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Bok Christian - Pataphyscs -- The Poetics of an Imaginary Science
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'PATAPHYSICS: THE POETICS OF AN IMAGINARY SCIENCE
CHRISTIAN BOK
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements
f o r t h e degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Programme in English York University
North Y o r k , Ontario
December 1 9 9 7
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Canada
PATAPHYS ICS : THE FOETICS OF AN I M A G I N A R Y SCIENCE
by C H R I S T I A N BOK
a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of York University in partial fulfillrnent of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
O 1998 Permission has been granted to the LlBRARY OF YORK C;NIVERSITY to lend or seIl copies of this dissertation, to the NATIONAL L18RARY OF CANADA to microfilm this dissertation and to lend or sel1 copies of the film. and to UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS to publish an abstract of this dissertation. The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the dissertation nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or othenivise reproduced without the author's written permission.
ABSTRACT
'Pata~hssics: The Poetics of an Imaainarv Science is a
survey that attempts to describe a hypothetic philosophp-
the avant-garde pseudo-science imagined by Alfred Jarry.
'Pataphysics is a supplement to metaphysics, accenting it,
then replacing it, in order to create a philosophic
alternative, whose discipline can study cases, not of
conception, but of exception: variance (anomalos), alliance
(syzuaia), and deviance (clinamen). 'Pataphysics
synthesizes the romantic schism between a literal,
scientized discourse and a figural, poeticized discourse,
and my thesis suggests that this revision of the signifier
"science" by 'pataphysics is symptomatic of a postrnodern
transition in science from a paradigm of absolutism to a
paralogy of relativism. Structured as a descriptive
explication, which emphasizes a theoretical perspective,
this survey is divided into five chapters: the first
chapter recounts the history of the conflict between science
and poetry (in order to contextualize 'pataphysics within
the metaphysical philosophies of the past); the second
chapter examines the avant-garde pseudo-science of
'pataphysics itself (in order to contextualize 'pataphysics
within the anti-metaphysical meta-philosophies of the
present); and finally, the last three chapters discuss the
influence of 'pataphysics upon the poetics of its subsequent
successors (first, the Italian Futurists; second, the French
Oulipians; and third, the Canadian "Pataphysicians). While
mg thesis focuses upon theories of textual poetics rather
than poetry itself (relyLng upon the kind o f Nietzschean
sophistries that have come to characterize postmodern
p h i l o s o p h y ) , my thesis does nevertheless trive to be as conceptually encyclopedic as 'pataphysics itself: instead
of normalizing 'pataphysics within one theoretical
perspective, this survey alludes intermittently to
'pataphysical enterprises that constitute exceptions to such
a genealogy of Jarryites. What is at stake is the status of
poetry in a world of science. How might poetry reclaim its
own viable truth? How might science benefit from its own
poetic irony? For the postmodern condition, such questions
have already opened up a novel space f o r speculative
imagination; hence, this survey presents itself as a kind of
primer for a future of possible reseerch.
PREFACE
T h e Museum of J u r a s s i c T e c h n o l o ~ s i n Los A n g e l e s is a
s t r a n g e g a l l e r y , where i n c r e d i b l e v e r i t i e s i n t e g r a t e s o
p e r f e c t l y w i t h b e l i e v a b l e u n t r u t h s t h a t a v i s i t o r m a s n o t
d e t e c t t h e p e c u l i a r s l i p p a g e f rom f a c t t o hoax. W i l s o n , t h e
c u r a t o r , h a s r e b u i l t t h e Wunderkammern of m e d i e v a l a r c h i v e s ,
p r e s e n t i n g c a b i n e t s and v i t r i n e s , f u l l of b i z a r r e c u r i o s a - -
s p e c i m e n s : n o t o n l y of M s o t i s l u c i f u a u s (a b a t whose s o n a r -
s y s t e m c a n be modulated t o create a p e r t u r e s t h r o u g h
s u b s t a n t i v e b a r r i e r s ) , but o f Meaaloponera f o e t e n s (an a n t
whose ne rve - sys tem c a n be c o n t r o l l e d by f u n g a l parasites f o r
r e p l i c a t i v e p u r p o s e s ) . W i l s o n does n o t s i m p l y r e p e a t t h e
grotesque s p e c t a c l e of R i p l e y , s i n c e t h e museum d o e s n o t
p r e s e n t t h e t r u t h of the a b s u r d w i t h t h e command: b e l i e v e
it o r n o t ! - - i n s t e a d , t h e museum p r e s e n t s t h e t r u t h as i t s e l f
a b s u r d w i t h t h e q u e s t i o n : w h a t is it t o b e l i e v e o r not?
Wesch le r o b s e r v e s t h a t "Wi l son h a s [ . . . ] p i t c h e d h i s
museum a t t h e very i n t e r s e c t i o n o f t h e premodern and t h e
pos tmodern" ( g o ) , i n s e r t i n g t h e v i s i t o r i n t o t h e i n t e r s t i c e be tween wondering-at a n d wondering-whetherl--a gap into
which t h i s s u r v e y w i s h e s t o i n s e r t i ts own r e a d e r . What
W i l s o n c a l l s " J u r a s s i c t echno logy ," w e might cal1 " J a r r y i t e
' p a t a p h y s i c s W - - a science of imaginary s o l u t i o n s , i n which
the c r i t i c wishes not o n l y t o study, but also t o e v o k e ,
cases of exceptional singularity. Like Jarry (who wilfully
occupies an ambiguous interzone between ratiocination and
hallucination), Wilson hopes to imbricate the technical
truth of modern science with the medieval magic of poetic
wisdom. This survey, likewise, strives to indulge in s u c h a
figura1 project, since it too proposes the potential existence of a, heretofore chimerical, science.
'Pataphysics represents a supplement to metaphysics,
accenting it, then replacing it, in order to create a
philosophic alternative to rationalism. What Wilson has
performed, Jarry has predicted: the disappearance of
scientificity itself when reason is pushed to its own
logical extreme. Such a 'pataphysical qualification of
rational validity is symptomatic of a postmodern transition
in science frorn absolutism to relativism, When even time
itself fades away into spectacular uncertainty, the very
idea that an historical technology might be called
"jurassic" no longer seems wholly absurd (since w e can now
imagine a futuristic apocalypse, in which cloning might
allow a human tu coexist with a resurrected tyrannosaur--
j u s t as cinema has cloned the image of an actual thespian
and spliced it with the image of an unreal sauropod). 2
'Pataphysics is speculative, waiting for its chance to
happen, as if by accident, in a themepark of scientific
viii
conception. Like the museum of Wilson, this thesis on Jarry
attempts to scramble the jurassic sequence of history so that what is extinct in the past can be called forth again
out of its context into the present where the idea of the
past itself can in t u r n be made e ~ t i n c t . ~ For 'pataphysics,
any science sufficiently retarded in progress must seem
magical (but only after the fact), just as any science sufficiently advanced in progress must seem magical (but
only before the fact)--and if 'pataphysics is itself
thaumaturgic, it is so, not because of any ironic nostalgia
for a prehistoric past, but only because of its oneiric
prognosis for an ahistoric future. We see science itself
vanish before the zero-degree of its own anti-science.
Structured as a descriptive explication, which
emphasizes a theoretical perspective, this survey argues
that Jarry has provided an often neglected, but still
important, influence upon the poetic legacy of this century
(particularly the Italian Futurists, the French Oulipians,
and the Canadian "Pataphysicians ) . Wbile my thes is focuses
upon theories of textual poetics rather than poetry itself
(relying upon the kind of Nietzschean sophistries that have
corne to characterize the work of such French rebels as
Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Serres, et al.), my thesis
does nevertheless strive to be as conceptually encyclopedic
as 'pataphysics itself: instead of normalizing 'pataphysics
within one thecretical perspective, this survey alludes
intermittently to 'pataphysical enterprises that constitute
exceptions to such a genealogy of Jarryites.
Recounting the transition from 'pataphysics to
"pataphysics (from the single apostrophe of France to the
double apostrophe of Canada), this survey reflects the
influence of Jarry upon my own poetic career (in particular:
my 'pataphysical encyclopedia, ~r~stalloara~hu). Inspired
by the etymology of the word "crystallography," such a work
represents an act of lucid writinq, which uses the language
of geological science to misread the poetics of rhetorical
language. Such lucid writing is not concerned with the
transparent transmission of a message (so that, ironically,
the poetry is often "opaque");' instead, lucid writing is
simply concerned with the exploratory reflexivity of its o w n
pattern (in a manner reminiscent of lucid dreaminq). The
capricious philosophg of 'pataphysics is itself an oneiric
science aware of its own status as a dream.
'Pataphysics reveals that science is not as "lucid" as
once thought, since science must often ignore the arbitrary,
if not whimsical, status of its own axioms. Like the work
of some 'pataphysicians (particularly the Oulipians), who
make a spectacle of such epistemic formality by writing
texts according to an absurd, but strict, rule of machinic
artifice, this survey also expresses its own extreme of
nomic rigor ( in this case, grammatical parallelism ) : each
sentence develops a chiastic symmetry as balanced as the
contrast in physics between meta and pata. The a r b i t r a r y
character of such a constraint does not simply constitute a
stylistic frivolity, but strives 'pataphysically (if not
allegorically) to dramatize a scientific perversion: that
the universe is itself an a r b i t r a r y formality, whose rules
have created a science that can in turn discuss such rules.
