ARTICLES

Pluralism, Poststructuralism, and Evolutionary Theory

Joseph Carroll
e have all heard a good deal about the irrationalism that for over two decades has dominated the field of literary study, and m a n y o f us have been c o n c e r n e d to observe the same m o v e m e n t now spreading rapidly into the social sciences, especially by way o f anthropology. In its various guises as "poststructuralism," "postmodernism," "deconstruction," "reader-response theory," "New Historicism," and "cultural studies," this whole complex o f ideas and attitudes has become so familiar that even its most bizarre features now seem almost commonplace. But an intellectual m o v e m e n t can b e c o m e familiar without being fully understood. What exactly are the basic, foundational principles o f this movement? How is it possible that people can actually think these things? Why would they want to? And, m o r e urgently, o n what basis can we firmly reject these principles? How can we c o m p r e h e n d irrationalism within our own fully rationalized view of the world? The National Association of Scholars has b e c o m e the single most important institutional m e d i u m for academics who are actively resisting contemporary irrationalism and who wish to affirm the possibility o f objective knowledge. Accordingly, the conference o f the NAS that m e t in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in November of 1994 was dedicated to the topic o f rationality in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. By juxtaposing the views put forward at this conference with the views prevalent now in the humanities, we can get a good approximation of the current state of the conflict. In my view o f the conference, most o f the papers presented on the panels for the humanities and the social sciences demonstrated that these two subject areas could not yet make good on their claim to join the hard sciences in affirming a rational basis for their work. In the field of literary theory, the main traditional alternative to radical irrationalism is the kind o f "pluralism" espoused by humanists such as Meyer Abrams and Wayne Booth. History seems to present a similar case. In both fields, pluralism is now frequently dressed up as a version of Bakhtin's "dialogism. "t My own view is that pluralism is not so much a c o h e r e n t doctrinal position as a stopgap that disguises, even to its proponents, the absence of any clear basis for rational u n d e r s t a n d i n g in the Joseph Carroll is professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63121.

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h u m a n i t i e s a n d the social sciences. T h a t is, pluralism is n o t so m u c h a n alternative to irrationalism as a s y m p t o m o f the philosophical disarray that has left an o p e n i n g in which an aggressive irrationalism c o u l d arise a n d flourish. I n the first p a r t o f this essay, I shall explain why I think pluralism c a n n o t work. In the s e c o n d part, I shall offer a c o m p r e h e n s i v e analysis a n d explanation for c o n t e m p o r a r y irrationalism in the humanities, particularly in literary studies. Finally, as an alternative b o t h to pluralism a n d to irrationalism, I shall argue that, if the h u m a n i t i e s a n d the social sciences are ever to b e c o m e ratiohal objective f o r m s o f knowledge, they m u s t b e l o c a t e d within the m a t r i x o f evolutionary biology? Pluralism consists in a c o m p l e x o f related suppositions: that all basic principles, even c o n t r a d i c t o r y principles, can be r e g a r d e d as c o m p l e m e n t a r y ; that any given set o f principles provides special access to s o m e distinct aspect o f m e a n i n g in any given text; that all principles can thus b e c o m b i n e d to p r o d u c e a c o m p r e h e n s i v e t h o u g h n o t wholly systematic critical o r g a n o n ; a n d that the diversity o f insights within this o r g a n o n will e n a b l e us to r e s p o n d flexibly to the diversity o f literary experiences. T h e m a n n e r that typically c o r r e s p o n d s to this position, a m a n n e r o f genial, u r b a n e civility, has a certain c h a r m , but, as a theoretical stance, pluralism ultimately involves a failure to take intellectual responsibility for basic principles that still, inescapably, exercise c o n t r o l l i n g p o w e r over all specific j u d g m e n t s . If, as I w o u l d argue, all specific j u d g m e n t s imply an appeal to s o m e definite a n d exclusive set o f principles, pluralists m u s t e i t h e r shift a b o u t f r o m o n e set o f principles to a n o t h e r o r tacitly presuppose a stable a n d consistent set o f principles. In the first case, pluralism results in a shallow eclecticism. In the s e c o n d case, it results in a disparity b e t w e e n t h e o r y a n d practice. T h e r e are two distinct f o r m s o f p l u r a l i s m - o n e radical a n d the o t h e r m o d e r a t e - t h a t are s o m e t i m e s falsely conflated as if they w e r e simply d i f f e r e n t aspects o f the same a r g u m e n t . T h e m o d e r a t e f o r m consists in the c o n t e n t i o n that the diversity o f critical readings m e r e l y reflects a diversity in the aspects o f a text to which different critics c h o o s e to pay attention. T h e radical f o r m consists in the c o n t e n t i o n that we have no basis for m a k i n g decisions a m o n g conflicting f o u n d a t i o n a l principles o r systems o f belief. In "What's the Use o f T h e o r i z i n g A b o u t the Arts?" M. H. A b r a m s conflates these two p r o p o s i t i o n s into a single statement. "No o n e set o f premises a n d c o h e r e n t m o d e o f discourse suffices to say everything i m p o r t a n t , b u t only the k i n d o f things, relative to selected h u m a n purposes, t o w a r d which that discourse is o r i e n t e d . " Pluralism h e r e is registered as a m a t t e r b o t h o f diverse "premises" a n d o f diverse "purposes." In s u s p e n d i n g j u d g m e n t o n "premises," A b r a m s r e n d e r s h i m s e l f incapable o f explaining the g r o u n d s o n which we w o u l d d e s i g n a t e any aspect o f a text m o r e " i m p o r t a n t " than any other. If we have n o c o n c e p t u a l structure within which to assess what is i m p o r t a n t a n d what is not, " e v e r y t h i n g i m p o r t a n t to be said" can be identified only as everything that actually has

