''The Philosophy of Chance'', with subtitle ''"Literature in the Light of

Empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...

"'' () is an essay by Polish author

Stanisław Lem Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer. He was the author of many novels, short stories, and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fi ...

on the

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...

and the influence of literature on the modern culture. However, as

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

Henryk Markiewicz noted, the subtitle is somewhat misleading: starting with Lem's take on literary theory, the essay turns into the "

General Theory of Everything The General Theory of Everything () is a sarcastic coinage of Stanisław Lem introduced in 1966. The biographical sketch of Ijon Tichy in "The Twenty-eighth Voyage" of Tychy's '' Star Diaries'' says that a grandfather of Ijon, Jeremiasz Tichy, "de ...

": of the Universe, evolution, and culture, based on a premise that chance, eventuality is the universal factor.

Jerzy Jarzębski Jerzy Jarzębski (August 22, 1947 – February 25, 2024) was a Polish literary historian and critic, a long time professor at the Jagiellonian University. He is acclaimed for his research on Witold Gombrowicz, Bruno Schulz, Stanisław Lem, as wel ...

An afterword to the book
/ref> The essay was first published in 1968 by

Wydawnictwo Literackie Wydawnictwo Literackie (abbreviated WL, lit. "Literary Press") is a Kraków-based Polish publishing house, which has been referred to as one of Poland's "most respected". Company history Since its foundation in 1953, Wydawnictwo Literackie has ...

as a book of over 600 pages.

Lem's literary theory

In the essay, Lem criticizes the contemporary literary theory, in particular,

Roman Ingarden Roman Witold Ingarden (5 February 1893 – 14 June 1970) was a Polish philosopher who worked in aesthetics, ontology, and phenomenology. Before World War II, Ingarden published his works mainly in the German language and in books and newspapers ...

's ''Literary Work of Art'', and proceeds with his own. He cautions that he deals only with the

ontological Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every ...

side of the issue, disregarding the esthetical side of literature. Lem's exposition draw on analogies from various natural sciences: probability theory, information theory, computer science, etc. The major idea is that a literary work must be considered as an infinite set of its readings. The literary text ''per se'' is just an "input instruction set" of an "information

program Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

", and each reader subject to it produces a particular concretization, which depends on the reader's

worldview A worldview (also world-view) or is said to be the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and Perspective (cognitive), point of view. However, whe ...

at the moment of reading, which, in its turn, depends on the established cultural norms.Markiewicz
pp. 93, 94
/ref> For example, Lem notices that Kafka's "

In the Penal Colony "In the Penal Colony" ("") (also translated as "In the Penal Settlement") is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the ...

" immediately brings associations with

Nazi death camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...

in modern reader's mind, although in 1914 Kafka could not have been describing these camps. This observation gives Lem an incentive to consider unpredictable arbitrariness in the literary analysis of a particular text. At the same time, there are certain kinds of texts which have a rather rigid structure, which rely on a single possible way of perception to make them meaningful (e.g., jokes) or based on certain pre-set standards and expectations (e.g.,

detective story Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as specu ...

). As Lem himself summarized, "The more original a work, or the more it deviates from the generic model, the more diverse are its interpretation possibilities - like a

Rorschach test The Rorschach test is a projective test, projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychology, psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists u ...

Chance in cultural dynamics

In subsequent editions of the essay the view on literature as a domain of

random process In probability theory and related fields, a stochastic () or random process is a mathematical object usually defined as a family of random variables in a probability space, where the index of the family often has the interpretation of time. Stoc ...

es was expanded by Lem on culture as a whole, where random forces drive the realizations of eventualities in culture in unpredictable directions. Nevertheless, Lem stops short of declaring chance or "blind fate" as a dominating force in cultural dynamics. In reality forces of chaos are counteracted by the forces of order and purpose. At the same time, Lem's essay instructs to try and recognize the act of Chance in situations where one would expect an act of Purpose.

Chance in Lem's works

The concept of chance as the force which contests the cause-effect relationship is present in Lem's science fiction since his earliest works

Wojciech Orliński Wojciech Orliński (born 24 January 1969 in Warsaw) is a Polish journalist, writer, and blogger. In the 1990s, he was a member of the Polish Socialist Party. Between 1997 and 2021, he was a regular columnist for Gazeta Wyborcza. From 2011 to ...

, ''Co to są sepulki? Wszystko o Lemie'' 'What are Sepulki? Everything about Lem'' 2007, , section ''Przypadek'' Chance" pp. 184-186 The plots of Lem's novels, ''

The Investigation ''The Investigation'' (original title ''Śledztwo'') is a science fiction/detective/ thriller novel by the Polish writer Stanisław Lem. The novel incorporates a philosophical discourse on explanation of unknown phenomena. It was first publis ...

'', ''

The Chain of Chance ''The Chain of Chance'' (original Polish title: ''Katar'', literally, " Rhinitis"/ Catarrh) is a science fiction/detective novel by the Polish writer Stanisław Lem, published in 1976. Lem's treatment of the detective genre introduces many no ...

'', and ''

His Master's Voice His Master's Voice is an entertainment trademark featuring a dog named Nipper, curiously peering into the horn of a wind-up gramophone. Painted by Francis Barraud in 1898, the image has since become a global symbol used across consumer elect ...

'' are significantly based on this concept. Also, in ''

Hospital of the Transfiguration ''Hospital of the Transfiguration'' (in Polish: ''Szpital Przemienienia'') is a book by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. It tells the story of a young doctor, Stefan Trzyniecki, who after graduation starts to work in a psychiatric hospital. The stor ...

'' Sekulowski, an eccentric poet and philosopher hiding from the Nazis in an asylum, subscribes to the "philosophy of chance". The plot of the novel '' Professor A. Dońda'' is based on a chain of errors, suggesting that the chance is a driving force of the change.Jerzy Jarzębski
"SPÓR MIĘDZY MUNCHHAUSENEM A GULIWEREM"
an afterword to ''Dzienniki gwiazdowe''

Notes

References

*Henryk Markiewicz, "''Summa litteraturae'' Stanisława Lema sposobem niecybernetycznym wyłożona", in: Henryk Markiewicz, ''Utarczki i perswazje 1947-2006'', 2007, (first published in ''

Życie Literackie ''Życie'' (, "Life") was an illustrated weekly established in 1897 and published in Kraków and Lwów in the Austrian partition of Poland. Founded by Ludwik Szczepański, with time it became one of the most popular Polish literary and artisti ...

'' ( pl), no. 48, 1969) *

Michał Głowiński Michał Głowiński (4 November 1934 – 29 September 2023) was a Polish Philology, philologist, historian and literary theorist specializing in the history of Polish literature. Głowiński was a professor of humanities and member of the Polis ...

, "On Concretization", in: ''Language, Literature and Meaning'' 1979,
"Philosophie des Zufalls"
Lem's comment on the essay (in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Philosophy of Chance, The Works by Stanisław Lem 1968 essays