Literature and Science as Modes of Expression

219 Pages·1989·11.244 MB·English

by  Gillian Beer (auth.), Frederick Amrine (eds.)

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE AS MODES OF EXPRESSION
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editor
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
Editorial Advisory Board
ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
SYL VAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College of the City University of
New York
VOLUME 115
Logo of the Society for Literature and Science prepared by Dr Lance Schachterle.
LITERAT URE AND
SCIENCE AS MODES
OF EXPRESSION
Edited by
FREDERICK AMRINE
with an Introduction by Stephen J. Weininger
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT I BOSTON I LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Llter~ture & sCIence as ~odes of expressIon I ed1ted by Freder1ck
A.r1ne and Robert S. Cohen; WIth an IntroductIon by Stephen J.
Wellllnger.
p. c •. -- (Boston stud1es In the phIlosophy of sCIence: v.
115)
Includes lMu.
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7531-2 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2297-6
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2297-6
1. LIterature and sCIence. 2. SCIence In lIterature.
3. LIterature and teChnOlo0Y. 1. A~r'ne. FrederlN. 1952-
II. COhen, Robert Sonne. Ill. T111e L1terature and SCIence as
.odes of l"preSSlon. IV. Ser1es.
0174.B67 vol. 115
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001·.01 s--dcI9
[B01] 89-2812
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL PREFACE IX
INTRODUCTION: THE EVOLUTION OF LITERATURE AND
SCIENCE AS A DISCIPLINE XIII
GILLIAN BEER I Discourses of the Island 1
G. S. ROUSSEAU I Discourses of the Nerve 29
WALTER MOSER I Experiment and Fiction 61
ROBERT KOCH I Hypotyposes 81
KENNETH 1. KNOESPEL I The Mythological Transforma-
tions of Renaissance Science: Physical Allegory and the
Crisis of Alchemical Narrative 99
GEZA VON MOLNAR I "What Ever Happened to Ethics?" 113
JOHN NEUBAUER I Nature as Construct 129
PAIGE MATTHEY BYNUM I "Observe how healthily - how
calmly I can tell you the whole story": Moral Insanity and
Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' 141
JOSEPH W. SLADE I Conceptualizing Technology in Literary
Terms: Some American Examples 153
MILES ORVELL I Literature and the Authority of Technology 169
STEVEN CARTER I "A Place to Step Further": Jack Spicer's
Quantum Poetics 177
INDEX OF NAMES 189
VII
EDITORIAL PREFACE
On the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Boston Studies series in
1985, Cohen, Elkana, and Wartofsky wrote in another preface such as
this that the time had come for establishing institutions supporting a
vision to which the series had been devoted since its inception, namely
that of a more broadly conceived, interdisciplinary study of the history
and philosophy of science:
In recent years it has become evident that, in addition to serious and competent
disciplinary work on the specifics of the History of Science, the Philosophy of Science
and the Sociology of Science, there is now a growing need to develop a problem
oriented approach which no longer distinguishes between these three specialties in a cut
and dried way. Since the time has come for such an approach, the institutional tools
should be provided.
A way to do so would be ... to organize colloquia and to publish good papers
stemming from these, without attempting to organize the papers under the separate
rubrics of History of Philosophy or Sociology of Science; and moreover to consider it
natural that any fundamental issue of the foundations of the sciences, or their place in a
culture and the way they are institutionalized in the societal web, is still our concern, no
matter whether we are a professional scientist, historian or philosopher who deals with
the problem (p. vii).
In retrospect, their plea reveals itself to have been remarkably prophetic,
for it was in the same year that the Society for Literature and Science
was inaugurated in order to foster the same vision. Hence it seems to us
altogether fitting that papers from the first annual conference of the
Society should now appear in the Boston Studies series. Although the
study of literature and science is hardly new (see Stephen 1. Weininger's
elegant introduction for a capsule history), we feel that the essays
collected here constitute both the record of a historic occasion and a
testament to the maturation of the field.
If anything, the present volume seeks to extend the fundamental
interdisciplinary thrust of the Boston Studies series even further. For
the name "Society for Literature and Science" is actually a misnomer. It
is much too narrow to encompass the range of "interdisciplinarities"
that are pursued beneath its aegis. The essays collected here combine
not only the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, but also
Frederick Amrine (ed.), Literature and Science as Modes of Expression, ix-xi.
x EDITORIAL PREFACE
literary and linguistic theory, ethics, and the histories of literature,
medicine, psychiatry, and technology. They demonstrate that such
interdisciplinary inquiry can be pursued rigorously, and is capable of
yielding unique insights. We are convinced that the most significant
gains in both the history and philosophy of science will be accomplished
henceforth by scholars working along such lines. What is needed now is
not so much another treatise on "The Nerve in the History of Science,"
nor on "The Literature of Sensibility"; not so much on "The Theme of
the Island in Literature", nor on "Scientific Studies of Island Ecology",