'Pataphysics valorizes the exception to each r u l e in
order to subvert the procrustean constraints of science.
While this survey may do little to change the mind of a
customary scientist (who must ignore the 'pataphysical
peculiarity of science itself in order to avoid the c h a r g e
of crackpot delusion), my survey may nevertheless convince
poets to qualify their own ludditic attitude toward science.
Such poets might recognize that, if poetry cannot oppose
science by becoming its antonyrnic extreme, perhaps poetry
can oppose science by becoming its hyperbolic extrerne, using
reason aqainst itself 'pataphysically in order to subvert
not only pedantic theories of noetic truth, but also
romantic theories of poetic genius. Such poets might learn
to embrace the absurd nature of sophistic reasoning in order
to dispute the power of both the real and the true.
Vaneigem, however, warns us that, because of this
sophistry, "Joe Soap intellectuals, [']pataphysicians[ . . . f i -
bandwagon after bandwagon works out its own version of the
credo quia absurdum est: you [do notJ believe in it, but
you do it anyway" (178) so that, as a result, " [ 'plata-
physics[ . . . ] leads us with many a twist and turn to the last graveyards" (126). While such charges of nihilistic
conformism do apply to the work of some 'pataphysicians
(particularly Sandomir and Shattuck), such misgivings do not
take into account that, like Nietzsche, Jarry does
radicalize philosophy, lampooning pedagogic authority, in
order to foment a spirit o f permanent rebellion, be it anti-
bourgeois or anti-philistine.' My thesis argues that this
apparent strategy of "indifference" in 'pataphysics merely
serves to satirize t h e impartiality of sciexe i t s e l f .
'Pataphysics refuses to conform to any academic
standard: hence, this survey cannot demonstrate that it has
learned the lessons of its t o p i c without also negotiating a
virtually untenable ambiguity between the noetic mandate of
scholarship and the poetic license of 'pataphysics itself.
Since no literary history has ever traced in detail the
unorthodox genealogy of this avant-garde pseudo-science, 1
hope that my survey might in effect o f f e r a Wunderkammern of
literary teratism, cataloguing the scientific exceptions to
the given n o m s of poetry in order to create an absurd
museum of " jurassic" machines. J u s t as the anachronism of an iron tool from before the Ice Age might d i s r u p t our sense
of temporal security, so a l s o might such an archive of
anomaly r e c o n t e x t u a l i z e the g iven canon of modern poetry.
Let u s imagine a fu ture for such an impossible philosophy.
x i i i
Notes to Preface
l~eschler observes that , because the M ~ o t i s
lucifuaus is a hoax, while the Meaaloponera foetens is a
fact, "[tlhe Jurassic infects its visitor with doubts--
little curlicues of misgiving--that proceed to infest
all[ . . . ] other dealings with the Culturally Sacrosanct" (40).
2 ~ h e Jurassic Park of Crichton, for example,
dramatizes a 'pataphysical domain, in which a science of
operative risks (chaotic mathematics) indicts a science of
irnperative tasks (genetic engineering) for practising
"thintelligence' ( 2 8 4 ) - - a clever truth with wanton power.
'~urassic technology demolishes the rnernory of the
museum so that the museum can no longer function properly as
a mausoleum for what has otherwise been forgotten: there,
we do n o t remember what e x i s t s in the past so much as
remember that the past itself does not exist.
- ' ~ r ~ s t a l l o ~ r a ~ h y strives to achieve a state of
"birefrigence," offering two perspectives at the same time
from the focal point of a single lens, if not from the acute
angle of a poetic word: in other words, lucid writing does
not transmit so much as diffract a given meaning.
x i v
'vaneigeln must admit that , when active rather than
passive, such nihilism does evoke revolutionary sensi-
bilities: "Nietzsche's[ ...] i r o n y L . 1 , Jarry's Umour[ ...]-- these are some of the impulses[ ...] investing human con- sciousness with[ . . . ]a true reversa1 of perspective" ( 177 ) .
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
Preface
Science and Poetry: The Poetics of the Ur in 'Pataphysics
Millenial 'Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science
Italian Futurism: A 'Pataphysics of Machinic Exception
French Oulipianism: A 'Pataphysics of Mathetic Exception
Canadian " Pataphysics : A 'Pataphysics of Mnemonic Exception
Texts Cited
iv - v
vi - xiv
1
Science and Poetrs: The Differend of the Ur in 'Pata~hvsics
nNon cum vacaveris, ~atavhssicandum est."
(Jarry 1965:39 )
"[TJhe encyclopaedia said: For one of these
pnostics, the visible universe was aQ
i l l u s i o n or (more ~recisels) a sophism." (Borges 1983: 8 )
"The debt that ['Ipataphysics owes to sophism
cannot be overstated." (Bernstein 1994:105)
Quasi-Healities
Borges in T l h , Uqbar , Orbis Tertius imagines an
allegory about the seductions of s imulation. A secret cabal
of rebel artists has conspired to replace the a c t u a l w o r l d ,
piece by piece, with a virtual world, so that the inertia of
a true history vanishes, phase by phase, into the amnesia of
a false memory. The irony is that this conspiracy meets
with no resistance: lq[a]lmost immediately, reality yielded
on more than one account" for "[tlhe t r u t h is that it longed
to yield" (1983:22)--to disappear into its own phantasms.
Al1 things embrace the weirdness of this astonishing event
and ignore the piousness of al1 admonishing truth. The
event foments a revolution in philosophy--a shift away from
the nomic study of what is veritable t o a ludic study of
what is possible, as if "every philosophy is by definition a
dialectical game, a Philosophie des Als Ob" ( 1 4 ) .
Borges imagines a reality where to imagine a reality
can cause a reality t o e x i s t ex nihilo. Each memory of an
object conjures the miracle of an h d n , the replica of a replica; and yet, " [s] tranger and more pure than any h r h
is, at times, the u" (an ectype without prototype), "the
object produced through suggest ion, educed by hope" (1983: 18) .' Like the t ih i s ta s who believe that
"metaphysics is a branch of fantastic literature" ( 1 4 ) , the narrator of this fantasy pretends to believe in such an
imaginary philosophy, quoting fictitious references to it i n
gazettes and treatises. His alternative to metaphysics is
itself an ur because his dream of i t has indeed corne true,
not only in his story but also in our world. We too fulfill
this apocalyptic conspiracy by creating, for ourselves, a
world where fantasy has more reality than reality itself.
Postmodernism in fact defines itself in terms of such a
catastrophe. Philosophy has everywhere begun to threaten
the constraints of both the real and the true in order t o
practice an anti-philosophp-what Jarry might call by the
name of '~ataahssics, the science of imaginary solutions and
arbitrary exceptions ( 1 9 6 5 : 1 9 2 ) . Jarry suggests through 'pataphysics that reality does not exist, except as the
interpretive projection of a phenomenal perspective-which
is to say that reality is never as it is, but is always es
if it is. Reality is quasi, pseudo: it is more virtual
than actual; it is real only to the degree to which i t can
seem to be real and only for so long as it can be made to
stay real. Science for such a reality has increasingly
become what Vaihinger might call a "philosophy of as if"
(xvii), w i l f u l l y mistaking possibilities for veritabilities.
Baudrillard observes that, for the "[']Pataphysics of
the year 2000," history has accelerated past the escape
velocity for reality, moving from the centrifuga1 gravity of
the real into the centripetal celerity of the void
(1994a:l). Events occur in the nullspace of simulation,
where "[al11 metaphysical tension has been disaipated,
yielding- a 'pataphysical ambiancet' (1990: 71 ) . Things succumb to relativity, complexity, and uncertainty, shifting
from an absolute state of determinism to a dissolute field
of indeterminism. The science of 'pataphysics responds to
these sbsurdities with a genre of science fiction that shows
science itself to be a fiction. It nsrrates not what is,
but what miaht have become. It i n h a b i t s t he t e n s e of t he
f u t u r e p e r f e c t , o f the post modo--a paradoxical t e m p o r a l i t y ,
i n which what h a s yet to happen has already t a k e n place.
The U r of S c i e n c e
Jarry claims t h a t ' pa t aphys i c s studies "the universe
supplementary to this one," b u t n o t s i m p l y an adjunct
reality s o much as an e r s a t z r e a l i t y , "a universe which can
bel . . . ] envisaged i n the place o f t h e t r a d i t i o n a l one" 1 9 6 5 : 1 3 1 ) S u c h a supplement i s always more s u b s t i t u t i v e t h a n augmentative, r e p l a c i n g r e a l i t y i n s t e a d o f accent i n g
r e a l i t y , and ironically t h e science t h a t studies auch a
supplement i s i t s e l f a supplement. I t is " t h e science of
t h a t which is superinduced upon metaphysicsl' as both an
excess and a r e d r e s s , "extending as far beyond metaphysics
as the latter e x t e n d s beyond physics" ( 131 ) . A n a u x i l i a r y
substitute that compensates for a lack i n philosophy even as
it impregnates the form of philosophy, such a science
simulates knowledge , p e r p e t r a t i n g a hoax, really and truly ,
b u t only t o r e v e a l t h e hoax of bo th t h e real and the t r u e .
