Kant’s Dog: On Borges, Philosophy, and the Time of Translation

289 Pages·2012·1.29 MB·English

by  David E. Johnson

LITERARY CRITICISM / PHILOSOPHY
Kant’s Dog provides fresh insight into Borges’s preoccupation with the contradiction of the J
O
time that passes and the identity that endures. By developing the implicit logic of the Borgesian
h
archive, which is most often figured as the universal demand for and necessary impossibility of K a n t ’s
n
translation, Kant’s Dog is able to spell out Borges’s responses to the philosophical problems that
s
most concerned him, those of the constitution of time, eternity, and identity; the determination
O
of original and copy; the legitimacy of authority; experience; the nature of language and the
n
possibility of a decision; and the name of God. Kant’s Dog offers original interpretations of d Og
several of Borges’s best known and most important stories and of the works of key figures in
the history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Saint Paul, Maimonides, Hume, Locke, Kant,
Heidegger, and Derrida. This study outlines Borges’s curious relationship to literature and
philosophy and, through a reconsideration of the relation between necessity and accident, opens K
the question of the constitution of philosophy and literature. The afterword develops the logic of
a
translation toward the secret at the heart of every culture in order to posit a Borgesian challenge
to anthropology and cultural studies. n
t
’
“Johnson focuses not on Borges’s uses of his philosophical references, but on how Borges can be
s
brought into classical debates in philosophy, on time, identity, God, and so forth. His corpus of

philosophers is novel in the context of Borges studies—we get Aristotle here more than Plato,
d
Augustine and Aquinas, Maimonides and Averroes, Hegel and Kant, Agamben and Derrida.
The effect is salutary: he shows how Borges’s thought takes up, and participates in, some old (and O
some new) philosophical debates.” — Daniel Balderston, Director, Borges Center, g
University of Pittsburgh, and editor of Variaciones Borges
“Kant’s Dog is a groundbreaking work that fills a long-lasting hole in Borges scholarship.
Johnson beautifully brings together the discourses of literature and philosophy through Borges’s
work. He provides original and illuminating interpretations of some of the most important texts
and problems in Borges’s oeuvre.” — Kate Jenckes, author of Reading Borges after Benjamin:
Allegory, Afterlife, and the Writing of History
David E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University at Buffalo,
State University of New York. He is the coeditor of Thinking with Borges and coauthor (with Scott
Michaelsen) of Anthropology’s Wake: Attending to the End of Culture.
A volume in the SUNY series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture O n B O r g e s , P h i l O s O P h y,
Jorge J. E. Gracia and Rosemary Geisdorfer Feal, editors
a n d t h e t i m e O f t r a n s l a t i O n
d a v i d e . J O h n s O n
State UniverSity of new york PreSS
www.sunypress.edu

Kant’s Dog
A volume in the SUNY series in
Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture
—————
Jorge J. E. Gracia and Rosemary Geisdorfer Feal, editors
Kant’s Dog
On Borges, Philosophy,
and the Time of Translation
DAVID E. JOHNSON
Cover art courtesy of Felipe Cooper. Boceto for "Aporia de un gesto"
(watercolor and Chinese ink on paper), 12 (cid:2) 16, 2011.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2012 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production by Diane Ganeles
Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, David E., 1959–
Kant's dog : on Borges, philosophy, and the time of translation /
David E. Johnson.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in Latin American and Iberian thought and culture)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4265-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Borges, Jorge Luis, 1899-1986—Philosophy. 2. Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804—
Criticism and interpretation. 3. Philosophy in literature. 4. Translating and
interpreting. 5. Argentine literature—20th century—History and criticism. I. Title.
PQ7797.B635Z73736 2012
868'.6209—dc23 2011031097
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for
Paula Cucurella Lavín
and
Thomas Simms Haydon, Jr.
30 July 1938 to 7 March 2007

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Philosophy, Literature, and the Accidents
of Translation 1
1 Time: For Borges 25
2 Belief, in Translation 45
3 Kant’s Dog 91
4 Decisions of Hospitality 129
5 Idiocy, the Name of God 171
Afterword: The Secret of Culture 213
Notes 225
Bibliography 259
Index 269