both extension in space, a certain height, and duration in time, a certain number of years. What is important here is that the two extensions are interdependent.

A neat way of looking at this is to think of his physical length and the duration of his life as being merely projections onto space and time respectively of his more fundamental spacetime extension. As always with a projection, the extension of the image depends on the angle to the object, and this remains true in spacetime as well as space. (Davies, 43)

In this picture of the universe the past and the hture are just as real as the present, since no universal division into past, present and future can be

. T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y - 99

made. Spacetime, then, is not unlike a Platonic archetype which fixes the everchanging phenomenal world in a static intellectual format. Hence Minkowski's spacetime is in the mathematical sense, that is, tenselessly, as we used this term earlier in our discussion of "eternity." As Moritz Schlick puts it:

One may not, for example, say that a point traverses its world-line; or that the three-dimensional section which represents the momentary state of the actual present, wanders along the time-axis through the four-dimensional world. For a wandering of this kind would have to take place in time; and time is already represented within the model and cannot be introduced again from the outsidc21

Hence relations between events such as past and future and simultaneity, length and interval are functions of the observer who perceives them. Hence there is no longer a precise division between what is subjective and what is objective. In Borges' terms one might say that there is no longer a clear distinction between fiction and reality.

Subjective Time

"And yet and yet,'' what has been left out of this picture, though it is represented statically, is the passage of time that I seem to be, Plato's moving image of eternity as well as the river of time of Heraclitus and Augustine. This image of time as passing is not without its problems. If time is nothing but a relation between spatial things as Leibniz held, then there can be no sense in talking of time as passing because time is nothing in and of itself. Nor does the notion of absolute time sanction the notion that time itself moves or passes. Motion in space is motion with respect to time. But the passage or motion of time could hardly be a motion of time with respect to time. It would have to be a motion in respect to a hypertime. And if flow or passage is the essential nature of time, it would presumably characterize hypertime as well and we would be involved in an infinite regress. In short, if absolute time were itself a passage, it would require a second absolute time in which it moved and on to infinity.

However, to say that time itself doesn't change does not entirely dispel our "experience'' of passage with regard to things in time. Once again Augustine's questions echo in our minds. By virtue of what do things change if not by being in different states at different times? Perhaps the most common way of dealing with an experience of temporal succession-and by that I mean an experience of a succession in time and not a succession of time itself-which cannot be integrated into world time, is


to treat it as "merely psychological" or purely subjective. This distinction between my private time and public time is a common distinction that we all make. For example, the drive from my home to San Francisco normally takes about an hour and fifteen minutes as measured by a clock which "numbers" my motion through space. But if I drive alone, I invariably experience the trip as being much longer than if I am conversing with a companion. One of Borges' stories which might be read as exploring this distinction is "The Other Death," which relates the story of Pedro Damiin who died a coward's death only to have it overturned (OC, 1 571-575; CF, 223-238).

Pedro Damiin followed the bands of Aparacio Saravia, participated in the battle of Masoller and, having returned to work in the fields, never again left his province. On dying of a pulmonary congestion, he relived, in his delirium, that bloody day. The narrator, who is clearly Borges because of the personal allusions in his commentary, hears that Don Pedro Damiin has died. He receives this news in a letter from his friend Gannon, who tells him that he is translating Emerson's poem "The Past." The narrator wants to write a fantastic tale based on the defeat at Masoller and goes to see Colonel Tabares who had commanded Damiin's company. Tabares recalls that the young and inexperienced Damiin had acted less than courageously. The narrator visits the Colonel a second time and encounters Doctor Juan Francisco Amaro who tells him that Damiin died a hero. The Colonel himself no longer recalls Damiin. Back in Buenos Aires the narrator runs into Gannon. He asks him for his translation of Emerson's poem. Gannon replies that he has no translation in mind. When he is reminded about the letter in which he mentioned both the translation and Damiin's death, he asks the narrator who Damiin is. Damiin becomes more and more abstract. "I tried to call to mind Damiin's features; months later, leafing through some old albums, I found that the dark face I had attempted to evoke really belonged to the famous tenor Tamberlik, playing the role of Othello."

We pass now to conjectures, for example, that of Ulrike von Kuhlmann who maintained that Damiin died in the battle but begged the Lord that he return him to Entre Nos. Since he was already dead and since God could not change the past, He allowed him to exist as a shadow who lived apart from the world and died in 1946. The narrator, however, has read in the treatise De Omnipotentia of Pier Damiani that it is within God's power to make what once was into something that never has been. The narrator then conjectures that there had been two deaths. In his agony in 1946 Damiin relived his battle and conducted himself as a man.


Perhaps the clearest treatment of the distinction between psychological time and world or public time occurs in "The Secret Miracle" which opens with the following epigraph (OC, 1: 508-513; CF, 157-162):

And God caused to him die for a hundred years, and then raised him to life. And God said, How long hast thou waited? He said, I have waited a day or part of a day.

Qur'an 11, 2, 261

Insofar as it is concerned with time, the story inverts the epigraph. But it is also about the power of literature, for it is through his art that Jaromir Hladik makes time stop. Finally, the story can be read as another variation on the theme of the impossibility of distinguishing clearly between dream and reality, though the two are distinguished here through their temporal order and that is what concerns us for the moment.

Hladik is in Prague, the city of Kafka, and the first paragraph recalls the style of The Trial. This paragraph also contains a reference to the German mystic Jakob Bohme (1575-1624), which raises some doubt as to whether we should take Hladik's temporal distortion as merely subjective. It relates Hladik's dream of a game of chess whose stakes had been forgotten but which were rumored to be enormous and perhaps infinite. The game had been going on for centuries and the pieces and the chessboard were in a secret tower. The dreamer races over the sands of a "rainy desert," unable to recall either the rules or the pieces of the game. It was dawn and the noise of the Third Reich's entry into Prague awakens Hladik from his slumber.

Hladik's destiny is, as we might expect, rooted in his ancestors: his mother's family name was Jaroslavski; he was of Jewish blood; his study on Bohme had a Jewish emphasis; and he had signed the protest against the Anschluss. Hladik has also translated the Sepher Yezirah and his publisher has exaggerated his fame for purposes of publicity. This was enough to lead Julius Rothe to have Hladik sentenced to death pour encourajer les autres. The date of the execution was fixed for a few days later owing to the desire of the authorities "to proceed impersonally and slowly, after the manner of vegetables and plants"-a phrase which recalls the operations of the Company in "The Lottery" as well as the role that chance plays in destiny.

Paragraph three returns to Hladik's mind, not to his dream but to his fervid imagination and his terror of being shot. Hladik reflects that reality does not usually coincide with our anticipations. "Trusting in this weak magic, he invented, so that they would not happen, the most gruesome


details." Hladik's other books-among which was a work on Fludd-had lefi him with a feeling of repentance. His Vindication of Eternity was perhaps an exception. At what is to be his last twilight his thoughts turn to his unfinished drama, The Enemies. This, of all his work, is the one piece which Hladik feels might redeem his otherwise colorless life. Although we could skip most of the details to get directly to the interruption of time, the discussion of the play contains so many Borgesian elements that it would be a pity not to review it briefly.

The work is written in verse because that form makes it impossible for the spectators to lose sight of irreality, which is the condition of art. Its plot observes the Aristotelian unities of time, place and action, which may suggest that it is satisfactory in form but lacking in content. The scene takes place at twilight in the library of Baron von Roemerstadt. Roemerstadt is visited by a strange man and this visitor is followed by others who are equally unknown. But Roemerstadt has the uncomfortable feeling that he has seen them before, perhaps in a dream. They fawn upon him but both Roemenrstadt and the audience divine that these people are secret enemies. During the dialogue we learn of Roermerstadt's sweet- heart, Julia von Wiedenau, and of Jaroslav Kubin, who at one time pressed his attentions upon her. Roemerstadt loses his mind, believes he is Kubin and kills one of the conspirators. In the third and final act the inco- herencies increase: actors who had disappeared reappear; someone points out that evening has not yet arrived; the first actor enters and Roemerstadt speaks to him with familiarity. Thus the audience understands that Roemerstadt is Kubin. "The drama has never taken place; it is the circular delirium that Kubin lives and relives endlessly." Hence in a story which supposedly hinges on the distinction between psychological time and real time, the theme of circular time is introduced. Hladik has finished only the first act and sketched out the second and third. He asks God to grant him a year in which to finish his drama.

Toward dawn, that other Heraclitean twilight, Hladik dreams that he has concealed himself in one the naves of the Clementine Library, whose name recalls that of Funes' mother. The librarian asks what is he is looking for and Hladik answers, "I am looking for God." The librarian replies that God is somewhere in the four hundred thousand pages of the Clementine. He himself has grown blind seeking it. At that moment a reader enters to return an atlas that he deems to be worthless. Hladik opens it at random, sees a map of India, and touches one of the smallest letters. A ubiquitous voice tells him: "The time of your labor has been granted," and Hladik awakens.


The next morning Hladik is arrested and brought before the firing squad. The order is given to fire, but the men who are to kill him stand motionless.

He had asked God for an entire year in which to finish his work; His omnipo- tence had granted him a year. God had performed for him a secret miracle: the German bullet would kill him, at the determined hour, but in Hladik's mind a year pass between the order to fire and the discharge of the rifles. From perplex- ity Hladik moved to stupor, from stupor to resignation, from resignation to sudden gratitude. (OC, 1: 512; SF, 161-162)

Hladik, the narrator tells us, was working neither for God, "whose literary tastes were unknown," nor for posterity. This suggests that Hladik's literary labors were the source of this miracle. At any rate, the line between personal psychological time and the time of objective events seems clearly drawn. For although one year elapses in Hladik's mind, he dies on March 29, at 9:02 A.M.

There is, however, a second possible reading of these stories. At the end of our discussion of "The Garden of Forking Paths." I suggested that there is an interpretation of quantum mechanics which sounds very much like the labyrinth of Ts'ui P h . Instead of assuming that the other worlds of quantum mechanics are merely potential realities Everett proposes that these other universes actually exist and are every bit as real as the one we inhabit.

Many of the other worlds are very similar to our own, differing only in the condition of a few atoms. These contain individuals virtually indistinguishable from ourselves in body and mind, acting out almost parallel existences.. . . Not all the other worlds are inhabited by our other selves, though. In some of them, the branching paths lead away to a premature death. In still more, no birth will have occurred, while others may have deviated so far from the world of our experience that no life of any kind is possible. (Davies, 138-139)

Hence it remains an open question: has Hladik has imprisoned himself in subjective time and Dami6n has modified the past is to create two universal histories, or has each entered into a second, parallel world?

Cyclical Time

The notion of cyclical time persists throughout Borges' oeuvre. It underlies the repetition of Platonic forms in the essays on Coleridge and Keats, and it is implied in the doctrine that one man or one author is all men or all authors. Then there is the suggestion with which the "Library" ends; namely that the "Library is unlimited and cyclical." Hence it is tempting


to conclude that Borges himself prefers some sort of cyclical theory of time. It is interesting, therefore, in one of the places in which he treats the doctrine of the cycles in detail, to see him criticizing that doctrine, at least as i t is put forth by Nietzsche.

In "The Doctrine of the Cycles" Borges presents the doctrine of eternal return as follows:22

The number of all the atoms which make up the world is immeasurable yet finite and only capable of a finite, though also immeasurable, number of permutations. In an infinite amount of time the number of possible permutations must be reached, and the universe will have to repeat itself. Once again you will be born of a womb, once again your skeleton will grow, once again this same page will arrive at your hands, once again you will run through all the hours until that of your death.

Borges now goes on to refute this thesis by enlisting Cantor's work on set theory and transfinite numbers. It can be shown, he points out correctly, not only that the series of natural numbers is infinite, but that its subsets, the series of odd numbers and the series of even numbers, are also infinite. And the same thing is true of points; that is, between any two points an infinite number of points can be intercalated. Hence he concludes that if the universe consists in an infinite number of terms, an eternal return remains a mere possibility, computable as zero.

As facile as this refutation may seem, it begs the question, for the thesis maintains that there is a finite amount of matter, force or energy in the universe. The theory of transfinite numbers, then, would have no consequences whatsoever for this thesis unless it could be shown that it is a correct description of the material world. And the same holds for the infinity of mathematical points between any two such points. Once again it would have to be shown that this mathematical description of space coincides with material extension. Borges also does not seem to get the importance of Cantor's theory quite right. In both cases the assumption is made that there is a series of steps to be run through and that they must be run through successively and one at a time. If this is the case, Zeno cannot be refuted. But this is precisely what Cantor denies, for since there are an infinite number of points between any two points, the notion of a next point is without meaning. There is, however, a simpler and more powerful refutation of Nietzsche's thesis that assumes the quantity of matter to be finite. In his book, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche: Ein Vortragszyklus, Georg Simmel shows that even if there were very few things in an infinite time, they would not have to repeat the same configurations.23


In "Circular Time" Borges seeks to define three hndamental versions of the doctrine of the eternal return.24 The first is found in Plato's Timaeus, 39, which affirms that the seven planets having become equal in their velocities, will regress to their initial point of departure. He fails to remind his reader, however, that this dialogue, dealing as it does with the world of becoming, is at best a likely story, and that it is Timaeus and not Socrates-the symbol of reason and truth-who tells the story in a long monologue The second version is found in Hume, Nietzsche, Louis Auguste Blanqui and Bertrand Russell. Borges claims to be translating Hume literally but he omits out an important qualification. The full text has Phi10 speaking as follows:

For instance; what if I should revive the old EPICUREAN hypothesis? This is commonly, and I believe, justly, esteemed the most absurd system, that has yet been proposed [my emphasis]; yet I know not, whether, with a few alterations, it might not be brought to bear a faint appearance of probability. Instead of supposing matter infinite, as EPICURUS did; let us suppose it finite. (Dialogues, Part 8).

The argument continues in Nietzschean fashion. Borges goes on to cite a similar formulation in Russell (An Inquiry into Meanin. and Truth), again without mentioning that this is not a view that Russell himself actually held. Finally, we arrive at the third and least threatening version of this doctrine: the view that there is a repetition of similar but not identical cycles. It is Borges' favorite version and he cites several formulations.

In the second essay Borges adjusts the doctrine of the cycles so that it brings together a number of his concerns. The river of Heraclitus, which is constantly changing so that it is impossible to step into the same river twice, is now interpreted cyclically by making the recurring cycles similar to but not identical with one another. Thus Borges preserves the nominalism of Hume and Rocellinus as well as the monads of Leibniz, while making them con~patible with the cyclical repetition of Platonic archetypes. Like the books of the Library, no two lives are identical but, for the most part, they differ so little that it is difficult if not impossible to tell them apart. The thoughts contained in this essay also rethink the notions of time and eternity so as to make them amenable to one another, for the river of change that we call "time," repeats itself eternally.

Borges' most famous literary statement of the doctrine of the cycles is undoubtedly "The Circular Ruins" (OC, 1: 451455; CF, 96-100). Since i t is so well-known, and since Borges himself expresses a certain distaste for it in his later years, I shall merely outline the plot without much detail or commentary.25 He mentions in several places his encounter with a


young student at the University of Texas who asked him whether "The Golem" was not actually a repetition of "The Circular Ruins." He confesses that he had never realized that this was in fact the case.26 There is, however, also a difference, since, the Rabbi intended to create a servant, while the magician of the "Ruins" wanted to create a perfect human being.

The story is based on the idealist thesis as Borges often states it. I t contains a number of the inversions and symmetries: above/below; dream/reality; tiger/horse; fire/water; superior/inferior; two temples, two men and two fires. A man arrives from the South, which we now recognize as the place of destiny. He comes from a place where his language, Zend-as in the Zend Avesta, the principal writings of Zoroastricism- has not been contaminated by Greek. He goes to a circular area, whose shape recalls the sphere of the Library. His proposal is to dream a man and to impose reality upon the product of his dream. His dreaming takes place in the ccnter of a circular amphitheater. This magical project exhausts entirely the space of his ego and he experiences a number of failures. He comes to understand that his task is the most arduous of tasks, and before taking it up again he waits until the moon is a perfect circle, bathes in the waters of the river, and utters the prescribed syllables of an all-powerful name.

Finally he dreams a young man but the young man can hardly stand. The magician throws himself at the foot of a stone statue that might have been the image of a tiger or a stallion. That night he dreams his image as alive and the god represented by the statue reveals itself to the dreamer. Its earthly name is fire and in the circular temple and others like it sacrifices had been made to it. Through its power the phantom of the dreamer will awaken to life in such a way that everyone but the god and the dreamer will accept him as a man of flesh and blood. The god orders that once he has been instructed in the rites, the disciple shall be sent down- stream to another ruined temple. The magician takes two years to carry out these orders. The dreamer worries about his absent creature as a father worries about his son. Then one day he sees a far off cloud, then a rosy hue and then the panic of the animals. What had happened many centuries ago is happening again. The flames close in on the magician but they merely caress him, and he realizes that he is also an appearance, that someone else is dreaming him.27

Despite the interesting features of each of these theories of time, none of them supplies much in the way of metaphysical knowledge. Each proceeds on the tacit assumption that its concept of time is basic, and then

. T I M E A N D E T E K N I T Y . 107

goes on to articulate that concept. But none demonstrates that its view describes-not a particular aspect of reality as it appears to us, under the guise of physical or psychological reality, for example-but ultimate reality as it is in itself. Hence we are left with only diverse opinions. Faced with a reality which resists our attempts to decipher it once and for all, we can only turn to ourselves to seek the bedrock of the really real.

The Self and Its Avatms

To MANY OF HIS FELLOW ARGENTINE and Latin Americans, Borges represents the aestheticism of Europe and North America rather then the social activism of many of his compatriots. This perception originated in a literary feud that dates back to 1924. Jaime Alazraki sums up the matter as follows:

This chapter of local literary history is known as the "Boedo-Florida Polemic." Each group adopted the name of the territory in Buenos Ares that represented its political affinities: Boedo was the quarter of the working class and the political left, and Florida, on the other hand, was the downtown heart of the elite. Although there were personal references to writers from both groups, the actual conflict was confined to the perception of literature defended or attacked by each group: Florida propagated and aped the experiments and prescriptions of avant-garde trends, and Boedo defended the need for social commitment in art. In spite of his early poems in praise of the Bolshevik Revolution, Borges sided with the first group.1

There is certainly a good deal of evidence that Borges took a purely aesthetic position with regard t o his work and to literature in general. Thus in his conversations with Milleret he remarks:

I thought, above all, of the literary possibilities of idealist philosophy, shall we say, more than of its intrinsic merits. This does not mean necessarily that I believe in the philosophy of Berkeley or Schopenhauer.. . I believe I was thinking more of the alchemy of unreality of the material world as a subject usable by literature (72).

And in the essay "The Nothingness of Personality" he says that his intention is to demolish the preeminence accorded the self today, and to show that the notion of personality is merely the result of habit, having no metaphysical foundation whatsoever. He then says that he will

apply to literature the consequences that issue from these premises, and erect upon them an aesthetic hostile to the psychologism inherited from the last cen-


tury, sympathetic to the classics, yet encouraging to today's most unruly tendencies.2

We have also seen evidence of this attitude in the most impressive work of his middle years. In "Tlon" metaphysics is a branch of fantastic literature and the philosopher does not seek truth but rather to astound. And in the essay on Dunne he suggests that the splendor of Dunne's thesis over- comes whatever fallacies it might contain. Finally, in the "Epilogue" to Other Inquisitions, he seems to place himself quite clearly in the role of aesthete noting that in these essays he has evaluated religious and philosophical ideas on the basis of their aesthetic worth. Borges also suggests that he proceeds primarily through the manipulation and recombination of a few themes and images. In an interview with James Irby he remarks: "Everything I have done is in Poe, Stevenson, Wells, Chesterton and someone else."3 Elsewhere he speaks as if his art is an ars conzbinatoria, which is almost mechanical in nature. He suggests, for example, that an artificial poet, a mechanical poet, who creates verses through a combina- tory process is not inconceivable, and that perhaps the ancients encountered this machine under the names "Homer" or "Virgil."4 From these remarks one might conclude that Borges is primarily a formalist who is more concerned with the manipulation of images and themes, than with the substance of the theological and metaphysical themes which recur in his work. In this vein John Sturrock writes:

There is not much to be gained from listing the authors in other languages whom Borges has read and written about. They tend to be from the nineteenth or early twentieth century and to make, these days, a rather eccentric collection.5

Such a view certainly makes the work of the commentator a good deal easier. I will argue, however, that Borges rejects both an isolated aestheticism and a literature of engagement. To accept the former, one must be able to separate art from life, while to accept the latter, one must be able to absolutize a cause-to become an idealogue. Borges could do neither.

. T H E S E L F A S A E S T H E T E -

The notion of lJart pour Part had its immediate antecedents in the nineteenth century, when painting and literature ceased to be regarded as representations or imitations of an external reality and became instead autonomous creations which rivaled reality. Thus the artistic function itself became an object of scrutiny. Redon's works had no model but

. T H E S E L F A N D I T S A V A T A R S . 11 1

themselves, Ctzanne painted paintings about painting, and Mallarmt and Valtry were obsessed with the meaning and nature of the creative act through which they sought to abolish the objective world and reveal the ideal. As self-representation came to replace the representation of external reality, music came to represent the self-sufficiency to which all the arts were taken to aspire. Maurice Denis summed up this fascination of art with itself by reminding his audience "that before being a war horse, a nude woman, or telling any story whatever, a painting essentially consists of a plane surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order."6 This is often taken to mean that artistic significance has nothing whatever to do with real life. It is this independence of art from life which supposedly constitutes art as a fundamental kind of expression not reducible to any other form of human activity. In this view the artist is concerned primarily with the creation of those purely formal values which are intrinsic to his art. The successful work, in turn, should unify the viewer's attention so that he contemplates it as it is immediately given to him, thus avoiding the tendency to "read into'' the work meaning and expression which are extrinsic to its formal structure. And if we follow this line of thought to its apparent conclusion, we shall have to agree with Clive Bell that the diverse objects which we call "art" have one and only one thing in common. "In each, lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. These relations and combinations of lines and colours, these aesthetically moving forms, I call 'Significant Form'; and 'Significant Form' is the one quality common to all works of visual art. (Art, S)." Because it is not the function of art to represent objects or events, express emotions or convey ideas which are drawn from life, the formalist can conclude: "To appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions.. .nothing but a sense of form and colour and a knowledge of three-dimensional space (25-27)." But it is one thing to insist upon a measure of independence of art from life and quite another to reduce artistic significance to the formal arrangement of the artist's materials. Denis' admonition does not call for such a reduction.

Formalism attempts to dissociate the work of art from the idiosyncrasies of the artist, the viewer and the setting in which it was created in order to take it as an end-in-itself. However, a brief consideration of those formal elements cited by Bell reveals the impossibility of such a dissocia- tion and confirms the central thesis of E. H. Gombrich's A r t and Illusion, that in art, as in life, there is no naive eye. Consider the case of color. Newton discovered that white light when passed through a prism fans out


into a band of colors. When he reversed this process, the colors vanished and white light reappeared. And when he combined only two bands of color, a third color was produced. Edward Land has shown, however, that what is true for the mixture of simple colored lights does not hold when color represents objects. Land repeated Newton's color mixing experiment using black and white transparencies instead of simple lights.7 His procedure was to make photographic negatives of the same scene through different color filters. Next the negatives were processed into transparencies. These were then projected onto a screen through their original filters to give two super-imposed images. Using only red and white, for example, one would expect nothing but pink in varying degrees of saturation. But Land found that with the negatives in place a whole range of colors is obtained. Furthermore Land was also able to produce such colors as brown, which cannot be produced by mixing simple colored lights. Thus it appears that when colored lights are arranged in complex patterns and, more importantly, when they represent objects, we see a greater wealth of color.

When we turn to the perception of form, the situation is complicated by a number of considerations. It is a fact of geometrical optics that an image doubles in size when our distance from it is halved. But although the image grows as the distance decreases, it continues to look almost the same size. This can be seen by placing one hand at arm's length and another at about half the distance of the first. Both hands appear to be about the same size and it is only when we bring the nearer hand to over- lap the further that they come to look quite different.8 One explanation for this is the phenomenon of size constancy which Descartes described quite accurately in the Dioptrics.9 The phenomenon of shape constancy was also known to Descartes, and psychologists have since investigated the constancy of brightness as well. Our ability to compensate for changes in distance, position and brightness suggests that the mind contributes something to perception. The nature and degree of contribution has been a matter of debate among philosophers and psychologists, but if past experience contributes anything at all to how we read artistic form, the formalist account of aesthetic experience must be modified.

Finally, consider artistic space, the third of Bell's pure formal elements. Can a work of art direct us to an unambiguous reading of its space, one which does not depend upon its cultural setting and the past experience of the viewer? To answer this question Erwin Panofsky asks us to consider a pre-iconographical description of Roger van der Weyden's Three M a ~ i in which the apparition of a small child is seen in the sky.

. T H E S E L F A N D I T S A V A T A R S - 113

What assures us that the child is to be read as an apparition? His halo of golden rays is not sufficient evidence, for such halos also appear in representations of the Nativity, where the Infant Jesus is meant t o be read as "real." We recognize the child as an apparition only because he hovers in mid-air, and he appears to hover only because he is surrounded by empty space with no visible means of support. Yet there are other cases in art in which human beings and inanimate objects are surrounded by empty space without seeming to float unsupported in the air. In the Gospels of Otto a whole city is surrounded by empty space while the figures taking part in the action rest on solid ground. Yet the city does not float like the figure in the van der Weyden painting because in a miniature of this period empty space does not function as a three-dimensional medium but serves as an abstract background. Thus while we believe we are reading the painting as it is "immediately presented" to us, "we are really reading 'what we see' according to the manner in which objects and events are expressed by forms under varying historical conditions. In doing this we subject our practical experience to a corrective principle which may be called the history of style."lO

The World as a Book

Mallarmt maintained that the transformation of the world into a book would give a semblance of meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence. Borges traces the background of Mallarmt's project in "On the Cult of Books" (OC, 2: 91-94; 01,121-126). He opens his discussion by observing that in Book 8 of the Odyssey we are told that the gods weave misfor- tunes into the pattern of events to make a song for h ture generations to sing and that Mallarmt's statement repeats, thirty centuries later, the same aesthetic justification for evil. Borges remarks that for us a book is a sacred object but that it was not always so. He cites Plato's distrust ofwriting and his insertion into the Phaedrusof an Egyptian fable that characterizes writing as dangerous since it causes people to neglect memory and to depend on symbols." And he suggests that it was perhaps out of a mistrust of writing that Plato invented the dialogue. He then illustrates the beginning of the process that would ultimately lead to the domination of writing over speaking. In Book 6 of the Confession Augustine writes of Arnbrose reading silently rather than speaking the words out loud.

When Ambrose read, his eyes moved over the pages, and his soul penetrated the meaning, without his uttering a word or moving his tongue. Many times-for no one was forbidden to enter, or announced to him-we saw him reading


silently and never otherwise, and after a while we would go away, conjecturing that during the brief interval he used to refresh his spirit, free from the tumult of the business of others, he did not wish to be disturbed .... (OC, 2: 92; 01, 122)

According to Borges, this act of progressing directly from the written symbol to intuitive perception led ultimately to the concept of the book as an end-in-itself. He cites a number of examples, many of which are already familiar to us: The Koran understood as an attribute of God, the cabalists' Sepher Yetzirah, the medieval notion of two books, the written one of God and that of His servant Nature. With the triumph of nominalism the intimate link between the word and its meaning is severed. This rupture leads inevitably to Flaubert and Mallarmk, Henry James and James Joyce. Although Borges does not specifically endorse Mallarmk's project, he may see it in the same light as nominalism, as an "acquired axiom." The importance of the book and of literature has been stressed throughout much of our discussion.

I suggested that one of the central metaphors underlying Borges' work is the Library. This is confirmed in "The Library of Babel" where the Library is a metaphor for the universe. We have seen that the Library also played an important role in Borges' life. In addition to the importance of his father's library, libraries were the scene of personal defeat and triumph, for Borges was dismissed by Per6n from his post at the Miguel Cant branch of the Municipal Library, while his appointment as National Librarian came after Per6n's fa11.12 Literature both informs and deceives. The Library is the repository of all knowledge; yet its incessant light is insufficient. This insufficiency is underscored by a number of factors. First there is the unending search for the Book, the man of the Book or the Crimson Hexagon, each of which holds out the unfulfilled promise of a clue to the meaning of the whole. Next there is the fact that no two books are identical and that their titles do not indicate their content. Finally, there is the suggestion at the end of the story that the order of the library is born of chance, and this suggests in turn that books may be a source of distortion. "The Lottery of Babylon" is about a society founded entirely upon chance and the arbitrary character of social customs also appears in literature. The Company does not answer complaints directly but prefers "to scrawl in the rubbish of a mask factory, a brief statement which now figures in the sacred scriptures." Furthermore, the literature of Babylon is systematically populated with distortion. "No book is published without some discrepancy in each one of the copies. Scribes take a secret oath to omit, to interpolate, to change." The central thesis of "Tlon" is our

. T H E S E L F A N D I T S A V A T A R S . 115

inability to draw a clear distinction between fiction and reality. The story begins with an encyclopedia, a library in miniature and putatively the "book of the world," which is piratical, and in the end a false book takes over and remolds the "world." In "The Garden of Forking Paths" it is in a newspaper article that the Germans will read the name of the artillery park of the allies. Yu Tsun comes across that name by chance in a telephone book. And the labyrinth of Ts'ui Pen turns out to be a book which offers multiple readings, none of which can ever be definitive. The deceptive nature of the book is further underscored in "Death and the Compass." Lonnrot seeks to find a definitive clue to Yarmolinsky's murder in the latter's literary work. But these texts turn out to be an uncertain guide since Red Scharlach reads them in a different manner and arranges events so that they coincide with Lonnrot's expectations. In "The Secret Miracle," on the other hand, the library is both a place of clemency and accidental enlightenment for Hladik, whose literature enables him to stay or alter the events of the "real world." Finally, "Averroes' Search" is concerned primarily with the interpretation of texts. And its message is that the nature of a text depends in upon the experience which the reader brings with him to the story.

MallarmC expected from his readers an effort similar to his own, namely, that they become manipulators of language in their own right, constructing for their own enjoyment the drama of the poems. In aesthetic theory Borges also places the role of the reader first for both personal and theoretical reasons. Throughout his comments on his work, in interviews, critical essays and his "Autobiographical Essay," he emphasizes the fact that he has always been a greater reader than a writer (E.g., Burgin, 20). This primacy of reading over writing also influences both how and what one reads. In the "Essay" Borges discusses his encounter with the Quixote, which he first read in English:

When I later read Don Quixote in the original, it sounded like a bad translation to me. I still remember those red volumes with the gold lettering of the Garnier edition. At some point, my father's library was broken up, and when I read the Quixote in another edition I had the feeling that it wasn't the real Quixote. Later, I had a friend get me the Garnier, with the same steel engravings, the same footnotes, and also the same errata. All those things form part of the book for me; this I consider the real Quixote. (209-210)

This emphasis upon the primacy of the reader and his idiosyncrasies is also reflected in his attitude toward what one "ought" to read. In an interview his wife, Maria Kodama, recounts Borges' advice on this subject:

1 16 - B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y

He always advised that in no way should we continue reading a book which does not please us, because this is not the moment or the author cannot be our friend due to temperament. Literature, above all poetry but art in general, must be felt almost physically.13

This does not mean that art must please, for when Burgin asks him whether he means the experience of art must be pleasurable, Borges replies: "Well, pleasure, I don't know, but you should get a kick out of it, no?" (137).

There are also theoretical reasons for asserting the primacy of the reader over the author, the critic and the work itself, since for each of us the initial point of entry into the work is our reading of it. The critic must first be a reader and the author must also be a critic of his own work. In the essay on Shaw, however, Borges makes his views known with such clarity that they need no additional comment. He first observes that a book is more than a verbal structure. It is an infinite dialogue with the reader as well as the peculiar accent he gives to its voice, and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. That dialogue is infinite because literature is inexhaustible.

Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read. If I were able to read any contemporary page-this one, for example-as it would be read in the year 2000, I would know what literature would be like in the year 2000. (OC, 2: 125; 01,172-173)

Thus although Borges sometimes seems to suggest that the function of art is to transform reality by creating a second reality which is taken as an end-in-itself, the primacy he ascribes to the reader puts in doubt the very notion of a text as it is "in itself."

