SOURCE: "Is Einstein's Work Relevant to the Study of Literature?" in After Einstein: Proceedings of the Einstein Centennial Celebration at Memphis State University, 14-16 March 1979, edited by Peter Barker and Cecil G. Shugart, Memphis State University Press, 1981, pp. 203-11.

[In the following essay, which was originally presented at the Einstein Centennial Celebration at Memphis State University in 1979, Creed contends that Einstein's theories may be successfully applied to the study of literature; however, Creed stresses that Einstein's belief in the fundamental value of experience in understanding and interpreting reality runs counter to much literary theory that emphasizes the importance of knowing reality only through abstract constructs such as language.]

I am going to give a positive answer to the question my title poses: Einstein's work is relevant to the study of literature. But before I do, I must make some negative remarks.

First, Einstein had very little to say directly about literature. I know of only a few scattered comments in his letters, and these comments are rather ordinary. He was certainly not hostile to literature—in fact, he had a deep respect for writers as different as Dostoyevsky and George Bernard Shaw; but I find his remarks on literature of minor interest.

Second, although I am convinced that Einstein's physics can be relevant to literature, I find that most writers and critics have trivialized his theories in translating them into literature and criticism. The list of such trivializations is long, and most are based on the mistaken notion that the theories imply some sort of philosophical relativism. Almost no one has taken the trouble to become familiar with the theories themselves, either through Einstein's papers or other respectable expositions of them. Most have gone instead to sensational accounts like Sir James Jeans's Physics and Philosophy—as, for instance, Lawrence Durrell did when he took the form and philosophy for his novel-series, The Alexandria Quartet, from special relativity and the spacetime continuum. Critical applications of Einstein's theories have usually been no more sophisticated. Again just one example, from a critic who writes that in Thomas Mann's novel, The Magic Mountain, "Hans Castorp's stay in the TB sanatorium begins near the peak of the metaphoric space-time mountain. Space and time … set in densely. Castorp relishes time, on his arrival, minute by minute, space inch by inch; space-time, inch-minute by inch-minute."

My concern today, however, is not with the application of Einstein's physical theories to the study of literature, but with the relevance of his philosophy, particularly his philosophy of science. And this brings me to my third negative remark, which is that Einstein's work is not relevant to literature as long as many of the epistemological and ontological assumptions prominent in criticism today— most of them connected in some way with contemporary science or its philosophy—are taken as final.

The first of these assumptions is that language is not merely a means of expression, used to give form to preexisting ideas, but the fundamental determinant of these ideas. Nietzsche wrote a century ago, "We have to cease to think if we refuse to do it in the prison-house of language"; and half a century ago Heidegger said, "Language speaks. Man speaks only insofar as he skillfully complies with language." Now, anyone who has struggled with language, particularly in attempting to express complex or subtle ideas, recognizes a measure of truth in these statements, though he may not want to go as far as they go. But others have gone farther, particularly twentieth-century linguists influential among literary critics. Edward Sapir, after extensive work with American Indian languages, came to the belief that our language

powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone … but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that… language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.

Thus the world we know—the only world we can know—is a world determined by our language; and this is true regardless of which language (or languages) we know.

Sapir made his statement in 1926. Much more recently, Roland Barthes, preeminent among French critics of the "structuralist" school, insisted even more strongly on the primacy of language, in an article titled "Science versus Literature." Barthes's aim was to attack the belief, fostered by science, that "language is simply an instrument" which can be "transparent and neutral" and which "is subordinate to the matter of science." "Every utterance," Barthes continued, "implies its own subject," and thus "objectivity is as imaginary as anything else." By its very nature, to the "science" of "writing" (structuralism in one of its several manifestations) belongs the task of "smash[ing] the theological idol set up by a paternalistic science," for "Only writing can oppose the self-assurance of the scientist" and point out to him the "sovereignty of language." Barthes directed his remarks against the scientist because he knew that every right-thinking literary critic is already well aware of language's "sovereignty."

I think it is worth stressing that Barthes is not arguing the difficulty of attaining objectivity but its impossibility. For him, the distinction Frege made in his Grundlage between the origin of an idea and its proof does not hold, since both are subtly controlled by psychological and social factors, the latter embedded in language itself. The British critic, Frank Kermode, made this same point in another context. Writing about "fictions"—those we live by as well as those we find in our imaginative literature, Kermode paused long enough to sweep the concepts and laws of physics in with fictions; with, that is, those "mental structures" which are neither true nor false, subject neither "to proof [n]or disconfirmation," but only, like literary fictions, to "neglect" once they have outworn their usefulness. Kermode's justification for this (which comes, by way of Hannah Arendt, from Heisenberg and Bohr) is that the answers to the questions the physicist puts to nature are "purely human." All knowledge is, ultimately, self-knowledge.

The second assumption is that we have no valid criterion for determining what constitutes a poem or, by extension, any work of literature. A work becomes a poem when we decide to read and interpret it as such; otherwise it exists as a piece of prose, perhaps not even as a work of literature at all. To show how plausible this idea is, Jonathan Culler, an astute apologist and critic of structuralism, takes a short item from a French newspaper, prints it as a poem, and then shows how it can be read as a poem. Later he takes a short poem by William Carlos Williams and prints it as prose, and it reads like prose. If this view of the nature of poetry seems strange beyond belief, then think about Heisenberg's remarks on the path of the electron, which he says comes into existence only when measured and, by virtue of the limitations of measurement at the subatomic level, exists as a set of points and not as a continuous curve. The path has no existence as such until one measures it. So, neither a poem nor the path of a subatomic particle exists in and of itself, but only insofar as we decide to consider it as such. The poem and the path have no intrinsic reality. In criticism this idea leads to anarchy, to the principle that a well-turned argument is a valid argument; in physics it leads (along with other aspects of the Copenhagen interpretation) to controversies which have made quantum mechanics seem at times more like a branch of philosophy than an exact science.