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b e e n said. In his own critical practice, Abrams overcomes the crippling implications o f this s u s p e n d e d theoretical j u d g m e n t only by tacitly appealing to a set of premises that correlate closely with the g o o d sense of t h e e d u c a t e d c o m m o n reader but that are also crucially influenced by his o w n philosophical a n d ideological predispositions--predispositions, again, that are fully active without being fully acknowledged a n d a c c o u n t e d for. 3 Abrams's pluralism g r o u n d s itself in philosophical p r e c o n c e p t i o n s derived f r o m Wittgenstein, b u t it seems motivated primarily by an ideal o f intellectual republicanism or civility for which Mill is the great historical antecedent. In "Dancing T h r o u g h the Minefield"--a cult classic a m o n g radical feminist theor i s t s - A n n e t t e Kolodny p r o p o u n d s pluralism f r o m an ideological perspective radically different f r o m that o f Abrams. She g r o u n d s h e r pluralism in the n o t i o n o f interpretive c o m m u n i t i e s p r o m u l g a t e d by Stanley Fish, a n d she advocates pluralism in a way that seems motivated primarily by an ulterior ideological purpose: that of s u s p e n d i n g the canonical j u d g m e n t s that have given a p r e d o m i n a n t status to writers who are white, male, a n d heterosexual. In o r d e r to accomplish her mission, Kolodny alternates between the m o d e r a t e a n d radical forms o f pluralism, substituting o n e for the o t h e r without registering the difference between them. First, she quotes Robert Scholes's version o f the m o d e r a t e form, the "pluralist c o n t e n t i o n that 'in a p p r o a c h i n g a text o f any complexity.., the reader must choose to emphasize certain aspects which s e e m to him crucial,' and that 'in fact, the variety of readings which we have for m a n y works is a function o f the selection o f crucial aspects m a d e by the variety o f readers.'" Taken by itself, this p r o p o s i t i o n seems to imply that all readings share identical premises a n d are thus ultimately reconcilable a n d c o m p l e m e n tary. Kolodny herself then proposes a "playful pluralism'--the m o r e radical kind of pluralism--that is "responsive to the possibilities of multiple critical schools and m e t h o d s " but that is "captive to none." She acknowledges that this sort of pluralism "seems to threaten a kind o f chaos for the f u t u r e o f literary inquiry while, at the same time, it seems to deny the h o p e o f establishing s o m e basic conceptual model which can organize all data--the h o p e which always begins any analytical exercise." Having s o u n d e d the alarm o f i m m i n e n t chaos, she then retreats reassuringly into the m o d e r a t e f o r m o f pluralism. All the pluralist need give up "is simply the arrogance of claiming that o u r work is either exhaustive or definitive. TM In opposition to formulations such as those o f Abrams a n d Kolodny, I shall affirm two theses: first, that it is possible to make rational decisions a b o u t the relative validity o f premises, methods, and interpretive p r o p o s i t i o n s w i t h o u t succumbing to the delusion of having achieved absolute a n d final knowledge; and second, that without making such decisions no d e t e r m i n a t e c o n c e p t u a l formulation is possible. T h e decisions we make can a n d s h o u l d be always provisional, subject to revision in the light of f u r t h e r evidence or c o r r e c t e d reasoning; but n o t all conceptual decisions are compatible with o n e a n o t h e r , a n d

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unless we choose a m o n g incompatible alternatives o u r thinking is n o t comprehensive but merely indeterminate. If we simultaneously entertain incompatible hypotheses, these hypotheses merely cancel each o t h e r out, leaving o u r propositions conceptually void; a n d if we entertain all p r o p o s i t i o n s only on the level at which they can be reconciled with all o t h e r propositions, we c o n d e m n ourselves to truistic inanity. It is certainly true that different critical studies can focus o n different aspects of a text--biographical influences, style, tone, narrative structure, sexual relations, social constructs, religious or philosophical themes, a n d so on. It is nonetheless the case that all specific topics o f analysis can ultimately be c o o r d i n a t e d within a consistent set of general principles. Physical science provides a parallel for this thesis. Physics, chemistry, a n d molecular biology all have their distinct areas of concern and their distinct governing concepts, b u t all three disciplines can be coordinated within the field o f physical science; they can provide complementary and s u p p l e m e n t a r y forms o f k n o w l e d g e about the same p h e n o m e n a , and they do n o t conflict in any o f their basic principles. All schools o f critical theory contain areas of c o m m o n u n d e r s t a n d i n g - - c o m m o n languages susceptible to reciprocal translation, for example--and it is possible a n d even likely that elements specific to distinct systems such as Marxism a n d psychoanalysis w o u l d be i n c o r p o r a t e d into a m o r e adequately established set of c o m p r e h e n s i v e principles, but that m o r e adequate set o f principles would legitimate itself t h r o u g h its consistency with the larger b o d y of scientific knowledge, the cogency o f its basic concepts, its coherence, and its explanatory power, n o t t h r o u g h its ability to a c c o m m o d a t e different a n d c o m p e t i n g principles. 5 Pluralists do n o t d o u b t the validity o f reason. T h e y d o u b t only that the subject matter o f the humanities can ever be fully c o m p r e h e n d e d within a coherent, unified structure o f knowledge. C o n t e m p o r a r y irrationalists, in contrast, strike boldly at the very f o u n d a t i o n s o f all objective u n d e r s t a n d i n g . For convenience, I shall refer to this whole school of t h o u g h t as "poststructuralism." I i n t e n d this term to indicate an essential continuity b e t w e e n the D e r r i d e a n linguistic seventies and the Foucauldian political eighties, a n d I i n t e n d it to embrace all the m o r e particular schools o f c o n t e m p o r a r y irrationalist theory. I shall argue that the whole larger structure o f ideas in this m o v e m e n t can be r e d u c e d to two elementary doctrines. I shall identify the central rhetorical a n d conceptual strategy t h r o u g h which these doctrines are r e n d e r e d m o r e or less plausible and isolate the ideological a n d institutional p u r p o s e s the principles are designed to serve. T h e central doctrines o f poststructuralism are textualism a n d indeterminacy. Textualism is the idea that language or culture constitutes or constructs the world according to its own internal principles, a n d i n d e t e r m i n a c y identifies all m e a n i n g as ultimately self-contradictory. Textualism treats h u m a n beings a n d the world in which they live as the effects o f a linguistic or cultural system, a n d indeterminacy reduces k n o w l e d g e to the s p o n t a n e o u s g e n e r a t i o n