Symbol and Allegory

The ambiguity of Borges' position on the relation between art and life is clearly present in his discussions of symbol and allegory in literature. He devotes parts of two essays to this issue. I t is an important issue for an understanding of Borges' views on his art, because it is also a reflection of the dispute between nominalism and realism as Borges himself points out. In "From Allegories to Novels" (OC, 2: 122-124; OX, 163-166) he observes:

T H E S E L F A N D I T S A V A T A R S . 117

For all of us the allegory is an aesthetic error. (My first impulse was t o write "the allegory is nothing more than an error of aesthetics," but then I noticed that an allegory had crept into my sentence.) .... Croce denies the allegorical art; Chesterton vindicates it. I agree with the former, but I should like to know how a form we consider unjustifiable could have enjoyed so much favor. (OC, 2: 122; OX, 163)

Croce argues that if the symbol is inseparable from the artistic intuition, it is a synonym of the intuition itself. However, if it is separable from that which is symbolized, one commits the intellectualist error. The alleged symbol becomes the exposition of an abstract concept; it is an allegory; it is science, or art that copies science.14

Borges summons Chesterton as a defender of allegory. In Chesterton's view language is not the only way to express reality. And with linguistic communication denied absolute exclusivity, other forms of communication like architecture, music and even allegory become possible. Allegory is not a language of language, a sign of other signs. Beatrice, for example, is not a sign of the word faith; but rather a sign of active virtue. The discussion closes with a number of remarks that soften considerably Borges' initial agreement with Croce. First he observes that given the history and success of allegory, there seems to be no way to account for the difference in outlook under consideration except by appealing to "the principle of changing tastes." This suggests once again that factors external to art qua art play a considerable role in aesthetic judgments. He ties allegory to Platonic realism and the advent of the novel to the triumph of nominalism. But he points out that there is no clear cut distinction between the two genres because "[tlhe allegory is a fable of abstractions as the novel is a fable of individuals." The abstractions are personified; therefore, in every allegory there is something of the novel. The individuals proposed by nov- elists aspire to the generic (Dupin is reason, Don Segundo Sombra is the Gaucho); an allegorical element inheres in novels. We are reminded again of Kant's dictum that thoughts without content are empty while intuitions without concepts are blind. In conclusion, Borges selects an occasion which illustrates the moment when allegory became the novel, as Augustine's description of Ambrose silently reading illustrates the triumph of writing over speech.

That day in 1382 when Geoffrey Chaucer, who perhaps did not believe he was a nominalist, wished t o translate a line from Boccaccio into English, E congli occultiferri i Tradimentz ("and Treachery with hidden weapons"), and said it like this: "The srnyler with the knyf under the cloke." The original is in the sev-


enth book of the Teseide; the English version, in "The Knighets Tale." (OC, 2: 124; 01,166)

In his essay on Hawthorne Borges once again takes up the question of allegory with some interesting additions that define his own views more clearly (OC, 2: 48-63; 01, 49-69). This essay is unusually long, for it is the text of a lecture given at the Colegio Libre de Estudios S~periories in March, 1949. Borges opens the lecture with a discussion of the metaphor of literature as a dream. He then sketches a brief biography of Hawthorne and suggests in conclusion that in a sense he never left his birthplace, for in London or Paris he continued to live as a Puritan. Poe, Borges notes, accused Hawthorne of allegorizing. The questions before us, then, are whether the allegorical genre is illicit and whether Hawthorne's works belong to that genre. He answers the first question by once again contrasting Croce and Chesterton. He then goes on to describe the circumstances in which the allegory which Croce denounces occurs.

One writer thinks in images (Shakespeare, Donne or Victor Hugo, say), and another writer thinks in abstractions (Benda or Bertrand Russell); a priori, the former are just as estimable as the latter. However, when an abstract man, a rea- soner, also wants to be imaginative, or to pass as such, then the allegory denounced bv Croce occurs.. . . Hawthorne was a man of continuous and curious imagination; but he was refractory, so to speak, to reason. I am not saying he was stupid; I say that he thought in images, in intuitions, as women usually think, not with a dialectical mechanism. (OC, 2: 51; 01, 53)

Although Hawthorne thought in images, one aesthetic error debased him, and it originated in his situation in the world. To elucidate this "debasement" Borges turns to Hawthorne's sketch "Earth's Holocaust," in which men come together resolved to destroy all the useless accumula- tions of the world. The devil observes that the organizers of the holocaust have forgotten t o throw away the essential element-the human heart- in which all sin resides. Hawthorne sees this as pointing to the innate evil in man. Borges observes that here Hawthorne has been influenced by the Calvinist, doctrine of the inborn deprivation of mankind has, therefore, become allegorical in the sense denounced by Croce.

Borges, however, is not above describing his own work as allegorical. In the "Commentary," for example, he calls "The Approach to al- Mu'tasim" allegorical (266). Then in the "Foreword" to Brodie Borges makes a series of remarks which put us at the heart of our problem.

I have tried (I am not sure how successfdly) to write plain tales. I dare not say they are simple; there is not a simple page, a simple word, on earth-for all pages, all words, predicate the universe, whose most notorious attribute is its


complexity. But I d o wish to make clear that I am not, nor have I ever been, what used to be called a fabulist or a spinner of parables, what these days is called an auteur engagi. I d o not aspire to be &sop. My tales, like those of the Thousand a n d One Nights, are intended not to persuade readers, but to entertain and touch them. (OC, 2: 399; CF, 345)

In his conversations with Burgin he observes that some people have no literary sense and therefore believe that if something pleases them, they must look for far-fetched reasons-for a sense or a meaning which lies beyond the poem or tale.

But the tale itself should be its own reality, no? People never accept that. They like t o think that writers are aiming at something, in fact, I think that most people think-of course they won't say so to themselves or to anybody else-they think of literature as being a kind of Aesop's Fables, no? (81)

And yet, seemingly oblivious to his earlier comments, Borges goes on to speak of "The Golem" as a parable of the nature of art (90), and of the "Parable of the Palace" as the same parable as "The Yellow Rose" and "The Other Tiger." "[Tlhey stand for the same thing-for a kind of dis- cord, for the inability of art to cope with the world and, at the same time, the fact that though art cannot repeat nature ..., yet it is justified in its own right" (95). The reason for this double attitude becomes clear if we consider the meaning of the terms "allegory," "parable," and "fable."15

An allegory can be described simply as an "extended metaphor." As such, neither Borges, who in his earlier poetry sought out metaphor after metaphor, nor Croce could have much objection to allegorical writing, since a literature without metaphor would be impoverished if not unthinkable. The key term here seems to be "extended." In Paintin8 and Reality, Etienne Gilson attempts to sharpen the distinction between art- works and other artifacts in a manner which clarifies when these extended metaphors are acceptable in art. Gilson observes that painting is involved in another art for which there is no name, and which he calls "pictur- ing."l6 This second art deals in images and its function is to represent or to imitate-to produce a picture of something else. But according to Gilson, paintings should not be judged from the point of view of pictures and pictures should not be judged from the point of view of paintings, for a painting has its rules and justification within itself, while a picture has its criterion outside itself, in the external reality which it represents. If we apply Gilson's distinction to the case of allegory, we could say that an allegory is an aesthetic error when it carries the reader's attention beyond the meaning that is inherent in the tale or poem which is under considera-

120 . B O K G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

tion. Borges makes precisely this point in his essay on Hawthorne, and this is why he tells Burgin that he does not aim at being persuasive.

A parable is usually thought of as a short fictitious tale that illustrates a moral attitude, a religious principle or some other generalizations about human conduct or experience. It is also a synonym of "allegory." "Fable" has a wider range of meanings associated with it, but it also means a narrative intended to enforce some useful truth or precept. It is a short allegorical story. Hence Borges' objection to being thought of as a fabulist seems to hinge upon how a given poem or tale communicates its meaning. If the meaning in question is "inherent" in the poem, then there is no harm in being a fabulist. But when it causes the reader to look beyond the poem to a meaning which is not inherent in it, its allegorical character leads aesthetic contemplation astray. The difficulty is to determine when a meaning is inherent in a given text and when it is not. This cannot be determined, at least in Borges' case, by contrasting concrete meanings with abstractions, for his remarks on the "Golem," "A Yellow Rose," and "The Other Tiger" make it clear that, in his view, abstract meaning can be expressed in a poem. Furthermore, both the concrete and abstract meaning of a text will also vary with the background of its reader. This is one of the points made in "Averroes' Search." Borges, however, makes it even clearer in "Pierre Menard, Author of i'le Quixote" (OC, l: 444-450; CF, 88-95).''

"Menard" is a cross between an essay and a tale-a technique that Borges puts to good use in erasing the line between fiction and reality. Most interesting, however, is the message that every reading of a book is a revision of the text. A list of what the narrator refers to as Menard's visible work situates him clearly in a definite literary and intellectual tradition. There are references to symbolism, Leibniz, the metric laws of French prose, the problem of Achilles and the tortoise and Paul ValCry. Menard is clearly a French symbolist and a Continental rationalist. His project, as Borges notes in the "Essay," is to compose the Quixote. He conceived two methods of attaining his goal. The first is relatively simple and entails knowing Spanish, recovering the Catholic faith, fighting against the Moors or the Turks; in short, become Cervantes. He gave this up for a number of reasons, among them the fact that it was too easy. Instead he opted for a much more impossible route: to continue being Pierre Menard and attain the Quixote through the experience of Pierre Menard. This, he believes, is possible because, while Poe, Rimbaud and Coleridge are essential and inevitable to him, he sees The Quixote as contingent.


None of Borges' texts states more uncompromisingly the view that each of us is a prisoner of his time and of his situation in the world. Nor does Menard's disclaimer about the "historical resonance" of these works offer much to dispel this contextualism, for a Spaniard would no doubt find Poe and the whole symbolist movement contingent when contrasted to Cervantes' masterpiece. This becomes clear when we look at Menard's achievement and the narrator's reaction to it. In Part I, Chapter IX, Cervantes writes:

... truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor.

Menard, of course, writes exactly the identical text, but the narrator points out that in the context of the seventeenth century "this enumeration is a mere rhetorical praise of history." In the case of Menard, however, "History, the mother of truth" is astounding. As a contemporary of William James, historical truth, for Menard, is not what has happened, but what we judge has happened. Literature, then, is inevitably compromised by its reader who is in turn-to borrow a phrase from Hegel-the child of its time. But the intertwining of fiction and reality is due not only to the fact that each of us comes to a particular text weighed down and imbued with the stereotypes and canons of our situation. Literature also invades the "real," for literature (i.e., language) modifies whatever comes into contact with it. Borges singles out a particular literary device which brings this into focus.

In "Partial Enchantments of the QuixoteJJ Borges observes that every novel is an ideal depiction of reality and that Cervantes takes delight in fusing the world of the reader and the world of the book (OC, 2: 4 5 4 7 ; 01, 45-48). This is particularly noticeable on those occasions when the author or his work intrude into the story itself. In the Chapter 6 of Part One, the priest and the barber inspect Don Quixote's library and discover there Cervantes' Galetea. The barber turns out t o be a friend of Cervantes who does not especially admire his work, and who goes on to make certain critical remarks concerning it. Then at the beginning of chapter 9 we learn that the whole novel has been translated from an Arabic manuscript which Cervantes acquired in the marketplace of Toledo. Finally, in Part Two the protagonists are also readers of the Q~ixote and have read Part One.

Thus we have in the Quixote a story which folds back on and incor- porates itself and its author. The Quixote, then, serves as a paradigm for Borges' conception of literature as a dialogue between the text and the


reader. He goes on to mention other examples of this practice. There is Hamlet whose play within the play presents a tragedy which resembles Hamlet. And there is the Ramayana, one of the great epic poems of India. In the last book Rama's children, unaware who their father is, find rehge in a forest where a hermit teaches them to read. Their teacher turns out to be the poet Valmiki, who is the author of the epic. Rama orders a sacrifice of horses. The children attend the ceremony with their teacher. They sing the Ramayana and Rama recognizes them as his children. The third example is the book of wonders and dreams, A Thousand and One Nights, in which on a certain night the Sultan hears his own story from the Sultana's mouth. This evokes the possibility that the Sultan will hear forever a uun- cated version of A Thousand and One Nights, now infinite and circular.

The introduction of the philosophical themes of an infinite and circular time leads Borges to end with an example drawn from Josiah Royce's The World and the Individual. To anyone familiar with Borges' philosophical predilections Royce is a revealing choice, for the great idealist and rationalist taught alongside the equally imposing empiricist William James, with whom he debated such topics as "Does the Absolute Exist." In VolumelRoyce asks us to suppose that a portion of the surface of England is levelled and smoothed, and then used to create a precise map of England. If now this resemblance is exact, the representation have to contain, as a part of itself, a representation of its own contour and con- tents. In order that this representation should be constructed, the representation itself will have to contain once more, as a part of itself, a representation of itself and so on without limit. Why then do these examples of a map within a map and a book within a book or that Don Quixote is a reader of the Quixote and Hamlet a spectator of Hamlet make us so uneasy? Because, Borges proposes, "those inversions suggest that if the characters in a story can be readers or spectators, then we, their readers or spectators, can be fictitious."

. T H E S E L F A N D S O C I E T Y .

In the "Foreword" to Brodie Borges seems to maintain that his art remains distinct from his life: "I have never kept my opinions hidden, not even in trying times, but neither have I ever allowed them to find their way into my literary work, except once when I was buoyed up in exalta- tion over the Six-Day War." Elsewhere, however, he speaks with conviction about his convictions, especially those he inherited from his father. For example, Burgin asks Borges whether he has done much reading in


political philosophy and Borges replies that he has not since his father was an anarchist in the sense of the individual against the state. And in response to a question about why he is repulsed by communism Borges issues a reply so revealing that I will quote from it extensively.

Now, I'm a conservative, but being a conservative.. .means being, let's say, a mild liberal.. . . I think being a conservative in the Argentine means being rather skep- tical in political matters, and disbelieving in any violent changes. Now take the word "radical"-in my country, radical stands, let's say, for a kind of halfway house, middle left, though, of course, they're more demagogues than the con- servatives who are not demagogues at all, no? You see, if you take those words in all countries, they mean different things. A radical in Buenos Aires is, more or less, like a Republican or a conservative here. But I suppose, if you say here that somebody is a radical, you think of him as a radical revolutionary, no? And, of course, those meanings change, they change with history, they change with time. So that being a radical in 1890 is quite different from what it is today in Buenos Aires, no? (120-121)

Daniel Balderston maintains that, despite his facade of aesthetic independence, Borges' tales are also filled with allusions to the actual world.18 He argues that those who read Borges as an irrealist or who maintain that his historical references are not central to his work are simply wrong. He proposes to look at seven stories. We are already familiar with some of the historical references in "Menard" and we will discuss "Guayaquil" and "The Writing of God" later on. Let's look, then, at some of what Balderston has t o say about "The Garden of Forking Paths" and "The Secret Miracle."

Balderston proposes to read "The Garden" against the grain, as it were, by

deciphering a series of coded messages having to d o with specific events in 1916: the Easter Rising in Dublin, the slaughter of a generation of British, French and German youths in the 'labyrinth of the trenches' of the Somme (and of Verdun), the obliteration of a whole string of towns in northern France in a series of ghastly experiments with new technologies of war. I thus propose t o restore to the story the rigorous temporality that Yu Tsun speaks of a t the beginning. (40)

He first reconstructs the circumstances in which the three main characters find themselves and then discusses the message Yu Tsun wants to communicate.

Yu Tsun is the name of a character in Taso Hsueh-Chin's Dream of the Red Chamber, a student who is revealed as the one behind the whole development and plot of the novel (42). His name is also a homophone for fictitious words and uncultivated speech. Balderston points out, how-


ever, that it is also a near homophone for Sun Tzu who wrote The Art of War. Borges would have discovered this in his beloved Encyclopedia Britannica. The Germans colonized Yu Tsun's hometown, Tsingtao and later the Japanese (who in World War I were allied with the British and the French) took over the German possessions. Yu Tsun does not act for Germany but to vindicate his own race. In contrast, Madden's task is to prove his loyalty to England in the light of the Easter Uprising in Dublin. His problem is thrown into sharper relief by his namesake, Richard Robert Madden, a British official who strongly identified himself with Irish culture and the abolitionist movement (46). He also undertook a mission to the Caribbean and wrote on slavery there. Stephen Albert is also compromised by contradictory feelings. Having gone to China as a Christian missionary, he is now a missionary of Chinese culture in the West. Besides the association of his name with the town in northern France, "Albert" was the name of the Belgian king from 1909 to 1934, the only European monarch who served in World War I at the head of an army (48). The "old battlefield" of the Somme is the one about which Yu Tsun is trying to send a message to Berlin. The veteran's reference to "a labyrinth of trenches without any plan" suggests that in addition to the allusions to the apocryphal Chinese novel, the image of the labyrinth refers to battlefields near the town of Albert in France (50).19 He concludes:

"El jardin de 10s senderos que se bifurcan" is a hollow story, a story which alludes insistently to the voices that cannot be heard, the voices of the dead in the battle of the Somme. Borges writes his story in the margin of the most important book published in the 1930s on the Great War, and like Liddle Hart he is conscious that the "real war" cannot be told. (55)

Balderston observes that the opening of "The Secret Miracle" is notable for the precision of its references to time and place and the rest of the story is similarly punctuated with references to dates and times. The first clue to Borges' sources is the name of the protagonist. Jaromir is the name of a minor character in Meyrink's The Golem. The surname Hladik is that of an obscure Czech novelist of the turn of the century, VQclav Hladik. He is mentioned in Count Liitzow's article on Bohemian literature in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia B~itannica. Hladik's mother's maiden name, Jaroslavski, seems to be based on Jaroslav Hasek, and appears again as the first name of the protagonist of Los enemigos, Jaroslav Kubin. The surname Kubin is that of the Prague artist Alfred Kubin, a friend of Kafka and Max Brod. Zeltnergasse, the street on which Hladik lives, is the German name for CeletnQ, the street on which the


Kafka family lived. It is called by its German name by Brod in his biography of Kafka but by its Czech name in Liitzow's article on Prague in the Britannica. Hradcany Hill and the Clementium Library are also mentioned in the article which gives both the Czech name, Vltava, and the German name, Moldau, for the river which runs through the city.

Thus Borges, by using the German names for the street on which Hladik lives and for the river that flows through the city, is harking back to the period before World War I, or conversely is telling the story from the perspective of one of the non- Jewish German speakers who might have sympathized with the annexation of the Sudetenland and the subsequent conquest of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis. (59)

Despite the inclusion of some of his moral views in his stories, Borges remains a contextualist even in matters of morality. This is obvious from his conversation with Burgin concerning the meaning of "radical" and "conservative." We have encountered this cultural relativism in several stories beginning with "Averroes' Search," and it is presented again in one of Borges' finest later stories, "Guayaquil" (OC, 2: 4 4 0 4 4 5 ; CF, 390-396). Guayaquil is Ecuador's principal port and also its largest city. I t was there that on July 26 and 27 of 1822 the Generals Bolivar and San Martin met to plan concerted action to drive out the remaining Spanish forces from Peru. San Martin was born in what is today Argentina but he served with the Spanish army in Europe before returning in 1812 to join the revolution against Spain. H e became Argentina's greatest military leader, the liberator of the South who also marched north t o liberate Peru. After several successes he delivered Lima where he was proclaimed Protector of Peru. Spanish troops remained in the Sierras, however, and San Martin realized that neither he nor Bolivar alone was powerful enough to defeat them. Hence he sent troops t o Bolivar in Quito and arranged the meeting at Guayaquil. At that meeting San Martin resigned his commission to allow Bolivar to take command of his troops. He returned to Argentina and then left for a self-imposed exile in Belgium. When he returned in 1829, he found Argentina torn by civil war. He refused to take sides and returned to Boulogne where he died in 1850.

Bolivar was born into a wealthy criollo family in Caracas. H e was pri- vately tutored by some of the leading intellectuals of the day. H e is generally regarded as one of South America's greatest political geniuses. He earned the name "liberator" for his liberation of Venezuela and the North. San Martin's resignation has been viewed differently by different historians. The official Argentine version is that San Martin stepped down


as an heroic act of self-abnegation. Knowing that his troops already in Peru would fight under another general, while Bolivar's troops might be unwilling to move from Ecuador and fight under another commander, he made the sacrifice. There is also an important difference in the character of the two men. Bolivar has been likened to Napoleon in his passion and intensity-a Rousseauean man of will, while San Martin has been compared to Washington for his grasp of practicalities and his belief that military leaders should keep out of politics. In the story a letter dated August 13, 1922 is the cause of the rivalry between the scholars. A letter with that date exists, but it is to Santander and refers only to the possibility of San Martin's defeat. A letter allegedly written by San Martin to Bolivar, which appeared to substantiate the Guayaquil legend, was found in 1939 to be a forgery. Furthermore, Balderston points out the meeting between Bolivar and San Martin took place on June 26-27, and it would have been impossible for Bolivar to reach Cartagena in such a short time.

In the "Afterword" to Borges observes that "'Guayaquily can be read in two different ways-as a symbol of the meeting of the famous generals, or, if the reader is in a magical mood, as the transformation of the two historians into the two dead generals." In either reading, however, we have once again the theme of a duel. This time, however, the duel is intellectual rather than physical.20 Its occasion is the discovery of some of Bolivar's letters among the papers of Dr. JosC Avellanos, the author of History of Fzyty Years of Misrule, and a character in Joseph Conrad's Nostronzo. Conrad is also mentioned on the opening page, though by his actual name, Korzeniowski. One of these letters may reveal what actually took place in the legendary meeting at Guayaquil. Two scholars have been chosen to examine the letters. The narrator, a native Argentine and professor of Latin American History, who closely resembles Borges, and Dr. Eduardo Zimmermann of the University of C6rdoba. Zimmermann is a German Jew who was expelled by the Third Reich and is now an Argentine citizen. H e is originally from Prague, the home of Kafka, the Rabbi Jud6 Le6n and the Golem-a city according to Zimmermann, in which anything may happen. His appearance introduces the theme of cultural relativism.

O f his professional work (doubtlessly estimable), I know at first had only an ard- cle in vindication of the Semitic republic of Carthage (which posterity has judged through the writings of Roman historians, its enemies) and an essay of sorts which contends that government should function neither visibly nor by appeal to emotion. (OC, 2: 441; CF, 391)


This evoked the ire of Martin Heidegger who proved that Zimmermann came of Hebrew stock, and whose essay resulted in Zimmermann's banishment.

The two men meet in the narrator's study to settle the matter of which of them will actually examine and edit the letters. The narrator's disdain for Zimmermann immediately becomes clear. The two scholars begin to fence, with Zimmermann referring to the narrator as won cher waitre and assuring him that votre si&e est fait, the use of French under- scoring even further his European, indeed his international origin. Zimmermann goes on to summarize the different interpretations of the Guayaquil meeting. The tables now are quickly turned. Zimmermann notices the work of Schopenhauer on the shelves of the narrator's study, remarking that they have a common master. He then goes on to assert the primacy of the will-that "words always count less than persons." This aligns Zimmermann with Bolivar, whose master was Rousseau. And like Zimmermann, Bolivar comes to the Andean empire from an alien land, a northern Caribbean state. Despite his Argentine birth, the narrator has, like San Martin, been educated in the traditions of Europe. H e signals his own downfall by introducing the theme of chess.

"You mentioned will," I replied. "In the Mabinogion [a collection of Welsh tales], you may recall, two kings are playing chess on the summit of a hill, while on the plain below, their armies clash in battle. One of the kings wins the game; at that instant, a horseman rides up with the news that the other king's army has been defeated. The battle of the men was a mirror of the battle of the chessboard." (OC, 2: 445; CF, 395)

And Zimmermannn checkmates his opponent.

"What erudition! What power of synthesis!" exclaimed Zimmermannn. Then, in a calmer voice, he added: "I must confess my ignorance, my lamentable ignorance, of la matiire de Bretaigne. You, like the day, embrace both East and West, while I hold down my small Carthaginian corner, which I now expand a bit with a tentative step into New World history. But I am a mere plodder." (OC. 2: 445; CF, 396)

"Carthage," of course, bears a double reference-to the North African city addressed in Zimmermannn's scholarly work and to the Republic of Cartagena from which Bolivar launched his campaign to liberate Venezuela. Finally Schopenhauer is also a source of Borges' questioning of the possibility of historical truth, for in chapter 38 of the supplements to The World as Will and Idea he expresses his skepticism about history, at least universal history.

128 - B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y

Borges' most profound and frightening examination of the doctrine of moral relativism is "Deutsches Requienz." (OC, 1: 576-581; CF, 229-234). Borges discusses this story in a number of places. He often connects the writing of the story to the attitude of the Argentines toward the Third Reich:

Now I said, I'll try and imagine a Nazi, not Nazis as they actually are, but I'll try and imagine a man who really thinks that violence and fighting are better than making up things, and peacefulness. I'll make him feel like a Nazi, or the Platonic idea of a Nazi .... Then I thought, well, now Germany has lost, now America has saved us from this nightmare, but since nobody can doubt on which side I stood, I'll see what can be done from a literary point of view in favor of the Nazis. (Burgin, 46-47)

I n his interview with Irby Borges adds two other points to his view of the story: the character of those Argentines whose sympathized with Nazi Germany and the peculiar character of zur Linde, the protagonist of the story.

During the war the Germanofiles in Buenos Aires did not admire the authentic military achievements of the Germans; they admired the destruction of England.. . . These people were completely ignorant of the true destiny, infamous but also grandiose, of Germany: this destiny that I wanted to express in "Deutsches Requiem." The protagonist, zur Linde, is a kind of saint but dis- agreeable and stupid, a saint whose mission is repugnant. (Irby, "Encuentro," 30)

His characterization of zur Linde as a kind of Saint is underscored by the epigraph:

Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. (Job 13:15)21

Otto Dietrich zur Linde is both the narrator and the protagonist of the story. In contrast to his ancestors, who include a number of honorable military men, zur Linde is going to be executed as a torturer and murderer. He states that the tribunal has acted justly and finds that it is natural that he thinks now of his ancestors. But a footnote points out that he does not think of his most illustrious ancestor, the theologian and Hebraist Johannes Forkel. Zur Linde remains silent during the trial, for to justify himself would have seemed an act of cowardice. Now that the ver- dict has been rendered, he can, on the eve of his execution, explain his position. He does not seek pardon for he feels no guilt. He wants only to be understood, for those who listen to him will understand the history of Germany and the path the history of the world will take.

. T H E S E L F A N D I T S A V A T A R S - 129

Zur Linde has had two passions, music and metaphysics, and he counts among his benefactors Brahms and Schopenhauer. He senses that mankind is at the dawn of a new era comparable to the beginning of Christianity or Islam, and that no one can exist, taste a glass of water or break a piece of bread without justification; and for each of us that justification must be different. Zur Linde awaits the war that would prove his faith. But as we learned from "The Library," though there are "vindica- t ion~" or justifications, one's chances of coming upon his own is so mathematically remote as to amount to an impossibility. And so it is with zur Linde. A man who is repelled by violence, he enters the war, is wounded and his leg is amputated. He is lying in a hospital trying to lose himself in Schopenhauer while an enormous and flaccid cat, naturally a symbol of his destiny, is sleeping on the windowsill. He reads in Schopenhauer's Paregra und Paralipomena that everything which can happen to a man from birth to death is preordained by him. Hence every death is, in effect, suicide. Taking his clue from Schopenhauer, zur Linde searches for the unknown intention which made him seek his injury and mutilation, and finds it in the realization that to die for a religion is easier than to live it completely. Zur Linde is named subdirector of the concentration camp at Tarnowitz and thus begins his own journey to Damascus.

He acknowledges that his task at Tarnowitz was not pleasant but it had a moral justification. "Nazism is intrinsically a moral act, a stripping away of the old man, which is corrupt and depraved, in order to put on the new." And then he is sent the eminent poet David Jerusalem, whose name unites the king of kings and the capital of the chosen people. Zur Linde tells us that in his Dichtun. der Zeit Soergel had compared Jerusalem to Whitman. Contrary to his own feelings of admiration and compassion, zur Linde decides that he must destroy the poet by driving him mad. Jerusalem loses his reason and commits suicide. Once again there is the suggestion that every death may be a suicide. At this point the editor of zur Linde's memoir inserts two footnotes. The first tells us only that it has been necessary to omit a few lines, thus giving the events in question the appearance of chance. He then observes that he has been unable to find any mention of Jerusalem in Soergel's work or in the histories of German literature. He suggests, however, that "David Jerusalem" may be a symbol for many individuals."

Before his execution zur Linde feels an unexpected happiness and he examines several possible explanations for this feeling before he hits on the "right" one.


The world was dying of Judaism, and from that disease of Judaism that is belief in Christ; we proffered it violence and faith in the sword. That sword killed us, and we are like the wizard who weaves a labyrinth and is forced t o wander through it till the end of his days .... There are many things that must be destroyed in order to build the new order; now we know that Germany was one of them.. . . What does it matter if England is the hammer and we the anvil? What matters is that violence, not servile Christian acts of timidity, now rules. (OC, 1 : 580-581; CF, 233-234)22

"Three Versions of Judas," develops two of the themes under discussion: that the lowest is also the highest and the relativity of all moral judgments (OC, 1: 514-518; CF, 163-167). The tale is ostensibly about the ruminations of Niles Runeberg, a deeply religious member of the National Evangelical Union, on the story of Judas. The direction of his conclusions is indicated by the epigraph from T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom: "There seemed a certainty in degradation." The facts of Judas' story remain constant-he betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. However, the rational explanations of this act differ, for as the narrator notes, no one would seek proof of something he did not believe.23

The narrator begins with a speculation of De Quincey that Judas reported Jesus to the authorities to force him t o reveal his divinity. Runeberg points out that this would have been superfluous, for Jesus needed no such notice. He preached daily in the synagogue and performed miracles. Nevertheless, this did occur, for to suppose an error in the Scriptures is intolerable. Therefore Judas' betrayal was not accidental but a preordained fact. Hence Runeberg first speculates that the explanation of Judas' act lies in the fact that the Word had become flesh, lowered to mortal condition. As a disciple of the Word, Judas could lower himself to become an informer.

Runeberg was beset by all manner of refutations which ultimately influenced him. Hence he left theology to advance moral arguments; e.g., Judas sought hell because the happiness of the Lord was sufficient for him. Ultimately, however, Runeberg comes to the most monstrous of conclusions. God became man in order to redeem mankind. Therefore his sacrifice must have been perfect.

To limit His suffering to the agony of one afternoon on the cross is blasphe- mous. To claim that H e was a man, and yet was incapable of sin, is to fall into a contradiction; the attributes of impeccabilitas and of humanitas are incompatible ... . God was made24 totally man but man t o the point being iniquity, a man to the point of reprobation and the abyss. In order to save us, H e could have chosen any of the lives that weave the conhsed web of history; H e could have


been Alexander or Pythagoras or Rurik or Jesus; He chose an abject existence: He was Judas. (OC, 1: 516-517; CF, 166)

One wonders, then, whether "Judas" is the secret name of God. Finally, the relativism which we have been describing in moral and

theological terms, is most broadly expressed by Borges in that passage which Foucault acknowledges as the inspiration for The Order of X4in.s. After discussing briefly John Wilkins' attempt to classify the universe, Borges recalls a certain Chinese encyclopedia, Celestial Emporium of Benevolent I<nowledge ( OC, 2: 84-87; 01, 106-1 10).

On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suck- ling pigs, (e) mermaids, (0 fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (1) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance. (OC, 2: 86; 01, 108)

The upshot of this is that every classification of the universe is arbitrary since we do not know what the universe is.

. F A T E A N D T H E I N D I V I D U A L .

Since society cannot provide us with an unambiguous guide to right conduct, Borges' concern remains focused primarily on the individual. One way in which this concern makes itself felt is in his preoccupation with suicide. Borges was especially concerned with suicide when he was writing about Lugones (who committed suicide). Rodriguez Monegal describes Borges' mood at that time:

In spite of the many excellent friends he had then, Borges led a terribly solitary life. He had always been haunted by the idea of suicide, and in writing about Lugones in 1938 he came as close as he would ever come to defending it. Since Father's death and the accident of Christmas Eve [which was the source of Dahlmann's injury], suicide had become an obsession. In a piece he wrote in 1940, which he did not allow to be published until 1973, he described in the third person his own "suicide" at the Adrogut ~ o t e 1 . ~ ~

Like self-preservation, suicide is sometimes construed as an expression of the individual's right to govern his own person. Borges touches on suicide throughout his writings. Zur Linde's refusal to defend his actions can be read as an act of suicide. And if everything we do is determined by what we are, every death might be construed as a suicide. Borges takes up this

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notion in his essay on Donne's Biathanatos, an essay to which his attention was called by reading De Quincey (OC, 2: 78-80; 01, 93-96). Donne's thesis, as stated in the subtitle, is: That Self-homicide is not so naturally Sin that i t may never be otherwise. According to De Quincey, Donne argues that suicide is one form of homicide. Since the canonists distinguish voluntary homicide from justifiable homicide that distinction should also apply to suicide. Borges suggests that perhaps there is also an esoteric argument to the effect that even the death of Christ can be considered a justifiable suicide.