Jarry performs humorously on behalf of l i t e r a t u r e what
Nietzsche performs seriously on behalf of philosophy. Both
t h i n k e r s in effect attempt to dream up a gay s c i e n c e , whose
5
joie d e v ivre thrives wherever the tyranny of truth has
increased our esteem for the lie and wherever the tyranny of
reason has increased our esteem for the mad. Both thinkers
lay the groundwork f o r an anti-philosophy, whose spirit of
ref orm bas corne to characterize such alternatives to
metaphysics as the grammatology of Derrida, the
schizanalysis of Deleuze, or the homeorrhetics of Serres.
Al1 such anti-metaphysical meta-philosophies argue that
anomalies extrinsic to a system remain secretly i n t r i n s i c to
such a system. The most credible of truths always e v o l v e s
rom the most incredible of errors. The praxis o f science
always involves the parspraxis of p o e t r y .
'Pataphysics, " t h e science of the particular" (131),
does not, therefore, study the rules governing the general
recurrence o f a periodic incident ( t h e ex~ected case) so much as study the garnes governing the special occurrence of
a sporadic accident (the excepted case). 'Pataphysics not
only studies exception, but has itself become an exception--
dismissed and neglected despite its influence and relevance .
Jarry has not only inspired t h e a b s u r d i t y o f nearly every
modern avant-garde, but has also p r e d i c t e d the absurdity of
nearly al1 modern techno-science. No history, however, has
ever traced in detail this unorthodox genealogy, even though
contemporary philosophy has begun to shift its emphasis from
6
the metaphysical to the anti-metaphysical-a trend that only
a few critics (Dufresne, McCaffery, etc.) have dared to
descr ibe as 'pataphysical in nature.
'Pataphysics b a s ultimately determined the horizon of
thought f o r any encounter between philosophy and literature,
but criticism has lasgely ignored this important principle
of the postmodern condition. What irony: 'pataphysics has
replaced metaphysics so slowly and subtly that, once
noticed, the transition seems at once sudden and abrupt.
This survey therefore intends to redress the surprise of
such smnesia by revising the history o f both science and
poetry i n o r d e r t o br ing 'pataphysics to bear upon
'pataphysics itself. Such revision, of course, faces
obstacles, not the least of which is the fact that
'pataphysics is imaginary. No such discipline exists. What
then is there to study? What museums can house its rel ies?
What codexes can record its axioms? Such a science may be
no more than an =--a l a s t hope that has yet to corne true.
'Pataphysics does not pretend to unify its parts into a
system or to ratify its ploys into an agenda. Such a cesual
science has no theory, no method ( even though Jarry has since i n s p i r e d writers t o c r e a t e t h e College o f
'Pataphysics, aspects of which allude to a fictional
-
i
archive, the Grand Academy of Lagado). Such a casual
science also has no manual, no primer (even though Jarry has
since inspired critics to study the Elements of
'Pataphysics, excerpts of which appear in a fictional
almanac, the Exploits of Doctor Faustroll). Like the
abridged treatise on T l b , the incomplete handbook of Jarry
compels its readers to finish the job of converting the fake image of a virtual science into a real thing in the actual
universe. Even t h i s survey may not explain t h e existence of
'pataphysics so much as conjure 'pataphysics i n t o existence.
Jarry implies that such a s c i e n c e can be written only
with an invisible ink, "sulphate of quinine," whose words
remain unseen u n t i l read in the dark under the "infrared
rays of a spectrum whose other colors [are] locked in an
opaque box" ( 1 9 1 - 1 9 2 ) . Such a science cannot be seen except under a l i g h t t h a t cannot be seen in a place that cannot be
s e e n . Such a science exists paradoxically in an eigenstate
o f indeterminate potentiality (like the cat of Schrodinger--
both there and n o t there at the same time). Not philosophy,
but philosophastry, such a science at first appears
scandalous and superfluous because it delights in the
eclectic and the esoteric. It encourages a promiscuous
economy of indiscriminate exchanges, playfully conjugating paradoxes in order to make possible an absolute expenditure
of thought without any absolute investiture in thought .
'Pataphysics thus heralds apocalyptically what
Baudrillard cal l s a "casual form of writing to match the
casual &&ementialitg of our ageW--a spiralling commentary
upon "the Grande Gidouille of History" (1994e:17). This
survey attempts to practice such a writing of h i s t o r y in t h e
belief that theory must explore as much as it must explain.
To do o therwise is t o reduce t h e science of ' p a t a p h y s i c s to
another species of hermeneutics: just a way to resd, not a
way to live. To write against metaphysics, with its good
sense and its good taste, is not to s h i r k the duties of the
c r i t i c , but to wager their values against the demand for
change. If we are to take 'pataphysics seriously, are we
not obliged to be exceptional? If this survey t h r e a t e n s to
meander, is this not because it imitates the vortices of a
pidouille in order to maintain an element of s u r p r i s e ?
Surprise b r e a k s the promise o f the expected: it is the
exception t h a t disturbs the suspense of what we know must
happen next. Hence, this survey offers the following
itinerary about things to corne in the hope that we might
later be surprised by the unexpected. This survey begins by
tracing the h i s t o r y of the conflict between science and
poetry in order t o contextualize 'pataphysics within the
four phases of such dispute (the animatismic, the
mechanismic, the oraanismic, and the cvborganismicl. The
survey then discusses 'pataphysics itself, defining three
declensions of exception (the anomalos, the s y z s a i a , and the
clinamen), in order to show the diverse parallels not only
between the work of Jarry and Nietzsche, but also to relate
such work to the diverse projects of such contemporary philosophers as Baudrillard, Derrida, Deleuze, and Serres.
Subsequently, the survey traces the influence of Jarry
on three cases of avant-garde pseudo-science (the Italian
Futurists, the French Oulipians, and the Canadian
"Pataphysicians). Each movement revises a prior schema
about the structure of exception in order to disrupt the
norrnalization of the 'pataphysical: for the Futurists,
exception results from the collision of machines; for the
Oulipians, exception results from the constraint of
programs; and for the "Pataphysicians, exception results
from the corruption of mernories. Like these movements, this
survey also tries to avoid the normalization of the
'pataphysical, doing so by alluding intermittently to
'pataphysical enterprises that do not refer to the tradition
of Jarry, but nevertheless represent some of the exceptions
to the genealogy that this survey posits.
10
Exceptions, after all, can resort to an assortment of
modalities: variance (anomalos), alliance (sszvgia), or
deviance (clinamen). The anomalos finds a way to d i f f e r
from e v e r y other thing in a system that values the norm of
equivalence; t h e s v z s a i a finds a way to e q u a t e t h i n g s to
each other in a system that values the norm of d i f f e r e n c e ;
and the clinamen finds a way to to detour around things in a
system that values t h e fate of contrivance. Al1 three modes
of exception do inform t h i s s u r v e y on 'pataphysics so that,
if its style r i s k s everything to d i s r u p t , to confuse, and to
digress, it does so not for any lack of forma1 rigour, but
for the sake of a crucial thesis. Can a ludic theory of
'pataphysics be fairly judged by the nomic values of
metaphysics if 'pataphysics criticizes metaphysics itself?
Are we not obliged to consider the problem of this question?
' Pataphysics , strangely enough, has two parallel
histories that act out opposite strategies for criticizing
such a scientific metaphysics: first, the irrationalism of
the Symbolists, the Dadaists, and the Surrealists (al1 of
whom argue for a poetic emancipation from science); second,
the surrationalism of the Futurists, the Oulipians, and the
"Pataphysicians (al1 of whom argue for a poetic
appropriation of science). Jarry has influenced both
strategies despite their opposition. The Futurists attack
the Symbolists, for example, just as the Oulipians attack
the Surrealists. Both cases of conflict pit the pragmatic
formalism of postrnodernity against the aesthetic mysticism
of rnodernity. What is at stake is the status of poetry in a
world of science. How rnight poetry reclaim its own viable
truth? Hou might science benefit from its own poetic irony?
Surrationalism, for example, responds to such questions
not only by using the forms of poetry to criticize the myths
of science (its pedantic theories of expressive truth), but
also by using the forms of science to criticize the myths of
poetry (its romantic theories of expressive genius).
Surrationalism has accented this conflict between science
and poetry in three different ways. The Futurists inflect
the machinic intensities of technological forms; the
Oulipians inflect the mathetic intensities of numerological
forms; and the "Pataphysicians inflect the mnemonic
intensities of palaeological forms. This survey focuses
largely upon these three surrational movements not only
because -they have better expressed the original intentions
of 'pataphysics, but also because they have received less
critical attention from theoreticians.