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of internal contradictions within this system. J. Hillis Miller offers a representative f o r m u l a t i o n of the textualist thesis. "We m a k e things what they are by n a m i n g t h e m in o n e way or another, that is, by the i n c o r p o r a t i o n o f empirical data into a conventional system o f signs." (Miller attributes this textualist doctrine, wrongly, to George Eliot.) 6 In Michel Foucault's formulation, "If interpretation can never be b r o u g h t to an end, it is simply because there is n o t h i n g to interpret. T h e r e is n o t h i n g absolutely primary to interpret, because at bott o m everything is already interpretation [tout est dO'~ interpretation]. "7 Fredric J a m e s o n offers a representative f o r m u l a t i o n o f indeterminacy. "'Poststructuralism,' or, as I prefer, 'theoretical discourse,' is at o n e with the d e m o n s t r a tion o f the necessary incoherence a n d impossibility o f all thinking. "8 In this respect, poststructuralism would be identical with the " h e r m e n e u t i c " experie n c e - s u p p o s e d l y exemplified by Marx, Freud, a n d Nietzsche--that Foucault describes as "this convergence o f interpretation toward a p o i n t that r e n d e r s it impossible.-9 Together, textualism a n d indeterminacy eliminate the two criteria o f truth: the c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f propositions to their objects a n d the internal coherence o f propositions. By affirming that texts d o n o t refer to objects b u t rather constitute them, textualism eliminates c o r r e s p o n d e n c e ; a n d by affirming that all m e a n i n g is ultimately contradictory, indeterminacy eliminates coherence. By eliminating truth, poststructuralism yields epistemological a n d ontological primacy to rhetoric or "discourse," a n d it simultaneously delegitimizes all traditional norms. Since poststructuralism treats all n o r m s as arbitrary, it has a convenient application within the field of radical political ideology. In its political aspect, poststructuralism typically treats normative intellectual, moral, and social structures within the Western cultural tradition as f r a u d u l e n t a n d oppressive-as purely conventional constructs that are d e s i g n e d to p e r p e t u a t e the exploitative interests of social elites, particularly the interests o f white male heterosexuals o f the ruling classes? ~ In the degree to which it shocks c o m m o n sense, the poststructuralist repudiation o f nature typically engages in a distinctive f o r m o f sophistry: the blending or shifting back a n d forth between statements that are, o n the o n e h a n d , radically absurd, and, on the o t h e r hand, blandly truistic. By finding a level o f generality in which the two kinds of statement m e r g e into o n e another, rhetoricians can use radical absurdity to invest truism with the delusory a p p e a r a n c e o f substantive a r g u m e n t a n d can use truism to invest radical absurdity with the delusory appearance of cogency. In an article in Academic Questions, "Stephen Greenblatt's New Historicist Vision," Paul A. C a n t o r has given a g o o d analysis of such strategies in the work of o n e of the m o s t p r o m i n e n t c o n t e m p o r a r y critics. Generalizing f r o m this instance a n d drawing o n Karl P o p p e r ' s critique of historicism, C a n t o r argues that " m u c h of the success of historicism in general and the New Historicism in particular d e p e n d s on wavering b e t w e e n . . , the weak and strong historicist positions. "n

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T h e strategy identified by C a n t o r is all-pervasive in c o n t e m p o r a r y criticism. L e a r n i n g h o w to pick this o n e lock gives access to the i n n e r s a n c t u m o f m a n y a poststructuralist mystery. A n d we m a y generalize the principle e v e n f u r t h e r , taking it b e y o n d the level o f rhetorical strategy to the level o f substantive doctrine. O n e o f the two central doctrines o f p o s t s t r u c t u r a l i s m - t h e large g e n e r a l claim that literary texts construct o r constitute reality--itself c o m p r i s e s equal parts o f tautology a n d radical absurdity. T h e tautology is that we can speak o r write o f n a t u r e a n d h u m a n n a t u r e only in speech o r writing. T h e tautology is designed to suppress the r e c o g n i t i o n that p e r c e p t i o n , thoughts, a n d e m o t i o n a l responses are themselves n o t exclusively linguistic in character, t h o u g h it is o f course true that perceptions, thoughts, a n d e m o t i o n a l responses can be linguistically f o r m u l a t e d only in linguistic formulations. T h e tautology--the idea that we can refer to things only by referring to them--blends almost i m p e r c e p t i b l y into the radical absurdity: the idea that we cannot refer to things, that n a t u r e a n d h u m a n nature, insofar as we can k n o w them, are exclusively c o n s t i t u t e d o r s t r u c t u r e d by language. Foucault and D e r r i d a provide exemplary, seminal f o r m u l a t i o n s o f the ele m e n t a r y textualist thesis, a n d their f o r m u l a t i o n s can serve to illustrate the principle in action. In "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," Foucault offers an instance o f textualist c o n c e p t i o n s p r e s u p p o s e d within a single, s e e m i n g l y self-evident proposition, the claim that "at b o t t o m everything is already i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . " Foucault explains, "Each sign is in itself n o t the thing that p r e s e n t s itself to interpretation, b u t the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f o t h e r signs. ''~z Foucault's f o r m u l a is essentially correlative with the D e r r i d e a n c o n c e p t i o n o f "diffdrance'--the i d e a that "the sign r e p r e s e n t s the p r e s e n t in its absence. It takes t h e place o f the p r e s e n t .... T h e sign, in this sense, is d e f e r r e d presence." Or, as D e r r i d a puts it in "White Mythology" with m o r e c o n c r e t e n e s s o f r e f e r e n c e , " T h e sun is never p r o p e r l y p r e s e n t in discourse." In this passage, D e r r i d a uses the t e r m " m e t a p h o r " in the place o f Foucault's t e r m "interpretation": Each time that there is a metaphor, there is doubtless a sun somewhere; but each time that there is sun, metaphor has begun. If the sun is metaphorical always, already, it is no longer completely natural. It is always, already a luster, a chandelier, one might say an artifwial construction, if one could still give credence to this signification when nature has disappeared. For if the sun is no longer completely natural, what in nature does remain natural? 13 This classic exposition c o m b i n e s f o r m s o f equivocation a n d self-contradiction similar to those in the passage we have seen f r o m Kolodny. D e r r i d a uses partial qualifiers such as "no l o n g e r completely" to h e d g e radical i n t i m a t i o n s such as the suggestion that "nature has d i s a p p e a r e d . " If p u s h e d , D e r r i d a c o u l d say that n a t u r e is still, s o m e h o w , partially p r e s e n t in m e t a p h o r , a n d w h e n n o t p u s h e d he can simply p r e s u p p o s e that n a t u r e has wholly d i s a p p e a r e d within the "artificial." If we insist that the sun to which we r e f e r d o e s actually exist,