Individually Denied

Although his focus is on the individual, Borges frequently treats the individual as a type. In the "Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden," for example, the narrator says that he wants to imagine one of the protagonists, Droctulft, sub specie aeternitatis, a phrase which recalls Spinoza (OC, 1: 557-560; CF, 208-21 1). I t also recalls the essay on Keats' nightingale in which Borges speaks of the species as being in the individual. Then there are the essays on Valtry, Flaubert and Whitman, who created great authorial types with which as men they can not be identified. And in the "Afterword" to Brodie he observes that his stories are usually woven around a plot but that in "The Elder Lady" and in "The Duel" he attempted, after the manner of Henry James, to construct these tales around a situation or a character. Thus the individual of Borges' stories is most often an individual denied. Two vehicles of this denial are Borges' literary treatment of the individual and the suggestion that two individuals can be the same person.

The theme of two men being the same man is stated explicitly in "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" and "The Shape of the Sword" (OC, 1: 4 9 1 4 9 8 ; CF, 138-146). Both tales tie this identity to a difference-the contrast between heroism and cowardice. The former contains not only an ambiguity of character but also an ambiguity of place. The narrator, Ryan, is writing a biography of his great-grandfather, "Fergus Kilpatrick," whose name suggests "kill Patrick," the Patron Saint of Ireland, as well as "patria," "patriotism," and the aristocratic character of the "patrician." Kilpatrick was assassinated in a theater, which draws a parallel between the assassinations of Lincoln and Julius Caesar. Ryan discovers that in 1814 James Nolan, the oldest of Kilpatrick7s comrades, has translated into the Gaelic the principal dramas of Shakespeare including Juliw Caesar. Another document reveals that shortly before his death,


Kilpatrick had signed the death warrant of a traitor whose name has been blotted out. Kilpatrick ordered Nolan to find the traitor and the latter discovered that the traitor was in fact Kilpatrick himself. Since the Kilpatrick was Ireland's national hero, Nolan orchestrated Kilpatrick's death in such a way that it would become an instrument for the liberation of Ireland. The condemned man was to die at the hands of an unknown assassin, thus repeating scenes from Macbeth and Julius Caesar. Once again "real" life advances by imitating fiction.

In "The Shape of the Sword" the ambivalence of heroism and cowardice is tied together with the theme that one man is in fact all men. This is another story of inversion and resembles the "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" and "Death and the Compass." Because of bad weather the narrator, who is named Borges in the story, is forced to put up at La Colorado, the estancia of a man known as the "Englishman." After an evening of drinking Borges asks his host about his scar. The "Englishman" (who has revealed that he is actually Irish) replies that he'll reveal the history of his scar provided that there is no mitigating the infamous circumstances. He tells Borges that he was involved in the struggle to free Ireland from English domination. His group was joined one afrer- noon by a young man, scarcely twenty years old, named John Vincent Moon. Moon was a Communist who reduced history to economic conflict. H e also reveals himself to be a coward. Grazed by a bullet, Moon breaks into sobs. The Englishman adds that this frightened man embar- rassed him as if he were the coward, not Vincent Moon. "Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it." The introduction of this theme not only recalls our discussion of pantheism but also reminds one of Sartre's famous proclamation; namely, that in choosing a particular value or course of action, I choose for all men.26The "Englishman" continues:

That is why it is not unfair that a single act of disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; that is why it is not unjust that a single Jew's crucifix- ion should be sufficient to save it. Schopenhauer may have been right: I am other men, any man is all men, Shakespeare is somehow the wretched John Vincent Moon. (OC, l : 493-494; CF, 141)

Ultimately Moon betrays the "Englishman," who carves a half moon in blood on the traitor's face. Moon flees to Brazil which is also the region from which the "Englishman" has come. Finally he confesses that he is in fact John Vincent Moon.

This is also the theme of "The Theologians" (OC, 1: 550-556; CF, 201-207). The story is about the theological disputes between Aurelian


and John of Pannonia. It discusses various heresies concluding with that of the Monotones, who taught the doctrine of the wheel or of circular time, and the Histriones, who were nominalists. John of Pannonia sets out to refute the Monotones and Aurelian confronts John in this effort seeking to go him one better by declaring that there are no two souls which are alike. The Monotones are defeated but John and Aurelian continue their secret battle now centered around the heresies of the Histriones who founded their doctrine on a perversion of the doctrine that the higher and lower reflect one another. Ultimately Aurelian has John condemned as a Histrione and he is burned at the stake. Aurelian, however, dies as John had died. A bolt of lightening strikes the trees and Aurelian perishes in the fire. The story ends in metaphors since it takes place in the kingdom of heaven where there is no time. There Aurelian learns that for God he and John of Pannonia form one single person.

Destiny and the Individual

Many of Borges' stories are tales of destiny. Perhaps, then, it is my destiny which constitutes my individuality. Destiny, however, does not show the same degree of adversity or kindness to all. "The South" and "The Intruder" are both stories of past generations which somehow determine a present event but it is not at all clear that the events in question have quite the same meaning or value for their participants. The brothers Nelson and Juliana do indeed meet their destiny but it is one which freezes them forever. Dahlmann appears to be going to his death but in a spirit of liberation. I would like to look at five tales of fate which illustrate five different ways in which individuals may meet their destinies.

"The End," while clearly a tale of destiny, is perhaps the least prob- lematic of these tales, for its protagonists appear to bear the fate they carry within them with complete equanimity (OC, 1: 5 19-52 1; CF, 168-170). As Borges notes in the "Prologue" to Artifices, apart from the character of Recabarren, everything in this tale is implicit in a famous book, and the author has merely revealed it. The event is the death of Martin Fierro and the famous book is the long poem of the same name. There are three principal characters and three destinies: Recabarren, the shopowner, who accepts his paralysis as he has accepted the rigors and solitude of America. He is now accustomed to living in the present and, like the cat in "The South," he announces the timeless destiny of the principal antagonists. Their encounter will take place in time, but it has been prefigured from eternity. Then there is the negro, whose brother had been killed by Fierro


and who awaits his revenge. Finally, there is Fierro himself. They affirm their destinies in affirming that they could count on one another. Fierro adds that his destiny has been to kill and, once more, it has put a knife in his hand. The action takes place once again in the afternoon. Having finished his task, the negro was now no one.

"Emma Zunz," Borges remarks to Burgin, "is a kind of tool of destiny" (39). Emma returns from her work at the textile mill to find a letter from Brazil stating that her father has died (OC, 1: 564-568; CF, 215-216). This news creates a kind of conversion or realization in Emma. She wishes that it were already the next day but realizes that wish was futile because the death of her father was the only thing that had really happened in the world. Emma's father had been cashier at the mill and was charged with embezzlement. Before his escape to Brazil he told her that the thief was Lowenthal, former manager and now owner of the mill. Emma is not quite nineteen. In contrast t o her girlfriends, men inspired in her an almost pathological fear. In spite of this fear, or perhaps because of it, because, that is, the lowest can also be the highest, Emma formulated a plan for revenge. She takes a seaman to bed. Emma had previously called Lowenthal at the mill to tell him that she would pass by to see him alone, suggesting that she had some information about a strike. Emma arrives but things d o not go as she planned. She had imagined herself wielding the revolver and asking for justice. Instead she asks Lowenthal for a glass of water and when he returns she shoots him twice and speaks out the accusation she had prepared-"I have avenged my father, and I will not be punished." She did not finish it because Lowenthal had already died and she never knew if he had understood. Emma's explanation of the events was that Mr. Lowenthal had her come over on the pre- text of the strike. He abused her and she killed him. The story, the narrator notes, impressed everyone because it was substantially true. Like the blackman of "The End," Emma becomes assimilated to the cat of "The South" as a timeless Platonic archetype of her fate.

The action of "The Gospel According to Mark" takes place at La Colorada ranch in the southern part of the township of Junin (OC, 2: 4 4 6 4 5 0 ; CF, 397-401). I t is another tale of fatal destiny as both the location and the name of the ranch make clear. Once again the first paragraph tells almost all we need to know to understand the inevitable unfolding of the story. The first name of the protagonist is Baltasar. "Baltasar" was the name of a Babylonian king and also of one of the three kings who festival is Epiphany. "Epiphany" signifies a sudden revelation of God or of fundamental reality or of the essence of something. His last

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name is Espinosa, the name of the great rationalist who was also a Jew. Balthasar's broad intelligence was undirected and at the age of thirty- three he still lacked one course for graduation. His father was a freethinker who had introduced him to the work of Herbert Spencer. His mother once asked Balthasar to say the Lord's Prayer and make the sign of the cross every night and he had never failed her. Thus Balthasar seems ripe for an Epiphany. And, given his name and his age-the age at which Jesus died-the nature of his Epiphany is already marked out in advance of the events which bring it to realization.

At his cousin's ranch he encounters the Gutres, the father, who is the foreman of the ranch, his son, and a girl of uncertain parentage. They are reddish in complexion and their faces bear traces of Indian blood. The Gutres know many things about the countryside that they are unable to articulate. Baltasar learns things of which he had been entirely unaware such as identifying birds by the sound of their call. His cousin has to go to the city and Balthasar decides to remain at La Colorada. The rains arrive causing the river to overflow and flooding the ranch. There are four roads leading to La Colorada and all of them are under water. These roads suggest the presence of the four-faced god Janus. After the third day, Balthasar offers the Gutres a room closer t o the main house. Espinosa has grown a beard and begins studying his face in the mirror. To alleviate the tedium of the dinnertime conversation he decides to read to the Gutres from a Bible which he has discovered. He opens it at the beginning of the Gospel according to St. Mark. Each night the Gutres bolt down their food in their eagerness to begin the reading.

A pet lamb, which the girl has adorned with a blue ribbon, injures itself on some barbed wire. The Gutres want to apply some cobwebs but Espinosa treats it with some pills. In the eyes of the Gutres this cure is nothing less than a miracle. They follow Espinosa everywhere answering his every command. One evening the girl comes to him naked. It is the first time she has known a man. The next day the father asks Espinosa if Christ let himself be killed so as to save mankind-a question which recalls "Three Versions of Judas" and the discussion of Donne's Biathanatos. Although he is a freethinker, Espinosa feels obligated t o what he has read and answers: "Yes, to save all mankind from Hell." He then must explain what hell is and acknowledges that everyone has been saved by Christ's sacrifice. The three of them follow him, bow to him and ask his blessing. Then they mock him and shove him towards the back part of the house.


The girl was weeping. Espinosa realized what awaited him on the other side of the door. When they opened it, he saw the sky. A bird screamed; it's agoldfinch, Espinosa thought. There was no roof on the shed; they had torn down the roof beams to build the cross. (OC, 2:450; CF, 401)

Judging by the attention and acclaim that it has received, the very short "The House of Asterion" is one of Borges' most important stories (OC, l: 569-570; CF7 220-222). Its import also seems to be wider than the stories we have just discussed. It is the story of Thesus and the Minotaur told from the point of view of the monster.27 It first appeared in Los annales de Buenos Aires (May-June 1947), of which Borges was the editor. Once again, the events are the same but their motivations and meaning differ. Borges takes the inspiration for this tale from Apollodorus whom he quotes in the "Epigraph": "And the queen gave birth to a child who was called Asterion" (Biblioteca, 111, I) . And in The BOOR of Imaginary Beings, which he wrote with Margarita Guerrero, he explains:

The idea of a house built so that people could become lost in it is perhaps more unusual than that of a man with a bull's head, but both ideas go well together and the image of the labyrinth fits with the image of the Minotaur. I t is equally fitting that in the center of a monstrous housk there be a monstrous inhabi- tant .... The worship of the bull and of the two-headed axe (whose name was labyrs and may have been at the root of the word labyrinth) was typical of pre- Hellenic religions, which held sacred bullfights. (158-159)

In an interview with Andrk Camp Borges remarks that the word "labyrinth" evokes for him the Carceri of Piranesi as well as De Quincey and Kafka. He also mentions Baudelaire's poem Rtve parisien (Lesfleurs du mal, CV) which speaks of an enormous labyrinth which has the dimensions of the universe.28

The story is for the most part a monologue by Asterion who begins by citing the accusations that have been made against him: that he is arrogant and perhaps misanthropic or even mad, and that he is a prisoner. He proclaims, however, both his freedom and his superiority, for although he never leaves his house, its doors (whose number is infinite) always stand open and anyone may enter. A note observes that the original says "fourteen" instead of "infinite" but that as used by Asterion this numeral probably means "infinite." The mangers, drinking troughs, courtyards and pools are also infinite (fourteen) in number. In Tlon there are fourteen geographical names of which only three are recognized and the magic sentence of "The Writing of the God" contains fourteen fortuitous words. The house also recalls the Library, for it is the world.


Perhaps to prove that he is not a prisoner, one day Asterion steps into the street with somewhat disastrous results:

The people prayed, fled, fell prostrate before me; some climbed up onto the sty- lobate of the temple of the Axes, others gathered stones. One, I believe, hid in the sea. Not for nothing was my mother a queen; I cannot mix with commoners, even if my modesty should wish it. (OC, l: 569; CF, 220)

In replacing the perspective of a human being with that of the Minotaur Borges is able to make the beast a symbol of man. Asterion is in his labyrinth as men are in the Library, "lost in the universe," says Borges in the interview with Georges Charbonnier.

Being a Minotaur marks Asterion as isolated and the labyrinth is the expression of his isolation. For Asterion, however, his uniqueness distinguishes him from men. "I am not interested in what a man can publish abroad to other men; like the philosopher, I think that nothing can be communicated by the art of writing." This may be taken as a sign of his bestial nature; namely, that lacking the gift of reading and writing, he cannot comprehend his situation. But given the opacity of language and the consequent distance which separates words and things, Asterion may be more like the cat in "The Southn-living wholly in the present and in direct contact with "what is" rather than trying to ensnare reality in a discursive linguistic net that excludes reality even as it tries to grasp it. After all, philosophers are for Borges the true masters of fantastic literature and we have dreamed the world.29 Asterion also raises Descartes' dream hypothesis: "Perhaps I have created the stars and the sun and this enormous house, but I no longer remember."

Every nine years Asterion receives nine men so that he may deliver them from evil. Death is seen as deliverance and, in Asterion's eyes, these men are not sacrificial victims but persons whom he will redeem.30 The ceremony lasts but a few minutes. Each remains where he fell and their bodies help distinguish one gallery from another. This suggests perhaps that in empty space and time there can be no distinction of points o r moments. One of them has prophesied that some day Asterion's redeemer would come. And arrives in the person of Theseus:

"Can you believe it, Ariadne? The Minotaur scarcely defended itself." (OC, 1: 570; CF, 222)

Asterion's fate is sealed in his monstrous character and in his disregard and ignorance of the world woven by the words of men. And since the sensible world is ultimately illusion, Asterion's redemption can only come

. T H E S E L F A N D I T S A V A T A K S . 139

about through a release from the bonds of this fiction. But Asterion's fate is also general, for it is the fate of all sentient creatures.

Rosendo Ju6rez appears in two stories: "Man on Pink Corner," which was Borges' earliest success (Iniqaity), and9'The Story from Rosendo Juhrez," which appeared thirty-five years later in Brodie ( OC, l : 329-334, CF, 45-52; OC, 2: 4 1 2 4 1 6 ; CF, 358-363). The two versions taken together are another gaucho tale of the dagger and destiny. They are also tales of epiphany or conversion, but this remains in the background in the first version, while it is at the center of the second. In "Man on Pink Corner" Rosendo is a street tough and knife fighter called the Slasher, who was one of Don Nicolhs Paredes' men. Paredes was actually the boss of the Palermo district of Buenos Aires and helped Borges fill in the details of life in the city during the time of Carriego (RM, 226-227). Rosendo is drinking and dancing with his woman, the beautiful La Lujanera, at the local dance hall-brothel, when a rude knock on the door presages an opportunity to test Rosendo's mettle. Francisco Real enters and runs an insulting gauntlet of Rosendo's friends and admirers.

"I'm Francisco Real, from up on the Northside. Francisco Real, and they call me the Yardmaster. I've let these poor sons of bitches lift their hands to me just now because what I'm looking for is a man. There are people out there-I figure they're just talkers, you know-saying that there's some guy down here in these boondocks that fancies himself a knife fighter, and a bad'un-say he's called the Sticker." (OC, l : 33; CF, 47-48)

Rosendo makes no move to take up the challenge and when La Lujanera slips him his knife, Rosendo tosses it out a long window and into the river. Real observes: "The only reason I don't carve you up is because you sicken me." La Lujanera throws her arms around Real saying in a hry, "Forget that dog-he had us thinking he was a man." Rosendo leaves, not to be seen again after that night. Real and the woman dance and then leave, presumably to make love in a ditch or a field. Some time later there is a second knock on the door and Real staggers in followed by La Lujanera. Borges observes : "Francisco Real knocks twice at the same door: the first time to swagger in and challenge his man, the second time to die" ("Comm.," 265). La Lujanera explains that in the field a man challenged Real and stabbed him. His cohorts accuse La Lujanera but the narrator comes to her defense. Real utters one dying request: "Cover my face." Thus Real preserves in dying the pride which Rosendo surren- dered. Ultimately Real is stripped of his possessions by the crowd and


tossed into the river through the same window through which Rosendo had thrown his knife. The narrator concludes:

I strolled nice and easy on home to my place, which was about three blocks away. There was a light burning in the window, but then it went out. When I saw that, I can tell you I moved a good bit faster, And then, Borges, for the second time I pulled out that short sharp-edged knife I always carried here, under my vest, under my left arm, and I gave it another long slow inspection-and it was just like new, all innocent, and there was not the slightest trace of blood on it. (OC, 1: 334; CF, 52)

In "The Story from Rosendo Jukez" Borges meets Rosendo in a bar and Rosendo wants to set him straight about what happened that night. The fictional character of writing is immediately brought out. "You've put the story in a novel, sir-and I'm hardly qualified to judge that novel- but I want you to know the truth behind all the lies you wrote."Rosendo was raised by his mother, a good woman and another "Clementina." He is lured into a duel by an older boy whom he kills. The police apprehend him and offer to make a deal. In exchange for a confession and for ridding them of a problem, they will turn him over to Don Nicol6s Paredes who will take Rosendo under his wing. Paredes tells him that he is sending him to a Mr. Laferrer In Morbn, where they are having elections. He has a letter written to Laferrer by a young man wrote poems about tenements and riffraff. The young man is, of course, Evaristo Carriego, the subject of Borges' early book.31 Rosendo earns respect and begins to go with La Lujanera. One day, his friend Luis Irala, an older man who was a carpen- ter by trade, tells him that his Casilda has run off with Rufino Aquilera. Against Rosendo's advice and although he is inexperienced with a knife, Irala vows vengeance:

But what'll people say? That I'm yellow? ... I couldn't care less about her. A man that thinks longer than five minutes running about a woman is no man, he's a pansy.32 (OC, 2: 414-415; CF, 361-362)

Irala is killed in the duel. The night of Rosendo's story he shows up at the dance hall. The

Yardmaster, who had been drinking excessively, challenges him. But a reversal occurs in Rosendo's life.

That was when it happened-what nobody wants to understand. I looked at that swaggering drunk just spoiling for a fight, and it was like was looking at myself in a mirror, and all of a sudden I was ashamed of myself. I wasn't afraid of him; if I had been, I might have gone outside and fought him. I just stood there. (OC, 2: 415416; CF, 363)


La Lujanera brings him the knife and Rosendo simply drops it on the floor.

Not all Borges' tales of destiny are tales of epiphany or conversion. Clearly "The Intruder" is not and it remains an open question whether Dahlmann has met his fate in a spirit of conversion or resignation. Even where something decisive occurs to a protagonist, this occurrence does not always have the character of an epiphany. Lonnrot lives through a genuine denouement but one could hardly read this as a conversion. And the same can be said for Hladik, for though his experience is positive, it does not convert him but merely allows him time to finish his work. Then there are a number of stories in which the protagonists clearly meet their fate but where fate does not transpose them to a new state. "The End," "Emma Zunz," and "The Wait" all come to mind. And how are we to read "The Gospel According to Mark"? Does Baltasar undergo a religious conversion, or is he the victim of a misguided conversion on the part of the Gutres?

Borges broaches the subject of epiphany directly in his essay on Le6n Bloy by referring to a famous quotation from Saint Paul (OC, 2: 98-100; 01, 13 1-1 34). Before his conversion to Christianity, Saul of Tarsus was an approving presence at the martyrdom of St. Stephen. H e was subsequently given a commission to go to Damascus and suppress Christianity there. As he approached Damascus he suddenly saw a blinding light and heard Jesus ask: "Why persecutest thou me?" Temporarily blinded, Paul was led into Damascus where the Lord directed the disciple Ananias to find him. Borges, however, does not concern himself directly with the story of Saul's conversion but rather with one his most famous and enigmatic pronouncements which inspired Le6n Bloy: Videnzus nunc per speculum in aenigmate: tunc autem facie ad facie. Nunc cojnosco ex parte: tunc autem cojnoscam sicut e t cojnitus sum ( I Corinthians 13:12). In the Saint James version this passage reads: "For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known."

Several Borgesian themes are announced here. The first is that of mirrors that reflect and in reflecting distort each of us and the world. Thus they present us with images of images and are, as Plato points out, the most obscure representation of reality. The second is that of the duality yet interconnection of things; namely, that the lowest is also the highest,


the coward the hero, and the individual a microcosm of the universe. With regard to knowledge itself, the essay can be looked at as a meditation on the incessant yet insufficient character of human reason. Finally, the passage introduces the theme of an experience which clears the lenses of the soul and allows it to see things as they really are.

Borges has culled from Bloy's diverse writings several reflections on this passage:

The sentence from St. Paul, Videmus nuncper speculum in aenigmate, would be a skylight for plunging into the true Abyss, which is man's soul. The terrifying immensity of the abyss of the firmament is an illusion, an outward reflection of our abysses, perceived "in a mirror." (OC, 2: 98; 01, 132)

Here Bloy affirms that the individual soul is a true microcosm of the macrocosm.

In a second passage, Bloy considers the Czar and his people and suggests that his responsibility may be merely apparent "In the mysterious dispositions of the Prohndity, who is really a Czar, who is a king, who can boast of being a mere servant?" This passage recalls "The Theologians" in which God could not distinguish between Aurelian and John of Pannonia, thus suggesting as well the metaphysical unreality of the individual self. It also suggests that the lower may indeed be the higher, for what we take to be high and low may be completely different from the point of view of God.

Finally,

Everything is a symbol, even the most tortuous pain. We are sleepers who shout in our sleep. We d o not know if the thing that afflicts us is the secret beginning of our future joy. We see now, St. Paul says, per speculum in aenigmate, literally: "in enigma by means of a mirror" and we shall not see otherwise until the advent of The One who is all in flames and who must reveal all things to us. (OC, 2: 99; 01, 133)

What we take for the waking world is our dream-the outer world of sensible things is mere appearance. And the true nature of reality will be revealed to us only in the moment of our epiphany by One who is in flames or, more literally, in la hora sin sornbra. The remaining quotations stress two things: that we see everything in reverse and that each of us is a symbol of something that is unknown to us.

In his "Commentary" Borges describes "The Approach to al- Mu'tasim":


The idea that a man may be many men is, of course, a literary commonplace.. . . In "The Approach to al-Mu'tasim" the concept undergoes certain modifications. There, I think of men being incessantly changed by each man they talk to and perhaps by each book they read. Thus I arrived at the tale of a kind of saint who spreads circles of diminishing splendor all around him, and is finally discovered by somebody who divines him through these many far-flung echoes of his intlu- ence. (266)

This early story brings together two of Borges' central preoccupations: the fantastic and the metaphysical/theological (OC, 1: 414418; CF, 82-87). The author of the text under review is named Mir Bahadur Ali. Gabriela Massuh points out that Bahadur Shah I1 was the last emperor of India who was deposed by the British in 1857 (Massuh, 140). He was a musician, calligrapher and poet. Bahadur also means "hero." The title of the second edition, The Conversation with a Man Called al-Mu'tasinz, is significant because, as Massuh notes, the conversation never takes place. Unless, of course, it is a conversation of the protagonist with himself. The protagonist of the story, a law student in Bombay, is unnamed, which suggests the theme of the annihilation of the self. He is also a rationalist and freethinker, which indicates an association with Borges. He disbelieves the Muslim faith of his fathers but on the tenth night of the moon of Muharram, he finds himself in the midst of a dispute between Muslims and Hindus. Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar. The tenth of Muharram commemorates the Battle of Karbala in Persia in 680 between the Shi'ites and the Sunnites over the legitimate leadership of the Islamic community. It ends a ten-day mourning period commemorating the martyrdom of the Shi'ite leader Imam Hussein, grandson of Mohammed through his daughter Fatima.

In the ensuing riot the student joins in the fighting and, with his bare hands kills, or believes he has killed, a Hindu. The police arrive and the student flees, ultimately taking refugee in a circular tower which lies in a corner of an unkept garden. The reference is to the Towers of Silence in Bombay. These towers, where the Parsee leave their dead, are outside the conflict, for the Parsee, who are influential in Bombay, are followers of Zoroaster and fled Persia to escape Muslim persecution. The towers' shape suggests circular space which is for Borges the space of revelation. The student's journey turns out to be circular as well, for he returns to a spot near the circular tower from which he started. Jatn points out that several critics have suggested that this circularity indicates an endless and perhaps futile search, but Borges prefers circular time to linear time.


Hence it could be argued that the circular nature of the student's journey indicates that the truth which he seeks lies within himself.

At the top of the tower the student encounters a squalid man in a squatting position urinating by the light of the moon. He explains that his profession is stealing gold teeth from the corpses which the Parsee leave in the tower. He also mentions that it has been fourteen nights since he cleansed himself with buffalo dung. The despoiler of corpses is clearly one of the lowest of the low but he is not the very lowest, for the student learns from him that a certain woman of a caste of thieves has frequently been the object of the curses and hatred of the despoiler of corpses. The student reasons that the anger of man so thoroughly vile must be a kind of praise. Hence he resolves to seek her out. The woman is doubly low because of her caste and her gender. But woman also symbolizes for Borges intuitive rather than discursive knowledge.33

The narrator now goes on to describe what seems to be the student's illumination. After spending some time with the vilest of human beings and accommodating himself to these creatures, the student perceives a moment of tenderness and quiet in one of these men. "It was as though a more complex interlocutor had spoken." Since the wretch with whom he was speaking was not capable of initiating this sudden turn, the student surmises that the man is echoing someone else and he arrives at the conclusion that somewhere there is a man from whom this light has issued. The student decides to spend his life in search of this man.

Bahadur's novel, the narrator tells us, "is an ascending progression whose last term is the sensed or foreapprehended 'man called al-Mu'tasim."' Al-Mu'tasim was the eighth caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, who reigned from 833 to 842. According to Sir Richard Burton, a frequent source of Borges' writing, he

was 'the son of AI-Rashid by Ma'arid, a slave concubine of foreign origin. He was brave and of high spirit, but destitute of education; and his personal strength was such that he could break a man's elbow between his fingers. He imitated the apparatus of Persian kings; and he was called the "Octonery" because he was the eighth Abbasid; the eighth in descent from Abbas; the eighth son of AI- Raschid; he began his reign in A. H. 218; lived 48 years; was born under Scorpio (the eighth Zodiacal sign); was victorious in eight expeditions; slew eight important foes and left eight male and female children.'34

Massuh observes that al-Mu'tasim actually reigned not for eight but for nine years and that his name means "seeker of protection." She also suggests that perhaps Borges is playing cabalistically with numbers, since eight turned on its side is the mathematical symbol for infinity. Al-


Mu'tasim's immediate predecessor, we are told, is a Persian bookseller of great happiness and kindness, a saint. Once again literature plays a role even in salvation. At last the student comes to a corridor at whose end is a door and a cheap beaded curtain. The student asks for al-Mu'tasim and a man's voice prays him to enter. The student parts the curtain and the novel ends.

The narrator's discussion does not end here, however, for he goes on to compare the two editions of the novel and complains that the second edition declines into allegory: "Al-Mu'tasim is an emblem of God, and the detailed itineraries of the hero are somehow the progress of the soul in its ascent to mystical penitude." Among the "regrettable" details there is one which we should keep in mind: a red lama recalls al'Mu'tasim seated "like that image I carved from yak ghee and worshiped in the monastery of Tashilhumpo." Tashilhumpo is one of Tibet's greatest monasteries and the home of a famous library. It is also the residence of the Panchen Lama, second in importance only to the Dali Lama. We must take the narrator's criticism with a grain of salt, however, for we have seen that Borges never really condemns allegory and acknowledges that this story is also an alle-

gory. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is a long note at the end

of the story which discusses the Mantiq ut-Tair or Parliament of Birds by the Persian mystic Farid al-Din Abu Talib Mohammad ibn-Ibraham Attar. The distant king of birds, the Simurgh, drops one of his feathers somewhere in the middle of China. Tired of their age-old anarchy, the other birds decide t o seek him out. They know that the king's name means "thirty birds." At last reach the great peak of the Simurgh and as they behold him, they realize that they are the Simurgh and that the Simurgh is each of them and all of them. The narrator goes on to quote Plotinus: "Everything in the intelligible heavens is everywhere. Any thing is all things. The sun is all the stars, and each star is all stars and the sun" (Enneads, V, 8,4).

Forty years later Borges devotes one of his most beautihl poems, "The Unending Rose," to Attar (in La rosaprofunda, 1975). Its last lines read: "...everything is an infinity of things. You are music, rivers, firma- ments, palaces, and angles. 0 endless rose, intimate, without limit, which the Lord will finally show to my dead eyes" (OC, 3: 116; SP, 367). Massuh notes that in "The Zahir" Borges mentions the Asrar Nama, another poem by Attar, which presents the parable of the bird and the mirror. The last lines read:


but when you sit within the mirror's mirror you see no more the mirror, but the Face.35

These lines recall Angelus Silesius' advice to his reader, namely, that the reader become himself the text.

What, then, is the outcome of the story? For Massuh this use of Attar's poem obscures the true key to the story which concerns language rather than religion. But this seems difficult t o accept unless one also accepts her strictly non-theological reading of other stories as well. For Nufio there is no mystery in the identity of al-Mu'tasim, al-Mu'tasim is identified with the student-the seeker and the sought, the sensible and the intelligible coincide (25). But there is a second paragraph to the note at the end of the story which clouds any unequivocal interpretation of the story. Jatn points out that in the Aleph version of the story this note has been left out altogether, while the translation of Ficciones inverts the order of importance.36 These lines read (in Jatn's translation):

certain words attributed by a Persian bookseller to al-Mu'tasim are, perhaps, the magnification of other words pronounced by the student. These, and other ambiguous analogies may signifjr the identicalness of the sought and the seeker; they may also signif) that the latter influences the former. (71)

Al-Mu'tasim ends, then, with a question rather than an answer.

. F A I L E D E N L I G H T E N M E N T .

By "failed enlightenment," I mean those occasions on which the conditions for enlightenment seem to be present but are not utilized. "The Zahir" and "The Aleph" are two examples of such a situation These stories share a number of features. They are perhaps the most notable of Borges' "Arabian" tales. Borges is both narrator and a principal character in the action that is being narrated. In both stories salvation or enlightenment is sought in a woman with whom Borges admits he has been madly in love. This seems to have been characteristic of Borges' life, for, according to Rodriguez Monegal, Borges had a habit of falling in love with every pretty woman that he met. Both of these tales are also connected with "al-Mu'tasim" in which the student seeks out the woman who has been cursed by the despoiler of corpses. Finally, both make use of abundant oxymora and suggest as well why an image or metaphor which appears oxymoronic may in fact conceal a deeper level of meaning.

"The Zahir" brings together several of Borges' themes (OC, 1: 589-595; CF, 242-249). I have already mentioned the duplicity of Borges as both narrator and participant and the relation between the self


and its other, but there are others: the ninety nine names of God of the Cabalists; the theme of microcosm and macrocosm and with it the thesis that the lowest is also the highest; coupled with this is the view that one thing is all things, in particular the symbol of the rose which appears in "al-Mu'tasim" and many other writings; the suggestion that madness and sanity, like cowardice and heroism, are but two aspects of the same thing; finally, there is the instant, la hora sin sombra, in which the individual is able to encounter divinity or the whole of the universe.