Surrationalism is t h u s j u s t as exceptional as it is 'pataphysical, defining a regime for the avant-garde, not
only in poetry, but also in s c i e n c e . Bachelard suggests
that al1 scientific radicalisrn begins with "an e ~ o c h e , a
placing of reality between parentheses" (28) so that science
might systematically explore an otherwise impossible
hypothesis: "it is in this area of dialectical
surrationalism that the scientific mind dreams" (32). Every
question about what if leads to a science of as if. No
longer limited by one case of nature, science can propose
many modes of reason: for example, the non-Euclidean
geometry of Riemann or the non-Boolean algebra of Korzybski.
We see science interrogate itself in order to relativize
itself. It can no longer t a k e its reality for g r a n t e d , but
must account for its history: the reason of its reason.
Baudrillard suggests that, while metaphysics is the
anti of simulation (opposing fantasy with ever more
r e a l i t y ) , 'pataphysics is the ante of simulation (opposing fantasy with ever more fantasy) : "only a 1 ' l~ata~hvsics of simulacra c a n remove us rom the[. ..lstrategy of simulation
and the impasse of death i n which it imprisons us," and
"[t]his supreme ruse of the system[. . . ] , only a superior ruse can stop" (1994b:153-154). Metaphysics is a supreme
ruse because it makes us believe in the true; 'pataphysics
is a superior ruse because it lets us pretend to be untrue.
Truth implodes upon itself and reveals an aporia at its
13
centre - - the "[dlead point[ ...] where every system crosses this subtle limit of[ .,.] contradiction [....]and enters live into non-contradictionw--the ecstasy of thought: "[hlere
begins a ['lpataphysics of systems" (1990:14).
The Ur of Historv
Beginnings: let us digress for a moment; let us begin
with a swerve. Ubu, the "Professor of ['lpataphysics,"
steps on stage at the turn of t h e century in order to
announce "a branch of science which we have invented and for
which a crying need is generally experienced" ( 1 9 6 5 : 2 6 - 2 7 ) . An imaginary science thus makes its debut in a millenary
instant, appearing at the transition from a romantic era to
a modernist era, when metaphysics has totalized, but not yet
optimized, its power to speak the truth. If poetry has
failed to oppose science by being its antonymic extreme,
then perhaps poetry c m attempt to oppose science by being
i ts hyperbolic extreme. A n absurd science t h a t might
dissect contradictions, has itself enacted contradictions.
It has simultaneously affirmed and negated, not only its
belief in, but also its doubts about, the values of reason.
Science has historically legitimated itself by
practicing a contemvtus historia. Theories in the past that
d i f f e r from theories in the present must forfeit t h e i r
validity. History becomes nothing more than what Canguilhem
might cal1 le ~ a s s d d k ~ s s s d ( 27 ) , a museum of error, where
time can cause any concept to becorne as quaint as a
metaphor . 2 Whenever science d e i g n s to think its h i s t o r y , it
narrates a transition from the falsity of poetry to the
verity of science, even though history s e e s science, not as
the progress to truth, but as the congress of truth--a
quorum of dispute, where the right to speak the truth is
itself a t s t a k e . The surrationalism of 'pataphysics might
pursue this line of reasoning in order to suggest that in
fact science replaces its errors not w i t h other errata, but
with other errors, each one more subtle than t h e last one.
Science errs when it s e e s its history as a consecutive
process of both accumulation and amelioration. When t r a c i n g
the history o f the term " p h y s i c a l , " from the d iscourse of
A r i s t o t l e (phsikos), through the discourse of Bacon
(phvsica), to the discourse of Heisenberg (phusics), science
often presumes not only that each discourse is the nascent
form o f t h e next discourse, but also that each discourse is
a variant form of the same discourse: scientie. The word 11 science," however, does not designate the coherent progress
of one rational practice, but instead signifies an unstable
array of logical tactics, whose local, synergistic conflict
can invoke, provoke, and revoke a global, syllogistic
program: deduction through dialectics (for Aristotle);
jnduction through empiricism (for Bacon); and abduction
through statistics (for Heisenberg).
'Pataphysics reveals that, like poetry, science has an
avant-garde with its own history of dissent. What Deleuze
and Guattari might cal1 the roval sciences of efficient
productivity have historically repressed and exploited the
nomad sciences of expedient adaptability ( 1987: 3 6 2 ) A royal science is a standardized rnetaphysics: it is deployed
by the state throughout a clathrate, Cartesian space,
putting truth to work on behalf of solid, instrumental
imperatives (law and order). A nomad science is a
bastardized metaphysics: it is deployed against the state
throughout an aggregate, Riemannian space, putting truth &
risk on behalf of fluid, experimental operatives (trial and
error). Such scientific economies are contrastive, but not
exclusive. They transect at many points acrose many scales,
each one immanent in the other, like a postponed potential.
Royal sciences value the renovation of what Kuhn calls
a paradiam (1970:10), a nomic language-game that must
systematically (im)prove its own consistency and efficiency
by solving problems, yevokinfi anomsly for the sake of what
1 6
is normal and known.' Nomad sciences, however, value the
innovation of what tyotard calls a p a r a l o ~ ~ ( 1 9 8 4 : 6 0 ) , a ludic language-game that must systematically (ap)prove its
own inconsistency and inefficiency by convolving problems,
invokinq anomaly for the sake of what is abnormal and
unknown. These two economies do not oppose each other so
much as enfold each other. They inflect opposite values of
intent within a composite system of truth. A failure in one
language-game played according to one set of rules always
determines the rules of success for a new language-game
played according to a new set of rules.
'Pataphysics no doubt d e f i n e s t h e rubric for this kind
of nomadic paralogy. Itinerant and sophistic, a l1 such
surrationalism reveals that science, like poetry, changes
only when it deploys what Shklovsky might cal1 a tactic of
ostranenie, of estrangement (12). Scientific revolutions
may be nothing more than metaphoric revolutions, in which
autotelic novelties foreground the dramatization of a system
in order to undermine the autornatization of its reason.
Paradigm shifts reveal t h a t every axiology secretly involves
a reductio ad absurdum--the anomaly of an irresistible, but
inadmissible, theorem. The aporia of such a system arises
paradoxically from the rigour of its logic--as if its
success also means its failure. The sudden triumph of
' p a t a p h y s i c s t h u s does not imply t h e utter defeat of
m e t a p h y s i c s so much as the pyrrhic v i c t o r y of m e t a p h y s i c s .
Lyotard o b s e r v e s that , because science creates a method
by which t o c o r r e c t t h e errors that it detec ts i n its
method, science is "a process of delegitimation f u e l e d by
the demand for legitimation itself" ( 1 9 8 4 : 3 9 ) . I n t e r d i c t i o n by a paradigm agains t c o n t r a d i c t i o n i n the parad igm causes
the paradigm t o e x c l u d e , as e x t r i n s i c from i t , a paralogy
i n t r i n s i c t o i t : " science--by c o n c e r n i n g itself w i t h such
t h i n g s as u n d e c i d a b 1 e s l . J - - i s theorizing i t s own evolution
as[ . . . ] p a r a d o x i c a l " ( 6 0 ) . Ironically, t h e system that yearns t o v a l i d a t e i t s e l f , o n l y l e a r n s t o invalidate i t s e l f .
No l o n g e r d o e s science r a t i o n a l i z e i t s t r u t h so much as
relativize i ts t r u t h . W e adopt "a model of l e g i t i m a t i o n
t h a t has nothing t o d o w i t h maximized p e r f o r m a n c e " ( 6 0 ) , but r a t h e r implies "a model of an 'open s y s t e m , ' i n which a
statement becomes relevant if it ' g e n e r a t e s ideas'" ( 6 4 ) .
Science g r a p h s a r h i z o m a t i c f l o w c h a r t of stratif ied
t r a j e c t o r i e s , an agonis t i c forcef i e l d of d i v e r s i f i e d c a t a s t r o p h e s , some o f which c o l l i d e w i t h each other, some of
which c o l l u d e w i t h each other, al1 of which o p e r a t e together
s i m u l t a n e o u s l y i n fits and s tarts at asynchronous rates of
incornmensurate change. Science is a complex tissue of
hybrid tensions, its metaphors not only reflectinq each
other, but also refracting each other. They facilitate
changes to aa economy of exchanges by accentuating al1 the
unforeseen instabilities in scientific signification. Like
poetry, science is a bricolage of figures, an assemblage of
devices, none of which fit together perfectly--but unlike
poetry, science must nevertheless subject its tropes to a system, whose imperatives of both verity and reality
normally forbid any willing suspension o f disbelief.
Science and p o e t r y have shared a common history,
undergoing four phases of distinct change (the anirnatismic,
the mechanismic, the organismic, and the cyborganismic);
nevertheless, the two disciplines h a v e not evolved in tandem
or in s y n c h . Foucault observes, for example, that science
and poetry have evolved opposite relations to the authorial
function (1977:125-126): science moves toward anonymity;
poetry moves toward eponymity. The absence of the author in
science serves a n allotelic interest (justifying itself for the sake-of a finality outside of its own language), while
the presence of the author in poetry serves an autotelic
interest (justifying itself for the sake of a finality inside of its own language). Whenever science gains the
anonymous power to speak the t r u t h about things, poetry
seeks an eponymous refuge in the space of its own words.