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D e r r i d a can respond, in h a u g h t y indignation, that h e has h i m s e l f acknowle d g e d that "there is doubtless a sun s o m e w h e r e . " T h e s e q u e n c e f r o m defensive feint to substantive claim thus runs like this: T h e sun exists, a n d that is nature, b u t n a t u r e is no l o n g e r "completely" natural, a n d b e c a u s e it is n o t c o m p l e t e l y natural, it is n o t natural at all. "What in n a t u r e d o e s r e m a i n natural?" Given such answers, m a n y critics a n d theorists are likely to retreat, chast e n e d a n d confused, a n d o n c e they have r e t r e a t e d , D e r r i d a can c o n t i n u e to p r e s u p p o s e , as the basis o f his philosophical c o m m e n t a r i e s , that " n a t u r e has disappeared." T h e obfuscatory rhetorical tactics in which D e r r i d a a n d Foucault have tut o r e d A n g l o - A m e r i c a n critics p r o v i d e a cover for t h e sophistical logic that constitutes the propositional substance o f their f o r m u l a t i o n s . At the substantive propositional level, these f o r m u l a t i o n s c o m b i n e a question-begging tautology with a substantive thesis that is m e r e l y false. T h e b e g g e d q u e s t i o n is the claim that all perceptions are themselves "signs"--a proposition that--as Foucault's own historical contextualization in "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx" m a k e s clear--affiliates itself closely with sixteenth-century n o t i o n s that the w o r l d is itself a text o r symbolic c o n s t r u c t ( t h o u g h without G o d as a u t h o r , a n d in this r e s p e c t unlike Renaissance c o n c e p t i o n s o f a symbolic world order). T h e false substantive thesis nestled tacitly within the b e g g e d question is the idea that we c a n n o t distinguish b e t w e e n p e r c e p t i o n s a n d the verbal, visual, o r a u d i t o r y signals that are d e s i g n e d by p e o p l e to c o m m u n i c a t e i n f o r m a t i o n . Pose the tacit proposition as a question: Are sensory p e r c e p t i o n s in n o way distinguishable f r o m linguistic formulations? If we watch a tree fall, h e a r it crash, feel the earth tremble, smell the o d o r o f c r u s h e d leaves, a n d taste the pollen a n d dust t h r o w n into the air, a n d if we t h e n t u r n to a c o m p a n i o n w h o says, "That tree fell to the north," can we in n o way distinguish b e t w e e n o u r p e r c e p t i o n s o f the tree falling a n d o u r c o m p a n i o n ' s verbal c o m m e n t a r y o n this fall? Merely to pose the question is virtually to a n s w e r it, a n d by b e g i n n i n g to m a k e such distinctions we w o u l d o p e n the way t o w a r d a substantive research p r o g r a m in cognitive psychology a n d linguistics. But m e r e l y to pose the question is itself to step i m m e d i a t e l y a n d decisively outside the b o u n d a r y o f the b e g g e d textualist question, a n d it is this b e g g e d q u e s t i o n that crucially defines the c o m m u n i t y o f discourse in which Foucault a n d D e r r i d a constitute seminal authorities. It would be very difficult to overestimate the doctrinal significance o f the rhetorical sleight-of-hand exemplified in Foucault's claim that "at b o t t o m everything is already interpretation." As Foucault h i m s e l f remarks, " P e r h a p s this p r e e m i n e n c e o f i n t e r p r e t a t i o n in relation to signs is w h a t is m o s t decisive in m o d e r n h e r m e n e u t i c s . TM I think we can delete the w o r d "Perhaps." T h e central thesis o f m o d e r n h e r m e n e u t i c s as Foucault describes it--the idea that all o f reality, at least so far as we can k n o w it, is in its essence semiotic o r linguistic in character--is the nucleus f r o m which m o d e r n critical t h e o r y has evolved. T h e

