"On Exactitude in Science", or "On Rigor in Science" (Spanish: "Del rigor en la ciencia") is a one-paragraph
short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single 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 old ...
by Argentine 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 regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...
.
Plot
The story,
credited fictionally as a quotation from "Suárez Miranda, ''Viajes de varones prudentes'', Libro IV, Cap. XLV,
Lérida
Lleida (, ; ; ''#Name, see below'') is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital and largest town in Segrià, Segrià county, the Ponent, Ponent region and the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Cent ...
, 1658", describes an empire where
cartography
Cartography (; from , '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 imagined reality) can ...
becomes so exact that only a map on the same scale as the empire itself will suffice. Later generations come to disregard the map, however, and as it decays, so does the land and society beneath it.
Publication history
The story was first published in the March 1946 edition of ''Los Anales de Buenos Aires'' as part of a piece called "Museo" credited to "B. Lynch Davis", a joint pseudonym of Borges and
Adolfo Bioy Casares. It was collected later that year in the 1946 second Argentinian edition of Borges' ''Historia universal de la infamia'' (''
A Universal History of Infamy'').
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 Borges' collection ''
El hacedor''.
The names "B. Lynch Davis" and "Suárez Miranda" would be combined later in 1946 to form another pseudonym, B. Suárez Lynch, under which Borges and Bioy Casares published ''Un modelo para la muerte'', a collection of detective fiction.
Influences and legacy
"On Exactitude in Science" 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, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...
's ''
Sylvie and Bruno Concluded'': a fictional map 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."
Italian writer
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian Medieval studies, medievalist, philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular ...
expanded upon the theme, quoting the story as the epigraph for his short story "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1", collected in his ''How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays''.
French philosopher
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard (, ; ; – 6 March 2007) was a French sociology, sociologist and philosopher with an interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as hi ...
cited "On Exactitude in Science" as a predecessor to his concept of
hyperreality
Hyperreality is a concept in post-structuralism that refers to the process of the evolution of notions of reality, leading to a cultural state of confusion between signs and symbols invented to stand in for reality, and direct perceptions of co ...
in his 1981 treatise ''
Simulacra and Simulation
''Simulacra and Simulation'' () is a 1981 philosophical treatise by the philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, in which he seeks to examine the relationships between reality, symbols, and society, in particular the significations ...
''.
See also
*
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. Mistaking the map for the territory is a logical fallacy that occurs wh ...
* ''
Welcome to the Desert of the Real''
References
External links
Full text, translated to English by Andrew HurleySpanish Audio "On Rigor in Science", read by J. L. Borges
{{Jorge Luis Borges
Short stories by Jorge Luis Borges
1946 short stories
Works about hyperreality
Argentine speculative fiction works