Teodelina Villar was a perfectionist. However, the tenets of her creed were not eternal, but the caprices of Paris or Hollywood.37 She was in search of an Absolute but hers was of only a moment's duration. Thus Teodelina, whose portrait is exceedingly well drawn by Borges, embraces an oxymoron, for she seeks the Absolute in an instant of the temporal flux rather than in eternity. Her father, Dr. Villar, with whom she lives, has to move to a rather poor district because of financial difficulties. And Borges confesses that he was in love with her, and that her death moved him to tears. Her death embraces a second oxymoron, for this elegant creature has had the bad taste to die in an unsuitable part of the city.

In Argentina the Zahir is an ordinary coin worth twenty centavos, but Borges tells us at the outset of the story that it has been many other things. In Guzerat, at the end of the eighteenth century, it was a tiger and in Persia it was an astrolabe which Nadir Shah (a robber chieftain who became ruler of Persia) caused to be sunk to the bottom of the sea. The Zahir in question, comes into Borges' possession the day after the death of Teodelina Villar. This event has a profound effect on the narrator, for at the end of the opening paragraph he remarks that he is no longer the "I" of that episode; but it is still possible for him to remember what happened, and that he may still be, however incompletely, Borges. This statement both recalls and contrasts itself to Borges' proclamation at the end of the "New Rehtation of Time." There he asserts that in spite of the arguments for the unreality of time and the sensible world, he is in fact Borges. Here on the other hand, the Borges he has been is slipping away from him.

Borges receives the Zahir as change when he goes into a bar, the night after having seen Teodelina for the last time, and orders a drink of caiia at a bar. Caiia is a cheap alcohol usually made from sugar cane or fruit juice (in this case orange juice) and Borges observes that the coarseness of his act, which is heightened by some men playing truco, is oxymoronic in character. But he also suggests that the apparent contradictions we call "oxymora" may have deeper meaning, as in the case of the Gnostics'


"dark light" or the alchemists' "black sun." He stares at the coin for a moment and then goes out into the street, reflecting that every coin is a kind of archetype, "a symbol of those famous coins which glitter in history and fable." In mulling over a series of these famous coins he finds that he has come full circle and is back at the bar which is now closed. Borges' journey parallels that of the student in search of al-Mu'tasim. He is in a circular space that is propitious for a genuine enlightenment but enlightenment does not take place. Borges takes a cab home and sleep- lessly continues his reflections. Thus instead of concentrating Borges' attention, preparing it for enlightenment, the Zahir disperses his thought. The next day Borges considers several ways of divesting himself of the Zahir such as hiding it in the library or burying it in the garden. He finally decides to order another brandy and pay for it with the Zahir. His procedures are similar to those employed by the narrator in disposing of the book of sand, another potential source of revelation whose revelatory power is overlooked.

The coin, however, does not leave him in peace. Borges has been at work on a fantastic tale about an ascetic who has killed his father, a notorious wizard who has gotten possession of a limitless treasure by magic arts. The ascetic is determined to guard the treasure from the insane covetness of human beings. He guards the treasure day and night but the stars have told him that the sword which will cut short his vigil has already been forged. That sword is named "Gram" and we discover that the ascetic is the serpent Fafnir and the treasure on which he lies is that of the Niebelungs. The appearance of Sigurd ends the story.38 His preoccupation with the story has deluded Borges t o the extent that he believes that he is perfectly able to forget the Zahir, so much so that he deliberately recalls it to mind. He tries to focus on other coins as well but t o no avail. He consults a psychiatrist without success and then comes upon a book and a bookstore. Once again literature holds the key to unraveling mysteries. In Julius Barlach's Urkunden zur Geschichte der Zahirsage he learns:

Belief in the Zahir is of Islamic ancestry, and dates, apparently, to sometime in the eighteenth century.. . . In Arabic, "zahir" means "visible," "manifest," "evident;" in that sense, it is one of the ninety-nine names of God; in Muslim countries, the masses use the word for "beings or things which have the terrible power to be unforgettable, and whose image eventually drives people mad." (OC, 1: 593; CF, 246)

The passage recalls Funes' ability to remember everything. Borges continues to read and comes to realize both that nothing can save him and


that he is not to blame for his predicament. Nevertheless, he feels envy for those for whom the Zahir was not a coin but a piece of marble or a tiger. He also recalls the odd anxiety with which he studied the following paragraph:

One commentator on the Gulshan i Raz says that "he who has seen the Zahir shall soon see the Rose;" and he quotes a line of poetry interpolated in Attar's b a r Nama ("The Book of Things Unknown"): "the Zahir is the shadow of the Rose and the Rending of the Veil." (OC, l: 594; CF, 248)

The Gulshan i Raz or House of Roses was completed in 1317 by Mahmud Shabistari and is considered one of the most important philosophical poems in the Persian language. Fishburn and Hughes point out, however, that in Lahiji's commentary, which is perhaps the best known, there is no mention of the Zahir. Nevertheless, Borges' tying together the Zahir and the Rose by citing Attar has powerful theological implications. Like the tiger, the rose is a recurring symbol in Borges' work and throughout human history. According to Cirlot:

The single rose is, in essence, a symbol of completion, of consummate achievement and perfection. Hence, accruing to it are all those ideas associated with these qualities: the mystic Centre, the heart (14), the garden of Eros, the paradise of Dante (4), the beloved (31), the emblem of Venus (8) and so on.The golden rose is a symbol of absolute achievement. When the rose is round in shape, it corresponds in significance to the mandala. The seven-petalled rose alludes to the septenary pattern (that is, the seven Directions of Space, the seven days of the week, the seven planets, the seven degrees of perfection). (275)

Borges does not make use of the path opened up by the Zahir. Nevertheless he longs for the annihilation of the self, the fate which has become Teodelina's younger sister. He returns to the passage in the b a r Nama which says that the Zahir is the shadow of the Rose and the Rendering of the Veil: Borges links that saying with the Sufi practice of reciting their own names, or the ninety-nine names of God until they lose themselves in God. He muses that perhaps by thinking of the Zahir again and again, he shall find God.

"The Aleph" is one of Borges' most famous stories and it has been richly commented upon. In my opinion it is also overburdened by meanings. In this it is similar to "Tlon" but perhaps not quite as successful. Because of its complexity I will first run through the story and then discuss some of its interpretations. Once again, "The Aleph" opens with the death of a beautiful woman, Beatriz Viterbo, with whom Borges admits having been in love. On her birthday he goes to pay his respects to her


father and to her cousin, Carlos Argentino Danieri. After her death Borges never fails to visit Danieri on Beatriz' birthday, each time bringing a small gift. Eventually it is established that he will also stay for dinner. Danieri fancies himself a poet and on one occasion he launches into a glo- rification of modern man for whom, supplied as he is with telephones, motion pictures and so forth, actual travel has become superfluous. Borges connects these pompous and foolish notions to literature and asks Danieri why he doesn't write them down. Danieri replies that he has and shows Borges a poem entitled The Earth. Danieri is Borges' polar opposite, for he seeks to set the entire face of the planet to verse; that is, he believes that language can adequately capture reality. He reads Borges some passages from his Australian section and praises a word of his own coining, the color "celestewhite," which he feels actually sumests the sky, an important element of the Australian landscape.

Two Sundays later Danieri invites Borges for cocktails in the salon- bar, which the owners of his building, Zunino and Zungri, have opened. There he reveals more of his verbal ostentation replacing "blue" with U azure," "cerulean" and "ultramarine" and "milk" with "lacteal," "lactes- cent" and "lactinacious," the latter being a word of his own design. Borges fears that Danieri wants him to contribute a foreword to his work but instead he asks Borges t o request hva ro Meli6n Lafinur, a well- known man of letters, to do so. Meli6n Lafinur was in fact Borges' cousin and an academician ("Comm.," 281). Borges agrees to do so when he next meets hvaro at the Writers' Club, which suggests that Danieri was not prestigious enough to belong to that organization. Borges decides not to carry out this commission.

In the ensuing weeks Borges fears each telephone call, thinking it might be from Danieri. Danieri does finally call, but it is to complain bit- terly that his landlords, Zunino and Zungri, want to tear down his house in order to expand their cafe. He vows that his lawyer, Doctor Zunni, will make them pay a considerable sum in damages. He explains that it would be impossible for him to finish his poem without the house because down in the cellar there is an Aleph. Borges advises him that he will be right over to see it. Borges arrives and they have a glass of brandy. Danieri leads Borges into the cellar and provides him with a pillow, insisting that he must view the Aleph in the dark. Fear grips Borges. "Suddenly I realized the danger I was in: I had let myself be locked underground by a mad- man, after first drinking down a snifter of poison." Yet Borges sees the Aleph. On leaving he takes revenge on Danieri by advising him to make the most of the coming demolition by moving to the country.


Before discussing the text of the Aleph, I should like to take up some details which seem superfluous to the story. The first of these concerns the names Beatriz and Danieri. Borges himself remarks:

"The Aleph" has been praised by readers for its variety of elements: the fantastic, the satiric, the autobiographical, and the pathetic. I wonder whether our modern worship of complexity is not wrong, however. I wonder whether a short story should be so ambitious. Critics, going even further, have detected Beatrice Portinari in Beatriz Viterbo. Dante in Daneri, and the descent into hell in the descent into the cellar. I am, of course, duly gratehl for these imlooked-for gifts. ("Comm.," 264)

Surely this is Borges at his most disingenuous. The first four elements are clearly present in the story. In his "Commentary" Borges affirms that Danieri is a friend and the verses are a parody of his verse. He also observes that Beatriz was a real person with whom he was hopelessly in love. And given Borges' high opinion of the Divina Comedia, it is almost impossible not to associate Beatriz and Danieri with Beatrice Portinari and ante.^^ What is strange, however, is how they are placed in the story. Dante sought salvation in Beatrice and did not receive it. Borges vainly seeks salvation in Beatriz. But it is not Borges who is associated with Dante but her cousin Danieri. And this makes the whole device appear superfluous.

A second, and certainly more important, issue is what Borges has to say about language. Early in the story he states that Danieri's ideas seemed so foolish "that I linked them at once t o literature." And in his description of the Aleph he observes:

How, then, can I translate into words the infinite Aleph, which my timorous memory can scarcely contain?. . . And besides, the central problem-the enumeration, even partial enumeration, of infinity-is irresolvable. In that unbounded moment, I saw millions of delightful and horrible acts; none amazed me so much as the fact that all occupied the same point, without superposition and without transparency. What my eyes beheld was simultaneous; what I shall write is successive, because language is successive. Some odd it though, I will capture. (OC, 1: 624-625; CF, 282-283)

From these passages some critics have concluded that the central theme of "The Aleph" is language. For Alazraki, the attitude of the protagonist is that of the poet who, accepting the failure of language to capture reality, creates a new reality by means of this failure. For Massuh, Borges is pointing out the limitations of language, its inability to grasp a reality which transcends it and which can be touched-if it can be touched at all-only in that silence which results from language when it self-destructs. I t seems


to me, however, that Borges is once again placing before us a number of red herrings.

Consider first the claim that language is successive and that it is therefore impossible t o capture a simultaneity in words. This is an illusory difficulty and is based on a conhsion between the nature of a medium, in this case language, and the object to be described. If it were impossible to express simultaneity in language, John could never become upset at Alice's infidelity, for it would be impossible t o communicate t o him that she was seen with his best friend at a particular time and place. In the second place this successive quality characterizes only one use of language, its narrative use. But perhaps the problem is not so much the communication of simultaneity as the enumeration of a simultaneity of an endless number of things. Borges suggests as much in his "Commentary."

My chief problem in writing the story lay in what Walt Whitman had very suc- cessfully achieved-the setting down of a limited catalogue of endless things. The task, as is evident, is impossible, for such chaotic enumeration can only be simulated, and every apparently haphazard element has to be linked to its neigh- bor either by secret association or by contrast. (264)

But Borges cannot have it both ways. If Whitman has been successfd in achieving this task, then the impossibility is specious.

Massuh objects to any pantheistic interpretation of the experience of the Aleph on the grounds that Borges nowhere alludes t o a possible identity between God and the universe of the Aleph (115). But this simply misreads what Borges has to say. That the failure here is not a failure of language but rather a failure on the part of Borges becomes clear when we consider the meaning of the Aleph and the experience which he tries to describe. Borges suggests that what is needed is a metaphor or symbol which will enable us "to see the world in a grain of sand." Borges mentions three symbols employed by the mystics to communicate such an infinite vision, each of which he appears to take seriously elsewhere in his writing. The bird which is somehow all birds refers to Attar; the sphere t o the Library and the sphere of Pascal; and the four-faced Janus to the poem "Limits." He then wonders whether the gods might not grant him a similar metaphor. The Aleph itself is such a metaphor. Thus in the "Postscript" t o the story Borges observes that

"aleph," as well [sic] all know, is the name of the first letter of the alphabet of the sacred language. Its application t o the disk of my tale would not appear to be accidental. In the Kabbala, that letter signifies the En Soph, the pure and unlimited godhead; it has also been said that its shape is that of a man pointing to the sky and the earth, to indicate that the lower world is the map and mirror of the


higher. For the Mengenlehre [set theory], the aleph is the symbol of the transfinite numbers, in which the whole is not greater than any of its parts. (OC, 1: 627; CF, 285)

Thus the Aleph is perhaps the most complete symbolic representation of the divine infinity, not of God or a god which is always delimited and therefore determinate, but of the limitless godhead of the mystics. And its appearance in a cellar is one more expression of the thesis that the lowest is also the highest. But Borges is unable to profit from this experience for reasons which are made clear in the story itself. Earlier, while awaiting Danieri, Borges draws close to a portrait of Beatriz and says to it:

"Beatriz, Beatriz Elena, Beatriz Elena Viterbo,. . . Beloved Beatriz, Beatriz lost forever-it's me, it's me, Borges." (OC, 1: 624; CF, 281)

The words recall those at the end of the "New Refutation of Time": "And yet, and yet, ... The world, alas, is real; I, alas, am Borges." They function as a refusal t o escape time by looking into eternity. Borges' refusal to allow this second sight to function is further punctuated by his jealously over the fact that Danieri receives the Second National Prize for Literature while Borges receives no prize at all. Finally, his' rejection of the illumination offered by the Aleph takes its definitive form in his conclusion that the Aleph in the cellar is a false Aleph. Thus Borges has remained Borges. His jealousy of Danieri and his confession before the portrait of Beatriz confirm that the erasure of the self has not occurred.

Becornin8 the Text

IN THIS FINAL CHAPTER I WILL OFFER an interpretation of Angelus Silesius' advice that is based upon much of what Borges says in his writings and about his life. I don't know that Borges himself followed this path. No individual can know that about another.

In his "Commentary" on "The Immortals" Borges observes:

I have for years lived in fear of never dying. Such an idea as immortality would, of course, be unbearable. In "The Immortals" we are face to face with people who are immortal and nothing else. And the prospect, I trust, is appalling. ("Comm.," 280)

And in "The History of Eternity" he ties the notion of the self to that of memory:

It is well known that personal identity resides in memory and that the annul- ment of this faculty constitutes idiocy. It is fitting to think the same of the universe. Without an eternity, without a secret and delicate mirror of what passes before souls, universal history is time lost.. . . (OC, 1: 364)

This is not to say, of course, that memory alone constitutes reason but rather, as we saw in our discussions of Funes and Kant, that reason without the content provided to it by memory would be entirely blank. Yet the notion of eternity persists because, Borges suggests, a nostalgia for eternity is rooted in the fact that "the style of desire is eternity" (OC, 1: 365).

"The Immortal" relates the story of the antiquarian Joseph Cartaphilus (OC, 1: 533-544; CF, 183-195). In June of 1929 Cartaphilus offers the Princess of Lucinge a six-volume edition of Pope's Iliad that she


purchases.1 Cartaphilus, whose name means "lover of maps," is a man who gets along with fluidity and ignorance in several languages; that is to say, he has come to the realization that language by itself has no inherent meaning-it is entirely conventional. In October the Princess learns from a pas- senger on the ship Zeus that Cartaphilus has died at sea during his journey home to Smyrna. In the last volume of the Iliad she discovers the manuscript which is the subject of this story. Once again we have the apparent role of chance in forging destiny.

Cartaphilus' story begins in a garden in Thebes, the city of Oedipus and hence a place of destiny par excellence. Cartaphilus has returned from the recent Egyptian wars and encounters a bloody horseman in search of the secret river which cleanses men of death. The horseman dies, but Cartaphilus determines to seek out the river and the city of the Immortals which rises on its banks. "I am not certain whether I ever believed in the City of the Immortals; I think the task of finding it was enough for me." Thus Cartaphilus' quest echoes the quests of the Library as well as Kant's observation that although metaphysics is impossible as a science, the incli- nation to undertake metaphysical inquiries is an ineradicable human disposition. After much wandering, left alone by his men who had either deserted or perished, and nearly dying of thirst, Cartaphilus views at dawn the towers of the city and falls asleep. He awakens to find himself with his hands bound, face down in an oblong stone niche. He manages to roll down a sandy bank to an impure stream from which he drinks his fill. He also encounters the troglodytes, creatures who, although they resemble human beings, apparently cannot speak and who devour the flesh of serpents. Finally he manages to break his bonds and then begs or steals some serpent meat. He advances toward the city followed by one of the troglodytes. The description of the city is a mClange of Borgesian symbols, which recall the "Library," "al-Mu'tasim," "Asterion," "The Writing of the God" and the "Aleph" among others.

On leaving the city the narrator encounters the supposed troglodyte who had been following him earlier. He is stretched out on the sand trac- ing and erasing a string of signs. Like the antiquarian, the troglodyte has learned that neither letters nor words contain any intrinsic meaning, but Cartaphilus, in his earlier incarnation as a Roman soldier, has yet to learn this. Cartaphilus at first thinks this is some form of primitive symbolic writing. But since none of the forms resemble one another, a symbolic function seems excluded. The wretched condition of the troglodyte reminds Cartaphilus of Argos, the old dog of the Odyssey, and he decides to name the man "Argos." Argos replies: "Argos, Ulysses' dog. This dog

B E C O M I N G T H E T E X T . 157

lying on the dung heap." When Cartaphilus asks him what he knows of the Odyssey, he replies: "Very little. Less than the meagerest rhapsode. It has been eleven hundred years since I. invented it."

The troglodytes, Homer tells Cartaphilus, are the Immortals. They razed their city some nine centuries ago, and with its ruins they erected the mad city as a parody of the irrational gods who govern the world and of whom we know nothing. Having come to the realization that words cannot grasp reality and that all undertakings are vain, the immortals have gone to dwell in caves determined to live in pure speculation. They have become, in effect, the philosophers of Tlon. Immortality is commonplace, for all creatures, except for human beings, are immortal; that is, they are ignorant of death.

The narrator now begins a series of theological and metaphysical reflections. First he observes that in spite of the proclamations of various religions, the belief in immortality is rare, for although Jews, Christians and Moslems profess immortality, the veneration they show this world proves they believe only in it. The narrator prefers the Hindu wheel of religions, which has neither beginning nor end and in which each life engenders the next. This is one of the images which Borges encounters in the cellar of "The Aleph." And if we postulate an infinite period of time that repeats itself-eternal recurrence-no one is anyone and one single immortal is all men.2 Finally, he observes that from the doctrine that there is nothing lacking compensation in something else, it follows that if there exists a river whose waters grant immortality, there must be one whose waters remove it. Having drunk from the first, Cartaphilus will seek out the second.

After innumerable adventures-a battle at Stamford Bridge in 1066; in the seventh century of the Hegira the transcription, in a language he has now forgotten, of the seven adventures of Sinbad; playing chess in the courtyard of a jail in Samarkand; the pursuit of astronomy in Bikaner; the subscription to Pope's Iliad in Aberdeen in 1714; and discussions with a certain Gambattista, who is no doubt Gambattista Vico-he arrives in 1921 at a port on the Eritrean coast. On the outskirts of the city he drinks from a spring-whose clear water contrasts with the murky waters of the river of immortality-and is made mortal once more. A year later Cartaphilus examines these pages and perceives something false in them because they conflate the events of two different men. The first is the horseman and solider Flaminius Rufus and the second is Homer. His narrative then closes:


As the end approaches, there are n o longer any images from memory-there are only words. I t is not strange that time may have confused those that once por- trayed me with those that were symbols of the fate of the person that accompanied me for so many centuries. I have been Homer; shortly, I shall be N o One, like Ulysses; soon, I shall be all m e n 4 shall be dead. (OC, 1: 543-544; CF, 194)

The document concludes with a "Postscript," which like the "Postscript" of "Tlon" is dated in the future (1950), three years after its initial publication in the journal Anales. As in the case of "Tlon," this, along with the open references to the Princess of Lucinge, serves to blur any distinction between fiction and reality. Both, so far as we can deal with them at all, are mere concatenations of words.

In a famous passage of his most important novel, La nauseL, Sartre discusses what he calls "storytelling." Sartre observes that for the most trivial event to become an adventure all one must do is start relating it. And then come the observations which cast so much light on Borges' claim that it is, in the end, impossible to distinguish fiction and reality because they interpenetrate.

While you live, nothing happens. The scenery, people come in and go out, that's all. There are n o beginnings. Days add on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable and monotonous addition ... . But when you tell about a life, everything changes; only it's a change that nobody notices: the proof is that people talk about true stories. As if there could be true stories; events take place in one direction, and we tell about them in the opposite direction .... I wanted the moments of my life to follow each other and order themselves like those of a life remembered. I might as well try to catch time by the tail.3

Sartre's observations not only tie into Borges' concern with the fleeting nature of time, they also elucidate his remarks about the power and falli- bility of language. Language changes everything because it creates a world, but one which resides alongside the brute and vital act of living. Thus it is not that language (including its more restricted mode which we call "literature") falsifies the world but that worlds, with all their ordered and structured events, live only in language, be it the language of the story-teller, the anthropologist, the philosopher, or the ordinary individual.

In another famous passage Sartre describes a waiter in a cafk as "playing" at being a waiter. He does not mean, of course, that the waiter is play-acting in the sense of taking on the role in a play. The latter is only a variant of the original play-acting each of us performs throughout the day in fulfilling certain functions or completing certain tasks. But why is this only a playing at being something or someone, why can I not be what I in fact am? Within the sphere of daily life a rough distinction between real-

. B E C O M I N G T H E T E X T . 159

ity and fantasy still obtains. I cannot, for example, "really" become the persons in my fantasy. I can and do, however, play a number of "real" roles as teacher, writer, cook, lover, father and grandfather. These constitute me as a particular person and through them I am known to others. I am those roles, to paraphrase Sartre, but in the mode of not being them. I can never identify with any of them completely no matter how intimately connected I am to them. This is because no matter how hard I try to be what I am, a certain degree of nothingness inserts itself between my being and those roles which are indeed mine. This is due to the distinction between human beings and all other creatures who are ignorant of death. Our awareness of death is the source of that nothingness which prevents me from being what I am until, of course, I am no longer.

That I am not unfairly imposing a Sartrean description of the self on Borges becomes evident when we consider a number of texts which form a continuous theme in his writing. In the essay "The Nothingness of the Personality" from Inquisiciones, Borges observes that there is no such thing as the self as a unity, that personal identity is rooted in memory, which never reveals itself to us in its plenitude.4 Then there are the last lines of the poem "Matthew XXV: 30" which declare:

In vain have oceans been squandered on you, in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman's eyes. You have used up the years and they have used up you, and still, and still, you have not written the poem. (OC, 2: 252; SP, 73)

The poem in question is that perfect moment which sums up one's life. I t cannot be written because life is always open-ended until death sums us up in our absence. This theme is developed more fully in one of his discussions of Shakespeare, that man who could be all things to all men. In "From Somebody to Nobody" Borges takes up what he calls the process of "magnification to nothingness" in which God is first conceived as the God of Gods, as someone, and ends by being everything, hence nothing (OC, 2: 115-117; 01,153-156).

In "History of the Echoes of Names" he takes up God's reply to Moses' inquiry into who or what God is: "I am He Who is." Borges examines several variations or interpretations of this statement and concludes with Schopenhauer who, already near death, said t o Eduard Griesbach: "Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries."5 And, in apparent agreement with Sartre, Borges observes that precisely because of having


written The World as Will and Idea, Schopenhauer knew that to be a thinker is as illusory as being an invalid or any other thing.

Finally, in one of his last collections of essays, which Borges acknowledges to be one of his favorite books, the theme of the depersonalization of human individuals and of god, are brought together. "Everything and Nothing" appears in the collection El Hacedor, whose first American title, Dreamtigers, somehow overlooks the fact that Borges says that ''Hacedor" was his attempt t o find a Spanish equivalent for the English word "maker" ("Comm.," 297). It is a very brief piece, as are all the pieces in this volume. The observations are simple and familiar.

There was no one inside him; nothing but a trace of chill, a dream dreamt by no one else behind the face that looks like no other face (even in the bad paintings of the period) and the abundant, whimsical, impassioned words. He started out assuming that everyone was just like him; the puzzlement of a friend to whom he had confided a little of his emptiness revealed his error and left him with the lasting impression that the individual should not diverge from the species. (OC, 2: 181; SP, 87)

The individual in this case is Shakespeare who, as soon as he gives up being Ferrex or Tamburlaine becomes again a nobody. Indeed the suggestion is that it was only because Shakespeare was literally no one that he could take up so many different roles toward so many different people. But Shakespeare's position is not unique. All of us are marginally aware of not-being-anyone. He was acutely aware of this condition, however, so much so that when he finds himself before God, he says:

"I, who have been so many men in vain want to be one man only, myself." The voice of God answered him out of a whirlwind: "Neither am I what I am. I dreamed the world the way you dreamt your plays, dear Shakespeare. You are one of the shapes of my dreams: like me, you are everything and nothing." (OC, 2: 182; SP, 89)

* E N L I G H T E N M E N T A S D E S T I N Y *

Not all of Borges' thoughts on immortality and the self are as negative as those we have been considering. In the previous chapter we saw that he seems to envisage some kind of positive experience in which the individual achieves enlightenment. Qua individual I am in time, for it is my position in time that constitutes my point of view; that is, my social-historical perspective which informs all knowledge and evaluation. But in the "New Refutation of Time" Borges presents a cluster of arguments supporting


the view that time is unreal. If these arguments prevail, and if a position in time is the very ground of individuality, then the individual is also unreal. Yet Borges also tells us at the outset of his essay that these arguments leave him unconvinced. And the article ends with a paragraph which we must now try to unravel:

And yet, and yet-To deny temporal succession, to deny the ego, to deny the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret assuagements.. . . Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river; it is a tiger that mangles me, but I am that tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am that fire. The world, alas, is real; I alas, am Borges.

Borges presents instances in which a kind of enlightenment may have taken place. They can be sorted out into two classes each of which has a particular figure as its paradigm, the deserter Tadeo Isidoro Cruz and Tzinacin, the magician of the pyramid of Qaholom. These two individuals receive their enlightenment in quite different ways. Consider the case of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (OC, 1: 561-565; CF, 212-214). Cruz is a soldier who is sent off to serve in an outpost on the northern frontier. In pursuit of a criminal who has killed several of his own men, Cruz has a revelation: "Any life, however long or complex it may be, is made up essentially of a single vnoment-the moment in which a mind finds out, once and for all, who he is."

The man they are hunting, though he goes unnamed in the story, is the deserter and murderer Martin Fierro, who is also the subject of the legendary poem by JosC Hernindez. Cruz witnesses Fierro's courage and turns to fight alongside the outlaw. In this moment of revelation, Cruz begins to understand

that one destiny is no better than the rest, and that every man must accept the destiny he bears inside himself. ... He understood that his real destiny was as a lone wolf, not a gregarious dog. He understood that the other man was himself. (OC, 1: 563; Aleph, 85)

At a stroke Borges unites the theme of the individual and his existential act with the view that each of us is also in some sense all men.

The case of Tadeo has at least two interpretations that I shall call the "existential" and the "essential." We saw from our earlier discussion that Sartre maintains, and Borges seem to agree, that although I am in a given social-historical situation which is in some sense mine, I can never completely identify or coincide with that situation. In short, I cannot be who I am or, as Sartre would put it, I can be who I am only in the mode of not being it-in playing at being someone or telling a story. Thus to pretend


that I really am someone is a kind of inauthenticity, for it denies the very negativity which is at the heart of our being. Although he suggests that there is also an authentic mode of being-human, Sartre never spells it out very clearly. Heidegger, on the other hand, from whose work the structure of L' ttre y le nhant derives, does spell it out more clearly. I shall try to sum up what is important for our discussion without going into great detail.

As it is given to itself in daily life, human being finds itself in a particular environmental situation that serves as the stage of its activities. Hence human being is fundamentally a Being-in-the-world. A world, however, presupposes the presence of a reflective being who recollects its past and re-presents it together with the present and the future. In representing its situation to itself, human being exhibits a conscious if unthematic concern for its own Being. It plans for itself and orients its activities toward the realization of its plans. Hence human being does not have the static kind of essence which is characteristic of other beings. Rather its essence lies in its existence, in its to be. I t is not an object but a project, which is to say that although it has been thrown into a world not of its own making, it is nevertheless free to carry out its projects on the stage provided by its situation in the world. For the most part, however, we conceal from ourselves that freedom which is at the heart of our nothingness. Because I am already in a world, the structure of the world is imposed upon me at the moment I begin to act. My actions are directed by an anonymous public voice, the they, which for all its pronouncements never reveals itself as anyone or any group in particular. The they infects every aspect of my life: it tells me what cereal to eat for breakfast, how I should plant my garden, what my sexual desires mean and how to satisfy them, and where to look for a good commentary on Kant7s Critique of Pure Reason. The they, Heidegger observes, tranquilizes the anxiety which is both the result of and the entree into my freedom. Insofar as I heed this anonymous voice, my mode of existing is fundamentally inauthentic. In contrast, existing authentically would mean not succumbing to my situation in the world but rather taking it over-directing the possibilities it provides to me toward the future and, of course, taking responsibility for that direction.6 This mode of action would constitute me as a genuine individual rather than a member of the herd, to paraphrase Nietzsche.

The existential reading has been advocated by Ion T. Agheana, who argues that the "Borgesian protagonist, far from being a spectral presence, devoid of identity, is a will in action, a personality which affirms itself. H e is driven. Personal identity is the only tangible evidence of existence.


Existence is shaped by experience."7 But although it appears to be supported by Borges' exclamation at the end of the "New Refutation of Time," such an interpretation does not really square with Borges' antipathy to existentialism. In the essay on Shaw he observes that the philosophies of Heidegger or Jaspers "may play at desperation and anguish, but at bottom they flatter the vanity; in that sense they are immoral." Borges repeats these remarks in somewhat different fashion in Part 6 of the conversations with Burgin. And in Part 5 he expresses similar feelings about the work of Unamuno, a writer whom he also greatly admires.

What I said against Unamuno is that he is interested in things that I am not interested in. He is very worried about his personal immortality. He says, "I want to go on being Miguel De Unamuno." Well, I don't want to go on being Jorge Luis Borges .... I want to forget all about him. (1 13)

According to Agheana, however, his thesis concerning the individual will in action is hlly justified.

Even a cursory reading of "El milagro secreto" or a vague acquaintance with "Guayaquil," for example, would confirm such a claim. But the point that really needs to be made here is that Borges does not dispense with recognizable humanity in his work, and that such a humanity projects itself in neatly defined personalities. (19)

Agheana also rejects Borges' suggestion that its history reveals literature to be the work of a single author (23). That Borges does not inhabit a world of fantasy and that real events have a good deal of importance in his work, is a point which has been well-made by Balderston. But that his prose deals with neatly defined personalities goes against much of what Borges himself says about his work, for example, that the short story deals with events rather than personalities, and that in two of his stories he departs from his usual procedures to try to write in Jamesian fashion-to build a story around a character (Brodie, "Afterword"). As for the central event of Borges' fiction being the individual will in action, Agheana simply overlooks the overwhelming emphasis which Borges places on destiny. Is Hladik really an individual will in action? If so, his actions certainly do not spin themselves out as "real" events in the "real" world, for they have no effect on anyone but Hladik himself. What Hladik achieves can perhaps more plausibly be construed as hlfilling his destiny. And the same can be said of the two historians of "Guayaquil," which Borges observes can be read "as the transformation of the two historians into the two dead generals." To return to our paradigm case, can Tadeo he be said to be an individual will in action when one moment in that night, one deed, con-


stitutes his symbol? It appears that Tadeo has not committed an existential act, but grasped his destiny, and that in that destiny it is his essence and not his existence that is revealed to him.

