''Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge'' ( es, link=no, Emporio celestial de conocimientos benévolos) is a fictitious

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

of animals described by the writer

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

in his 1942 essay "

The Analytical Language of John Wilkins "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" (Spanish: "El idioma analítico de John Wilkins") is a short essay by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, first printed in ''La Nación'' on 8 February 1942 and subsequently published in ''Otras Inquisici ...

" ().

Overview

Wilkins, a 17th-century philosopher, had proposed a

universal language Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea of ...

based on a classification system that would encode a description of the thing a word describes into the word itself—for example, ''Zi'' identifies the genus ''beasts''; ''Zit'' denotes the "difference" ''rapacious beasts of the dog kind''; and finally ''Zitα'' specifies ''dog''. In response to this proposal and in order to illustrate the arbitrariness and cultural specificity of any attempt to categorize the world, Borges describes this example of an alternate taxonomy, supposedly taken from an ancient Chinese encyclopaedia entitled ''Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge''. The list divides all animals into 14 categories. Borges claims that the list was discovered in its Chinese source by the translator

Franz Kuhn Franz Walther Kuhn (10 March 1884 – 22 January 1961) was a lawyer and a translator chiefly remembered for translating many Chinese novels into German, most famously the ''Dream of the Red Chamber''. Biography Kuhn studied law at the Universit ...

. In his essay, Borges compares this classification with one allegedly used at the time by the Institute of Bibliography in Brussels, which he considers similarly chaotic. Borges says the Institute divides the universe in 1000 sections, of which number 262 is about the

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

, ironically classified apart from section 264, that on the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Meanwhile section 294 encompasses all four of

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

and

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of Philosophy, philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of China, Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmo ...

. He also finds excessive heterogeneity in section 179, which includes animal cruelty,

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

, mourning, and an assorted group of vices and virtues. Borges concludes: "there is no description of the universe that isn't arbitrary and conjectural for a simple reason: we don't know what the universe is". Nevertheless, he finds Wilkins' language to be clever (''ingenioso'') in its design, as arbitrary as it may be. He points out that in a language with a divine scheme of the universe, beyond human capabilities, the name of an object would include the details of its entire past and future.

Influences of the list

This list has stirred considerable philosophical and literary commentary.

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

begins his preface to '' The Order of Things,'' Foucault then quotes Borges' passage.

Louis Sass Louis A. Sass is a professor of Clinical Psychology at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University who specializes in severe psychopathology, philosophy and psychology, and psychology and the arts. Sass has serv ...

has suggested, in response to Borges' list, that such "Chinese" thinking shows signs of typical schizophrenic thought processes. By contrast, the linguist

George Lakoff George Philip Lakoff (; born May 24, 1941) is an American cognitive linguistics, cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain comple ...

has pointed out that while Borges' list is not possibly a human categorization, many categorizations of objects found in nonwestern cultures have a similar feeling to Westerners. Keith Windschuttle, an Australian historian, cited alleged acceptance of the authenticity of the list by many academics as a sign of the degeneration of the Western academy and a terminal lack of humor.

Attribution

Scholars have questioned whether the attribution of the list to Franz Kuhn is genuine. While Kuhn did indeed translate Chinese literature, Borges' works often feature many learned pseudo-references resulting in a mix of facts and fiction. To date, no evidence for the existence of such a list has been found. Borges himself questions the veracity of the quote in his essay, referring to "the unknown (or false) Chinese encyclopaedia writer".

References

{{Jorge Luis Borges __NOTOC__ Classification systems Jorge Luis Borges Michel Foucault Sociology of knowledge Taxonomy Taxonomy (biology) Fictional elements introduced in 1942

Overview

Influences of the list

Attribution

See also

References