Allotelic interests have always regarded autotelic
interests as a waste of time, particularly in a capitalist
economy where only the most effective arsenal of productive
tactics can prevail. 1s it any wonder then that, for such
imperial cynicism, science and poetry function within a
relation, not of genre , but of power? The waxing influence
of science has always implied the waning re levance of
poetry--as if science must capitalize upon the competition
for truth in order to monopolize the legitimation of truth.
The science of 'pataphysics, however, expresses on behalf of
poetry what the metaphysics of science represses in itself:
its own basis in signs, their errors and biases--the
ideology of metaphor. The autotelic aspect of science (its
ludic surrationalism) always threatens to radicalize the
allotelic agenda of science ( i t s nomic rationalism).
Althusser argues that, although ideology always
involves a denegation of itself so thst subjects produced by
it cannot recognize themselves within it, the allotelic
anonymity of science means that the clarity of its language
can nevertheless negate ideology, yet successfully remain
impartial: "ideology has no outside (for itself), but at
the same tirne[ ...] it is nothina but outside (for science [ . . . ] ) " (175). Barthes disagrees, however, arguing that
science is never neutral. Instead, science interpellates
its subject as an absence--a vanishing point, projected
within ideology as though beyond ideology: "the scho lar
excludes himself i n a concern for objectivity; yet what is
excluded i s never anything but the 'person'[...], not the
subject; moreover, this subject is filled[..,]with the very
exclusion it[ ...] imposes upon its person" (8).
Barthes suggests that science d i f f e r s from poetry, not
because of any disparity between them in format, content,
method, or intent, but becase of a d i s p a r i t y between them
in status-a prestige of pedagogy ( 3 ) . Whereas poetry h a s
always offered an egalitarian regime, destabilizing the
s i g n i f i e r within a generalized economy of polysemic
enunciation, science has only offered a totalitarian regime,
stabilizing the si~nified within a r e s t r i c t e d economy of
monosemic enunciation. For Barthes, s c i e n c e must begin to
acknowledge i t s ideological investments, radicalizing i t s e l f
by poeticizing i t s e l f . If ideology is the unreal
conciliation of a real contradiction, is it not fair to Say
that ideology is i t s e l f an imaginary solution--and therefore
'pataphysical? If metaphysics must study the ontology of
t ruth , must not 'pataphysics study the ideology of power?
Ultimately, the conflict between science and poetry
concerns this power to speak the truth, and this power has
undergone four phases of epistemic transition: the
animatismic phase, whose truth involves interpreting signs
through an a c t of exegesis; the mechanismic phase, whose
truth involves disquisiting signs through an ect of
mathesis; the oraanismic phase, whose truth involves
implementing signs through an act of anamnesis; and the
cvbornanismic phase, whose truth involves deregulating signs
through an act of catamnesis. The life sciences, for
example, have progressed from the biomaav of animatism,
through the biotaxu of mechanism, through the biolo~v of
organism, to the bionics of cyborganism. Each phase
involves not only a different definition of science and
poetry, but also a different opposition between t h e m .
During the animatismic phase, when papal academies
divide discourse scholastically into modes of textualization
and numeralization (trivium and suadrivium), knowledge is
rarefied largely because of its insufficient supply. During
the mechanismic phase, when royal academies divide discourse
aristocratically into modes of investigation and
dissemination, knowledge is rarefied largely because of its
unspecialized market. During the organismic phase, when
state academies divide discourse democratically into modes
of ratiocination and acculturation (scientia and humanitas),
knowledge is rarefied because of its specialized labour.
2 2
And during the cyborganismic phase, when state academies
divide discourse plutocratically into modes of totalization
and optimization, knowledge is r a r e f i e d largely because of
its overabundant supply*
The Animatismic Phase
Foucault observes that , bef ore empiricism, "divinatio
and eruditio are both part of the same hermeneutics"
(1973:34). Medieval trestises on natural history establish
no criterion for the condition of relevance, s i n c e such
treatises merely compile leaenda, collecting together
haphazardly al1 the randorn lore about a sample topic in
order to document the complex heraldry of its textual
spectrum: "none of these forms of discourse is required to
justify its d a i m to be e x p r e s s i n g a truth before it is
interpreted; a l 1 that is required of it is the possibility
of talking about it" (40). Science in its snimstismic phase
s e e s that signs e x i s t long b e f o r e being known: they are
written-into things by nature, and they extinguish the
distance between things in order to reveal the synchronie
continuum of their secret order.
Reality for the animatismic phase is a stable orrery
t h a t r e v o l v e s around a central fulcrum. Knowing such a
reality involves an exegetic function, reading signs,
interpreting them, rearranging them within an anagram that
permutes al1 their modes of sympathy and antipathy. Such an
anatomy o f forms distributes signs aesthetically throughout
a nomad regime in which al1 things must conform to an order
of both resemblance and concordance. Even the difference
between the reasoning of science and t h e imagining o f poetry
does not yet exist because no paradigm provides a consensus
for such verities. Each text has equal truthfulness. Each
myth can convey what Vico might cal1 a "poetic wisdom"
(110), whose truth owes its power t o an error that demands
belief in a "credible impossibilityt' (120)--an as if that
can provide the premise in the future for a nuovo scienza. 4
Poetic wisdom simply monopolizes the totality of both
the subject and the o b j e c t , leaving no space f o r modern science to speak the truth for itself except as an act of
deviance within such a norm. Poetic wisdom cannot recognize
any disparity between the subjective affect of imagining and
the objective effect of reasoning. Alchemy, for example
r e s o r t s t o such poetic wisdom in order to imagine a lapis
philoso~horum that can produce a coniuntia o ~ ~ o s i t o r u m ,
harmonizing the disputes among al1 such elements. Truth
becomes a r i t u a l of scenes in which al1 things can change
their images into each other. The transitive category for
2 4
l e a d becoming gold transmutes i n t o a redemptive allegory
about body becoming soul. The lapis ~ h i l o s o ~ h o r u m is a
t h i n g unlike any o t h e r , but i t makes t h i n g s so that they are
l i k e everything else. Tt is the metaphor for al1 metaphor.
Donne practices the poetic wisdom of such a s c e n i c
ritual when he d e l i b e r a t e l y misunderstands t h e difference
between the s c i e n c e of alchemy and his p o e t r y of c o n c e i t s ,
i n v i t i n g h i s reader, " A s f i r e these drossie Rymes to
p u r i f i e , / O r as E l i x i r , t o change them t o g o l d " since such a
reader is "that A l c h i m i s t which alwaies had/ W i t , whose one
spark could make good th ings of bad" ( 2 9 4 ) . Alchemy becomes a metaphor that can undergo a process o f alchemy itself.
The device of t h e conceit r e f l e c t s an alchernical rnarriage o f
antongrnical extremes so t h a t , f o r example, the idea of love
can be equated w i t h any m o t i f , no matter how absurd, b e i t a
drafting compass or a drinking i n s e c t . The lapis of
alchemy, like the lexis of poe try , reveals t h a t the figura1
is merely the alembic for t h e l i t era l . The noble metal of
truth arlses from t h e ignoble filth of e r r o r . 5
Vico claims that just as modern science shows t h a t "man becomes al1 things by understanding (homo intelliaendo fit
ornnia)," so a l s o does p o e t i c wisdom show tbat "man becomes al1 t h i n g s by not understanding[...)(bomo non intelliaendo
25
fit omnia)" (130). To understand on behalf of truth is to
be reactive, accepting the world of the as is, but to
misunderstand on behalf of error is to be creative,
inventing the world of the as if. To be an alchemist is to
practice an aesthetic that acts as a lapis ~hiloso~horum,
transmuting the errors of alchemy (a nomad science) into the
truths of chemistry (a royal science), but ironically, this
change requires that science and poetry shift from an order
where they are unified to an order where they are divided.
A literal stone that philosophers must diligently seek
embodies a figura1 power that they must eventually deny.
Foucault argues that, during such a transition, the
"tautological world of resemblance n o w finds itself
dissociated and, as it were, split down the middle"
(1973:58). For Donne, such a dissociation of sensibility
implies the failure of alchemy to reconcile the imminent
conflict between the subjective affect of imagining and the
objective effect of reasoning: "new philosophy cals al1 in
doubt" so that "The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's
wit/ Can well direct him, where to looke for it" (335).
The old, geocentric order of elemental synthesis regards the
conceit as the integrel epitome of al1 similes, but the new,
heliocentric order of empirical analysis regards the conceit
as the marginal extreme of al1 follies.' N o t until the
advent of 'pataphysics does the conceit, the s y n t h e s i s of
opposites, regain its status as a device of poetic wisdom.
The Mechanismic Phase
Bacon observes that , before empiricism, "systems are
but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own
creation after an unreal and scenic fashion" ( 1 9 6 0 : 4 9 ) . Natural history must revoke these "Idols of the ~heater"
( 4 9 ) , replacing the theatrical world of scenes (the as if) with the empirical world of senses (the as is), but this
change risks an aporia since this new mode of investigation
only ratifies a new mode of dramatization--the petit r&i t
of an experiment in which an event must restage itself again
and again under the auspice of control. Epistemic errors
are now simply traced to linguistic abuses. Science in its
mechanismic phase sees t h a t signs e x i s t only by being known:
they are written ont0 things by culture, and they
distinguish the distance between t h i n g s i n order to invent
the synchronie continuum of their proper order.