Agheana maintains that Borges' characters impose themselves on the reader through an existential act.

All of Borges' characters, wittingly or unwittingly, wait for a present, for the one which justifies their humanity, and all of them justify their humanity in fulfilling that present. With the notable exception of Funes, whose relentless perception of the present is without emotional emphasis, the Borgesian protagonist imposes itself to the attention of the reader through an existential act. (61-62)

To justify this rather broad generalization he mentions "The End," "Emma Zunz," "The Waiting," "Death and the Compass," and "The Garden of Forking Paths" among others. But these stories are more easily read as stories about the fate or destiny of the individual than about an act of will. Does Lonnrot, for example, meet his destiny because of his acts or because he is duped by Scharlach? Borges himself calls Emma Zunz a victim of destiny. Agheana realizes that he must somehow bring together what Tadeo is with his alleged existential act. Hence he coins the phrases "essential individual" and "essential existential act" to serve as an explanation. But this coinage explains nothing since the problem is to clarify how the species is in the individual, as Borges puts it in his essay on Keats' nightingale. For Borges, who has certainly occupied himself with this problem, it might be clarified by the notion of an infirma species, that species below which there are no longer any subspecies but only individuals. Hence it is directly the form or nature of those individuals which are subsumed under it. This makes sense of Tadeo's realization but it does not very easily lend itself to an existential interpretation; for what one realizes in such a moment is that I am what I am, that I coincide with my destiny.

Throughout his writings Borges suggests that destiny is fatal in the sense of being deadly. Symbols of it abound and none is more powerful than the dagger or the sword, which appear in many stories and poems. There is also the figure of Janus, the sometimes two-face and sometimes four-faced guardian of the portals, who records everything which passes. There is a Janus-like figure in the villa of Triste-le-Roy and at the cross- roads of "The Gospel According to Mark" also suggest the virtual presence of Janus. In La rosa profunda Janus gets his own poem, which opens with the observation that no one opens or closes a door without honoring


the memory of the Biponte who presides over them. And he appears once again in the poem "Limites," which we have yet to take up.

Borges, however, also maintains that a complete coincidence between the individual and what he is, is ultimately impossible. He draws upon such thinkers as Hume and Schopenhauer who expose the impossibility of any complete grasp of the self by the self. Hume is never able to become aware of himself except when he is accompanied by a present perception. He concludes, therefore, that he is no more than a bundle of perceptions. Schopenhauer exposes the infinite regress which ensues when the self reflects upon itself. Despite stories like "Tadeo," Borges never really relin- quishes the view that I can never coincide with what I am. Consider, for example, two later poems both from La rosaprofunda. In "I" there seems to be at least an attempt to identi@ the "I" with the "what":

I am too the memory of a sword, and of a solitary falling sun, turning itself to gold, then grey, then nothing. (OC 3: 79; SP, 347)

In "I am" the identification proves impossible:

I am no one. I did not wield a sword in battle. I am echo, emptiness, nothing. (OC, 3: 89; SP, 357)

Taken together these poems seem to be asserting that while he may indeed be what he is, the individual is finally nothing. These two aspects of being human, what I am and that I am, form or essence and brute existence, are illustrated with great lucidity in what is surely one of the most beautiful pieces of short prose in Spanish or any other language.

The title of "Borjes y yo" ( OC, 2: 186; SP, 93) has been misconstrued and mistranslated as "Borges and Myself' in El Aleph and Other Stories, a volume which lists Borges as a collaborator.8 Agheana compounds this mistranslation in speaking of "the two Borges of 'Borges y yo"' (33). The difficulty is due in part to the fact that Spanish has problems expressing such terms as "self," "ego," and "me." "To," the first person singular subject pronoun, is used primarily for emphasis or when the verb does not itself indicate who is acting. It is also used to mean the self and the ego. Spanish does have the word which means individual being, but it is not frequently used. As for "self," there simply is no Spanish equivalent of ''SO?' or "Selbst." "Myself," for example, is expressed as "yo mismo." Due to the paucity of expressions which refer to the self, distinctions commonly made in French, German and English often become blurred in Spanish. For example, when I reflect on myself and ask myself who I really


am, I express two different aspects of myself: the I which is doing the interrogating and the me which is the object of the interrogation. The interrogation of the me is supposed t o reveal what I am, but "what" applies to me as an object. To show that I am also the me which is being interrogated requires a second I which can hold the me and the first I before its gaze and see whether they are identical. Hence the charge that self-introspection leads ultimately to an infinite regress. There are, of course, strategies to circumvent this regress, but we need not concern ourselves with their success or failure. I mention this issue merely to shed some light on the title of Borges' little essay. Insofar as "Borges" is the bearer of an indefinite number of predicates, famous writer, teacher etc., the name obviously refers to an object, a what or a me. "To," however, retains its signification as a subject. The title would then read "Borges and I." It is essential to understand this to understand the essay.

"Boges y yo" is so brief that it is difficult to refrain from citing the whole text. It opens with the following declaration:

The other one, Borges, is the one things happen to. I wander around Buenos Aires, pausing perhaps unthinkingly, these days, to examine the arch of an entranceway and its metal gate. I hear about Borges in letters, I see his name on a roster of professors and in the biographical gazeteer. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typeface, the taste of coffee, and Stevenson's prose. The other one likes the same things, but his vanity transforms them into theatrical props. To say that our relation is hostile would be an exaggeration: I live, I stay alive, so that Borges can make his literature, and this literature is my justification. (OC, 2: 186; SP, 93)

The first thing to note is, pace Agheana, that there are not two Borges here. Borges is the other, an other who is nevertheless intimately connected to yo or the I. The second is the great similarity this passage bears to Sartre's description of storytelling. Things just happen to the I, but when they get woven into a story they become Borges by being assimilated to him. It would be incorrect to say "by" him, for Borges is not an agent or a subject, but an object. And although the I suggests that Borges' literary work is also his own justification, he concludes that not even Borges' good work can save him (the I), since good things belong to no one in particular, even to the other man (Borges) but to speech and tradition. Borges and his writings, then, are not unlike Tadeo's discovery of who he is-a lone wolf. Being a lone wolf is not exclusive to any one individual. There are many lone wolves and even if we specify this particular one so closely that its description applies only Tadeo, there is no reason why someone else could not take on this form, precisely because it is


a form or essence and as such is general rather than particular. The I goes on to observe that little by little he is becoming absorbed by Borges, becoming lost in him.

Thus, my life is an escape. I will lose everything, and everything will belong to oblivion, or to the other.

I don't know which of us wrote this. (OC, 2: 186; SP, 93)

In contrast to Borges, which is kndamentally form or essence, the I is the subject whose deeds are continually assimilated to Borges, but which can never coincide with that essence, except, of course at death-and then only because the I will have ceased to exist.

* E N L I G H T E N M E N T A S C O N V E R S I O N *

For Borges enlightenment usually occurs in that hour without shadows when the truth can be seen without deception. But in his writing there seem to be two different sorts of enlightenment. Tadeo discovers his essence, his true nature, which is to say his destiny. Henceforth he will understand his actions because he has accepted the various forces which have formed him. In this he is not unlike zur Linde. They differ, perhaps, only in the degree to which zur Linde is more intellectually aware of who he is and why has met his particular fate. For both of them life goes on but now each transcends its apparent arbitrariness, for each possesses a knowledge which is unaffected by time. But such a revelation can be only a respite, for it is limited by a number of factors. The first is the existential factor we have already discussed; namely, that although I am this psycho- physical being in a particular situation in the world, while I live I am always more than my past-I transcend it toward the future. As Sartre asks in his discussion of promising, "How can I, who now make the promise, know now that I will be the same person in the f ~ t u r e ? " ~ In short, the continuity of my personality entails a continual reaffirmation of myself and there is no guarantee that such a reaffirmation will continue to take place. It is also limited by the Schopenhauerian objection that this sort of enlightenment is in no sense complete, for I continue to be driven by the very factors which make up my situation in the world. Complete enlightenment would be a complete escape from the effects of one's antepasados, and this would be a genuine conversion. But such an escape cannot be a conversion from one set of beliefs to another. For belief is never absolute since it is always relative to one's situation in the world.


Hence such a conversion if it is be possible in Borges' universe, can only be a conversion from something to nothing.

"The Writing of the God"

Gabriela Massuh offers an aesthetic interpretation of Borges' work which differs markedly from the conception of art for art's sake. According to Massuh, Borges' literary devices, including the contradictory images he employs, point to that aspect of the creative process that escapes being captured in words. It can only be hinted at by surpassing the limitations of language and entering into an aesthetic of silence. Hence Massuh's reading of Borges presupposes a definite artistic plan-MallarmC's project of transforming the world into a book-and its overthrow. This is an interesting thesis and I would have no quarrel with it were it not for the fact that Massuh dogmatically and quite passionately rejects all theological and mystical readings of Borges' texts. Thus she absolutizes her thesis, and Borges, we have seen, continually rejects absolutizations. In order to present Massuh's thesis more concretely, I would like to consider "The Writing of the God" and her interpretation of it. The story opens with a description of the prison in which Tzinachn, the last priest of the god Qaholom, has been incarcerated (OC, l: 596-599; CF, 250-254).

The cell is deep and of stone; its shape is that of an almost perfect hemisphere, although the floor (which is also of stone) is something less than a great circle, and this fact somehow deepens the sense of oppression and vastness. A wall divides the cell down the center; though it is very high, it does not touch the top of the vault. I, Tzinacin, priest of the Pyramid of Qaholom, which Pedro de Alvarado burned, am on one side of the wall; on the other there is a jaguar, which with secret, unvarying paces measures the time and space of its captivity. At floor level, a long window with thick iron bars interrupts the wall. At the shadowless hour [midday] a small door opens above us, and a jailer (whom the years have gradually blurred) operates an iron pulley, lowering to us, at the end of a rope, jugs of water and hunks of meat. Light enters the vault; it is then that I am able to see the jaguar. (OC, 1: 596; CF, 250)

This opening paragraph recalls that of the "Library." Both manage with great precision and economy to set the stage for subsequent developments. As in the case of the "Circular Ruins," we have been transported to an exotic land. But here the tale is situated in an actual region. Pedro de Alvarado was one of the conquistadores who joined Cortes' expedition to Mexico. Because of his red face and blond hair the Indians named him Tonatinh, "the sun." In 1520 he ordered the destruction of the temple of Tenochtitlin, the Aztec capital. In Guatemala he subdued the QuichC


Maya by burning their capital. Tzinacin was a Quich6 Maya leader who is mentioned in Bernal Diaz' Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva Espaiia. "Qaholom" is a QuichC word meaning father, in this case the Great Father who preceded creation. The shape of the prison recalls that of the Library as well as the essay on Pascal's sphere, while the jailer recalls the gaucho in "The South." The jaguar, who, we are told later on, is one of the attributes of God, has affinities with the cat of "The South" and of the poem, as well as the other tiger, which cannot be captured in words. Tzinacin is able t o see the jaguar only at la hora sin sowbra, that hiatus between the two twilights of Heraclitus, when rational illumination becomes possible.

Urged on by the need to do something to pass the time, Tzinacin attempts to remember everything he ever knew. Finally he recalls that, foreseeing the devastation and ruin which would occur at the end of time, on the first day of Creation the god wrote a magical sentence. As Alazraki and others have pointed out, this suggests cabalistic motifs.10 Tzinacin realizes that his prison does not limit his search, for he has seen the script perhaps a thousand times. He recalls that the jaguar is an attribute of the god and devotes long years to meditating on each of the great cat's spots. Gradually Tzinacin becomes less obsessed with the sentence than with the nature of a divine intelligence. We saw in Chapter 2 that such an intelligence would grasp everything at once in a rational intuitive insight. Tzinacin realizes that this sort of total interconnection is available in a lesser sense even to human beings, for even in human languages there is no proposition that does not entail the whole universe.

He dreams of grains of sand that continue to multiply until they fill the prison. He realizes, however, that he is dreaming and finally awakens. But a voice tells him that he has awakened to a previous dream which "lies within another, and so on, t o infinity, which is the number of thegains of sand." Like the magician of the "Circular Ruins," Tzinacin has learned that everything which takes place in those two twilights of Heraclitus or in Spinoza's substance seen under the aspect time has no more reality than a dream. Unlike the magician, however, Tzinacin rebels against his despair in a manner that recalls the tone of "Ewigkeit." That is, he comes to affirm his destiny and all that has happened to him, and with that affirmation he experiences a vision:

I saw a Wheel of enormous height, which was not before my eyes, or behind them, or to the sides, but everywhere at once. This Wheel was made of water, but also of fire, and although I could see its boundaries, it was infinite. I t was made of all things that shall be, that are, and that have been, all intertwined, and


I was one of the strands within that all-encompassing fabric, and Pedro de Alvarado, who had tortured me, was another. (OC, 1: 598-599; CF, 2 5 3 )

In the Wheel he sees the ultimate designs of the universe and he is also able t o understand the script of the jaguar. It is a formula of fourteen words which appear to be random. Randomness recalls the account of order at the end of the "Library." The vision of the Wheel links this tale with "The Aleph," and the number fourteen with "The House of Asterion." It also unites the two primal Heraclitean elements, fire and water. The vision also recalls that of Juan de Mena in "Time and J. W. Dunne." The Wheel is a potent and almost universal symbol only a few of whose meanings I will mention here. Perhaps it is most often used to symbolize the sun, and the idea of the sun as a two-wheeled chariot is only one remove from this. I t is also a Celtic symbol which persists in the occuli of Romanesque churches. And given the notion of the sun as a source of light and therefore of intelligence or enlightenment, as in Plato's allegory of the cave, it is also connected with the Buddhist doctrine of spiritual illumination. The "Wheel of Law, Truth and Life" is one of the eight emblems of good luck in Chinese Buddhism. It illustrates the way of escape from the illusory world of rotation and illusion and the way towards the Center. In Taoist thought the chosen one or sage, who is invisible at the center of the wheel, moves it without participating in the movement in any way, much as Shiva, in the great Hindu image, dances within a wheel or arch of fire his dance of creation and destruction. This center suggests that whoever reaches the highest degree of emptiness, will be secure in repose.

Like the hidden name of God of the cabalists, the god's script promises ultimate power. Tzinacin, then, has only t o pronounce the god's script and he will destroy Pedro de Alvarado and rule over the lands of Moctezuma, but he remains silent because whoever has seen the universe, can no longer think in terms of one man. In the "Epilogue" to El Aleph Borges observe that the jaguar obliged him to put into the mouth of Tzinacin the arguments of a Kabbalist or a theologian. Massuh argues, however, that there is a non-religious motivation for the story, for the concealment of the solution accomplishes a liberation of the story from the limitations of language.

Massuh distinguishes three elements in the story: the initial situation, which forms a system of absences with the exception of thought. Nevertheless, the tale proposes a search which poesis prohibits (121). Next there is the sentence written in the universe that is transformed into


a book in which the sentence can be read (122). Massuh maintains that the cabalistic element is superficial and that for Borges the elements associated with the Cabala "have validity only as aesthetic possibilities" (123). In support of this view she cites the passage in which Tzinac6n concludes that a god would "utter only a single word and in that word absolute fullness." Massuh refers to Giradot's observation that there are two types of language in Borges: the successive language proper to logical knowing and an intuitive language proper to metaphor. She points out, however, that the language envisaged by the magician is of another nature altogether. But she ignores the details, both philosophical and theological, surrounding this question. She also rehses to acknowledge the pantheism that Borges mentions on so many occasions.

The third element in the tale is the search itself. Since the enigma to be resolved is verbal in nature, Massuh concludes that the search becomes the reading of a text (128). She sees a parallel between the magician and the minotaur Asterion. Seen in this light, TzinacAn's nightmare has the character of a double awakening: the first is an existential awakening to his condition as a prisoner; the second is cognitive in nature and consists in an access to wisdom (132). In this extasis of reason the magician accedes to the god's script.

In this way the magician's silence is transformed into the key t o the story. Tzinacln has transcended his own limits: action, power, revenge, freedom and even words hold n o attraction for him because they have ceased t o have any meaning (1 33).. . . What Tzinacin seeks is language.. . . The mystery [of the god's script] dies with Tzinacln and for this reason the narration also "dies": the formula cannot be pronounced in a human context, that is to say, in a narrative context. ( l 34)

Hence Massuh concludes that to interpret "The Writing of the God" as a mystical experience is not t o exhaust the possibilities which the story offers. From a poetological point of view the magician's journey constitutes "an emptiness in which the word annuls itself to the point at which it is transformed into a silence with a positive value. This silence is-para- doxically-the only expressive connection between the poet and the universe" (135). She then goes on to link Tzinacin's search with Borges. "At this level of analysis the identification of the magician with the poetic search of Borges proper is inevitable: the battle of the magician is the battle of the poet to encounter a word which is adequate t o his expressive necessities" (1 36).

For Tadeo life goes on and he recognizes his destiny in it. For Tzinadn life goes on as well but he is indifferent to it, for he has tran-


scended completely his personal self as the high priest of Qaholom. Tzinacin realizes that action in this world is only the appearance of action. Hence his refusal to utter the magic sentence. The model I would like t o use to interpret Tzinacin is that of Buddhism. But why chose Buddhism when Borges refers t o so many other esoteric traditions? Because the central tenet of Buddhism is the unreality of the self, a thought which preoccupied Borges from his early work to the end of his life." Furthermore, Borges has written more pages about Buddhism than about any other religious-philosophical tradition. Finally, because the central themes in Borges' work and many events his life make this choice inevitable.

Buddhism

The three primary constituents of Buddhism, at least in its earlier stages, are the Buddha, the Dharma (teaching, law, reality) and the Sangha (monastic brotherhood). Buddhists consider the Buddha from three points of view.12 As an historical human being (much like the historical Jesus of Christianity), he is Gautama, the Sh&yamuni or sage of the Sh&ya tribe of warriors. As a spiritual principle he is one of a type, the Tathsgata or one who has come or gone. He is alleged to have been preceded by seven other Buddhas and his immediate predecessor was Dipankara. He will be followed by Maitreya, when the life of man reaches 80,000 years. As a spiritual principle, the Buddha is said to exist in his Dharma body. He also appears in his glorified body or enjoyment body. This is somewhat of a cross between his human aspect and his manifestation as a spiritual principle. This enjoyment body bears the 32 marks of the superhuman, which include the Urna (a wooly curl between the eye- brows sometimes interpreted as the "third eye"), the Ushnisha (a kind of cowl on the head) and the aura or light that radiates from his body.

According to Buddhist teaching, human being consists of five skandhas or heaps: the body, feelings, perceptions, impulses and emotions, acts of consciousness. What we call the self is nothing more than these five heaps to which we attribute a fictitious ego. The Dharma or law is laid down in the four holy truths.

i) All grasping at any of the skandhas involves suffering. ii) The origination of ill is craving; e.g., craving for sensuous experi-

ence, craving to perpetuate oneself, craving for extinction. iii) The stopping of ill is the stopping of that craving.


iv) The steps which lead to the stopping of ill are enumerated in the eight-fold path. This consists of right views, right intentions, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mind- fulness, right concentration. Finally, there are rules of conduct for both householders and monks. Central to these is the doctrine of non-violence towards and compassion for all living things. Life is viewed as S a m s ~ a , ceaseless change in which things are born, die and are reborn. To escape from this change is to escape from the wheel of rebirth and achieve Nirviina. This occurs when the individual constituted by the five skandhas recognizes that the self is metaphysically unreal. There are a variety of ways t o achieve this recognition such as meditation, devotion, proper ethical behavior, magical practice, and knowledge. These methods often characterize one particular school.

After the Buddha's death about 483 B.C., Buddhism ultimately broke up into a number of schools. There was first of all the "old wisdom school" (called the Hinayba or lesser vehicle by the followers of the Mahiiy5na or greater vehicle). The Hinayiina professed t o carry on the original teachings of the Buddha. Its ideal was the Arhat (from "Ari," a enemy," and "ban," "to kill"-hence slayer of the foe, the foe being the passions). Its aim was the liberation of the individual and it held that liberation was possible only in the monastic order. Its principal practices stressed moral discipline, trance, and wisdom. About 200 years after the Buddha's death the old wisdom school split into the Theravadins who set- tled in eastern India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma and Thailand, and the Sarvistivadins who developed important centers of learning and art in Mathura, Gandhara and Kashmir.

About 200 B.C. the Mahisamghikas developed a new gospel which became the great career or the great vehicle. The ideal individual of the Mahayiina was the Bodhisattva, a Buddha-to-be, who, in contrast to the Arhat, sought the enlightenment of all. The Bodhisattva is a paradoxical compound of wisdom and compassion. In his wisdom he sees no persons. In his compassion he is resolved to save them all. The Mahayiina also held that the Buddha nature is in each individual. Hence each can be saved whether monk or householder. Mahiiyba doctrines spread to Tibet, China and Japan. Among the different schools of the Mahayiina the following are especially important:

i) The new wisdom school centered about the literature of the Msdhyamikas or followers of the middle way. A central figure is

- B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

ii)

Nagirjuna who was active about 150 A.D. The principal philosophical writings are the sutras known as the Perfection of Wisdom or the prajiiipiramiti, which teaches a middle way between affirmation and denial. Since the Bodhisattva was also committed t o saving others, the New Wisdom School could not rest content with a metaphysics for an elite of intellectuals. Hence Nag3t-juna distinguishes the easy way of faith or bhakti from the difficult way of wisdom. The Yogacira school was developed about 400 A.D. by Asanga and inspired by the Abidharma school, which sought the extinction of separate individuality through the analysis of experiences into an interplay of impersonal forces or dharmas. For the Yogacarins the true and impersonal self is the only reality and all things and thoughts are Mind-only.

iii) antra developed in Hinduism about 500 A.D. and came to influence Buddhism in Nepal, Tibet, China, Japan, Java and Sumatra. Tantra teaches a way of salvation through magical practices. The Tibetans and the Nepalese credit Padmasambhava, a tantric master, with introducing Buddhism from India. Tantric Buddhism was particularly influential on Nying-ma-pa Buddhism in Tibet.

iv) Ch'an in China (Zen in Japan) teaches salvation through meditation on nothingness and through the confrontation with paradoxical riddles known in Japan as koans. Through such means it seeks to circumvent the scriptures and return to the direct enlightenment experienced by the Buddha himself.

In every religion with which I am at all acquainted a distinction is drawn between exoteric doctrines, which appeal to the masses, and esoteric teachings, which are the possession of a few initiates. N@%jjuna, for example, offers the path of Bhakti and the path of wisdom. In Christianity the Easter story, the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus are usually accepted by the masses and perhaps by a majority of the clergy. Theologians, however, have questioned all three dogmas fairly regularly.13 Examples also abound in the teachings of those to whom Borges refers as "heresiarchs," and they include the Sufis, the Cabalists and John the Scot. In Buddhism consider first the doctrine of reincarnation. Is it true according to the Buddhists? Well yes and no, but ultimately no, for reincarnation holds only so long as one believes in the metaphysical reality of the self. By "metaphysical reality" I mean a substantial and everlasting being. But


Buddhism teaches the metaphysical unreality of the self; hence reincarnation turns out to be untenable because there really is nothing to be rein- carnated. Thus reincarnation is an illusion but a very persistent illusion, for it goes hand-in-hand with the belief in a self that persists throughout the ceaselessly changing world of Samsiira. Similarly, Tibetan Buddhism holds that there are five dhyani-Buddhas who are uncreated. Yet in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which contains exoteric instructions for the care of the dying individual, we are told that the benevolent Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as well as the demons that one encounters at death ultimately arise from and are expressions of one's own mind.14 Finally, there is the question of the origin of the sutras. A sutra is a text which is supposed to have been spoken by the Buddha himself as contrasted with a shastra, which is usually more systematic and written by a well-known author such as Nagiirjuna. What, then, is one to make of sutras written long after the Buddha had achieved Nirvana? The Mahiyana offers two explanations. The popular explanation is that texts like the prajii@irarniti sutras were stored by the Buddha in the nether world among the nigas and retrieved at the appropriate time by Niigiirjuna.15 The philosophical explanation is that the later sutras issued from the Buddha's enjoyment body. Conze explains:

The.. . Mahayana.. .asserted, in the face of all chronological difficulties, that even these later sutras come from the Buddha's own mouth. The time lag in publication was accounted for in various ways. One well-known story, for instance, runs that the Prajfiaparamita Sutras, texts dealing with perfect wisdom, were revealed by the Buddha himself, but that they were too difficult t o be understood by his contemporaries. In consequence, they were stored in the palace of the Serpents, or Dragons, called Nagas, in the Nether world. When the time was ripe, the great doctor Nagarjuna went down into the Nether world, and brought them up into the world of men. 16

Conze goes on to point out that this tale was not meant to be believed by everyone and that the philosophical explanation was that the old Sutras were taught by the Buddha's "form-body" and the later ones by his "enjoyment-body." In Western terms one might say that the wisdom contained in the later sutras is already implicit in the earlier ones, and that it was rendered explicit by the labors of Nagiirjuna and others like him.

There is, however, no clear line of demarcation between the esoteric and the exoteric. Metaphysical doctrines, for example, need not be entirely speculative. Most Eastern philosophies would hold that such doctrines are also intrinsically practical since their proper understanding rad- ically affects the way in which one lives. While this view is not popular in


current academic philosophy in the West, most Western philosophical traditions, from the Greeks to the existentialists, hold that thinking about abstract issues also affects the life of the thinker. And religious activity can range from the superstitious or magical invocation of supernatural beings, the gods, the saints, the Bodhisattvas, to the mystical/intellectual recognition that I am one with the ultimate spiritual principle of the universe. Consider, for example, the Heart Sutra, one the most widely known pri.jfii.paramiti. texts. ' 7

Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lovely, the Holy!

The perfection of wisdom is invoked here as a Goddess who is the mother of the Buddhas.

Avalokita, The Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, He beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own-being they were empty.

In this sutra it is not the Buddha but Avalokiteivara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, who speaks. He looks down from the position of perfect wisdom but the spatial connotation is only a metaphor as we shall see. H e works within perfect wisdom but coupled with compassion. He sees no persons, only five heaps which are empty, only the constant appearance and disappearance of mere dharmas or impersonal events. "Empty" is the translation of iiinyata." It may mean "something which looks like," "something which is really nothing," "the liberation from the world of sari.lsiira," "the absence of any kind of self."

Here, 0 Sgriputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

Avalokita addresses ~ i i r i ~ u t r a who among the Buddha's eighty chief disciples was noted for his wisdom. Siiriputra was a master of the Abidharma, which analyzed experience into dharmas or ultimate impersonal facts. This address to ~ i i r i ~ u t r a indicates that this teaching begins where the Abidharma ends. In these lines Avalokita asserts that on the level of transcendental wisdom form is emptiness and emptiness form and that the two do not differ. He then goes on to extend this to all the skandhas. Since the skandhas are identical with emptiness, there is no difference between Samiira and Nirvina.


Here, 0 ~ % r i ~ u t r a , all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are not pro. duced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.

Avalokita now extends his previous remarks to include all dharmas. In this context "dharma" is a technical term for those facts or events which an Abidharmist analysis claims are the ultimate constituents of reality. The pairs of terms refer to the two classes of dharma, the conditioned and the unconditioned.

Therefore, 0 Sririputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.

Avalokita now draws the apparently paradoxical conclusion that because all dharmas are emptiness, in emptiness there are no dharmas. And this includes the four holy truths stated by the Buddha in his first sermon at Sarnath. Furthermore, there is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment since all possible objects of consciousness are empty.

Therefore, 0 ~i i r ip t r a , it is because of his non-attainmentness that a Bodhisattva, through having relied on the perfection of wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble, he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he attains to Nirvfina.

Full emptiness is attained by non-attaining; by a Bodhisattva who has compassion for all as contrasted with an Arhat who is content with personal salvation; and who relies only on the emptiness revealed by the perfection of wisdom. Attainment in the sense of striving to realize a goal is impossible here since: (a) there is no metaphysically real self; hence there can be no personal goal and (b) since Nirviina does not exist apart from Sams%a, it cannot be attained but only recognized; i.e., it is and always has been already present.

Thought-coverings are obstacles which arise from the belief in the reality of independent objects of thought, in the metaphysically real duality of thought and object. Without this belief, one can no longer be made to tremble (there is no self to be threatened); hence nothing can upset the attainment of Nirvana, i.e., the realization that it is present in Samsiira.


All those who appear as Buddhas in the three periods of time fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment because they have relied on the perfection of wisdom.

Conze points out that about one-fourth of the words with verbal roots employed in this sutra are derived from roots expressing intellectual activity. We are now at the point where the relation between pure intellectual activity (esoteric knowledge) and practical activity becomes clear. Full emptiness, we are told, is also the basis of Buddhahood. But the Buddha's message was above all practical: eliminate suffering by following the eight-fold path and behave compassionately toward others.

Consider first the four noble truths. I11 is equated with the craving characteristic of the five skandhas. But Avalokittsvara sees just skandhas and their emptiness. The origination of ill is bound up the skandhas, but since they are identical with emptiness, they have never left the original void and their origination is metaphysically unreal. The stopping of craving leads to the stopping of ill. But in emptiness there is no stopping. And this is why there is no eight-fold path to follow. Hence perfect wisdom compresses the four noble truths into a single insight into nothingness.

Finally, as the Bodhisattva of compassion par excellence Avalokita cannot remain indifferent to those who cannot attain the perfection of wisdom intellectually. He provides, therefore, a mantra or spell for the use of the comparatively unenlightened.

Therefore one should know the as the great spell, the spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth-for what could go wrong? By the prajiiipiramita has this spell been delivered. I t runs like this: Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, 0 what an awakening, all-hail!-This completes the Heart of perfect wisdom.

A mantra is a magical incantation which puts whoever recites it in touch with the deity or power whose aid is being sought. But for the enlightened a mantra is a compressed statement of an esoteric wisdom.1" In the present case the deity in question is the Goddess addressed in the invocation, perfect wisdom, who is the mother of all the Buddhas and consequently of all enlightenment. To those on the path of bhakti or faith the mantra provides access to a deity who exists independently of the faithhl. To those on the path of wisdom it invokes the emptiness that grounds everything which is, including the Buddha nature of the thinker in question. Thus the sutra shows that the extremes of the magical and the intellectual and of exoteric practices and esoteric knowledge, are really different ways of expressing the same thing, and that metaphysics can be esoteric intellectual knowledge and still have practical results in the life of


the thinker. That is to say, it ties together fiction, metaphysics, metaphors, abstract thought, and action, in a manner which would certainly delight Borges.

Borges on Bztddhism

Apart from remarks scattered throughout his writings, Borges' thoughts on Buddhism are contained in two prose pieces: "Forms of a Legend," the short book, Quui es el budismo, and the lecture "Buddhism" (Seven Nights).l9 W h a t is Buddhism was written with Alicia Jurado and finally published in 1976.20 In her note of clarification Jurado observes: "due to Borges are the general plan of the work, which is based in large part on the lectures on Buddhism which he gave in the Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores; the focus of the theme according to a very personal criterion, which is his own; and the unmistakable style in which it is drafted" ( 2 3 3 ) . Borges provides this account of the matter in his conversations with Milleret:

...[ Tlhere was a time when I studied quite a bit about Buddhism. Alicia Jurado and I had begun to write a book. But we couldn't agree because she wanted to write this book in order to convert people to Buddhism. Thus, if I found any picturesque characteristics, she would say that would put people off. She wanted to discard anything that would appear fantastic to us Westerners. Basically, she sought to write a sort of Buddhist catechism. I, on the contrary, wanted to exhibit that strange world that is the world of Buddhism. So, after writing a few pages, we realized that we wanted to write two different books and we abandoned the project. (141)

That Borges' wishes ultimately prevailed can be seen from the text. The first part, which deals with the myths, is beautifully and succinctly presented and contains some acute observations. Borges is on shakier ground when he gets to theoretical issues and presents some common miscon- ceptions without reflecting on them critically. And this despite the fact that he lists Conze's brief yet comprehensive Buddhism: its essence and development in his bibliography.