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thesis is e r r o n e o u s , a n d the sophistical m a n e u v e r s t h r o u g h which it is pres e n t e d are designed not only to disguise the absurdity o f the p r o p o s i t i o n a l c o n t e n t but also to insulate this c o n t e n t f r o m rational criticism. Samuel J o h n s o n tells us that the m i n d "naturally loves T r u t h . "15 If this supposition is correct, a n d I think it is, poststructuralist d o c t r i n e s evidently answer to motives that are sufficiently p o t e n t to o v e r r i d e the n o r m a l h u m a n distaste for declarations that do n o t m a k e sense. C o n s e q u e n t l y , in o r d e r to explain the m e t e o r i c success o f poststructuralism a m o n g literary academics, we n e e d to ask what p u r p o s e s are served by poststructuralist doctrines. In answering this question, we can call poststructuralists themselves to witness that two very large a n d i m p o r t a n t motives for their distinctive beliefs are the desire to minister to the professional self-esteem o f critics a n d the desire to p e r p e t u a t e the activity o f the a c a d e m i c bureaucracy. By p r o m o t i n g t h e d o c t r i n e s o f i n d e t e r m i n a c y a n d i n c o h e r e n c e , poststructuralism b o t h d e p r e c a t e s the a u t h o r i t y o f m e r e l y "scientific" knowle d g e a n d also provides the critic with a p r e e m p t i v e l y s u p e r i o r perspective o n all positive formulations by literary authors. Literary a u t h o r s necessarily seek to p r o d u c e s o m e c o h e r e n t s t r u c t u r e o f meanings, even if that s t r u c t u r e is designed to articulate intellectual, emotional, and social conflicts. W i t h o u t s o m e c o h e r e n t structure o f meanings, it w o u l d n o t be possible to r e p r e s e n t o r c o m m u n i c a t e the conflicts. If the p r i m a r y p u r p o s e o f criticism is to p o i n t o u t the "problematic" c h a r a c t e r o f all structures o f m e a n i n g , criticism automatically rises above a h u m b l e explicatory f u n c t i o n a n d attains a position o f intellectual authority superior to that o f its subject. T h e critic knows b e t t e r t h a n the author, a n d knows b e t t e r in a way that affirms the s u p r e m e ontological status o f that very activity in which the critic h i m s e l f o r h e r s e l f is e n g a g e d : the generation o f rhetoric. Thus, in summarizing the whole drift o f poststructuralist t h e o r y as it is exemplified in his anthology, j o s u 6 v . Harari argues that " t h e r e is n o a u t o n o m y p r o p e r to the text," a n d h e celebrates "the m o d e r n critical s t a n d which recasts criticism into a p r i m a r y o p e r a t i o n .... Far f r o m b e i n g c o n d e m n e d to a s e c o n d a r y activity, criticism remains, even w h e n it repeats a n d m i m e s a text, a productive activity .... Criticism has r e a c h e d a stage o f m a t u r i t y w h e r e it is n o w o p e n l y challenging the p r i m a c y o f literature. ''16 In addition to its service in ministering to the self-esteem o f critics, the d o c t r i n e o f i n d e t e r m i n a c y has an i m p o r t a n t practical f u n c t i o n in the institutional e c o n o m y o f criticism. If all texts are i n d e t e r m i n a t e , criticism can cont i n u e to g e n e r a t e r e a d i n g s with n o c o n c e r n f o r r e d u n d a n c y . T h e basic institutional p r o b l e m for which i n d e t e r m i n a c y provides a solution is identified in the p r e f a c e to o n e o f the f o u n d i n g texts o f A m e r i c a n a c a d e m i c poststructuralism, J o n a t h a n Culler's Structuralist Poetics: What is literary criticism for? What is its task and what is its value? As the n u m b e r of interpretive studies increases to the point where reading what has been written

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on any major author becomes an unmanageable labour, such questions force themselves more insistently upon anyone concerned with the study of literature .... What then are we to say of criticism? What more can it do? Culler's own answer to the question he poses is that by looking to "the French structuralists" we can free criticism f r o m "an exclusively interpretive role .... The study of literature, as opposed to the perusal and discussion o f individual works, would b e c o m e an attempt to u n d e r s t a n d the conventions which make literature possible." The effort to u n d e r s t a n d the conventions o f literature is of course nothing new, but Culler's manifesto signals the beginning o f the theoretical industry that has now very comfortably established itself as an atleast-equal partner with interpretive studies. O n e o f the distinguishing characteristics of this particular industry--a theoretical m o v e m e n t that defines itself in the first place as a function of an academic bureaucracy--is already apparent in Culler's formulation: the idea that "the study o f literature" can somehow be "opposed" to and operate independently o f "the perusal and discussion of individual works." Thus, while r e c o m m e n d i n g the French structuralists as theoretical models, Culler tacitly acknowledges that the practical criticism generated by this model has not been very good, but this deficiency in practical application is not a matter of m u c h concern to him. "Not that their criticism is itself a model which could or should be directly i m p o r t e d and reverently imitated, but that through a reading of their works one may derive a sense of criticism as a c o h e r e n t discipline and o f the goals at which it might aim." The "goals" at which criticism might aim evidently have little to do with actually understanding literature; they have everything to do with constituting criticism as a doctrinally unified o r d e r that can consolidate its position as an academic discipline--though in disregard for the putative subject o f study that provided the initial raison d~tre for the discipline. 17 Criticism can display its i n d e p e n d e n c e from empirical study in two distinct ways: first, by simply ignoring literature altogether, and second, by affirming that constraints on interpretation derive not f r o m the structure o f determinate meanings in the text but only f r o m the internal imperatives o f the theory itself. The first kind o f i n d e p e n d e n c e can be exemplified by Ellen Rooney's Seductive Reasoning. Rooney is a second-generation theorist; she explains that she began u n d e r g r a d u a t e study in 1975. The subjects o f study in her book are five critical theorists--Hirsch, Booth, Fish, de Man, and J a m e s o n - a n d unlike any of these m o r e senior theorists, she gives no evidence o f ever having had the slightest interest in poems, plays, or novels) s H e r interest in "literary theory'--a term that appears in the subtide o f her book--is purely doctrinal. It has no apparent relevance to literature, at least not to specific literary texts. t n e second kind o f critical i n d e p e n d e n c e can be exemplified by the work o f J. Hillis Miller. In the preface to the third edition o f the N o r t o n critical edition of Wuthering Heights, Richard j. D u n n thus summarizes the largest import o f