Reality for the mechanismic phase is a stable clock
t h a t operates within a static regimen. Knowing such a
r e a l i t y involves a mathetic function, testing signs,
disquisiting them, regimenting them within a diagram that
27
d i s p l a y s a l 1 t h e i r modes o f i d e n t i t y and a l t e r i t y . Such a
taxonomy o f forms d i s t r i b u t e s signs i n c r e m e n t a l l y throughout
a royal regime in which al1 t h i n g s must depend upon an o r d e r
o f both equivalence and d i f f e r e n c e . The evidence of
s c i e n c e , not the eminence of p o e t r y , provides a consensus
for t h e v e r i t i e s of a paradigm. A l 1 t e x t s have their
t r u t h f u l n e s s at stake. Al1 t e x t s must legitimate their
s o u r c e s . The t r u t h of science fulfills such a r e q u i s i t e by
favourably gauging its power over the object a g a i n s t t h e d i v i n e power of n a t u r e . The t r u t h o f science t h u s aligns
i t s cause, i t s a r c h e , w i t h t h e power of a noumenal origin.
Modern science s i m p l y c o l o n i z e s the a l t e r i t y of t h e
o b j e c t , l e a v i n g no space f o r poetic wisdom t o speak t h e t r u t h about nature except through an act of alliance with
s u c h a norm. Poetic wisdom must adopt t h e v a l u e s of modern
s c i e n c e i n o r d e r t o s t a t e any objective v e r i t i e s . Sprat,
for example, argues t h a t , poet i c a l l y " T r u t h 1s n e v e r so
w d l e x p r e s ' d or a m p l i f y ' d , as by those Ornaments which are
Truie1 and Real i n t hemse lves " ( 4 1 4 ) . Truth is t h e b e s t ornament because it has the least ornament--which is t o say
t h a t s c i e n c e i s the best poetry because it has t h e least
poetry. The i r o n y here is t h a t verse must l e a r n i ts r u l e s
of metaphor from a genre t h a t r u l e s out metaphor. The sage
o f s c i e n c e a c t u a l l y becomes the muse of poetry (hence t h e
numerous elegies to scientists, particularly N e w t o n , despite
the fact that science follows a principle of antipoeisis). 7
Newton berates poetry for its "ingenius nonsense" (Bush
40) even though Glover portrays him as the paragon of
poetry: "O might'st thou, ORPHEUS, now again revive,/ And
NEWTON should inform thy list'ning ear" ([Pemberton 231).
Poetry indulges in scientific sycophancy, largely because
the gravity of force in the Princi~ia lends itself to the
idea of a poetic sublime just as the levity of light in the Opticks lends itself to the idea of a poetic beauty. 8
Glover writes that "Newton demands the muse" ( [ 1 4 ] ) , but soon Thomson w o n d e r s : "How shall the Muse, then, grasp the
mighty theme," particularly "when but a f e w / Of the deep-
studying race can stretch their minds/ To w h a t he knew"
(1853:337). Science has unveiled so many universal
mysteries that, ironically, it threatens to become a poetry
of truth more sublime than the t r u t h of poetry itself.
Poetry makes an effort to dispute this omniscience of
science (its will to power), as Swift does, for example, but
poetry cannot dispute the conscience of science (its will to
truth). While science ascends to a state of greater
complexity, becoming more abstract, theoretic, and
autocratic, poetry descends through science to a state of
29
greater simplicity, becoming more concrete, pragmatic, and
democratic. To keep Pace with science, poetry must shift
its focus from the sublime in the natural physics of Newton
to the poetic beauty in the natural history of Linnaeus.
As Aikin avers, the updated images of natural history must
replace the outdated tropes of poetry since "no th ing can be
really beautiful which has not truth for its basis" (25).
To fulfill a didactic mandate, poetry must learn its truth
directly from the mineral, the vegetal, and the bestial. 9
Darwin, the p o e t i c savant, follows such advice to t h e
letter when he explains the botanical taxonomy of Linnaeus
by equating modes of floral procreation with modes of s o c i a l
flirtation: " t h e general design[ ...] is to i n l i s t Imagination under t h e banner of Science; and to l e a d her
votaries from t h e l o o s e r analogies, which dress[ . . . ] p oetry,
to the stricter ones, which form[ . . . lphilosophy" ( 1791 :v) . Poetic pleasure submits to noetic pedagogy. The catalogue
of flowers, the antholonv, so to speak, is merely the
flowery ornament for the summary document of its scientific
marginalia. The poetry acts as a mere note for the notes
themselves--a pretense to plant the seeds of interest so
that the reader might in turn disseminate this information.
The poetry literally is a botanic garden, in which
germinates the romantic metaphor that poetry is organic.
The Oraanismic Phase
Coleridge observes that, after empiricism, the botanic
mode1 of science does inform a poetry of organic unity, but
contrary to Darwin, t h i s poetic pleasure does not submit to
noetic pedagogy: "[a] poem[ ...] is opposed tof. ..]science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth"
(164). Wordsworth qualifies this statement by arguing that
"the knowledge of both the Poet and the Man of science is
pleasure" ( 4 5 6 ) , but while poetry i s an e c s t a t i c search for an intimate truth, science is a monastic search for an
ultimate truth--one whose discourse values an empiricism of
the senses at the expense of their sensualism. Science in
its organismic phase s e e s that signs evolve by being known:
they are written across events by culture, and they
distinguish the interval between events in order to direct
the diachronic continuum of their normal order.
Reality for the organismic phase is a simple engine
that generates a stable dynarnic. Knowing such a reality
involves an anemnestic function, working signs, implementing
them, redeploying them within a program that displays al1
their modes of function and relation. Such an economy of
forms distributes its signs pragmatically thoughout a royal
regime in which al1 things must depend upon an order of both
3 1
productivity and applicability. Not only the evidence of
science, but also the progress of science, provides a
consensus for the verities of a paradigm. Al1 texts have
their usefulness at stake. A l 1 texts must legitimate their
intents. The truth of science fuifills such a requisite by
favourably gauging i L s power over the subject against the
humane power of culture. The truth of science t h u s aligns
its effect, its telos, with the power of a noumenal motive.
Modern science simply colonizes the identity of the
subject, leaving no space for poetic wisdom to speak the
truth about culture except through an act of defiance
against such a norm. Poetic wisdom must evict the values of
modern science in order to state any subjective verities. Hence, Keats condemns Newton for the "cold philosophy" that
must "Conquer al1 mysteries by rule and line" (226) just as
Blake condemns Newton for the "Reasonings like vast
Serpents" that must hang their "iron scourges over Albion"
(16). Such reasoning that allegedly discredits imagining
only creates an undead truth, an Ur-Frankenstein that, for
Wordsworth, must await a poetic rebirth: "the Poet will
lend his divine spirit to aid in the transfiguration" when
"science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put
on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood" ( 4 5 6 ) .Io
32
Wordsworth claims t h a t "[ t lhe r e m o t e s t discoveries of the C h e m i s t , t h e B o t a n i s t , o r M i n e r a l o g i s t , will be as
p r o p e r o b j e c t s o f t h e ~ o e t ' s art[. . . ] i f the t i m e should ever corne when t h e s e things s h a l l be f ami l i a s to us" ( 4 5 6 ) , but in t h e meantime, this differend has no t e r m s f o r c o n s e n s u s .
Poetry i n d u l g e s i n s c i e n t i f i c c o n t r o v e r s y , largely because
the schisrn be tween r e a s o n i n g and i m a g i n i n g has begun t o
reflect t h e anomie of p o e t i c labour. For Huxley, such
l a b o u r c a n n o t compete w i t h t h e c a p i t a l v a l u e s o f u t i l i t y
( 1 9 4 8 : 4 9 ) - - t h u s p o e t r y must warrant a Benthamite r e j e c t i o n - - but for Arnold, such labour d o e s reflect upon t h e communal
values o f l i b e r t y (1889:llZ)--which is to s a y , the reasoning
of s c i e n c e can t e a c h w h a t is real and t r u e , but o n l y t h e
i m a g i n i n g o f poetry can t e a c h what is f i n e and j u s t .
Schlegel writes that p o e t r y must redeem science in the
b e l i e f that "al1 art should become science and al1 science
art" ( 1 5 7 ) . Poetry must become a genre of therapeutic knowledge , c r e a t i n g pseudo-statements t h a t can, according t o
Richards, d e t a c h the untruth of poetry from belief and yet
retain the b e a u t y of such untruth in order to r e f i n e belief
i t s e l f ( 6 1 ) . Newtonian cosmology has discredited the p o e t i c o b j e c t just as Darwinian e v o l u t i o n has discredited t h e p o e t i c sub ject ; t h e r e f o r e , poetry must henceforth resort to
the as if of an imaginary solution in order to speak i t s own
t ru th . Poetry must ascend through science to a state of
greater complexity, becoming more abstract, theoretic, and
autocratie. Poetry must transform its scientific
radicalism, shifting its critique from an opposition
(external to science) to a subversion (interna1 to science).
