Borges, the Apologist for Idealism

Borges, the Apologist for Idealism

ABSTRACT: In Nueva refutación del tiempo, Borges explicitly interprets both Berkeley and Hume as genuine exponents and "apologists" of idealism. We may not owe Berkeley the discovery of a doctrine which according to Borges is practically as "ancient" and "popular" as metaphysics itself. However, his arguments connote a unique philosophical achievement. Borges himself adheres to these arguments and goes beyond them. He makes Berkeley's doctrine flow into Hume's which in turn flows into the uniform ocean of pantheistic idealism as envisioned by Schopenhauer and by Oriental philosophy. A close reading of the story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" shows how the epistemology inherent in the language descriptions of this planet leads its metaphysicians to move from the underlying Berkeleian-Humean principles to the acceptance of pantheistic idealism. This story is not only a subtle, imaginative fantasy; it is also a work of intellectual elegance reading deep into the problem of knowledge of the external world. Berkeley and Hume devoted their whole attention to this issue and developed views that could adequately address the problem. Borges avoids arguing whether their doctrine falls under the denomination of "immaterialism," "phenomenalism" or "idealism." He seems either to deliberately ignore this scholarly dispute or to go beyond it in an effort to let the texts speak for themselves. Thus, Berkeley's Principles, and Hume's Treatise and first Enquiry show a common fact: the world is mind-dependent.

Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi, St. Augustine, De vera religione, XXXIX, 72.

The first person narrative voice in "El Zahir," one of the stories included in El Aleph, states that according to the idealist doctrine the verbs "vivir" y "soñar" son rigurosamente sinónimos ("living and dreaming are rigorously synonymous," OC I 595). Borges portrays himself as a fictional character — a common narrative device used in many of his stories — and talks with a voice that seems to echo other voices. The attentive listener will detect many. Only a few, such as Schopenhauer, Hume, and Berkeley, have a distinctive recurrence in Borges' writings, but they also echo other voices in this our infinite "Library of Babel."

In volume II of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung we read that the world must be recognized as "akin to a dream," a mental creation (vol II, 4).For Schopenhauer, no truth is more certain than this: everything that exists for knowledge is only object in relation to the subject, perception of the perceiver, or "representation" (vol.