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Miller's contribution to the volume: "There is not, Miller insists, 'a single secret truth about WutheringHeights,' and thus his essay, like those byJacobs a n d Armstrong, resists the reductive as it respects this as an 'over-rich' text, ever o p e n to the process of interpretation."19 In a similar vein, b u t taking a b r o a d e r scope, James B o n o observes that "the tropological a n d rhetorical d i m e n s i o n s o f language" ensure for texts "a multiplicity o f meanings a n d the possibility of continual reinterpretation. "~~ It is not difficult to u n d e r s t a n d why p e o p l e in the h u m a n i t i e s would want to believe the basic poststructuralist doctrines. It is m o r e difficult to understand how they could believe these doctrines--that is, to understand h o w they could entertain such notions without suffering from a severe, vertiginous sense o f unreality. To solve this problem, we shall n e e d to consider the peculiar conditions in which academic literary critics pass their productive lives. For p e o p l e who are struggling for survival in a harsh, d a n g e r o u s e n v i r o n m e n t - - o r even to people in industrialized nations who are actively e n g a g e d in the world o f commerce, production, and c o n s t r u c t i o n - d e c l a r a t i o n s to the effect that language constructs the world would scarcely constitute a distinct idea, m u c h less a plausible proposition. For people, in contrast, who have b e e n technologically and institutionally insulated from any active, conscious c o n c e r n with the elementary conditions of life, whose active, conscious concerns have taken place almost wholly within the confines o f academic institutions, whose status a n d livelihood have d e p e n d e d exclusively u p o n the quality a n d character o f their rhetorical exchanges with their professors, their colleagues, a n d their students, and whose professional standing within the institution as a whole d e p e n d s , they feel, on simultaneously disparaging scientific k n o w l e d g e while proclaiming that rhetoric is the matrix of all mental life, the case w o u l d be quite different. For people such as these, any declaration to the effect that the world is both indeterminate and essentially linguistic in character could hardly help but strike a deep, responsive chord. What is the alternative to unreality? My own answer is based on two principles that are necessary, I think, to all rational understanding: the unity o f the natural order, and the unity o f knowledge within the field o f nature. We k n o w as established scientific fact that h u m a n beings are biological entities a n d that they have evolved,just like all other living creatures, t h r o u g h a process o f natural selection that has adapted them--body a n d mind--to the world in which they live. Taking these simple and relatively noncontroversial propositions as a starting point, I shall identify four large biological concepts that s h o u l d enter into any objective understanding of literature. After outlining these principles, I shall explain why rationality itself requires us to c o m m i t ourselves to s o m e such set o f concepts, not just as heuristic devices amid a plurality o f such devices, b u t rather as principles of knowledge that necessarily exclude o t h e r principles. The most important biological concept is the relationship between the organism and its environment. I shall argue that in b o t h the h u m a n sciences a n d the

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humanities this relationship, as a structural concept, should take a position o f hierarchical priority over every other concept. T h e relation between the organism and its e n v i r o n m e n t is a matrix concept that provides an alternative to the matrix concepts available in other critical, philosophical, and ideological schools such as p h e n o m e n o l o g y , Marxism, Freudianism, deconstruction, a n d New Historicism. As a matrix concept, the relationship between the organism a n d its e n v i r o n m e n t is the necessary presupposition for the principles of personal psychology, sexual and family relations, social organization, cognition, a n d linguistic representation that are based on evolved h u m a n characteristics. T h e second specifically biological concept that regulates my thinking is the idea that innate psychological s t r u c t u r e s - p e r c e p t u a l , rational, a n d affective-have evolved t h r o u g h an adaptive process o f natural selection a n d that these structures regulate the mental and emotional life o f all living organisms, including h u m a n beings. This concept sets itself in irreconcilable o p p o s i t i o n to the idea that h u m a n beings are blank slates, that the structure o f motivations and cognition is infinitely malleable, and that language or culture provides all qualitative content and structure for h u m a n experience. T h e third biological concept is the idea that all "proximate causes" or immediate h u m a n motives are regulated by the principles o f inclusive fitness as "ultimate cause." This concept does not imply that all organisms at all times, and especially not all h u m a n organisms, are directly seeking to maximize their reproductive success. But it does imply that all innate h u m a n psychological structures have, in ancestral environments, evolved u n d e r the regulative p o w e r of reproductive success a n d that these innate structures r e m a i n fully active at the present time. Perhaps the single most i m p o r t a n t corollary of this principle, for the purposes o f literary analysis, is that reproductive success, in its twin aspects o f sexual u n i o n and the p r o d u c t i o n of successful offspring, is central to h u m a n concerns and thus to literary works. It provides an organizing principle that can be adjusted or modified or repressed (at great cost) b u t that c a n n o t simply be ignored. T h e fourth biological concept is the idea that representation, including literary representation, is a form o f "cognitive mapping." That is, representation is an extension of the organism's adaptive orientation to an e n v i r o n m e n t that is, in the first place, spatial and physical. T h e c o n c e p t o f " m a p p i n g " is n o t merely a m e t a p h o r for an abstract cognitive activity. Abstract activities are, rather, an extension o f the primary cognitive fnnction that locates the organism within its concrete, physical environment. T h e c o n c e p t of cognitive mapping is c o m m o n to evolutionary psychology, neurology, linguistics, and ethology (the science that concerns itself with the biological basis of behavior). T h e evolutionary psychologists J o h n T o o b y and Leda Cosmides observe that the w o r d "cognitive" can be used in two quite distinct ways: to d e n o t e reasonilag as o p p o s e d to e m o t i o n or o t h e r nonrational processes, or to d e n o t e "any psychological process," including e m o t i o n a n d perception. 2~ In accordance

