"On Exactitude in Science" or "On Rigor in Science" (the original

Spanish-language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

title is "Del rigor en la ciencia") is a one-paragraph

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

written in 1946 by

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 ...

, about the

map–territory relation The map–territory relation is the relationship between an object and a representation of that object, as in the relation between a geographical territory and a map of it. Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that ...

, written in the form of a

literary forgery Literary forgery (also known as literary mystification, literary fraud or literary hoax) is writing, such as a manuscript or a literary work, which is either deliberately misattributed to a historical or invented author, or is a purported memoir ...

Plot

The Borges story, credited fictionally as a quotation from "Suárez Miranda, ''Viajes de varones prudentes'', Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658", imagines an empire where the science of

cartography Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

becomes so exact that only a map on the same scale as the empire itself will suffice. " cceeding Generations... came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome... In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar..."

Publication history

The story was first published in the March 1946 edition of ''Los Anales de Buenos Aires'', ''año 1, no. 3'' as part of a piece called "Museo" under the name B. Lynch Davis, a joint

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

of Borges and

Adolfo Bioy Casares Adolfo Bioy Casares (; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fan ...

; that piece credited it as the work of "Suarez Miranda." It was collected later that year in the 1946 second Argentinian edition of Borges's ''Historia universal de la infamia'' (''

A Universal History of Infamy ''A Universal History of Infamy'', or ''A Universal History of Iniquity'' (original Spanish title: ''Historia universal de la infamia''), is a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, first published in 1935, and revised by the author in ...

''). The story is no longer included in current Spanish editions of the ''Historia universal de la infamia'', as since 1961 it has appeared as part of '' El hacedor''. The names "B. Lynch Davis" and "Suarez Miranda" would be combined later in 1946 to form another pseudonym, B. Suarez Lynch, under which Borges and Bioy Casares published ''Un modelo para la muerte'', a collection of detective fiction.

Influences and legacy

The story elaborates on a concept in

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

's '' Sylvie and Bruno Concluded'': a fictional

map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...

that had "the scale of a mile to the mile." One of Carroll's characters notes some practical difficulties with this map and states that "we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...

expanded upon the theme, quoting Borges's paragraph as the epigraph for his short story "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1." It was collected in Eco's ''How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays''.

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as w ...

cites the short story as the "finest allegory of simulation" in his treatise ''

Simulacra and Simulation ''Simulacra and Simulation'' (french: Simulacres et Simulation) is a 1981 philosophical treatise by the philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, in which the author seeks to examine the relationships between reality, symbols, and soci ...

'', describing how "an aging double ends up being confused with the real thing", covering the very thing it was meant to represent. In this way the story contributed to developing the semiotic concept of the hyperreal.

References

External links

Quote from story, translated by Andrew HurleySpanish Audio "On Rigor in Science"
{{Jorge Luis Borges Short stories by Jorge Luis Borges 1946 short stories Works about hyperreality Argentine speculative fiction works

Plot

Publication history

Influences and legacy

See also

References

External links