Borges begins by recounting the legend. After his mother's death (seven days after giving birth), the seer Asita takes the baby Siddhartha in his arms and pronounces him the incomparable.21 The proof is in the marks of the elect that include, in addition t o the more well-known marks, the figure of a tiger drawn on the sole of his foot. Hoping to make Siddhartha a great prince rather than the savior of mankind, the king raises his son in a delusory luxury in which he encounters no evil. But


having heard from the women of the court how lovely the groves near the city are, the young prince commands his driver to take him out of the palace. On different occasions he encounters an old man, a sick man, a corpse and an ascetic. Faced with such suffering, he vows to take up the life of an ascetic, which he subsequently abandons when he realizes that it is as self-indulgent as the life of luxury. Under the Bo tree Siddhartha achieves enlightenment in a manner which recalls the vision of Tzinadn. He sees the innumerable worlds of the universe and then the concatena- tion of all causes and effects.22 At dawn he intuits the four sacred truths. At Deer Park he seeks out the ascetics who deserted him when he ceased practicing asceticism and has the Wheel of the Law turned for them. He teaches them the Middle Way between the carnal and the ascetic lives and they are converted. Thus were constituted the three holy things: the Buddha, his teaching and his order. After his death the Buddha first ascends to Indra's heaven and entrusts the god with the conservation of the law. He next descends to the palace of the Nagas who also promise to protect the law. Finally the Buddha enters into the ultimate extasis in which he dies. He dies at dusk, that hour at which it seems easy to die.

Borges searches for some way to disengage the historical Buddha from the myth. His proposals recall those of St. Jerome as they are discussed by Foucault in "What is an Author?"23 He points out first that it is well-known that the literati of Hindustan are in the habit of seeking out hyperboles and splendors but not circumstantial characteristics. Hence if such circumstances are encountered in a legend, we can conjecture that they are true; for example, the report that Siddhartha was twenty-nine when he left his palace must be true since the number has no symbolic meaning. Borges notes that the sixth century before Christ in which the Buddha lived was a century of philosophers: Confucius, Lao Tsu, Pythagoras and Heraclitus were his contemporaries. He goes on to make an important point; namely, that although it is always tempting in the West t o compare Buddhism and Christianity, they are clearly unlike. Christ tells his disciples that if two of them are reunited in his name, he will be the third, whereas in analogous circumstances the Buddha says that he has left his disciples his teaching.24 Borges then refers to Conze's observation that the existence of Gautama as an individual is hardly of any importance for a Buddhist, and that according to the spirit of the Great Vehicle, the Buddha is a kind of archetype, which manifests itself in the world in diverse epochs and with diverse personalities, whose idiosyncrasies lack major importance. The passion of Christ occurs once and is


the center of the history of mankind; the birth and teaching of the Buddha repeat themselves cyclically.

In his discussion of the antecedents of Buddhism Borges takes up only Sinkhya and Vedfmta, ignoring many other important influences including Jainism. He speaks of Vedinta as an antecedent of Buddhism, but many of its most important developments, including the thought of Sarnkara, were subsequent to and influenced by Buddhism. Most important for our purposes is the discussion of Sinkhya. Borges points out that Sinkhya is dualistic and atheistic. There is an eternal matter, Prakrti, and an infinite number of Purusa or individual immaterial souls. The ;hole of the physical universe emanates from Prakvi and this seems to make Sinkhya a form of naturalism. What prevents this identification, however, is the recognition that P r a b i does not exhaust the content of the universe, for it omits the very element through which we become aware of the physical world.25 United with matter the Purusa form living beings. Despite this union, however, the presence of a spiritual instinct in human beings prompts them to strive for self-perfection. This cannot be realized so long as Pu ru~a is united with P rab i . Hence the "impulse t o escape," which would be meaningless if there were no one to extricate himself from Prahti. The material body perishes at the death of the living being, while the subtle body is imperishable and accompanies the soul through the cycle of reincarnations. The immaterial soul is a spectator, a witness, not an actor among things (see Hiriyanna, 115). When the subtle body realizes this, the union of the soul with the body ceases-the soul is separated from both forms of matter. Once liberated the soul achieves an absolute unconsciousness which is compared to a mirror in which no reflection whatsoever falls, a vacant mirror. The importance of this image for Borges cannot be overlooked.

Borges now turns to three central doctrines: Buddhist cosmology, transmigration, and Nirvana. Most of the discussion is uninformative for anyone acquainted with Buddhism, and I will touch briefly only on the last two. The discussion of transmigration opens with the observation that although Buddhism is a religion, a cosmology and a mythology, the Buddha himself refused all abstract speculation as fundamentally futile. To illustrate this futility Borges relates the parable of the warrior who will not let an arrow be removed until he knows the caste, the name and the parents of his assailant. "This," the Buddha observes, "runs risking death. I teach removing the arrow." As for transmigration Borges mentions others who have held the doctrine such as Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus, the Cabalists, the Hindus, and Hume who affirms that all the arguments


which prove the immortality of the soul also prove its preexistence.26 If each reincarnation is the consequence of a previous reincarnation, there is no termination to the series. This determination of one incarnation by a previous incarnation is karma, which works impersonally; that is, it is not the work of god but rather the law of the universe. Hence there is no suffering which is unmerited.

For the Buddhist, the concepts of transmigration and of karma are inseparable.. . . The Platonic or Pythagorean theory of transmigration presupposes a soul which transmigrates, a pure immortal essence that lodges itself in a body; Buddhism on the contrary denies the existence of an I and has recourse to the notion of karma to assure the continuity of diverse lives. (264)

And he adds: "This inconceivable structure, karma, is perhaps one of the weak points of Buddhism" (264). Thus Borges is puzzled by what t o many students of Buddhism is it clearest, seems most self-evident element.27 To elucidate the meaning of "Nirv%na," Borges contrasts Hinduism and Buddhism. For the Hindus Nirvfina is often synonymous with Brahman and happiness-to extinguish myself in Brahman is to intuit that I am Brahman. In contrast, Buddhism denies the reality of consciousness and matter, subject and object, the soul and god. For the Upanisads the cosmic process is a dream of god; for Buddhism it is a dream'without a dreamer. Beyond and behind that dream there is nothing. Nirviina is the only salvation.

Finally, Borges turns to the distinction between the Mahiiyfina and the Hinayfina. He begins by distinguishing between what I have called the "exoteri~'~ and "esoteric" versions of a doctrine. He recounts the legend of Niig%juna and the Niigas, and acknowledges that from this legend the Mahiiyfina was born. Borges observes that one of the great difficulties of expounding the Mahiyfina is that it abounds with contradictions. It uses and abuses logic in order to demolish logic. Both vehicles share a belief in the impermanence of the self, the four noble truths, reincarnation, karma and the middle way. The Mahiy2na is, however, absolutely idealistic in character. But Borges fails to distinguish between the two principal schools of Mahiy%na, the Yog2ciira and the M2dhyamika. The former maintains a form of subjective idealism akin to that of Berkeley. The doctrine of the Mndhyamikas denies not only the independent reality of external objects, but also the reality of the subject or the self. It supports this view by pointing out that the notion of a thing, whether physical or psychical, is riddled with contradictions and cannot, therefore, be accepted as real.


In his remarks on Buddhism in China and Zen Buddhism, Borges acknowledges the Confucian and Taoist background against which Buddhism developed. He relates the dream of Chuan Tzu, which also appears in the "New Refutation of Time." Chuan Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly and did not know on awakening whether he was a man who had dreamt that he was a butterfly or a butterfly who was now dreaming he was a man. Borges also mentions the Buddhist novel, Journey to the West, in which a monkey, symbolizing intelligence, a horse, symbolizing spirit, and a pig, symbolizing sensuality, go off to India in search of holy books. They return, open the books and find the pages blank, because the Truth is incommunicable and cannot be fixed in words. This is the image which appears in "The Book of Sand." In his brief discussion of Zen he mentions Bodhidarma, the legendary master who is credited with bringing Zen to China. He relates the story of Bodhidarma and his disciple and heir apparent Shen-Kuan. Having doubts about his understanding of Bodhidarma's teaching, Shen-Kuan sought to awaken Bodhidarma from his meditation and to demonstrate his faith by cutting off his left arm. Bodhidarma asks him what he wants. Shen-Kuan replies: "There is no tranquility in my mind. D o me the favor of calming it." Bodhidarma replies, "Show me your mind and I will pacifL it." The disciple replies, "Each time I seek my mind I fail to encounter it." "Well then," replies Bodhidarma, "You are already at peace," and Shen-Kuan is enlightened.28

Although Alicia Jurado maintains that the lecture on Buddhism contained in Seven Nights is the basis for the book on Buddhism, there are some interesting differences. Here Borges identifies genuine Buddhism with Zen. The other varieties of Buddhism, he observes, are encrusted with fables and mythologies. This is perhaps because Ch'an, of which "Zen" is the Japanese translation, views many traditional aspects of Buddhism with contempt. The scriptures, for example, were sometimes placed near the toilet for occasional perusal (e.g., Conze, 203). Ch'an is also hostile to metaphysical speculation, prizing direct insight above all else. And, finally, the Southern branch of Ch'an, under its patriarch, Hui- Neng, practiced the view that enlightenment was not a gradual process but an instantaneous event-a reenenactment of the Buddha's original experience. Ch'an traces its origins through Bodhidarma and back to the masters of the Miidhyamika and to N?tg%juna whom Staal characterizes as "the father of Miidhyamika, the grandfather of Ch'an, and the great grandfather of Zen" (33). Borges raises no problem here regarding transmigration, pointing out that it is not a soul but karma which transmigrates to another body (SN, 69; OC, 3: 249). Since the hndamental law


is to renounce the suffering of the passions, suicide is not an option, since he who commits suicide acts passionately.29 Finally, Borges provides a beautiful formulation of Nirvana. "When we have arrived at Nirvana, our acts no longer cast shadows (OC, 3: 253; SN, 74). This ties together the mirror without reflection of SPnkhya and la hora sin sombra. Like a flame, Borges suggests, Nirvana is not a total cessation but a transformation into another state.

In "Forms of a Legend" Borges reads the legend of the Buddha as a recurring Platonic archetype ( OC, 2: 118-121; OX, 157-162). He begins once again with Siddhartha's encounter with an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a monk. He then goes on to mention several of its reappear- ances. At the beginning of the fifth century Fa-hein made a pilgrimage to Hindustan in search of famous books. In the ruins of Kapilavastu he saw the four images that Asoka created at the north, south, east and west to commemorate these four encounters. At the beginning of the seventh century a Christian monk wrote the novel Barlaanz and Josaphat (Joasaf, Bodhisattva) in which Josaphat is the son of a king of India. Confined by his father to the palace he nevertheless discovers the condition of men in the guise of a blind man, a leper and a dying man. He was converted to Christianity by the hermit Barlaam. This version was translated into many languages including Dutch and Latin and a Barlaams Saga was produced in Iceland about the middle of the thirteenth century. Cardinal Cksar Baronio included Josaphat in his revision (1585-1590) of the Roman Martyrology. The legend that led to the Buddha's eventual canonization by Rome had one defect: the four encounters which it postulates are effective but also incredible. Hence revisions in the form of the legend were made. In its last form the leper, the dead man and the monk are illu- sions produced by divinities to instruct Siddhartha. In the sixth century the four apparitions are four metamorphoses of a god. And the Lalitavistara makes the scene a fantastic pageant in which the Buddha directs the gods t o produce the four figures while he interrogates the charioteer. Thus he controls each stage of his destiny. "And so the unreal has continually made inroads in the story; first it gave a fantastic character to the figures, then to the prince, and, with the prince, to all the generations and to the universe." This remark returns us to the themes of "Tlon" and "The Circular Ruins."


Borges a n d Buddhism

Borges' commentary on various aspects of Buddhism, though sympathetic and sometimes quite perceptive, often appears to provide little support for taking Buddhism as the model of enlightenment in either his texts or in his personal life. For example, in Seven Nights he remarks: "I'm not sure I'm a Christian, but I am sure that I'm not a Buddhist" (OC 3: 243; SN, 60). And in his preface to Christ's The Narrow Act, he observes: "The fact that in one of my stories the man Is both the dreamer and the dream does not mean that I am a follower of Berkeley and the Buddha."30 Yet we must not forget the influence of Schopenhauer on Borges' thought. It is, he confesses, Schopenhauer, among all the philosophers he has encountered, who may have captured a grain of truth in his description of reality. This may be one reason why the "need to deny his connections with Buddhism seems to emphasize the relationship" (Jakn, 79). A brief passage from "The Cult of the Phoenix" suggests a second reason why these denials may be misleading (OC, 1: 522-524; CF, 171-178). After observing that mention of the "Phoenix" appears rather late in the history of the sect, the narrator comments:

In the conventicles of Ferrara, Gregorovius observed that mention of the Phoenix was very rare the the spoken language; in Geneva, I have had conversations with artisans who did not understand me when I asked if they were men of the Phoenix but who immediately admitted to being men of the Secret. Unless I am mistaken, much the same might be said about the Buddhists: the name by which the world knows them is not the name they themselves pronounce.31 (OC, 1: 523; CF, 171)

Gregorovious suggests the exoteric and the esoteric points of view, to which I alluded in discussing The Heart Sutra. The importance of this distinction for an understanding of the relation between Borges' thought and Buddhism becomes clearer when we examine several of the themes which they have in common. I will begin with the role of myth in Borges and Buddhism as a guide to many other themes which they share. I con- strue "myth" as including all products of the imagination including dreams, fictions and games.

The first myth I would like to examine is that of reincarnation. Apart from his discussions of Buddhism, Borges most often ties the notion of reincarnation to that of cyclical time. At the end of "The Library," for example, he speaks of the same volumes being repeated in the same disorder. In the essay on cyclical time, however, he rejects the notion of a repetition of the same, opting instead for a repetition of the similar, thus


preserving the nominalism which he shares with Buddhism. And when he clarifies his thoughts about recurrence in Buddhism he points out that it is not the self but karma which recurs. Finally, we have seen that from an exoteric point of view of the self in time and in the world of appearance, reincarnation occurs. From an esoteric point of view, it is an illusion since there is nothing t o reincarnate.

For both Borges and the Buddhists myth also intermingles with daily life, and this leads to a second common theme, that it is impossible to draw a clear line between fiction and reality. This is the principal thesis of "Tlon" and it reappears throughout Borges' writing. Borges employs a number of devices which help create an air of conhsion between these two spheres: the frequent use of oxymora; the intermingling of real and fictional characters and places; the tale within a tale; the dreamer who is himself the product of a dream; and the use of dialectical arguments as they are found in Zeno and Kant. Perhaps most important is his insistence that reading, whether the text is a document or the world itself, plays a constitutive role in what is read, so that there is no way to compare my "interpretation" with the text as it is in itself. This is tantamount t o Schopenhauer's claim that the world is my idea. And it is why the Borgesian narrator often doubts his ability to tell a story without altering its details. The oxymoronic character of Mah%y%na Buddhism is revealed in its central character, the Bodhisattva, who recognizes that there are no persons and yet is determined to save them. Buddhism also refrains fiom distinguishing fact and fiction in its texts. Both the Heart Sutra and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, for example, freely mingle myth and magic with the rational apprehension of the truth, and many legendary masters like Bodhidarma and Hui Neng may not have actually existed or may not be the authors of the doctrines which are ascribed to them. This impossibility of determining what is fact and what is fiction extends even to the Buddha himself, for the ultimate teaching of the prajHap3ramit3 texts is that the mind is the Buddha. Consider, for example, this passage from Bodhidarma:

The mind is the buddha, and the buddha is the mind. Beyond the mind there's no buddha, and beyond the buddha there's no mind. If you think there's a buddha beyond the mind, where is he? There's no buddha beyond the mind, so why envision one? You can't know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself. As long a you're enthralled by a lifeless form, you're not free. It's not the buddha's fault. People, though, are deluded. They're unaware that their own mind is the buddha. Otherwise they wouldn't look for a buddha outside the mind.32


Because the world is my idea, all metaphysical quests, like that of the student in "al-Mu'tasim," are circular. No matter how mysterious and unforeseen the events of my journey may appear, I am, like Averroes, unable to leave my native hexagon. Hence every genuine quest conforms to Socrates' famous dictum to know thyself. Since every metaphysical quest turns out to be a looking into one's own mind, there can be no sense in talking about or seeking knowledge of an external reality as it is in itself. We rejoin here the great Mahiiyka master Niigi.rjuna.33 Niigkjuna has frequently been read as a philosopher of negativity, and he opens his work by proclaiming the doctrine of no-origination.34 He argues that a thing cannot arise out of itself, for if the effect already exists in its cause, it requires nothing further in order to exist. But if the effect does not already exist in its cause, nothing can produce it. Matter, for example, does not exist, for if it exists, it can have no cause because it is already existent and if it does not exist, it cannot be brought into existence because it is nothing. Matter is therefore unreal as are the other skandhas. As for our knowledge of things, we know only attributes or qualities but not the thing itself. Without attributes we cannot know a substance and attributes presuppose a substance for their existence. Both, then, are metaphysically unreal since they depend on one another. In a similar vein Niig2rjuna argues that all change is impossible, that the subject-object relation, the Buddha, and the Four Noble Truths are illusory. Nirvana itself is an illusion, for bondage and release are relative to one another and therefore unreal. The interested reader can find these thoughts compactly stated in the Diamond Sutra, which accompanies Conze's translation of the Heart Sutra.35 Borges suggests a similar dialectical procedure at the conclusion of "Avatars of the Tortoise."

N3girjuna's dialectic, however, operates negatively only when discursive reason, which goes from one thing to the next attempting to connect them into a coherent whole, is taken as fundamental. In that case, the dialectic of the sensible world is unavoidable and reason is inevitably defeated. This defeat, however, opens the possibility of a hller understanding.

When the 'I' and the 'mine' cease to function the entire structure of the universe-subjective as well as objective-crumbles to the ground. The skandhas no more operate. The cycle of birth and death comes to a standstill.36

To achieve this understanding, the Buddha's teaching must once again be seen from two points of view. We have encountered this double vision several times in our discussion and I shall recall only a few of its


more prominent occurrences. There are first of all the views of the Library seen from within, and from without as the surface of a sphere. The latter is, however, inaccessible to human beings. Hence the incessant yet insufficient light of the orbs that illuminate the interior and symbolize human reason. Then there is Plato's distinction between the changing sensible world and the eternal world of immutable, intellectual forms. Plato offers at least the promise of pure intellectual knowledge. In Spinoza's clear labyrinth one reality is seen from two points of view. As nature, and under the form of time, there is an unending chain of events each connected to the other by the principle of causality. But since we can never grasp the whole of this causal chain including its first cause, our knowledge of reality understood as nature remains piecemeal and incomplete. Under the aspect of eternity, however, the natural progression of events in time is seen to follow in timeless necessity from the nature of God, as the conclusion of a valid logical argument follows from its premises. Finally there is the verse of Paul: "For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face." Now, that is, I see the truth reflected and multiplied by that cristal that is the mirror. Then I shall see by means of the cristal over which Spinoza has labored. In the phenomenal world of becoming relativity reigns supreme. As far as the discursive intellect is concerned, what is not relative is as good as nothing, for its function is to run through and unite that which is disparate. But this need not mean that the relativity of everything is the final truth. Consider the first two verses of Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching, which served as the ground in which Chinese Buddhism took root.37

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery.

This first verse tells us that the Tao, the ultimate source of that which is, is beyond the grasp of language. It is naming or language which individ- uates or gives birth to particular things. The similarity to Plotinus and to Massuh's reading of Borges is obvious, while the observation that the absence of desire allows one to see the mystery recalls Schopenhauer and


the Buddha. The second verse goes on to announce the relativity of all particular things and, therefore, their metaphysical unreality. And the final stanza suggests that the sage acts without acting, creates without possessing, and is therefore indifferent to the results of his actions or his creations. H e has, then, attained that inaction that the rabbi comes to understand as wisdom in "The Golem."

Under heaven all can see beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Therefore having and not having arise together Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other; High and low rest upon each other; Voice and sound harmonize each other; Front and back follow one another.

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease, Creating, yet not possessing, Working, yet not taking credit. Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever.38

These two points of view are also expressed in the metaphor of the river. In Borges the river appears most often as the Heraclitean river of time. On an exoteric level it expresses the passage of time and the fleeting existence of everything temporal. But there is also an esoteric level, for Heraclitus tells us that the logos is the ruling order of time and that we should not heed his voice but that of the logos. The Buddha compares his teachings to a raft that will carry the practitioner across the river of Samsira to Nirviina. The paramit& are like a boat that ferries people to the other shore: charity is seen as the emptiness without which the boat cannot float; morality is the keel, patience the hull, devotion the mast, meditation the sail, and wisdom the tiller.39 But one should not get caught up in the teachings just as one would not carry a raft on his back after crossing a river. That is why all teachings must be abandoned, not to mention non-teachings (Diamond Sutra, section 6, TNH). In section 21 of the Diamond Sutra (TNH) the Buddha cautions:

"Subhuti, do not say that the Tathagata conceives the idea 'I will give a teaching.' Do not think that way. Why? If anyone says that the Tathagata has something to teach, that person slanders the Buddha because he does not understand what I say. Subhuti, giving a Dharma talk in fact means that no talk is given. This is truly a Dharma talk."


Ultimately, then, the teachings lead to the realization that Nirviina or life gone beyond death lies in Sarhs%a the world of birth and death, that there are not two distinct realities but rather two ways of seeing and relating to one and the same reality.40 The samsaric view of reality is, however, not sheer unreality and, taken together with the esoteric point of view it per- mits us to resolve some philosophical conundrums presented in Borges' writings.

The first of these concerns the confrontation between an impersonal consciousness and the personal, existential self. According to Buddhist teachings, as well as the Hindu teachings out of which Buddhism arose, of the many forms which existing things can take, only as a human being can one hope for salvation. Thus Borges observes in Seven Nights:

Among the six fates that are permitted for men-one can be a demon, a plant, an animal-the most difficult is to be a man, and we must make use of it in order to save ourselves.. .. [W]e must be men before we may reach Nirvana (OC, 3: 250; SN, 70).

This does not mean that Buddhism opts for some variation of the exis- tentialist ethic of authenticity, for all ethical systems are relative to one's situation in the world, to the samsaric flux. As the passage from the Tao suggests, good and evil are relative to and require one another. And this is why even the most horrendous acts can be "justified"-because, that is, there are no ultimate vindications. Hence whatever we do in our quest for enlightenment has no intrinsic import or worth. Power is also relative to Samsara. Tzinacin, however, has reached ultimate enlightenment which reveals a timeless and absolute point of view from which the temporal world is seen as mere delusion. To attain this level of understanding, however, one must become detached from all those particulars which constitute one's personality and destiny. Thus in section 14 of the Diamond Sutra (TNI-I), the Buddha affirms that "Buddhas are called Buddhas because they are free of ideas."

These observations lead finally to the theme of nothingness. Schopenhauer distinguishes between human beings and the other animals. The latter have no awareness of finitude or death and enjoy, therefore, a timeless existence. Human beings, on the other hand, are implicitly aware of that nothingness which inserts itself between their existence and what they are, with the result that they can only play at being something. This is why realizations such as Tadeo's offer only a respite from the unceasing flux of existence. A perfect coincidence with my essence occurs only at death. And yet the desire for such a coincidence persists because


"the style of desire is eternity." Nothingness is a central theme in "al- Mu'tasim," for the last valley or sea crossed by the birds before they reach enlightenment is called "Annihilation." For Buddhism Nirvana is the only salvation. Nirvana is seen both as sheer nothingness or extinction and as release from the wheel of karmic reincarnation. Borges brings these two views together in his observation that to arrive at Nirvha means that "our acts no longer cast shadows."

This path to enlightenment is illustrated by the image of the mirror. Perhaps the most familiar reference to mirrors in Borges' work is found in "Tlon" which opens as a story about malevolent mirrors. In Seven Nights, he declares that it is awful that there are mirrors. And the opening paragraph of the "Library" describes a mirror which faithfully duplicates all appearances illuminated by the incessant but insufficient light of the lamps. Yet there is also a rather feeble positive note, for the narrator prefers to dream that the mirror's "polished surfaces represent and promise the infinite." In "Death and the Compass" Lonnrot is "multiplied to infinity in facing mirrors" as he goes toward his death in the villa Triste- le-Roy. Nor do mirrors produce only physical horror, for Borges tells us that the doctrine of the Trinity entails "an intellectual horror, a suffocating infinity, as specious as that of contraposed mirrors." In his essay, on Leon Bloy, however, the mirror undergoes somewhat of a change. The essay can be looked at as a meditation on the incessant yet insufficient character of human reason. But the discussion of the phrase "through a glass darkly" introduces the theme of an experience which clears the lenses of the soul and allows it to see things as they really are. We see now, Paul says, per speculum in aen&mate, literally: "in enigma by means of a mirror" and we shall not see otherwise until the advent of The One who is all in flames and who must reveal all things to us. Such a revelation can only take place when we are free from the appearances reflected by mirrors, in the moment of high noon which is free from shadows.

The "mirror" is a form of cristal or glass, and cristal, we recall from the poem "Spinoza," sometimes symbolizes reason. In daily life Spinoza labors over physical cristales, polishing them to perfection. But Spinoza also seeks perfectly adequate knowledge of reality. This cannot be attained through discursive reason, since discursive reason tries to synthesize the many appearances into a coherent whole. There must, then, be another kind of knowledge which is attainable from an esoteric point of view. In the Platform Sutra of Hui-Neng, the sixth Ch'an Patriarch and the founder of the school of sudden enlightenment, the mirror is introduced


in a contest to determine who will succeed Hung-jen, the fifth Patriarch. Shen-hsiu's verse goes as follows:

The body is the bodhi tree, The mind is like a clear mirror. At all times we must strive to polish it, And must not let the dust collect.

Hui-neng's response proves him to be truly enlightened.

Originally there is no tree of enlightenment, Nor is there a stand with a clear mirror. From the beginning not one thing exists. Where, then, is a grain of dust to cling? 4 1

How, then, do these uses of the mirror-image shed light in turn on Angelus Silesius' exhortation to become the text? Silesius tells the reader that if he wishes to read further, he should become himself the text and the essence. But what kind of text could it be? Presumably the reader in question is in search of some sort of ultimate enlightenment but, as we have learned from our previous discussion, no text can provide a purely transparent understanding of what it is about because every text is itself a thing. Hence it obscures even as it reveals, due to the opacity of its own nature. Put in another way, every meaning is itself dependent on and formed by a particular situation in the world. This does not condemn meanings and texts to being arbitrary nonsense but it does forbid them from providing adequate knowledge of the "whole," whatever that might be. Thus the Buddha tells us in the Diamond Sutra that all teachings must be given up as well as all non-teachings. In section 5 (TNH) he makes this point even more succinctly:

In a place where there is something that can be distinguished by signs, in that place there is deception. If you can see the signless nature of signs, then you can see the TathagPta.

What, then, must one do to achieve this level of enlightenment? The last few lines of "Averroes Search" provide a clue. At the end of his account the narrator observes that, feeling sleepy, Averroes unwound his turban, looked, in the mirror, and disappeared suddenly and with him the house, the books, the manuscript and the whole social-historical context in which the narrator had placed him. Tzinacin, in turn, does not perform some kind of superhuman act in order to experience his realization. Rather he simply lets things go. And this letting-go is precisely what Borges describes in "Limites," his masterful poem of 1964, in which he


repeats the loss of self recounted in "The Zahir."42 There, however, the connotation was negative. Here there is an expectation which is positive. The first several verses recount things which can no longer be recaptured, memories which have been lost and doors which will never be opened. The last verse concludes:

At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent murmur of crowds milling and fading away; they are all I have been loved by, forgotten by; space, time, and Borges now are leaving me. (OC, 2,257-258; SP, 183)

Hence the text which one must become if one will read further is no text all. I t is rather an abandonment to nothingness. What one sees from this standpoint is that Sarixiira is an ongoing flux in which no element remains the same. Its Borgesian images are the Heracltean river and the Book of Sand. La hora sin sombra, then, is that moment in which all action is recognized as inaction, in which our acts cast no shadow and the self has become a mirror with no reflection.

Notes

(Full publication details are given in the Bibliography.)

1. Very little has been written on Borges' work from a philosophical perspective. Among the more philosophical treatments of Borges with which I am familiar I would include: Jaime Alazraki, La prosa narrativa de Jorge Luis Borger, h a Maria Barrenechea, Borges the Labyrinth Maker, Manuel Ferrer, Borges y la nada; Didier Jatn, Borges' Esoteric Library; Gabriela Massuh, Una este'tica del silencio, subsequent references appear in the text as "Massuh;" Juan Nuiio, LajZosofia de Borges. I find Massuh's book extremely interesting and provocative. We agree on many points but we also disagree as I shall point out in what follows. I should also mention a book that came into my hands after I had completed the second draft of my manuscript. Juan Arana's El central del laberinto examines philosophical themes in Borges dealing with each as a labyrinth. From a quick reading, I believe that Arana and I agree on many points and disagree on many others. I found it impossible, however, to integrate his discussion into my own, for he neglects almost entirely the Schopenhauerian underpinning of Borges' views as well Buddhism, both of which are central to my argument.

2. References to Borges are given first to the Obras Completas, 583; and usually to a suitable English translation. Since Borges' pieces are usually very short, I have not documented brief quotations in the running text. Subsequent references will appear in the text, when appropriate, as OC. Fritz Mauthner (1849-1923) was a German novelist and philosopher whose Wiirterbuch der Philosophic Borges often consulted. He is frequently mentioned by Borges, e.g., OC, 1: 199,276,278,279,380,389, 392, 483; OC, 2: 84, 85. Macedonio Fernindez (1874-1952) was an Argentine philosopher, poet and novelist. He is the author of Papeles de recienviendo, No todo es vtgilia 10 de los ojos abiertos, Museo de la novela de la eterna, Addn Buenosayres and other works. He was a friend of Borges' father and influenced the young Borges upon the latter's return to Buenos Aires. Borges edited a collection of Macedonio's work and speaks of him with great affection in "An Autobiographical Essay," which appears only in English in El Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969. This volume also contains Borges' "Commentaries." Future references will be abbreviated as Aleph, "Essay" and "Comm." respectively. See also the several references to Macedonio in Emir Rodriguez Monegal, Jorge Luis Borges, A Literary Biography. Future refer-

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ences will appear in the text, where appropriate, as RM. Spencer (1820-1903) developed a theory of the evolution of the cosmos from relative simplicity to relative complexity through purely mechanical forces, reaching a state of equilibrium after which the cosmos devolves into the original state from which evolution began. John Payne, Richard Burton and Edward Lane were all translators of the Thousand and One Nights. Borges also read Burton's accounts of his journeys in the Near East and he refers to Lane's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians as one of his favorite books [see, for example, RM, 2641. Zeno of Elea (c490-c430) was a disciple of Parmenides who sought to demonstrate the logical impossibility of motion and multiplicity. The gist of his general argument is that a moving body can never come to the end of a line, since it must first traverse half the line, then half the remainder and so on to infinity. George Berkeley was the distinguished eighteenth century empiricist and idealist. Gustav Meyrink (1868-932) was the pseudonym of the Austrian writer G. Meyer who lived for many years in Prague and converted from Protestantism to a form of Buddhism. His best known novel is Der Golem (1916). Jean de Milleret, Entretiens avec Jovge Luis Bovges, 72. On page 73 Borges says that Buddhism interests him only as an intellectual adventure. The quotation is taken from OC, 2: 123 and from Other Inquisitions, 165. Subsequent references will appear as "OI." W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers, 44-45. For more detail on the pre- Socratic philosophers the interested reader might begin with either John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy or W. K. C . Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy. Fragments of the pre-Socratics are readily available in G. S. Kirk Pr J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers. The latter text is the source of much of my discussion of Parmenides. Ethics, Part I, definitions I11 and V. In Part I , Definition VIII Spinoza explains that existence in this sense is like the existence of an eternal truth. And Proposition XX reads: The existence of God (substance) and His essence are one and the same. Part I, Definition VI. OC, 2: 308; Selected Poems, 229. Subsequent references will appear as SP. "El cristal" is also the title of a famous tango which speaks of the fragility of a love. Perhaps this was not lost on Borges, a lover of tangos and rnilongas and a composer of the latter. With Margarita Guerrero, El libro de 10s seres imaginarios, in Obras completas en colaboraci6n, 2: 190; English translation The Book of Imaginary Beings, 158. One is reminded here of Einstein's conception of space as finite but unbounded, and Spinoza was one of Einstein's favorite philosophers. See, for example, Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, 103,659-660. Fire was a form of purification for Heraclitus. This theme appears earlier in "The Circular Ruins" (Ficciones). This notion is taken from the end of the "New Rehtation of Time," which I shall discuss in Chapter 3. See the tale "Death and the Compass" (Ficciones). Borges mentions having discussed the legend with Gersholm Scholem in 1969 ("Essay," 216). Scholem's works include: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism and On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism. See also Jaime Alazraki, B o w and the Kabbalah and Other Essays on

His Fiction and Poetry and Salil Sosnowski, Borges y la Cbbala: la busqueda del verbo. Genesis 1 1.1-9. "Numen" is defined in various ways: in Spanish as "inspiration," and as a "gentile divinity" (ElpequeGo Larousse illustrado); in Enghsh as an "inspirational force" and as a "spirit believed by animists to inhabit a natural object or phenomenon" ( Webster's Third New International Dictionary). This last definition comes closest to what Borges must have had in mind. G. Van der Leeuw puts it more clearly: "A numen is, first of all, only a nod of the head: that is the will element therein. But further, it is also power, and has a name. It is, however, so vague that it exhibits no human features at all, and can also be ascribed to some power as an attribute. But the 'attributes' are nearer to the experience than is the fully developed god" (Religion in Essence and Manifestation, 1: 57). See note 17. I t seems clear from the Spanish and from Borges' remarks to Burgin that the Golem is repeating toward his master (su Dios) the gestures of veneration which the latter makes toward God. This disagrees with the English translation by John Hollander in Selected Poems 1923-1 967. Future references are abbreviated as Poems. In Burgin, 90 Borges sugessts that the poem is a parable of the nature of art: the rabbi intends to create something beautiful but succeeds in producing only a clumsy doll, which is perhaps a parody of mankind OC, 1: 582-588, Collected Fictions, "Averroes' Search," 235-241. Subsequent references will appear in the text as CF. Frederick Copelston, A History of Medieval Philosophy, 2: Part I, 213. Borges very likely got this information from Uberweg's History uf Philosophy, 1: 408. In his A History of the Arab Peoples, 174, Albert Hourani translates Algazel's Tahafut al-falasifa as Incoherence of the Philosophers, and Averroes' Tahafut al- taha&t as The Incoherence of the Incoherence. Etienne Gilson, A History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages , 218. Subsequent references appear in the text. On the Genealogy of Morals, 111, section 12. Subsequent references appear as "GM." "If I were able to read any contemporary page ... as it would be read in the year 2000, I would know what literature would be like in the year 2000" (OC, 2: 125; 01, 173).