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with this second usage, I use "cognitive m a p p i n g " to refer to any representational activity, including the literary representations that integrate rational, emotional, and sensory functions. I would argue that the p r i m a r y p u r p o s e o f literature is to represent the subjective quality o f experience. In o p p o s i t i o n to the post-Kantian n o t i o n that cognitive a n d linguistic categories are autonom o u s forms that constitute their own objects, I maintain, in c o m p a n y with Karl Popper, Konrad Lorenz, T o o b y and Cosmides, J o h n Bowlby, a n d o t h e r evolutionary theorists, that cognitive and linguistic categories have evolved in adaptive relation to the e n v i r o n m e n t . They c o r r e s p o n d to the world n o t because they "construct" the world in accordance with their own a u t o n o m o u s , internal principles but because their internal principles have evolved as a m e a n s o f c o m p r e h e n d i n g an actual world that exists i n d e p e n d e n t l y o f the categories. Everything a critic says is s h a p e d and colored by doctrinal decisions over primary causal forces. All specific j u d g m e n t s a b o u t literature a n d culture are crucially constrained by presuppositions as to whether, for example, all texts inadvertently reveal repressed subconscious conflicts, allegorize the socioecon o m i c conditions o f production, enact the triumphal self-affirmation o f Being-In-The-World, display the indeterminacy o f m e a n i n g in an endless semiotic dissemination, helplessly r e p r o d u c e an a u t o n o m o u s cultural episteme, or reflect the interaction of an organism with its e n v i r o n m e n t . T h e Darwinian hypothesis is far m o r e general a n d less restrictive than the F r e u d i a n a n d the Marxian; it allows for a m u c h greater diversity and specificity o f c o n c e r n s a n d motives than the Heideggerian; in contrast to b o t h the H e i d e g g e r i a n a n d the Derridean, it situates its ultimate causal terms within the realm n o t o f metaphysical dynamics but rather o f the natural order; a n d in contrast to New Historicism it allows for a causal interaction between individuals a n d the larger cultural order. T h e Darwinian paradigm does n o t p r e s e n t itself as an autonom o u s metaphysical discourse that is purely verbal in character, a n d it does n o t position itself in epistemological conflict with empirical study. It n e e d presuppose no causal principles not already established as valid scientific hypotheses, and it can develop and modify its own empirical constructs in accordance with the advance o f positive scientific knowledge. If we are only now b e g i n n i n g to gain an adequate scientific u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f the structural and functional properties o f h u m a n n a t u r e within their context of evolutionary adaptedness, it seems reasonable to s u p p o s e that literature has, historically, offered representations o f experience that have b e e n imperfectly thematized within the texts themselves. T o f o r m u l a t e this idea in a m o r e complete and also a m o r e positive way, we can say that literature gains access to primal forces, that it assimilates these forces to figurative structures, a n d that such structures constitute an intuitive imaginative synthesis--sensory, affective, and c o n c e p t u a l - t h a t often o u t r u n s scientific u n d e r s t a n d i n g . S o m e such supposition informs any criticism that does n o t restrict itself to analyzing or paraphrasing texts within the terms o f their o w n overt thematic declara-

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tions. For example, m o s t psychoanalytic a n d Marxist critiques p r e s u p p o s e that texts e m b o d y psychological or ideological forces t h a t can be e x p l a i n e d o n l y by theoretical constructs that are n o t fully available to the a u t h o r s o f the texts. All theoretical systems are necessarily reductive. As E.O. W i l s o n maintains, "The h e a r t o f the scientific m e t h o d is the r e d u c t i o n o f perceived p h e n o m e n a to f u n d a m e n t a l , testable principles. "2~ R e d u c t i o n can be true o r false, a n d false r e d u c t i o n inevitably turns criticism into a p r o c r u s t e a n b e d - - i m p o s i n g alien concepts in a way that distorts the s t r u c t u r e o f d e t e r m i n a t e m e a n i n g built into any given text. C o m p l a i n t s o f this sort are c o m m o n a n d o f t e n wellf o u n d e d in respect to the work o f the various critical schools, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, H e i d e g g e r i a n p h e n o m e n o l o g y , a n d d e c o n s t r u c t i o n . I w o u l d argue that the essential p r o b l e m in such schools o f criticism is n o t the use o f systematic critical t e r m i n o l o g y b u t r a t h e r the defective c h a r a c t e r o f the systems at work. Insofar as any o f these systems i m p o s e s an u n n e c e s s a r i l y restrictive or distorting c o n c e p t i o n o f the basic forces in the world, o f h u m a n motives, o f the relation b e t w e e n the world a n d the m i n d , o r o f the n a t u r e o f language, that theoretical system will also necessarily i m p o s e false constructions o n the structure o f m e a n i n g in any given text. I f the p a r a d i g m I a m p r o p o s i n g were to prove m o r e responsive than o t h e r s to the s t r u c t u r e o f meaning within literary texts, it could do so only because its f o u n d a t i o n a l principles answer m o r e adequately to the natural o r d e r within which, as the p a r a d i g m itself supposes, all texts are c o n t a i n e d .