'Pataphysics thus arises j u s t before modernism begins to wring its hands about the enigma of what Snow calls "the
Two Cultures" ( 2 ) . Huxley argues that, despite their dispute, the two cultures resemble each other most when the
noetic clarity of reasoning and the poetic opacity of
imagining approach t h e sublimity of the ineffable (1963:14).
What is sublime in t h e pseudo of poetry can, according to
Richards, return reasoning and irnagining to an equilibrium
t h a t resembles the tension of forces in a cloud of magnets
(15-18) .ll Such an equation of antonyms revives the conceit
as a sublime device not of alchernical marriage, but of
scientific synthesis; hence, Eliot can equate poetry with a
platinum catalyst that f u s e s oxygen and sulphur w i t h o u t
changing-itself: " [ i l t is in this depersonalization that art may be said to approach the condition of science" (7). 12
The Csbor~anismic P h a s e
B a r t h e s observes that, after modernism, science can no
34
longer stabilize its object within an allotelic economy of
monosemic reference, but must, like poetry, criticize its
method within an autotelic economy of polysemic existence:
"science speeks itself; literature writes itself[...]: it
is not the same body, and hence the same desire, which is
behind the one and the other" (5); nevertheless, "science
will becorne literature, insofar as literature [ . . . ] is
alreadyr. ..]sciencew (IO), only when science can see that
its own truth exists not outside of language, but only
because of language. Science in its cyborganismic phase
sees that signs evolve beyond being known: they are written
as events by culture, and they extinguish the interval
between events in order to create the synchronic
discontinuum of their random order,
Reality for the cyborganismic phase is a complex matrix
that cornputes a mobile dynamic. Knowing such a reality
involves a catamnestic function, playing signs,
deregulating them, recombining them within a hologram that
displays-al1 their modes of seduction and simulation. Such
a synonymy of forms distributes its signs excrementally
throughout a nomad regime in which al1 things must depend
upon an order of virtuosity and virtuality. Al1 texts have
their artfulness at stake. Al1 texts must legitimate not
only their reasons (be they in the origin or in the result),
35
but the reason for these reasons. The truth of science can
no longer fulfill s u c h a r e q u i s i t e by favourably gauging its
power against t h e metaphysics of e i t h e r an arche or a telos,
but only against the 'pataphysics of an exceptional
phenornenon-be it an aporia, a c h i s s m , or a swerve*
Modern science simply mono.polizes the totality of both
the subject and the object, leaving no space for poetic
wisdom t o speak t h e t r u t h for i t s e l f except as an act of
deviance within such a norm. Modern s c i e n c e can no longer
stabilize the disparity between the subjective affect of
imagining and the objective effect of reasoning. The advent
of 'patsphysics signals the f i r s t attempts to subvert this
agenda from within its own limits. The science of
'pataphysics inspires a literary tradition that has i n t u r n
begun t o regard i tse l f as s response to science with an
outcome to be studied by a science, be it formalist,
structural, semiologic , or c y b e r n e t i c . l3 The ' pataphysical
fundamentsls of surrationalism have in turn provided the
aesthetic parallel for the dialectic sophistry of almost al1
anti-metaphysical meta-philosophies.
Baudrillard s u g g e s t s that, "a century after J a r r y , but
in a cool universe w i t h o u t irony, and without 'pataphysical
acid," science has so inflated the fund of information that
36
the excesses of such metastasis evoke the flidouille of Ubu:
"['p]ataphysics or metaphysics, this pregnancyr . . . ] is one of the strangest signs[ ...] of this spectral environment where each ce11 ( e a c h function, e a c h structure), is left with the possibility, as in cancer, [...]of multiplying indefinitely"
(1990:28). Science is a tautological extravagance, for
which Ubu, "a figure of genius, r e p l e t e with that which has
absorbed everything, transgressed everything, [... Iradiates in t h e void like an imaginary solution" (71). Science now
f u n c t i o n s i n what Jarry might cal1 an economy of phvnance
(1969:43), expending w i t h o u t investing, producing pschitt or
merdre--an ironic eponym f o r "excess" w i t h an e x c e s s l e t t er .
Baudrillard suggests that, for such an economy o f
science, the threat of the unrea l haunts every system o f
verity s i n c e t h e methods of physics can no longer confirm
whether or not reality itself is a fsntasy: "[sJuch would
be the [']pataphysics[ ...] that lies i n w a i t for al1 physics at its inadmissible limitstt (1990:85). Has not physics
already started to resemble a s c i e n c e of imaginary
solutions, what with its particle zoo of new paradoxes (the
amphibolies of psrticles, the metaleptics of causality)? Do
we not see a h i n t of 'pataphysics in the strsngeness gf
anti-matter, black-holes, and time-travel (the theories of
which have already fomented philosophical apprehensions
37
about the existence of existence itself)? In the face of
such scientific absurdities, poetry has responded by
portraying itsel f as a literalized experiment .
Prigogine and Stengers observe that, for such an
episteme, "science occupies a peculiar position, that of a
poetical interrogation of nature, in the etymological sense
that the poet is a 'makerY--active," inventing the world
post facto while observing the world a priori (301).
Science has finally achieved the hyperbole of its own
"death," so t o speak, disappearing into a condition of
tautologic metalepsis, paradoxically becoming both the cause
and effect of its own virtual reality. Science has begun to
fulfill the simulacral precession that, for Baudrillard,
defines the 'pataphysics of a postmodern philosophy. As
Genosko suggests, "[i]t is surely a ['Jpataphysical accident
that death is for Baudrillard the very[. . .]gesture which
pushes the tautologies of the system over the edge, with a
b e l l y laugh of symbolic proportions" ( 116).
Pseudo-Sciences
Feyerabend argues t h a t , f o r science t o progress, the
nomic t ru th of the as is must induce an escape to the ludic
space of an as i f : " w e need a dream-world in order to
discover t h e f eatures of the real world[ . . . Iwhich may
actually be just another dream-world" (32). Science in such
a Traumwelt adopts not the terrorism of unified theories,
but the anarchism of ramified theories--"[t]he only
principle t h a t does not inhibit progress is: ansthina noes"
(23). Such a principle does not encode a laissez-faire
economy (whose Darwinian cornpetition requires that a royal
science discard the truth of a defunct concept as either
extinct or deviant); instead, such a principle tries to
entice a savoir-faire economy (whose Lucretian arbitration
requires that a nomad science bracket the truth of a defunct
concept as either dormant or defiant), 15
'Pataphysics dramatizes this principle of Feyerabend by
arguing t h a t , however obsolete or indiscrete any theory
might at first appesr, every theory has the potential to
improve knowledge in s a m e way. Just as biodiversity can
make an ecology more adaptable, so also can dilettantism
make an episteme more versatile. The process of science
muet lea-rn to place its defunct concepts into a kind of
suspended animation that preserves them for the millenary
reverie of an imaginary science. The truth diverges
throughout many truths, inducing the sophisms of dissent,
novelty, and paradox: "given any rule(...]for science,
there are always circumstances when it is advisable not on ly
39
to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite" (23) in order
"to make the weaker case the stronnerl...land t h e r e b v to
sustain the motion of the whole" (30).
'Pataphysics thus behaves as if it is a Philosophie des
Als Ob. Vaihinger observes that the phrase "as if"
constitutes a "comparative apperception" (91), juxtaposing
two concepts somewhere in t h e interzone between the
virtuality of a figura1 relation and the a c t u a l i t y of a
literal equation. Neither rhetorical nor theoretical, the
as if constitutes a paradox of contingency, since reference
is made to an impossibility, but from t h i s impossibility an
inference is made: "reality[ . . . ] is com~ared with something whose[. ..]unreality is at the same time admitted" (98). The
as if posits the possible consequences of an impossible
inconsequence. The as if is simply the irnaginary solution
tu the question what i f . 1s not this question a deliberate
misreading that shows the real and the true to be quasi and
pseudo--free, that is, to be something else?
'Pataphysics s u g g e s t s that metaphysics forgets that
this operative conditional (as if) is not an imperative
conditional (if t h e n ) ; nevertheless, the latter relation always resides unheard between the two words of the former
relation. The if t h e n revokes t h e suspension of disbelief
4 0
in the as if so t h a t the event must be treated as it would
be treated i f it were as is. The slightness of t h i s
difference between the as i f and the if then thus marks t h e
slightness of the difference between t r u t h and power. The
science of 'pataphysics explores t h e s e conditionals i n order
to see what might happen if science is treated as poetry and
vice versa, the philosopher studying the exceptional ( b e i t t h e anomalos, t h e s u z ~ ~ i a , or t h e clinameq) i n order to make
t h e weaker case, t h e stronger--almost as i f to s a y t h a t
ultimately such a case might be as true as ang from Tlon.