* O N E : P H I L O S O P H Y A N D D A I L Y L I F E *

1. In the "Prologue" to Artifices, which was published separately in 1944 and subsequently included as the second part of Ficciones, Borges says that these stories are similar to those of part one, that is, fantastic stories. But he also points out that "The Southn can be read as a direct narrative of novelistic events, and also in another way" [OC, l : 483; CF, 1291. "The Intruder," on the other hand, is characterized as a straightforward narrative in the "Essay," 258 and in the "Foreword" to Doctor Brodie'sReport. I have retained the traditional translation of "La intrusa" as "The Intruder" because Borges refers to it that way, and because it is to me pre- farable to Hurley's LLThe Interloper."

2. See the "Prologue" to Artificesand Burgin, 59,64.

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Didier Jatn suggests that Borges may have derived his theme from the film "Montana" in which a peaceful sheepherder is lured into a gun duel with a local cowboy (Jatn, 121). Borges: "Everything which takes place after Dahlmann leaves the clinic can be interpreted as a kind of delirium in the moment in which Dahlmann dies of sep- ticemia, as a fantastic vision of the way in which he would have liked to die. Because of that, there are slight correspondences between the two halves of the story; the volume of the Thousand and One Nkhts which figures in both parts; the plaza coach which first takes him to the hospital and then to the station; the resemblance between the owner of the general store and the employee of the sanitarium; the grazing sensation that Dahlmann feels in injuring his forehead and that of the wad of bread which the customer throws in order to provoke him." This is taken from an interview with James Irby, El oficio del escritor, trans. by Jost Luis Gonzilez (Mexico: Era, 1968). Cited in Barrientos, 91-92. One can compare Borges' version of the incident on pages 242-43 of the "Essay" with that of his mother and of Emir Rodriguez Monegal in RM, 320-322. Compare "Streetcorner Man," "The Challenge," and "Rosendo's Tale." In Evaristo Carriego (OC, 1: 156; Evaristo Carriego, 126-127). See also "The Encounter," which is the working out of this idea and "Juan Muraiia" (both originally published in Brodie). This is made clear in many of his essays on, for example, Quevedo and Shaw. Nowhere is it clearer, however, than in "Valtry as Symbol" (all in 0 4 . Some commentators see the "Library" as an essentially negative image that recalls Borges' dreary job at the municipal library ("Essay," 243). But it is important to keep in mind that, by Borges' own admission, his world was formed by the library, his father's library and its books (See the "Essay" and also "A Writer's Destiny." Early versions of the story in the Spanish original employ the expression "fecal necessities." In the Obras completas, however, Borges has replaced "necesidades fecales" with "necesidadesfinales" (OC, 1: 365), perhaps to suggest a close connection between the two notions. Borges' source is Kurd Lasswitz' idea that twenty-nine symbols and their variations comprise everything which it is possible to express. See Borges' essay "For Bernard Shaw" in OI. Leibniz' principle states that each substance (i.e., real thing) is different from every other; no two things or substances differ only in number. Juan JosC Barrientos uses this as the epigraph in his B o r e y la imaginacidn. I have been unable to locate the remark in dide or in Cortizar but the shoe clearly fits. Jorge Luis Borges, 12. Compare Borges' remarks in the essay "The Modesty of History" in OI. GM, 2, section 14. In CF laberinto is sometimes translated as "maze." 1 have retained the usual translation as "labyrinth" since it is so closely associated with Borges' work. See, for example, the discussions of Everett's work in: Paul Davies, Other Worlds and Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality. Subsequent references to Davies appear as "Davies." The reader interested in pursuing the conflation of fiction and reality in detail should consult the following: Daniel Balderston, The Literary Universe of Jorge Luis Borgesand Evelyn Fishbyrn and Psiche Hughes, A Dictionary of Borges. Of the two Balderston covers the whole Borgesian opus. He is not, however, always free from

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error as when he confuses John Scorns Erigena, who lived in the ninth century and of whom Borges was quite fond, with the magisterial fourteenth century metaphysician Duns Scorns (50). "Essay," 237. See also "A Writer's Destiny" where Borges drops the qualifiers and calls Reyes "the best writer of Spanish prose who has ever lived" (9). As Erik Erfjord, a Danish Herbraicist in "Three Versions of Judas," (Ficciones) and as simply Erfjord, a Christian theologian, in "The Theologiansn (El Aleph). Jatn, 193 and Balderston, 74. Rodriguez Monegal has the passage as reading "as it appeared in number 68 of Sur-jade green covers, May, 1940." But the English translations and the version in OCare as I have cited the text. OC 3: 262; Seven Nights, 88. Subsequent references appear as SN. See also RM, 30. "Literaturas germinicas medievales" in Obras completas en colaboracidn, with Maria Esther Visquez, 2: 492,494. His description of Gnosticism does not take into account more recent work on the subject and the discovery of the so-called Gnostic Gospels of the Ng Hammadi Library. Of course Borges could not have known of this work when he wrote the story and Jatn need not discuss it for this reason. For an accessible yet scholarly account of these discoveries the interested reader might consult: Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels. Borges was to become the head of the National Library after the fall of Per& in 1955. The Laylat al-Qadr, a night towards the end of Ramadan, is believed to be a holy night in which the Koran descended from heaven via the angel Gabriel. See, for example, RM, 215-217 and the "Essay," 237. Borges had little use for Heidegger the person or the philosopher. He found Heidegger's German ugly (Burgin, 124) and his philosophy of personal existence repugnant (OC, 127; 01, 125). See Heidegger "What is Metaphysics?" in Basic Writings, 91-1 12. Rudolph Carnap argues that many metaphysical statements are pseudo-statements for they are constructed in a counter syntactical manner. For his discussion see: "The Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language," in Logical Positivism . 60-81. Borges mentions in this connection the philosopher Meinong, whose Platonism was so extreme that he defended the ideal subsistence of even contradictory objects like the squared circle. See his poem "A1 idioma alemanUin El ovo de Los tigves. (OC, 2: 494; SP, 327). This is a theme which runs throughout Foucault's work. The interested reader might consult two short works: "The Discourse on Language," which is included in the paperback edition of The Archaeology of Knowledge and "Two Lectures" in Power/Knowledge. A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 1, Part 4. Hume's discussion of these matters is to be found in Book 1, Part 3 of the Treatise. Juan Nuiio has made a number of objections against the passage in question. The first is that a language as capricious as that of Tlon would have difficulty expressing any system of philosophy. But that is, of course, Hume's point. Second, Nuiio asserts that monism requires a faith in a material substance (32). This is incorrect. Hegel and Bradley are monists and idealists, while the great physicist Ernst Schrodinger was an idealist and a physical scientist. There simply is no prima facie


conflict between idealism and science as much of the recent discussion in the philosophy of science has shown. Hume's attack on the other hand, is directed against both idealism and materialism, for Hume denies that philosophy can coherently defend any position whatever. In addition to his commentaries on Kant, Vaihinger wrote an important book which derives from Kant's attack on metaphysics. The Philosophy of As If treats philosophical systems primarily as fictions:

The fictive activity of the mind is an expression of the fundamental psychical forces; Fctions are mental structures. The psyche weaves this aid to thought out of itself; for the mind is inventive; under the compulsion of necessity, stimulated by the outer world, it discovers the store of con- trivances that lie hidden within itself. The organism finds itself in a world full of contradictory sensations, it is exposed to the assaults of a hostile external world, and in order to preserve itself, it is forced to seek every possible means of assistance, external as well as internal. In necessity and pain mental evolution is begun, in contradiction and opposition consciousness awakes, and man owes his mental development more to his enemies than to his firiends. (1 1)

Discusidn, OC, 1: 280. Note the omission of Schopenhauer, Borges' favorite metaphysician, and Hume, who espoused no metaphysical system whatever. Russell makes this proposal in The Analysis of Mind, 159. Nuiio objects that Russell is not advancing this hypothesis seriously but is only arguing that it is not logically contradictory, and that Borges has converted it into "a declaration which is openly cosmological" (33-34). Nuiio is, of course, correct, but Borges certainly realizes this and there is no reason to believe that Russell would not have approved with a chuckle. Nuiio finds a difficulty here in the fact that temporal terms are used where time is taken to be past or irreal (34). Borges himself points this out in the "New Refutation of Time" (01) calling the title of the essay a contradictio in adjecto. But if one wants to communicate, one must speak even if what one says cannot be taken literally. This is one of the central themes of E. H. Gombrich's Ar t and Illusion . The issue in philosophy of science to which I refer is whether there can be scientific observation that is not in some sense dependent upon a theory which sketches out in advance what will count as a significant datum. Among those who agree that there cannot I note a few of the most important figures: Gaston Bachelard, Paul Feyerabend, N. R. Hanson, Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. A friend of Borges, Lidia Lloveras, who married Prince Faucingy Lucinge and went to live in Paris. "Avatars of the Tortoise," Discusidn, OC, 1, 258, my translation. A translation appears in Labymnths and in the English edition of Owas Inguisiciones. OC, 2: 173; SP, 77.

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Specialists will need no documentation for this discussion and indeed will find it oversimplified or perhaps downright misleading. The general reader in search of

more enlightenment should look at the relevant chapters in any history of Greek philosophy, for example, Joseph Owens, A History of Ancient Western Philosophy. Being and Some Philosophers, 49-50. I am suggesting only that scientific laws, if they are to be considered knowledge in Plato's sense of the term, would have to be certain and unchanging. Most contemporary scientists and philosophers would hold such laws to be only probable. One might count Nietzsche as an irrationalist but I would count him among the rationalists in the broad sense in which I am using the term. As eminent a logician as W. V. 0. Quine has suggested that logical truth may be considered a matter of convention. See, for example, "Logic by Convention," in The Ways of Paradox, 70-99. See, for example, Logische Untersuchungen, 1: 191; 2: Part 2, 127. Readable summaries of Godel's proof are found in Quine, Methods of Logic, 183-185 and in Stephen Barker, Philosophy of Mathematics, 94-97. Ernest Nagel and James R ~ e w m m provide a more detailed analysis in G6de19s Proof. Other writers distinguish between semantic paradoxes such as the liar paradox in which the Cretan states "All Cretans are liars" and rnathematica/logical paradoxes such as those under discussion. For an excellent introductory exposition see the relevant sections of Barker's The Philosophy of Mathematics. Cited in Barker, 85. The interested reader might also look at Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Here Russell attempts to explain many of these matters for the non-specialist. Chess, like logic, unites conventionalism and reason. Chess appears throughout Borges' work. The rigor of Tlon, for example, is akin to the rigor of a game like chess. Alazraki develops this theme at some length in Jorge Luis Borges. See, for example, Susan Haack, Philosophy of Logics. Reason, Truth and History, 25. See also Nelson Goodman, Problems and Projects, Chapter 8. See, for example E. Zeller's discussion in his Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, 47. Physics, IV, 10, 217b33-34. Being and Time, 2, chapter 6. For an excellent and mbre complete discussion see Barry Stroud's Hume. See in particular the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. See the "Appendix" to the Treatise. The Poverty of Historicism, 98. On this point Popper is in accord with many thinkers whom he usually opposes such as Kuhn, Hanson and Feyerabend. The relation of theory and observation is a central issue in modern philosophy of science. The interested reader might look at the following: C. G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science; F . Suppe ed., The Structure of Scientific Theories. Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, A51/B76. References to Kant's work in German are to the Akademie-Textaugabe. Subsequent references appear as "Akad." In the Crbnicas de Bustos Domecq, 1967 which is included in the Obras completas en colaboracibn, 1. It is translated in El Aleph and Other Stories. H. Bustos Domecq is a character that Borges and Bioy invented. The issues referred to here are quite technical and would warrant a long digression. The interested reader might look at my Apperception, Knowledge and Experience (Ottawa: Ottawa UP, 1994) particularly Chapter 1, which argues that although Kant does indeed establish the necessity of a self-identical epistemological subject,

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his position also requires the possibility of conceptual change. Once again one thinks of the work of Bachelard, Hanson, Kuhn and Feyerabend on exactly this point. See also Nelson Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking, and his essay "The Way the World Is" in Problems and Projects, 24-32. Borges' interest in the Cabala, in Swedenborg and in the philosophies of the East come readily to mind. Alicia Jurado, who knew Borges well and who CO-authored with him a little book on Buddhism observed early on that Borges treats both the metaphysical postulates and religious dogmas which he uses to construct his tales with a sceptical attitude: Genio yflgura de Jorge Luis B o w , 1964) 70,75. My references are to the translation by R. Haldane and J. Kemp, which first appeared in 1883 and which would have been the English translation with which Borges was familiar. This edition has been republished by Scribners and Routledge Prr Kegan Paul (London Pc New York, 1950), 3 vols. Subsequent references will appear parenthetically in the text. I have left Borges' quotations of Schopenhauer as they appear in his writings. See Borges' poem, "To a Cat," OC, 2: 513; SP, 137. Kant makes this claim in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and argues for it in the Critigue of Practical Reason. For an introductory statement of his position see my Apperception, ZCnowledge and Experience, 68-73. The Critigue of J~dgment, 37; 203. Page references to the English translation are followed by references to the German edition, Akad 5. Subsequent references appear parenthetically in the text. A full discussion of Kant's aesthetic theory would, of course, have to deal with the sublime as well as the beautiful. See, for example, OC, 2: 96,123; 01,129, 165. References to Plato are to Plato, The Collected Dialogues. For a devastating analysis of this kind of seeing and hearing see Heidegger's Being and Time, particularly sections 25-38. Quoted by G. J. Whitrow in The Nature of Time, 17; an excellent and readable introduction to the subject. A. E. Armstrong, An Introduction ofAncient Philosophy, 178. Plotinus' great work is called The Enneads or groups of nine treatises compiled by his student Porphyry. The interested reader might also look at E. Brihier, The Philosophy of Plotinus. Anyone interested in the metaphor of "the great chain of being," which so fascinated Borges, should become familiar with A. 0. Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being. I have found no mention by Borges of Lovejoy's book, which first appeared as the William James Lectures, delivered in 1933. The careful reader will certainly ask whether Plotinus has avoided duality in calling this first principle the "Onen and the "Good." See, for example, The Diamond Sutra, which is available in a number of translations with commentaries. The essay on Donne's Biathanatos," "The Masked Dyer, Hakim of Merv" and the discussions of Lton Bloy are other examples. Borges: A Reader, 25. Discusidn, OC, 1 : 2 13-2 16. . . I really cannot argue for this distinction here. An argument or at least a more clearly delineated distinction is made in Frits Staal's Exploring Mysticism. Recall, however, Pagels' discussion of the Gnostic Gospels in which Jesus does not claim to be the Son of God.

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The reference is to the character created by Poe in "The Purloined Letter," "Mystery of Marie Roget," and "Murders in the Rue Morgue." H e could just as well be thought of as a Sherlock Holmes since Borges admired Conan-Doyle. Lonnrot turns out to be an inversion of these very successfd master detectives. The reference is to Zeno the Eleatic. "Commentary," 268-269. See also the essay on Donne's Biathanatos, as well as "Deutsches Requiem."

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Confssions, Book 11, Chapter 14, section 17. My discussion is drawn in large part from W. C. Kneale's article "Eternity" in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The quotation from Boethius appears on p. 65 of volume 3/4. Boethius (c. 475-525) was a Roman philosopher and statesman. One of the last ancient Neoplatonists, his works served to transmit Greek philosophy to the early centuries of the Middle Ages. "Historia de la eternidad," OC, 1: 353-367. Borges' references here are rather opaque. He keeps referring to Book V of the Enneads but there are no books in that work. There are, however, six Enneads, and the fifth certainly is the likely source for Borges' citations. I have not, however, attempted to locate them in the English translauon. The reference is to the North American actress of whom Borges, who was fond of films, was also fond. Borges uses the adjective "soberbio," which can mean either "arrogant" or "superb." Spanish writer and philosopher (1863-1952) who worked and taught in the U. S. He was an interesting mix of Hume (e.g., Scepticism and Animal Faith) and Plato (e.g., The Realms of Being). On the Nature of Things, lines 1097-1 11 1. Borges devotes an essay to Wilkins and his language in OI. I don't have the source but the original is in Spanish and exists in my notes. I suspect it is from one of the personal inthologiesT OC, 2: 305; Poems, 187. In J. J. C. Smart, editor, Problems of Space and Time, 297. The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, 73-74. I have oversimplified the matter. Kant holds that there is no consciousness without an outer object, and since there is no experience whatsoever without consciousness, space becomes the immediate form of outer experience and the mediate condition of inner experience, while time is the immediate form of inner experience and the mediate form of outer experience. Once again Borges overstates Hume's position. As I noted above, Hume is not putting in doubt Newtonian mechanics but rather the ability of philosophy to defend or provide a firm ground for physics. Some might object that Buddhism can no more be called "idealism" than it can be called "materialism." I would sustain that objection. The Questions of King Milinda, 2a, reprinted in Buddhist Scriptures. The italicized phrase is in English in the original. This has been confirmed by the behavior of a binary pulsar-two compacted and


enormously dense stars which revolve around one another at great speed-located between the constellations of Aquila and Sagitta. As one of the stars rotates around the other it sometimes approaches the earth and sometimes recedes, depending on the direction of its motion at any particular moment. Hence when the pulsar is approaching the earth we would expect that its radio pulses would be speeded up since they receive an extra push in our direction from the motion of the star itself. But all the pulses arrive at the same speed, spaced out in a regular manner. This confirms Einstein's prediction that the speed of light remains constant in different inertial frameworks. I am paraphrasing some of Paul Davies' Other Worlds. There is some disagreement about the possibility of time-travel. Compare, for example Kurt Godel's paper "A Remark About the Relationship Between Relativity Theory and Idealistic Philosophy" in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, 555-562 and J. J. C. Smart's article on time in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "The Four-Dimensional World" from The Philosophy of Nature, trans. Amethe von Zeppelin (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1949). Reprinted in Smart, 293. Historia de la eternidad. OC. 1: 385-392. , ,

Suppose there were three wheels of equal size, rotating on the same axis, one point marked on the circumference of each wheel, and these three points lined up in one straight line. If the second wheel rotated twice as fast as the first, and if the speed of the third wheel was l /p of the speed of the first, the initial line-up would never recur. This formulation is from Walter Kaufmann, Nietuche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 327. I t is also on pages 250-251 of Simmel's work (Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1907). Historia, OC, 1: 393-396. "Readers have thought of 'The Circular Ruins' as my best story. I can hardly share this view since I now think of fine writing, which this tale comes continually to the brink of, as a beginner's mistake. One might argue, however, that if it is going to be done at all, this kind of story needs this kind of writing. This also accounts for the dim Eastern setting and for the fact that the scheme is somehow timeless. The title itself suggests the Pythagorean and Eastern idea of cyclical time" ("Comm.," 267). See, for example, his comments in Poems. The cyclical theory of time also appears in Borges' poetry, most importantly "The Cyclical Night," which is written in cyclical form (OC, 2: 241-241; SP, 151, 153). Circularity also figures prominently in "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" (OC, 1: 496498; CF, 143-146). Here the cyclical recurrence of events appears to be an explanation for the repetition of events in the death of the hero. But, as in "Death and the Compass," this turns out to be a misreading that results from the investi- gator's imperfect knowledge of the facts. What appears to be a cyclical repetition turns out to be a fortuitous result of planning events in order to create a believable drama. Hence the doctrine of the cycles, believed, perhaps like the Cabala to hold the mysteries of the universe, leads to error rather than truth.

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1. In the "Introduction" to Critical Essays on Jovge Luis Bovges, Alazraki offers a Fairly full account of how Borges was treated along with a useful bibliography. Borges' own account of the Boedo-Florida polemic is contained in "An Autobiographical

Essay" in this same volume and in Aleph. P. 84. This translation is by Suzanne Jill Levin in Selected Non-Fictions, 3. James Irby, "Encuentro con Borges," in Encuentro con Borges, 37-38. Barrientos discusses this possibility and Borges mentions it in Charbonnier. Paper Tigers. The Ideal Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, 13. "Definition du neo-traditionnisme," in Theories, 1. Cited in E. Gilson, Painting and Reality, 105. "Experiments in Color Vision." This experiment is suggested by R L. Gregory in Eye and Brain, 152. La Dioptrigue, Oeuvres de Descartes, 6: 141. "Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art," in Meaning in the Visual Arts, 35. Phaedrus. 274D-275b. Derrida discusses this fable in "Plato's Pharmacy" in Dissemination, 61-171. Derrida is defending a position contrary to Borges, namely that writing preceded speaking. "Dismissed" is inaccurate. He was "promoted" to the position of inspector of poultry and rabbits (RM, 392). La Jornada, Mexico City, August 2, 1994,27. See also Burgin, 137-138. The quotation from Croce is given as it appears in the English translation of Borges' essay. In the English translation it reads somewhat differently. The interested reader might cons&t Croce's Aesthetic, 34. The first chapter gives a good summary of Croce's views. Similar positions were maintained by many writers on art; for example, A.C.Bradley, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, especially pages 4 2 5 ; and Charles Morris, "Science, Art and Technology," The Kenyon Review 1 (1939): 429-442. See also Foundations of the Unity of Science 1, no. 2 (Chicago, 1938). The presentational nature of art was also stressed by a number of other aestheti- cians writing at this time, among them Susanne K. Langer and Louis Arnaud Reid. The two sources of the following discussion are the unabridged WebsterJs Third New International Dictionary and R. A Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. I have omitted such sources as the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy because of Borges' disdain for that institution (see the "Foreword" to Brodie). Pp. 260-269. The story is interesting for a number of reasons. In his conversations with Burgin Borges notes that this is the first story that he wrote. In the "Essay "he speaks of it as having a forerunner in "The Approach to al-Mu'tasim." The discrepancy may be explained by the fact that the latter tale first appeared as a note in Historia de la eternidad. I t was then included in Ficciones and was then returned to its earlier status in the Obras Completas. According to Piglia's character Renzi, Menard is Borges' parody of Paul Groussac, Artificial Respiration, 125ff. He adds, "the first two stories that Borges writes, seemingly so different-'Streetcorner Man' and 'Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quuix0te'-are the means by which Borges connects himself, maintains his ties, and yet completes the double tradition that splits Argentine literature in the nineteenth century. From that moment on his work is divided in two: on the one hand the stories about knife fighters, with the variations on them; on the other what we could call erudite stories.. .the stories in which Borges parodies the superstitions of high culture and works with apocrypha, pla- giarism, chains of false huotations, false encyclopedias and so forth, and in which erudition defines the form of the stories" (130). Daniel Balderston, Out of Context, Historical Reference and the Representation of

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Reality in Borges. Charles Carrington, A Subaltern's War, Being a Memoir of the Great Warfiom the Point of View of a Romantic Young Man, Written Shortly after They Occurred, and as Essay on Militarism (London: Peter Davies, 1929) 217-218; quoted on p. 50. Balderston points out that this could only by a leap of the imagination or the influence of the West refer to a labyrinth. L. A. Murillo has shown that the labyrinth was not known to classical Chinese culture. The Cyclical Night: Irony in James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges, 259. The theme of the duel is also a Nietzschean theme and its intellectual interpretation is one possible interpretation of Nietzsche's meaning. I t is interesting that Borges does not cite the concluding qualification: "but I will maintain mine own ways before him." In Borges y la imaginacidn Juan JosC Barrientos reads "Deutsches Requiem" as involving two major themes: the Nietzschean doctrine of the superman and the theme of conversion as exemplified by Saul on the road to ~amascus. I find the first theme implausible for two reasons. In the stories which Barrientos chooses to illustrate the Nietzschean doctrine of self-overcoming, "Deutsches Requiem," "The Garden of Forking Paths," and "The Intruder," there seems to be no question of anyone having freely elected anything. And then anyone familiar with Nietzsche's work, particularly Beyond Good and Evil, which Borges admits having read and enjoyed (Burgin, 119) could hardly characterize Nietzsche as an anti-Semite and a lover of the derman spirit. I deal with the second theme later on Compare, however, Borges' discussion of Omar in the essay on Fitzgerald. The Spanish reads "se hizo" which is this context should be read "made Himself' or simply "became" since it is inconceivable that some other power could have forced this destiny on an omniscient, omnipotent being. P. 248. Rodriguez Monegal does not identify this story and I have been unable to locate unless it is "25 de Agosto, 1983" in La memoria de Shakespeare which appears in volume three of the OC. In that story a younger Borges encounters an older Borges in the hotel. The older Borges is dying, having taken some sort of potion. The suggestion is that it is all a dream but it is not clear who is the dreamer. See, for example, Sartre's Existentialism and Humanism, 29. Borges also dublished a piece by Julio Cortizar on the same theme (Oct-Dec. 1947). However Cortizar's dramatic piece, Los reyes, tells the story from the point of view of Ariadne who is in love with the Minotaur. Ariadne gives the thread to Thesus who kills the monster. But what is a success in the legend is converted here into a failure, for she had intended to aid the Minotaur. At the age of seventy Borges gave a series of radio interviews with Camp. I am translating from excerpts which appeared in Cuadernos de Marcha, January 1989. These were taken from Magazine Litthraire, 269, November 1988 and translated into Spanish by 0. Prego. Borges speaks of the great philosophers as masters of fantastic literature in the preface to the anthology of fantastic literature. The quotation is from "Avatars of the Tortoise." According to Apollodorus the myth says seven men and seven women each year (Book 111, paragraph 2). See "Comm.," 283. Borges attributes this remark to Don Nicolris Paredes ("Comm.," 278). The essay on Hawthorne makes this point.

Thousand and One Ndghts (1985, vol. 9,232). Quoted in Fishburn and Hughes, 8. Massuh's citation comes from A. J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (London: 1958) 133. This is also true of the translation in CF. The translation in Labyrinths, has unaccountably substituted "Clementina" for "Teodelina." In the Volsunga Saga Sigurd is the last of the Volsungs who brings the Fbfnismal to an end by using Gram to slay the dragon. In the Niebelungenlied Sigurd is known as Siegfried. Two of my students immediately made the association as did my friend Mercedes Ibaiiez Rosazza, a well-known Peruvian poet.

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She also appears in "Tlon." Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Netteshiem (1486-1 535) was a German author of Latin texts on magic and the occult. He fought against the condemnation of witch- craft. His writings were based on Pythagoras' numerology and on a Cabalistic interpretation of the Hebrew alphabet and aim to demonstrate that God is best attained through magic. The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, 58-59. Buenos Aires: Proa, 1925,89-90. SNF, 4. OC 2: 130-131; SNF, 408. This is a brief pricis of one of the main themes of Sein und Zeit. I offer a more detailed but still truncated discussion of Heidegger in chapter 3 of Apperception, Knowledge and Experience. The Meaning of Experience in the Prose of Jorge Luis Borges, 6. It is correctly translated as "Borges and I" by James Irby in Labyrinths and by Kenneth Krabbenhoft in SP. Since this is perhaps Borges most personal reflection on himself, I have chosen to stay with the translation in Aleph. See, for example, the discussion of Existentialism and Humanism. La prosa narrativa de Jorge Luis Borges, 94. see, for example, "La naderie de la personalidad" in Inquisiciones. My remarks are drawn from a number of texts and are naturally a simplification. For our purposes the most important of these texts is Edward Conze's Buddhism: its essence and development. Conze is one of the great authorities on Buddhism in general and a specialist on the PrajiiZpZramitZ or New Wisdom School. Although it could not take account of scholarly work in the past forty odd years, it remains extremely broad in scope and fair in its treatment of the various schools. It is also listed by Borges in the-bibliography to Qui es el budismo. Hence we will share at least some common ground in this discussion. I shall refer to other texts in the course of the discussion. For a popular but nonetheless informative discussion see Thomas Sheehan's The First Coming. These issues are also discussed in Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels. This is a second book which Borges relies on in his discussions of Buddhism. Borges relates this myth in Qui w el budismo and discusses the nQas, serpents or dragons who live underwater, in The Book of Imaginary Beings. Edward Conze, Buddhism:its essence and development, 28-29.

B O R G E S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y .

The translation is bv Edward Conze. I have made extensive use of Conze's commentary but I differ from him on several points, particularly his tendency to read logical contradictions in the text where I find simply deeper explanations. Thus the great mantra of Tibet-Om mani padme hum, Hail to the jewel in the Lotus-which is found written everywhere, on stones, rocks, buildings and count- less prayer wheels, is at the same time a compressed statement of a very sophisticated metaphysics and psychology. For a detailed discussion of this point see Lama Anagarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism. J a h mentions as well "La personalidad y el budha," Sur, xix (October-December, 1950) 192-194. Obras completas en colaboracidn, 2 (Madrid: Alianza, 1983. First published in Buenos Aires by EmecC, 1972) 231-243. J a h gives the date of publication as 1976 and indeed this may be the case; that is, this book may not have been included in the original edition of 1972. For a fuller treatment of the legend see Conze's Buddhist Scriptures, Chapter 2. Borges is ambivalent about causality in Buddhism, and at one place he denies that the doctrine has any place in Buddhist thought. Reprinted in translation in P. Rabinow, The Foucault Reader, 101-120. In this he is more like Socrates than Jesus. See, for example, Kierkegaard's discussion of how Jesus and Socrates differ in Philosophical Fragments. My discussion follows that of M. Hiriyanna in his Essentials of Indian Philosophy . For Hume, of course, the lesson here is that all such arguments are without any force whatsoever. This puzzlement also appears in his discussion of Tibetan Buddhism. His discussion of Buddhist cosmology relies exclusively on Evan-Wenz's account in his prologue to the Tibetan ~ o o k of the Dead. This reliance on Tibet, however, is rather strange since Tibetan Buddhism is acknowledged by most scholars to be a particular variant of Buddhism that integrates a good deal of Tibet's indigenous religions. Furthermore, Borges' own account of "Lamaism" seems to place it at odds with mainstream ~uddhism.