but rather more studies like our exemplary plenary talks by Gillian
Beer and George Rousseau on "Discourses of the Island" and "Dis
courses of the Nerve". As George Levine has written, "science and
literature reflect each other because they draw mutually on one culture,
from the same source, and they work out in different languages the
same project" (p. 7). Pursuit of insular disciplines needs now to be
complemented by broader "cultural studies" such as these.
In his introduction, Weininger rightly emphasizes the advances that
have been made by the field as a whole and our contributors in
particular. Nevertheless, it seems to us that several important lines of
inquiry taken up in the present volume deserve further attention. One
fundamental question has to do with the epistemic value of metaphor
and literature generally: good work on the former has been done by
Mary Hesse among others, but, as Rousseau has argued, the latter
remains largely "an unexplored territory" (p. 587). And in what ways
does what Weininger calls the "influence vector" point from science
toward literature? We have gotten beyond seeing literature as merely
the passive receptacle for scientific 'themes', but are there other import
ant ways in which science influences - or could influence - literature?
Are there e.g. important lessons that the literary theorist might learn
from the philosopher of science? It may be that "naive" realism has
been routed from the philosophy of science once and for all, but does
this mean that we must run to the other extreme (as Livingston com
plains has too often been the case), arguing that science is but another
form of fiction - or even an elaborate myth? Is there some middle
ground to be staked out between the extremes of positivist reduction
and total relativism? Our hope is that Literature and Science as Modes
of Expression will promote further debate on these important questions.
Finally, we would like to thank the following colleagues who con-
EDITORIAL PREFACE Xl
tributed greatly to the preparation of this volume by servmg as its
editorial board:
Mordechi Feingold (Boston University)
Sander Gilman (Cornell University)
N. Katherine Hayles (University of Iowa)
George Levine (Rutgers)
James Paradis (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Lissa Roberts (Portland State University)
Arthur Quinn (University of California, Berkeley)
Stephen J. Weininger (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
REFERENCES
Cohen, R., Y. Elkana and M. Wartofsky: 'Editorial Note', in The Kaleidoscope of
Science: The Israel Colloquium: Studies in History, Philosophy, and Sociology of
Science, Vol. 1, ed. E. Margalit, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 94,
D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1985, pp. vii-viii.
Levine, G., ed.: One Culture, Essays in Science and Literature, Univ. of Wisconsin
Press, Madison, 1987.
Livingston, P.: Literary Knowledge: Humanistic inquiry and the Philosophy of Science,
Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca and London, 1988.
Rousseau, G.: 'Literature and Science: The State of the Field', ISiS 69 (1978) pp.
583-91.
The University of Michigan FREDERICK AMRINE
Boston University ROBERT S. COHEN
INTRODUCTION: THE EVOLUTION OF
LITERA TURE AND SCIENCE AS A DISCIPLINE
In August, 1985 the Society for Literature and Science was officially
inaugurated at the International Congress for the History of Science,
held at the University of California at Berkeley (Rousseau, 1986). Two
years later the Society held its first convention, 'Literature and Science
as Modes of Expression,' in Worcester, Massachusetts. The program
confirmed that the field was alive with activity - there were no fewer
than three plenary lectures, and about 75 contributed papers grouped
into 19 sessions. The readers of this volume will be sampling two of the
plenary lectures and 10 of the papers.
Given that academic societies and conferences come and go, it
would not be unreasonable to ask why this pair merit particular
attention. It is not the case that a new field came into being - the
relations of literature and science have been the object of study for
some time. Already at the end of the nineteenth century T. H. Huxley's
lecture on 'Science and Culture' provoked Matthew Arnold's famous
reply, 'Literature and Science' (Cadden and Brostowin). The subject has
a long and distinguished ancestry. But its objects, aims and outlooks
have undergone some dramatic changes over time, and perhaps never
more so than in recent years. The present state and future prospects for
Literature and Science were one of the major themes of the Worcester
conference and of this volume.
The Huxley-Arnold exchange which initially defined the field con
cerned itself, among other things, with what constituted culture and
which of its components were worth preserving and transmitting. By the
twentieth century most educated people, whether reluctantly or enthu
siastically, came to accept the proposition that science was an integral
part of Western culture. A logical consequence of this conclusion was
that the cultural influence of science is a valid and important area of
intellectual inquiry, an idea that gained ground slowly and arduously
among scholars. The obstacles to establishing the cultural relations of
science as a legitimate academic topic arose, in part, from institutional
pressures and conflicts that seem only too predictable and familiar. Yet
academic politics alone will not account for the difficulties; there is
Frederick Amrine (ed.) Literature and Science as Modes of Expression, xiii-xxv.
© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers, all rights reserved.