Notes
1. For papers presented at the conference that take a pluralistic stance, see Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., "Peter Novick and the 'Objectivity Question' in History," Academic Questions (Summer 1995): 17-27; and Allan Megili, "Relativism, or the Different Senses of Objectivity," Academic Questions (Summer 1905): 33-39. 2. For other declarations that evolutionary study must become the matrix for a unified field of objective knowledge in the human sciences, see Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 204;John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, vol. 1, Attachment, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 174; and Derek Freeman, "Paradigms in Collision," Academic Questions (Summer 1002): 32. Since Wilson gave a talk at the 1004 NAS conference, the conference itself gave evidence of the underlying tension between the more traditional, pluralistic form of intellectual conservatism and the newer drive toward achieving unified knowledge by integrating the social sciences and the humanities with biology. 3. Meyer H. Abrams, Doing Things with Texts: Essays in Criticism and Critical Theory, ed. Michael Fischer (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), 67. 4. Annette Kolodny, "Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism," in Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, ed. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 110. Also see Wayne Booth, Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979); Robert Alter, The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 206-218; and Daniel R. Schwarz, The Case for a Humanistic Poetics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), 23-64. A linguisticized plural-

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ism appears in Richard Rorty's contention that the diverse views of language propounded by Nietzsche, Dewey, Heidegger, and Derrida are each of them "only one more useful truth about language" (Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Essays on Heidegger and Others [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 4). John Stuart Mill provides the classic exemplar for the theory that most theories are true in what they affirm and false only in what they deny, Mill on Bentham and Coleridge, ed. F.R. Leavis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 105, and 64-65, 101-09; and Autobiography, ed.Jack Stillinger (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 97-100. Melvin Konner, though adopting a predominantly biological perspective, propounds a view similar to that of Mill (The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit [New York: Henry Holt, 1982], xv). Another instance of pluralism with a scientific coloring can be found in Frederick Turner, Natural Classicism: F~says on Literature and Science (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1992), xiii. For a critique of pluralism that associates it with deconstrucdve indeterminacy, see John Ellis, Against Deconstruction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 154-57. 5. For a discussion of the hierarchical relations among these disciplines, see E.O. Wilson, On Human Nature, 7-10. Also see Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 289-301. For a discussion of the interaction among three distinct levels of research into the biological foundations of personality-evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and psychophysiology-see David Buss, "Toward a Biologically Informed Psychology of Personality,"Journal of Personality 58 (1990): 1-16. Buss's essay serves as the introduction to the whole journal issue devoted to this topic. 6. J. Hillis Miller, "Optic and Semiotic in 'Middlemarch,'" in George Eliot, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 1986), 109. 7. Michel Foucauh, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," trans. Alan D. Shrift, in Transforming the Hermeneutic Context: From Nietzsche to Nancy, ed. Gayle L. Ormiston and Alan D. Schrift (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 64. 8. FredricJameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991), 218. 9. Foucault, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," 64. I0. Using the term "postmodernism," John R. Searle describes the same doctrinal movement I am describing, and he registers the correlation between its political and philosophical aspects. He observes that along with their "explicitly leftist political agenda" postmodernists challenge "the very conceptions of rationality, truth, objectivity, and reality." See Searle, "Rationality and Realism: What Is at Stake?" Daedalus (Fall 1993): 56, 55. Also see James Q. Wilson, "The Drama of the College Wars," Academic Questions (Fall 1993): 16-18. Richard Levin makes arguments similar to those of Searle and Wilson and applies them more particularly to literary studies ("The New Interdisciplinarity in Literary Criticism," in After Poststructuralism: Interdisciplinarity and Literary Thetrty, ed. Nancy Easterlin and Barbara Riebling [Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1993]). 11. Paul A. Cantor, "Stephen Greenblatt's New Historicist Vision," Academic Questions (Fall 1993): 33-34. Describing a statement by Geoffrey ttartman, Roger Kimball offers a formula similar to the one I present here. Hartman, he says, offers a blending of "the highly questionable with the portentously trite" (Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education [New York: HarperPerennial, 1991], 110). 12. Foucault, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," 64. 13. Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 9, 251. 14. Foucauh, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," 64, 65. 15. Samuel Johnson, "An Account of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers," in Prose and Poetry, ed. Mona Wilson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 52. 16. Josu6 v. Harari, "Critical Factions/'Critical Fictions," in Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism, ed. Josu6 v. Harari (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979), 70.

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17. Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975), vii, viii. Gerald Graffobserves that "where quantitative 'production' of scholarship and criticism is a chief measure of professional achievement, narrow canons of proof, evidence, logical consistency, and clarity of expression have to go" (Literature Against Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern Society [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979], 97). 18. Ellen Rooney, Seductive Reasoning: Pluralism as the Problematic of Contemporary Literary Theory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). 19. Richard J. Dunn, preface to Wuthering Heights: An Authoritative Text, Selected Poems, with Easays in Criticism, by Emily Bront~, ed. William M. Sale, Jr. and RichardJ. Dunn, 3rd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), viii. 20. James J. Bono, "Science, Discourse, and Literature: The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science," in Literature and Science: Theory and Practice, ed. Stuart Peterfreund (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), 66. 21. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, "The Psychological Foundations of Culture," in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, ed. Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 65. 22. E.O. Wilson, On Human Nature, 11.

From an internet a n n o u n c e m e n t for a 25 J u n e 1996 s e m i n a r in Theory and Culture at Pennsylvania State University.
Purpose: How do social codes work to shape the identities o f subjects? How can subjects make r o o m to redefine themselves, individually and collectively? These have been persistent questions in a wide range of contemporary theoretical d i s c o u r s e s - f r o m activism, feminism, pedagogy and performance studies to philosophy, post colonial studies, q u e e r t h e o r y , a n d r h e t o r i c . At t h e . . . S e m i n a r . . . participants will explore the myriad o f ways that performativity allows embodied subjects and social groups to rearticulate their identities in relation to regulatory social norms.