The propagation of Buddhism in Tibet represented moral progress: the strange concept that good actions would receive their recompense after death and bad ones will receive their punishment. With better logic than orthodox Buddhism, Lamaism did not admit the doctrine of karma and preferred that of an individual soul which transmigrates from generation to generation. (283)

This comment is difficult to understand, for even in Conze's early book one is disabused of this view. And in his discussion of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Borges himself observes that, confronted by the lord of Death, the soul vainly tries to lie. The judge consults the mirror of karma, which vividly reflects the whole process of the individual's life. The Lord of Death, Borges tell us, is conscience; the Mirror of Karma, memory (285). The story is well known but some versions name the disciple as Hui-k'o. See, for example, H. Doumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, 1: 186. In the "Introduction" to The Platfovm Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, P. B. Yarmolinsky explains that "we are told that his name was Seng-k'o, although he was sometimes called Hui-k'o ..." (11). See the poem "El suicida," 01, 3,86. The Narrow Act: Bowes' Art of Allusion. Gregorovius was a German historian of Italy who lived for a time in Ferrara and is

the author of Roman Journals. Fishburn and Hughes surmise that this remark about the Phoenix is probably apocryphal, but who is to know? The Zen Teaching of Bodhidarma, 1. Once again Borges is close to one of the central tenets of quantum mechanics. My discussion draws for the most part on Chandrahar Sharma, Indian Philosophy: A Critical Survey, particularly Chapter 6. Thich Nhat Hanh's translation from the Chinese, The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion may be more accessible to many readers than Conze's translation from the Sanskrit and I refer to it in the text as "TNH." Sharma, 80. Borges mentions Lao Tzu as a contemporary of the Buddha along with Heraclitus. Translation by Gia-Fu Feng Pr Jane English. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidarma, 124, note 88. Borges notes this in Qui es el budismo, 276. H. Doumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, 1: 132-133. Jaime Alazraki portrays the aged Borges as increasingly alienated from his native culture. He describes the circumstances of Borges' death as follows:

With the exception of Maria Kodama-his old student and friend, his daughter figure and wife-Borges died in the most absolute solitude. One may say that he chose to die that way, but then the choice was the result of a slow and gradual losing of the world. First by confining himself within the walls of the Library. Then, he lost the Argentine people by siding with the torturers and assassins of his own nation. This led to the loss of his native country. With the exception of Maria Kodama-his old student and friend, his daughter figure and wife-Borges died in the most absolute solitude. One may say that he chose to die that way, but then the choice was the result of a slow and gradual losing of the world. First by confining himself within the walls of the Library. Then, he lost the Argentine people by siding with the torturers and assassins of his own nation. This led to the loss of his native country. "Epilogue: On Borges' Death," in Borges and the Kaballah, 187.

The last verse of "Limites," however, suggests that this "alienation" from his native land was positive. This has been confirmed recently by his widow who has refused requests by the Argentine government that Borges be reburied in Argentina. According to her, he insisted that he die and be buried in Geneva, the place in which his encounter with Schopenhauer, Buddhism and the German language first took place.

(This list includes works consulted but not referred to in the text.)

The Aleph and Other Stories. Trans. and ed. Norman Thomas di Giovanni in collaboration with the author. New York: Dutton, 1970.

The Book of Imaginary Beings. With Margarita Guerrero. Trans. and enlarged by Norman Thomasdi Giiovanni. New York: Avon, 1969.

The Book of Sand. Trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni. New York: Dutton, 1977. Borges: A Reader. Ed. Emir Rodriguez Monegal and Alistair Reid. New York: Dutton,

1981. Camp, AndrC. At the age of seventy Borges gave a series of radio interviews with Camp. I

translate from excerpts which appeared in Cuadernos de March, January, 1989. These were taken from Magazine Litthaire, 269, November 1988 and translated into Spanish by 0. Prego.

Collected Fictions. Trans. Andrew Hurley. New York: Viking, 1998. Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges. Ed. Richard Burgin. 1968. New York: Avon: 1970. Doctor Brodie's Report. Trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni in collaboration with the

author. New York: Dutton, 1972. Dreamtigers. Trans. Mildred Boyer and Harold Morland. Austin: U of Texas P, 1964. Entretiens avec Borges. Ed. Jean de Milleret. Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1967. Entretiens avec Jorge Luis Borges. Ed. Georges Charbonnier. Paris: Gallimard, 1967. Evaristo Carriego. Trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni. New York: Dutton, 1984. Ficciones. Various translators. New York: Grove Press, 1962. The Gold of the Tigers. Trans. Alistair Reid. New York: Dutton, 1976. Inquisiciones. Buenos Aires: Proa, 19%. Labyrinths. Various translators. New York: New Directions, 1964. Obras completas . Buenos Aires: Em&, 1974-1989. These exist in a two-volume version

and in a later version in which the original volume one is divided into two volumes. I refer to the later version.

Obras completas en colaboracidn. Two volumes. Buenos Aires: EmecC, 1972. Other Inquisitions. Trans. Ruth L. C. Simms. 1963. New York, Washington Square Press,

1966. Selected Non-Fictions. Various translators. Ed. Eliot Weinberger. New York: Viking, 1999.


Selected Poems 1923-67. Various translators. Ed. Norman Thomas di Giovanni with comments by Borges. New York: Delacorte , 1972.

Selected Poems. Various translators. New York: Viking, 1999. Seven Nights. Trans. Eliot Weinberger. New York: New Directions, 1984. A Universal History of Infamy. Trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni. New York: Dutton

1972. "A Writer's Destiny." The Iowa Review, 8: 3, summer 1977.

Agheana, Ion. T. The Meaning of Experience in the Prose of Jorge Luis Borges. New York: Peter Lang, 1988.

Alazraki, Jaime. Borges and the Kaballah and Other Essays on his Fiction and Poetry. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1988. , Ed. Critical Essays on Jorge Luis B o w . Boston: G. K Hall and Co., 1997. . Jorge Luis Borges. Columbia Essays on Modern Writers no. 57. New York and

London: Columbia UP, 1971. . La prosa narrativa de Jorge Luis B o w . Madrid: Editorial

Gredos, 1974 Anderson, Imbert, Enrique, "Nueva contribuci6n al estudio de las fuentes de Borges."

FiloQia, 8, 1-2, 1962,7-1. Arana, Juan. El central del laberinto. Pamplona: U of Navarro P, 1994. Aristotle. Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. Richard McKeon. New York: Routledge and Kegan

Paul, 1977. Armstrong, A. H. An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. Boston: Beacon. 1963. Augustin. Confessions. Trans. and ed. Albert C. Outler. Library of Christian Classics. vol.

VII. Philadelphia and London: Westminster Press and SCM Press, 1965. Balderston, Daniel. The Literary Universe of Jorge L ~ i s Borges. New York, Westport,

Conn., London: Greenwood Press, 1986 Out of Conext, Historical Reference and the Representation of Reality in B o p . Durham

and London: Duke UP, 1993. Barker, Stephen. Philosophy of Mathematics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964. Barrenechea, Ana Maria. Borges the Labyrinth Maker. Ed. Pc trans. Robert Lima. New

York: NY UP, 1965. Barrientos, Juan Jost. Borges y la imaginacidn. Mexico D.F., Editorial K a t h , 1986. Bassui. Mwd and Water. Trans. Arthur Braverman. San Francisco: North Point Press,

1989. Bell, Clive. Art. London: Chatto and Windus, 1923. Bossart, W. H. Apperception, Knowledge and Experience. Ottawa: Ottawa UP, 1994 Bradley, A. C. Oxford Lectures on Poetry. London: Macmillan, 1909. Brthier, krnile. The Philsoophy of Plotinus. Trans. J. Thomas. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1958. Buddhist Scriptures. Trans. Edward Conze. Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin,

1959. Buddhist Wisdom Books: The Diamond Sutra, The Heart Sutra. Trans. Edward Conze.

1958. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1972. Burnet. John. Early Greek Philosophy. 4th edition.London: A and C Black, 1940. Christ, Ronald. The Narrow Act: Borges' Art of Allusion. New York: New York UP, 1969.

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Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols. 2nd ed. Trans. Jack Sage. 1971. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1993.

Conze, Edward. Buddhism: its essence and development. 1951. New Yrok: Harper Torch- book, 1959.

Copleston, Frederick. A History of Medieval Philosophy. 2 vols. Westminster, MD: Image Press, 1962.

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Dasgupta, Surendranath. A History of Indian Philosophy. 5 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1922.

Davies, Paul. Other Worlds. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980. Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981. Descartes, R La dioptrique, Oeuvres de Descartes. Ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery. 12 vols.

Paris:Cerf, 1887-191 3. Reprinted Paris: J. Vrin, 1957-1965,6. The Diamond that Cuts Through Illusion. Trans. Thich Nat Hat. Berkeley: Parallax Press. Dumoulin, Heinrich. Zen Buddhism: A History. Trans. James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter.

2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1988. Echavarria, Arturo. Lengua y literatura de Borges. Barcelona: Ariel, 1983. Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Ed. P. A. Schlipp. Evenston: The Library of Living

Philosophers. 1949. Einstein, Albert. Relativity. Trans R. W. Lawson. New York: Peter Smith, 1920.

and Infeld, Leopold. The Evolution of Physics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.

Encyclopedia Britannica. l l th ed. 29 vols Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1910. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 8 vols. New York and London: Collier Macmillian, 1967 Eribon, Didier. Michel Foucault. Trans. Betsy Wing. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991. Ferrer, Manuel. Borgesy la nada. London: Tamensis, 1971. Fishbyrn, Evelyn and Hughes, Psiche. A Dictionary of Borges. London:Duckworth, 1990. Foucault, Michel. L'archiologie du savoir. Paris, Gallimard, 1969. Trans. A. M. Sheridan

Smith. New York: Pantheon, 1972. The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon, 1984.

. Les mots et les choses. Paris: Gallimard, 1966. English translation The Order of Things. New York: Pantheon, 1970. P ower/ICnowledge. Ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon, 1980.

Gilson, Etienne. Being and Some Philosophers. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies: 1952. . A History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. New York: Random House, 1955. . Painting and Reality. New York: Bollingen, 1957.

Gombrich, E. H. Art and Illusion. New York: Bollingen, 1961. Goodman, Nelson. Problems and Projects. Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill.

1972. . Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 1978.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika. Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism. 1960. New York:: Samuel Weiser, 1969. . The Way of the White Clouds. Berkeley: Shambala, 1970.

Greene, Brian. The Elegant Urtiverse. New York: Norton, 1999. Gregory, R L. Eye and Brain. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966. Gutherie W. KC. The Greek Philosophers. 1950. New York: Harper Colophon Books,

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1975. A History of Greek Philosophy. Cambridge, 1962.

Haack, Susan. Philosophy of logics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1978. Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. 7th edition. Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1953. English trans.

John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson as Being and Time. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. . Basic Writings. Ed. D. F. Krell. New York: Harper, 1977.

Hempel, C. G. Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966. Herbert, Nick. Quantum Reality. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1985. Hiryanna, M. Essentials of Indian Philosophy. 1949. Bombay: Blackie and Son, 1978. Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1991. Hume, David. Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. 2nd. edition. Ed. Norman

Kemp Smith. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1947. A Treatise ofHuman Nature. Ed. L. A. SeIby-Bigge. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1951. Husserl, Edmund. Logische Untersuchungen. 2 vols. Halle a. D S.: M. Niemeyer, 1900-

1901. Irby, James. "Encuentro con Borges." James Irby, Napole6n Murat, G. Carlos Peralta.

Encuentro con Borges. Buenos Aires: Editorial Galerna, 1968. JaCn, Didier. Borges' Esoteric Library. Lanham MD and London: UP of America, 1994. Jitrik, NoC. "Estructura y significado en Ficciones de Jorge Luis Borges." Casa de las

Amiricas, 55, Marzo-Abril, 50-62. Jurado, Alicia. Genio yfZqura de Jorge Luis Borges. Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1964. Kant, Immanuel. Kantsgesammelte Schriften. 22 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968.

. Critique of Judgment. Trans. J . H. Bernard. 1914. New York: Hafner, 1951.

. Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Norman Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan, 1958.

Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzrche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. 4th ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1974.

Kierkegaard, Soren. Philosophical Fragments. Ed. and uans. H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1985.

Kirk, G. S. And Raven, J. E. The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. London and New York: Cambridge UP, 1971.

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1991. Lao Tsu. Tao Te Ching. Trans. Gia-Fu Fand and Jane English. New York: Vintage Books,

1972. The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence. Ed. with introduction and notes by H . G.

Alexander. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1956. Logical Positivism. Ed. A. J. Ayer. Glencoe: Free Press, 1959. Lovejoy, A. 0 . The Great Chain of Being. 1936. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1942. Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Trans. R E. Latham. Harmondsworth, Middlesex and

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1971. Miller, James. The Passion ofMichel Foucault. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Molloy, Sylvia. Las letras de B o w . Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1979.

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Morris, Charles. "Science, Art and Technology," The Kenyon Review 1 (1939): 429-42. Murillo, L. A. The Cyclical Night. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1968. Murti, T. R. V. The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. 2nd ed. London: Allen and Unwin Nagel, Ernest and Newman, James R. GodelJs Proof: New York: New York UP, 1958. Nietzsche, F. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Eds Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin:

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1989.

aesthetic judgment, 62-64,110-122 Agheana, Ion T., 162-163,164-166 Alazraki, Jaime, 25, 109, 151 Algazel, 11, 76 Aleph and Other Stories, El, 165 "Aleph, The," 146, 149-153, 156, 170

"Commentary," 151 "Epilogue," 170 interpretation of, 15 1-1 53 "Postscript," 152-153

allegory, 116-122 of the cave, 58, 66, 86

"Analytical Language of John Wilkins, The," 59

"Approach to al-Mu'tasim, The," 118, 142-146,148,156, 187,191

"Commentary," 142-143 symbolism of, 147

Arhat, 177 Aristotle, 2, 3, 4, 11, 12, 45, 49, 51, 54,

64 ,88 and metaphysics, 1-2 cosmology, 22, 51 causality, 52 on reality, 43,44, 50-5 1 on time, 50,80,87,97 Poetics, 11 primacy of the individual over the

general, 49 substances, 87 syllogistic logic, 84

art, 124 artistic space, 11 2-1 13 formalism, 11 1-1 12

function of, 110-1 l 6 of the Renaissance, 41 self-representational, 11 1

Ar t and Illusion, 11 1 Artifices, 134

"Prologue," 73, 134 Ashe, Herbert, 33, 36, 40, 73 Attar, 145-146, 149, 152 Augustine, Saint, 79, 84, 85-86, 99,

on Ambrose, 113-1 14, 117 on time, 79,80-81,83

"Autobiographical Essay," 11 5 AvalokiteSvara, 176, 177, 178 "Avatars," 42 "Avatars of the Tortoise," 55, 60-65, 187 Averroes, 10-12, 76

defense of philosophical reasoning, 11 "Averroes' Search," 10-13,22, 29, 76, 84,

120, 125,192 interpretation of, 13, 25, 115

axiom of abstraction, 47

Balderston, Daniel, 123-124, 163 on "The Garden of Forking Paths," on "Guayaquil," 126 on "The Secret Miracle," 123-125

Barker, Stephen, 47-48 Baudelaire, Charles, 137 Bell, Clive, 111, 112-113 Bianthanatos (Donne), 136 "Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz

(1829-1874) A," 161-162, 163-167, 190-191


Bioy Casares, Adolfo, 33, 36, 58 Bloy, =on, 141, 142 Bodhidarma, 183,186-187 Bodhisattva, 174,176,177-178 Boedo-Florida Polemic, 109 Book of Imaginary Beinas, n e , 137 "Book of Sand, The," 183,193 Borges, Jorge Luis

and Buddhism, 95,170, 179-184 and the Cabala, 2,9-10,71-77,152,

l69 at the Colegio Libre de Estudios

Superiories, 11 8,179 at the Municipal Library, 17-18,20,

36,114 childhood, 2 early interest in philosophy, 2 family, 2, 17, 33, 115-1 l 6 in Europe, 2 on politics, 123 on reading, 122-123 philosophical interests, 13, 60, 77 reoccurring themes, 13, 15, 30-31,

72-73,77,110, 141-142,179, 184,191

anonymity of literature, 64-65,72 chance, 20,27, 30-31 cultural relativism, 126-1 31 depersonalization of individuals, 160 destiny, 19,20,30-31,96,134-141,

164-165 duplication, 35,40, 141 enlightenment, 14, 160-161, 191,

193 eternity, 18,20, 81-84 insufficiency of human reason, 35 memory, 86-87, 96, 148-149, 155,

l65 nostalgia, 85 quantum mechanics, 41 reality, 6, 16-17, 77, 99, 141 reincarnation, 185, 191 religion, 7, 9, 10, 13, 60, 70-71,

74-76,110, 129-130,136,143 time, 18,20,25, 30, 31,81-108,

143-144,158, 161, 185 return to Buenos Aires, 2-3 use of color as symbolism, 6, 18, 19,

25, 31, 36,76, 106, 114, 145

use of dreams, 16-17, 19,64-65 use of metaphor, 6, 65

"Bovges y yo," 165-1 66 Bradley, A.C., 96 Bradley, F.H., 3, 39 Brodie, 139

"Afterward," 132, 163 "Forward," 118-1 19, 122

Buddha, 181,184,187, 189,192 birth and childhood, 179-180, 181 death, 173, 180 enjoyment body, 175 sermon at Sarnath, 177 teachings, 187-188, 189-190

Buddhism, 60,95,170,172-193 Borges on, 179-184, 191 Chinese, 183 cosmology, 18 1 metaphysics of, 174-175 primary constituents, 172 Tibetan, 175 transmigration, 181-182, 183-184 Zen. 183

Buddhism: its essence and development (Conze), 179

Cabala, 2,9-10,71-77,114,152,169, 170

central text of, 74, 147 cosmology, 72, 181 definition of, 9, 71 nature of, 72

Camp, Andre, 137 Cantor, Georg, 46-47,104-105

on set theory, 47,48, 104, 153 on transfinite numbers, 104

Cervantes, Miguel de, 120-121 chance, 15-20 Charbonnier, Georges, 138 Ch'an, 174, 183, 191 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 117 Cherubinisher Wandersmann, 96-97 Chesterson, G.K., 117 "Circular Ruins, The," 8, 10, 105-106,

168,169,184 "Circular Time," 105

Cirlot, J.E., 149 Clarke, Samuel, 87, 90-91 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 2, 54, 64-65,

98, 120-121 "Kubla Khan," 64

Confssions (Augustine), 80-81, 11 3-1 14 Conze, Edward, 175, 178, 179, 183 Cratylus (Plato), 8 cristal, el, 35, 141

interpretations of, 7, 191-192 symbolism of, 35, 188

Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 2, 162 Croce, Benedetto, 117, 1 18, 1 19 Cuaderno San Martin, 3 "The Cult of the Phoenix," 185

Dante, 22, 151 Davies, Paul, 98, 103 "Death and the Compass," 73-76,115,

133,164, 191 Denis, Maurice, 11 1 De Quincey, Thomas, 130, 132, 137 Descartes, Rent, 4, 5, 46, 51, 56, 75, 112

Cartesianism, 52-53, 56, 58, 94 concept of universe, 88-89 on dreams, 138 on time, 87-88 rational insight, 7, 58

destiny, 15-20,25,96,164-165 and enlightenment, 160-1 67 and the individual, 134-141

" Deutsches Requiem," 128-1 29 Dharma, 172-173,176-177, 189 Diamond Sutra, 187, 189-190, 192 Dioptrics (Descartes), 1 12 "Doctrine of the Cycles, The," 104 Don Quixote de la Mancha, 11 5, 120-121 Donne, John, 118,132,136 "Dream of Coleridge, The," 64, 98, 103 "Duel, The," 132

Einstein, Albert, theory of relativity, 97-98

"Elder Lady, The," 132

"Emma Zunz," 135,141,164 Encyclopedia Britannica, 3, 33, 35,40, 73,

124,125 "End, The," 134-135,141, 164 Enneads (Plotinus), 70 Erigena, Johannes Scotus, 39, 72,81, 84 esoteric wisdom, 60-77, 178-179, 182

passage to, 60-65 eternity, 79-86

definition, 79 first conception of, 82 in philosophy, 79-80 sempiternity, 80

&re y le nbnt, Le (Sartre) "Everness," 85-86 Everette, Hugh, 103 "Ewigkeit," 85, 86, 169

Fernhdez, Macedonio, l , 2-3 "Flower of Coleridge, The," 64-65,98,

103 "Forms of a Legend," 179,184 Frege, Gottlob, 37,47-49 "From Allegories to Novels," 116-1 17 "From Somebody to Nobody," 159 Foucault, Michel, 37, 42, 180 "Funes, His Memory," 57-58, 86, 148,

155

"Garden of Forking Paths, The," 27, 28-32,41,75,115,164

interpretation of, 30-32, 103, 123-124 "Prologue," 28

Genealogy of Morals, The (Nietzsche), 27 Gilson, Etienne, 44, 1 l 9 Gnosticism, 34,60,65-71, 83 Godel, Kurt, 46, 48 Golem, 8, 106, 119, 120, 126, 189 Golem, The (Meyrink), 9, 124 Gombrich, E.H., 11 1 "Gospel According to Mark, The,"

135-137,141,164 "Guayaquil," 123, 125-126, 163

"Afterword," 126


Guerrero, Margarita, 137

Hacedor, El, 160 Hamlet, 122 Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Borges on, 118, 120 Heart Sutra, 176, 185 Heisenberg, Werner, 32 Heraclitus, 22, 32,45,99, 170, 180

perpetual flux, 8-9, 2 4 2 5 , 30, 31, 35, 58,96,189

river of change, 7, 8, 105, 189, 193 two twilights of, 21,74,75, 86, 102,

l 6 9 "Heraclitus," 8 H-nayina, 173, 182 "History of Eternity," 81,93-94, 155 "History of the Echoes of Names," 159 hora sin sombra) h, 184, 193 "House of Asterion, The," 137-1 39,

156,170 "Epigraph," 137

Hume, David, 3,45,52, 54, 56,59,94, 105,165,181

and Cartesianism, 53-54 Borges on, 1 0 4 1 0 5 Dialogues) 2 3 distinction between simple and

complex ideas, 52-53 nominalism of, 95 on knowledge, 37-38 on time, 3 9 , 9 4 9 5 principle of causality, 38 skepticism, 55

Husserl, Edmund, 37,46 Hui-Neng, 186,191-192

"I," 165 "I Am," 165 "Immortal, The," 155-158 "Immortals, The," 58, 155 "Intruder, The," 15, 18-20,25, 36, 134

interpretation of, 19-20, 141 Irby, James, 110, 128

Irenaeus, 70, 83-84

J a b , Didier, 35-36, 143, 146 description of Cabalistic cosmology,

71-72 James, Henry, 65, 114, 132, 163 James, William, 2, 3, 121, 122 Janus, 162

symbolism of, 75, 152, 164-165 Jaspers, Karl, 163 Jurado, Alicia, 179, 183

Kafka, Franz, 9,20, 26,28,45, 101, 124125,137

Kant, Immanuel, 2, 3,39, 55-60,61-62, 117,155,162,186

central thesis, 55-56, 57 critical idealism of, 22, 55 critical philosophy of, 2 discursive reason, 56-57, 62-63 on space-time, 91-93 on time, 31,61,87,91-93

Karma, 182,183-184,191 Khayyh, Omar, 59-60

labyrinth, 59, 137 in "The Garden of Forking Paths,"

30-31,115,124 in "Death and the Compass," 75-76 of Knossos, 7 of metaphysics, 82-83 symbolism of, 75, 188

Land, Edward, 112 Lao Tsu, 180, 188-189 Lawrence, T.E., 130 Leibniz, Gottfried von, 4, 39,47, 53, 90,

120 monads of, 105 on metaphysics, 87, 91 on time, 87,91,93 concept of universe, 88-89

principle of the identity of indiscernibles, 23, 94, 96

"Library of Babel, The," 20-25, 28, 31, 36, 60, 86, 103, 137, 156, 168, 169,170, 188,191

Borges' comments on, 20-21 interpretation of, 20-25, 114, 129 man of the Book, 24, 114 organization of, 23, 185-186

"Limiter," 165, 192-193 Lo~os (Heraclitus), 3-4 "Lottery in Babylon, The," 25-27,41,

101,114

Meyrink, 2, 124 Milinda, King, 95, 96 Milleret, Jean de, 109, 179 Minkowski, H., 87,

on space-time, 97,98-99 Mirror, 21, 34, 152-153, 191-193

symbolism of, 35, 76, 141 myth, 7

Er, 67 in Buddhism, 186 reincarnation, 67, 181-182, 185-191

Msdhyamika, 182, 183 Mah%amghikas, 173 Mahayha, 173, 175,182, 187

doctrines, 173-1 74 oxymoronic character of, 186

MallarmC, StCphane, 111, 113, 114, 115 "Man on Pink Corner," 139-140 mantra, 176-179 "Masked Dyer, Hakim el Merv, The," 71 Massuh, Gabriela, 143-145, 146, 151,

152 interpretation of "The Writing of the

God," 168-172, 188 "Matthew XXV : 30," 159 Mauthner, Fritz, 1

N%@juna, 174, 175, 182, 183, 187 N%gas, 182 Nagasena, 95,96 NauseL, La (Sartre) Nemesius, 67

on the Stoics, 67 "New Refutation of Time, A," 8 1,85,

93-97, 147,153,160-161,163,183 "Prologue," 81

Newton, Sir Isaac, 87,97, 111-1 12 laws of motion, 89-91 theory of absolute space and time, 92-93

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 13,27, 42,45, 61, 105, 162

on matter, 104 on time, 104

metaphysics, 13, 20, 60, 88, 175, 178-179 "Nightingale of Keats, The," 54, 83, 103, Aristotle on, 1-2 132,164 as a branch literature, 39, 59, 71, Nirvha, 95, 173, 176, 177-178, 181-182,

77,110 187,189, 190,191 Buddhism and, 174-175 Borges' formulation of, 184, 191 failure of, 77 "Nothingness of the Personality, The," impossibility of, 57, 59 109-110,159 in "Averroes' Search," 22 nominalism, 25,49-60,77,114,117 in Buddhism, 174-176 development of, 50 in "The South," 15, 61,75, 134, 138, of~uddhism, 95

169 of Hume, 95, 105 in "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," 36, of "The Library," 27

60,71,110,186 Novalis, 41 labyrinth of, 82-83 Leibniz on, 87 ,91 Russell on, 1 0

Metaphysics (Aristotle), 44 "On the Cult of Books," 113


Order of Thin~s, The (Foucault) "Other Death, The," 100 Other Inquisitions, 60, 1 10, 159

"Epilogue," 60, 110 "Other Tiger, The," 55, 119, 120 Ouspensky, P. D., 34

Pagels, Elaine, 69 Parmenides, 3, 30, 32, 39,43,45

block universe of, 22, 23, 24 on reality, 4, 80 on time, 80 Proem, 4 rationalism of, 58

Parmenides (Plato), 44 "Partial Enchantments of the Quixote,"

121 Pascal, Blaise, 22 "Pascal's Sphere," 21,22, 65, 169 Paul, The Apostle, 5 1, 60 Personal Anthology, 32 Personal identity, 155 Phaedrus (Plato), 11 3 Physics (Aristotle), 50 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 137 "Pierre Menard, Author of T h e Quixote,"

120-121, 123 Platform Sutra, 191-1 92 Plato, 3,4,22, 39,45,46,49,6647,

96, 105, 135 allegory of the cave, 58, 66, 86 Dialgues, 8 distrust of writing, 1 13 doctrine of Forms, 9,80,81,96, 188 Neoplatonism, 65-71, 84 on God, 67 on knowledge, 45 on reality, 43,49, 50-51, 52, 67-68,

141 on reincarnation, 181-182 on time, 79,80,82-83,83,87,99 Platonism, 53, 54, 55,60, 64,65,70,

77, 85, 99 Plotinus, 59 ,6748 , 181, 188

Discources, 68-69 First Principle, 68

on evil, 69 on God, 68-69,70 on reality, 68 on time, 79,81-82

prajriZpZranzitZ, 174, 175, 176, 178, 186 Prakpi, 181 Putnam, Hillary, 49

Qut es el budismo, 179

Ramayana, 122 rationalism, 45-46 realism, 45-49

Aristotelian, 50-5 1 mathematical, 47 Platonic, 49, 50-5 1, 52

Republic (Plato), 43, 66-67 Reyes, Alfonso, 33 Rodriquez Monegal, Emir, 146 Rosa Profunda, La, 164-1 65, Royce, Josiah, 122 Russell, Bertrand, 45,46,47-48,55, 105,

105,118 abnormal numbers of, 82 on metaphysics, 1 on time, 39 paradox, 46-47 <L . .

VICIOUS circle principle," 47-48

~amkara, 181 Sinkhya, 181, 184 Samsaa, 173,175,176,189,190,193

flux, 190 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 158-159, 159-160,

161-162,167 Sarvistivadins, 173 Schlick, Moritz, 99 Scholem, Gershom, 9-10 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 2, 31,45,96, 109,

127,129, 159-160, 165,185, 188-189,190

indictment of self-knowledge, 62 on enlightenment, 167 on reality, 60-64 on time, 2 ,81,83

Sefer Tetsirah, 71, 74, 101, 1 l 4 self, 122-1 31

cult of, 54 knowledge, 62

"Secret Miracle, The," 57, 101-103, 115 opening of, 123-125

Seven Nights, 185, 191 "Buddhism," 179, 183, 190 "Poetry," 34

Shakespeare, William, 118, 132-133, 160 Borges' essay on, 159

"Shape of the Sword, The," 132,133 Shaw, George Bernard, 20

Borges' essay on, 32, 116, 163 Silesius, Angelus, 14, 71, 96-97, 146,

155,192 skandhas, 176-177 "South, The," 15-18,25,30,36,58,75

interpretation of, 17-18, 19-20 metaphysical elements of, 15, 61, 75,

134, 138,169 space, 22 space-time, 87, 89-91,97-99

absolute, 90,91 Spencer, Herbert, 2, 136 "Spinoza," 7, 8,21, 35, 191 Spinoza, Baruch, 3,4-6, 30, 39, 68, 71,

86,88,169, 188 concept of a block universe, 23,89,188 concept of infinity, 7-8 concept of reality, 5-6, 10 Continental Rationalism, 4 on ideata, 5-6 on religion, 4, 5, 6-7,9 Ethics, 5 natura natwans, 24, 31, 50

Stevenson, R.L., 65, 166 "Story From Rosendo JuArez, The," 139,

140-141 "Story of the Warrior and the Captive,"

132 Sturrock, John, 110 symbols, Borgesian, 106, 116-122, 156

of birds, 152 of color, 6, 18, 19,25, 31, 36, 76,

106,114,145 of el cvistal35, 188, 191-192 of Janus, 75,152, 164165 of labyrinths, 75, 188 of mirrors, 35, 75-76, 141, 191 of roses, 147, 149 of spheres, 21,22,65, 169, 188

tantra, 174 Tao Te Ching, 188-189, 190 "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero,"

132-1 33 "Theologians, The," 133-1 34 Theravadins, 173 Thousand and One Nights, The, 16, 31, 36,

122 "Three Versions of Judas," 130-131, 136 Tibetan Book of the Dead, 175, 186 Timaeus (Plato), 66-67, 80, 105 time, 22,30-32,79-107

Aristotle on, 50, 80, 87, 97 as the fourth dimension, 33 Augustine on, 79,80-81,83 Borges on, 18, 20,25, 30, 31, 81-108,

143-144,158,161, 185 cyclical, 25, 30, 103-107, 143, 185 Descartes on, 87-88 direction of, 82, 97 Heraclitus on, 8-9,24-25, 30, 31, 35,

58,96,189 Hume on, 39,94-95 hypertime, 99 Kant on, 31,61, 87,91-93 Leibniz on, 87, 91, 93 linear, 50,97, 143 Newton on, 92-93 Nietzsche on, 104 Parmenides on, 80 passage of, 87-93,96,97 Plato on, 79, 80, 82-83, 83, 87, 99 Plotinus on, 79, 81-82 Russell on, 39 Schopenhauer on, 2, 81, 83 space-time, 87, 89-91, 97-99 subjective, 99-103 timelessness, 80


world/public, 99-100, 101 "Time and J.W. Dunne," 110,170 "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," 22,27,

32-42, 70,73,76, 137, 149, 191 interpretation of, 34-36,41, 59,

114-115, l84 language of, 39-40 metaphysics of, 36,60, 71, 110, 186 opening of, 84-85 "Postscript," 40-41, l 5 8

Treatise of Human Nature (Hume), 53-54,94

Trinity, The, 83-84, 174

Unamuno, Miguel de, 82 "Unending Rose, The," 145 universals, 50-55

Vaihinger, Hans, 39 ValCry, Paul, 64, 120, 132 Van der Weyden, Roger, 112-1 13 VedMta, 181 Vico, Gambattista, 157 "Vindication of the Cabal, A," 72 "Vindication of the False Basilides, A," 70

"Wait, The," 141 "Waiting, The," 164 Way of Truth, The, 80 What is Buddhism, 179 World as Will and Idea, The

(Schopenhauer), 61-64, 127, 159-160

World and the Individual, The (Royce), 122

"Writing of the God, The," 123, 137, 156,168-172,190,192

interpretation, 169-1 72

Xul Solar, Alejandro, 37

"Yellow Rose, A," 42, 119, 12 Yo@c%a, 174,182

"Zahir, The," 145-149,193 Zen, 174, 183 Zeno, 4, 55, 104, 186

reality of change, 80 Zohav, 71,74

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