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Shaped in the Image of Reason

The World According to Sherlock

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Gerhard van der Linde
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Extract

The detective fiction of the tradition initiated by Poe and Conan Doyle and continued by Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Rex Stout and others proposes the unquestioning acceptance of cognitive rationality as a virtually-infallible tool for problem solving and as an instrument of knowledge. In the Holmes narratives, linear reasoning, based on observation grounded in the assumption that phenomena can be “read” in terms of a direct correlation between visual detail and connotative or denotative meanings, is presented as the only true path towards knowledge and understanding. Thus, the narratives implicitly discard the critical and autonomous rationality proposed by Kant. Through their dogmatic insistence on a particular analytical method, they advocate a monist rationality which is repressive and alienated from the reader, in that s/he is not required to be a critical participant, but remains a passive admiring onlooker.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 44 , Issue 174 , January 1996 , pp. 155 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

Notes

1. See H. Spinner, "Vereinzeln, verbinden, begründen, widerlegen: Zur philosophischen Stellung von Begründungs- und Kritikoptionen im Rahmen einer Systematik der Erkenntnisstile und Typologie der Rationalitätsformen," in: Forum für Philosophie (ed.), Philosophie und Begründung, Frankfurt, 1987, pp. 29f.

2. See U. Eisenzweig, Le récit impossible: forme et sens du roman policier, Paris, 1986, p. 14; Th. Narcejo, Une machine à lire; le roman policier, Paris, 1975, p. 239.

3. I. Kant, "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?" in: idem, Schriften von 1783-1788, Berlin, 1922, pp. 167-76.

4. See J. Symons, Bloody Murder. From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel, Har mondsworth, 1985, pp. 93-97.

5. L. Sciascia, Cruciverba, Turin, 1983, pp. 216f.

6. Ibid.

7. A. Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four, London, 1974, p. 37.

8. See K.R. Popper, Objective Knowledge, Oxford, 1979, pp. 258-60.

9. A. Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, Harmondsworth, 1982, p. 33.

10. See G. Chaitin, "Randomness and Mathematical Proof," in: Scientific American, No. 232 (1975), p. 48.

11. See K.R. Popper, Objective Knowledge (note 8 above), p. 143.

12. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes. The Complete Short Stories, London, 1985, p. 891.

13. N.R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery. An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science, Cambridge, 1961, p. 71.

14. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (note 12 above), p. 703.

15. See H. Spinner, "Vereinzeln" (note 1 above), p. 29.

16. See J.-F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition. A Report on Knowledge, Manchester, 1987, p. 31.

17. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (note 12 above), p. 3.

18. Ibid.

19. Idem, The Sign of Four (note 7 above), p. 15.

20. Ibid., p. 26.

21. See E. Morin, "I linguaggi della complessità," in: G. Barbieri and P. Vidali (eds.), Le ragione possibile: per una geografia della cultura, Milan, 1988, p. 420.

22. H. Pagels, The Comic Code. Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature, London, 1983, pp. 143-45.

23. A. Gargani, "Introduction," in: Crisi della ragione, Turin, 1979, p. 19.

24. Ibid., pp. 19f.

25. Ibid., pp. 9f.

26. K.R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, Oxford, 1989, p. 229.

27. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (note 12 above), p. 38.

28. Ibid., pp. 45, 58, 253, 260, 345f., 422, 470, 602ff.; Idem, A Study in Scarlet (note 9 above), p. 38.

29. See idem, The Sign of Four (note 7 above), pp. 18-20; see also W. Hüllen, "Semi otics Narrated: Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose," in: Semiotica, Vol. 64, No. 1/2 (1987), p. 43.

30. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (note 12 above), p. 3.

31. Ibid., p. 36.

32. Ibid., p. 634.

33. Ibid., p. 24.

34. Ibid., p. 25

35. Ch. Perelman, The New Rhetoric. A Treatise on Argumentation, Notre Dame UP, 1971, p. 291.

36. Ibid., p. 292.

37. N. Harrowitz, "Il modello del detective: Charles S. Peirce e Edgar Allan Poe," in: U. Eco and Th. Sebeok (eds.), Il segno dei tre: Holmes, Dupin, Peirce, Milan, 1983, p. 220.

38. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (note 12 above), p. 25.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., p. 38.

41. See K.R. Popper, Objective Knowledge (note 8 above), p. 60.

42. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (note 12 above), p. 38.

43. Ibid., p. 394.

44. M. Truzzi, "Sherlock Holmes: psicologo sociale applicato," in: U. Eco and Th. Sebeok, Il segno (note 37 above), p. 76.

45. A. Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (note 12 above), p. 396

46. Ibid., p. 399.

47. Ibid., p. 413.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid., pp. 920f.

50. E. Morin, "I linguaggi" (note 21 above), p. 420.

51. Ibid.