Notes to Chanter 1
is of course an i r o n i c signifier w i t h two
meanings that c o n t r a d i c t each other. Its real usage as an
a d j e c t i v e i n German refers t o a n o r i g i n a r y mode1 f o r imaginary c o p i e s , b u t its u n r e a l usage as a s u b s t a n t i v e i n
T l h e s e r e f e r s to imaginary copies wi t h o u t any originary
model. The ur thus embodies a paradox o f s i m u l a t i o n , whose
s t r u c t u r e impl ies t h a t , a t the origin, no o r i g i n e x i s t s , but
t h e dream of an o r i g i n . No longer does t h e causa l vector
from t h e r ea l t o i t s copy make sense s i n c e the fantasy of
t h e u_r d o e s not r e p l i c a t e , so much as o r i g i n a t e , r e a l i t y .
' ~ a n ~ u i l h e r n observes t h e t " t h e history of s c i e n c e
i s t h e h i s t o r y of a n abject[. ..]that is a h i s t o r y and [that] has a h i s t o r y , whereas sc ience is the s c i e n c e of an o b j e c t -
t h a t is n o t a history [and] t h a t has a h i s t o r y " ( 2 5 - 2 6 ) . Science ignores its history because s c i e n c e i n its history
is no longer s c i e n c e * F o r s c i e n c e , t r u t h is p r e s c i e n t ,
always t-here b e f o r e t h e fact of its revelation; for h i s t o r y ,
t r u t h is expedient, only there a f t e r the fact of i ts
production. The h i s t o r y of t r u t h shows t h a t a persistent
concept does n o t n e c e s s a r i l y imply its c o n s i s t e n t meaning.
42
'~uhn writes that "a paradigi is a criterion for
choosing problems that, while the paradigm is t a k e n for
granted, can be assumed to have solutions" (1970:37). It is
a Weltanschauung with three discursive functions: first, it
ratifies interdictions in order to define what it makes
perceivable and thereby improve its accuracy; second, it
verifies predictions in order to align the perceivable with
the conceivable and thereby improve its efficacy; and third,
it pacifies contradictions in order to define what it makes
conceivable and thereby improve its adequacy.
'~uovo scienza is a poetic wisdom that might
study poetic wisdom (and thus such a science almost appears
to preempt 'pataphysics itself). Vico, like Jarry, believes
that, because nature is an inhuman creation, we can never
know its truth; but unlike Jarry, Vico believes that,
because culture is a human creation, we can know its truth.
Jarry argues that al1 truth, be it natural or cultural, is
still an opaque mirage, never to be known. Every science,
for him; is a poetic wisdom if only because it rnust commit
at leest one error--the error of belief in truth itself,
onne ne suggests t h a t al1 "this worlds genrall sicknesse" ( 336) might paradoxicslly cleanse impurity itsel f
and thus "purifie/ A l l , by a true religious Alchimy" (334).
Metaphysics involves a christological transmutation that
purifies a supernal truth of al1 its errors; however,
'pataphysics involves an anti-christological transmutation
that purifies an infernal error of al1 its truth (as if
t r u t h itself is the filth)-ohence, Ubu in the heraldic
allegory of Caesar Antichrist performs a reverse alchemy, in
which to rise above sin i s to fa11 from grace.
'~allyn observes t h a t , for Copernicus and Kepler,
" t h e world is the work of a divine poietes," and "what they
aim to reveal through their own poetics is thus
t r u l y [ . . . ] t h e poetic structure of the world" (20). Donne feels snxiety about such a p o e t i c cosmos even though its
system is more aesthetic than empirical, not verified and
rectified so much as symmetrized and harmonized. The
problem is that such a view radically displaces humanity,
propelling us into a regressive infinitude, a sublime
extreme without limit, be it atomic or cosmic in scale.
44
'~homson eulogizes Newton: "The heavens are al1
hi6 own; from the w i l d rule/ O f whirling v o r t i c e s and
circling s ~ h e r e s , / To t h e i r first great simplicity
restored," and "Even Light i t s e l f [ . . . ] / Shone undiscover'd, till his brighter rnind/ Untwis ted al1 the shining robe of
day" (1853:336). Akenside, likewise, eulogizes Newton:
"The lamp of science through the jealous maze/ Of Nature
g u i d e s , when haply you reveal/ Her secret honours: [...)/ The beauteous l a w s of l i g h t , the central powers/ That wheel
the pensile p l a n e t s round t h e year" ( 1825: 51-52 ) .
orce ce and light a c q u i r e aesthetic currency i n an industry that must versify t h e theory by Newton i n order t o
d e i f y the memory of N e w t o n . F o r poets influenced by the
sublime of the P r i n c i ~ i a , see William Powell Jones: The
R h e t o r i c of Science: A Studs o f Scientific Ideas and
Irna~ery in Ei~hteenth-Centurv Enalish Poetrv (Berkeley:
U n i v e r s i t y o f California, 1 9 6 6 ) . For poets in f luenced by the beauty of the Opticks, see Marjorie Nicholson: Newton Pemands -the Muse: Newton's 'Opticks' and the Ei~hteenth
Centurs Poets (Hamden: Archon, 1 9 4 6 ) .
45
' ~ i k i n p o s i t s a didact ic hierarchy a s c e n d i n g f rom
t h e m i n e r a l t o the animal, so t h a t zoology l e n d s i t s e l f best
t o p o e t r y , l a r g e l y because beasts most closely resemble
humans and thus p r o v i d e a larges repertoire of p e d a g o g i c a l
similes ( 3 4 ) . A ik in thus contradicts himself: he argues that poetry must use s c i e n c e t o reject t h e past o f culture and d e p i c t n a t u r e d i r e c t l y , b u t then h e argues that p o e t r y
must use s c i e n c e t o reject a par t of nature and depict c u l t u r e i n d i r e c t l y . Poetry must imitate a facet of t h e
n a t u r a l t h a t most imitates t h e realm of the c u l t u r a l .
l0wordsworth posits a dualist paradox when he
deploys this animatismic t r o p o l o g y - f o r although science is
an i n a n i m a t e body of knowledge, it has no flesh, no corpus ,
and is thus a body w i t h o u t a body, yet this i n s e n s a t e ,
i ncorporea l form of knowledge is not a s o u l , because i t has
no breath, no animus, and is thus a s o u l w i t h o u t a s o u l .
Science, l i k e t h e Monster in Frankenstein, is a morbid
f i g u r e for the c o r r u p t i o n of s i m u l a t i o n . Shelley i m p l i e s
t h a t s c i e n c e , n o t poetry, i s t h e replica of an error t h a t
threatens t o r e p l a c e t h e t r u t h of t h e o r i g i n .
46
l lFtichards argues that poetic wisdom is s brownian
movement: "Suppose that[ ...] w e carry an a r rangement o f msny magnet ic n e e d l e s , l a r g e and small, swung so t h a t they
i n f l u e n c e one a n o t h e r , some a b l e o n l y t o swing h o r i z o n t a l l y ,
others v e r t i c a l l y , others hung freely[.. .. ] Each new
d i s e q u i l i b r i u m f ...] co r r e sponds to a need ; and the wagglings which ensue as t h e system rearranges i t s e l f are our
responses[ ....] Sometimes the poem is itseif t h e i n f l u e n c e which disturbs us, sometimes it is merely the means by which
an already existing disturbance can r i g h t i t ~ e l f . ' ~ (15-18)
12~liot argues that p o e t i c wisdom i s a chernical
r e a c t i o n : "When the two gases[ . ..]are mixed i n t h e p r e s e n c e
of a f i l a m e n t o f platinum, they form s u l p h u r o u s acid. T h i s
combinat ion t a k e s p l a c e only i f the p l a t i n u m is p r e s e n t ;
nevertheless t h e newly formed acid c o n t a i n s no trace of
platinum, and t h e p l a t i n u m itself is a p p a r e n t l y u n a f f e c t e d ;
has remained i n e r t , neutral, and unchanged. The mind o f t h e
poet i s the shred of p l a t i n u m [ . ...] [Tlhe more p e r f e c t the ar t i s t , - t h e more completely separate i n him w i l l be t h e man
who suf fers and t h e mind which creates" ( 7-8 ) .
" ~ a u l s o n has provided one of the most
theoretically comprehensive surveys of such sciences when he
plots the epistemic transition from the organismic paradigm
of literature to the cyborganisrnic paralogy of information:
"[ais science disqualifies the medium through which we have experienced and spoken the world, language and culture as we
have known them are swept away at an astonishing rate" so
that, " [ i l f we want to preserve something of our subjectivityl ... 1, then we must open Our texts to the
n e w [ , . . ]noises of science" ( 5 2 ) .
"~audrillard implies that , as a " [ ' plataphysician
at twenty" (l996a:83), he derives much of his irony from a
scientific vocabulary--particularly when he indulges in his
own hyperbole of molecular metaphors, be they quantum,
fractal, genetic, etc. Genosko remarks that, for
Baudrillard, such language does not evoke the rhetorical
equivalent of scientific legitimation; instead, the nomad
value of these modifiers rises in indirect relation to their
absence -of meaning: they constitute a "science fiction
practised in the service of the symbolic" (106).
48
15~eyerabend writes: "NO idea is ever examined in
a l1 its ramifications and no view is ever given al1 the
chances [thst] it deserves" ( 4 9 ) for "[tlheories are abandoned and superseded by more fashionable accounts long
before they have had an opportunity to show their virtues"
(40). Voodoo, for example, offers science an insight into
(heretofore unknown) aspects of pharmac