The third assumption is the logical consequence of the first two. In the preface to his study of structuralism and Russian formalism, the American critic Fredric Jameson wrote "The history of thought is the history of its models." Jameson cited a number of models, including classical mechanics and the electromagnetic field, then charted the "lifetime" of a model, which "knows a fairly predictable rhythm":

Initially, the new concept releases quantities of new energies, permits hosts of new perceptions and discoveries, causes a whole dimension of new problems to come into view, which result in turn in a volume of new work and research. Throughout this initial stage the model itself remains stable, for the most part serving as a medium through which a new view of the universe may be obtained and catalogued.

In the declining years of the model's history, a proportionately greater amount of time has to be spent in readjusting the model itself, in bringing it back into line with its object of study. Now research tends to become theoretical rather than practical, and to turn back upon its own presuppositions (the structure of the model itself), finding itself vexed by the false problems and dilemmas into which the inadequacy of the model seems increasingly to lead it.

At length the model is exchanged for a new one.

If we substitute the term "paradigm" wherever Jameson uses "model," we get a description similar to Kuhn's view of science as moving from one set of concepts, theories, and so on to another set, without necessarily moving any closer to the truth about nature. Jameson cites The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, though not here and only in passing. But it is hardly coincidental that his model of the history of criticism looks so much like Kuhn's model of the history of science. Moreover, I think it would not be wrong to say that the two views have more in common than Jameson's description of "models" suggests. I refer specifically to Kuhn's sociologism, his assertion that "there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community" for determining which "paradigm"—or even, he implies, any problem solution—is to be considered correct.

Where does Einstein fit into this picture? Chiefly, I think, in opposition to these widespread and rather pessimistic beliefs about knowledge and reality. He believed in a real external world which one could, through daring hypotheses and patient, disciplined effort, come ever closer to knowing—not as a reflection of oneself, one's community, or even one's language, but as it really is. (I note in passing that Einstein committed the Nietzschean heresy, believing that he did not think within the "prison-house of language," but rather in signs and images.) And he had very good reasons for his belief; reasons which are ignored by many scientists and philosophers of science and by virtually all students of literature. This is a pity, because his belief could stand as a corrective to many of the excesses practiced (sometimes even in his name) in both philosophy and criticism these days.

I cannot explain or justify Einstein's belief in any detail today, but I can point to some of its important aspects and try to suggest why I find them compelling.

In his youth, Einstein became intensely religious for a while, then rejected religion as he began to read popular scientific books and to question the authority of the Bible and, with it, every kind of authority, most notably that of the state and the rigidly disciplined school system he was raised in. Looking back later at his brief spell as a believer, however, he saw it as "a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the 'merely personal,' from an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes and primitive feelings." Soon after this, he realized that physics offered him a much finer opportunity to devote himself to something outside himself. "Out yonder," he wrote in one of the most striking passages of his autobiography,

Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation … [and understanding it] swam as highest aim half consciously and half unconsciously before my mind's eye.

[Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist]

The "religious paradise" Einstein gave up was that of conventional religion. He never again espoused a sectarian faith; but he did come to believe in what he called "cosmic religion." This religion "knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image"; it moves beyond anthropomorphism to a view of God as nothing more—nor less—than the "sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought." The Greeks were the first to catch a glimpse of this sublimity, and thereafter it became one of the inspiriting forces of scientific advancement. It led, after centuries, to what we now call the scientific method, and it leads as well—as Einstein's relentless fight for peace and constant concern for others amply demonstrate for one life—to release from the "prison" of "individual existence," and it allows one to "experience the universe as a single significant whole."

The study of physics, as Einstein conceived of it, and the glimpse of the "marvelous order" to which it led him seem very much like the way the study of literature was often thought of until a few decades ago. In fact, Einstein sounds a little like Matthew Arnold when he says of his "cosmic religion" that "it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive." Much contemporary criticism, on the contrary, focuses on the work in relation to the self, glorifying individual and idiosyncratic responses rather than encouraging a view of the work and the self in relation to the world. Resting on premises akin to the linguist-structuralist concept of language in much the same way that subjectivism in physics arises from apparently objective positivist premises, it invites the reader to believe that he can know the work only as a reflection of himself.

The larger view is not easily won, as Einstein well knew from his struggles to grasp nature's secrets. But that it could be won was a conviction he held to throughout his career. Look at his world-view from another perspective. In his Herbert Spencer lecture of 1933, Einstein posed and answered a crucial question:

If… it is true that the axiomatic basis of theoretical physics cannot be extracted from experience but must be freely invented, can we ever hope to find the right way? Nay, more, has this right way any existence outside our illusions? Can we hope to be guided safely by experience at all when there exist theories (such as classical mechanics) which to a large extent do justice to experience without getting to the root of the matter?

["On the Method of Theoretical Physics"]

Einstein's answer was unequivocal: "there is, in my opinion, a right way, and … we are capable of finding it." This answer may seem strange, coming from the very man who proved to nearly everyone's satisfaction that classical mechanics, long felt to be the one true description of the physical universe, does not get "to the root of the matter." Yet the answer is perfectly in keeping with his epistemology, which combines empiricism and rationalism, taking the best aspects of each and rejecting what is problematic.

Knowledge of the physical world is not to be sought directly, through induction, but indirectly, by way of imaginative guesses—bold theories or hypotheses guided by mathematical principles. Induction from experience will not yield the secrets of nature; first, because physics has advanced beyond the explanation of surface phenomena to the abstract laws which lie beneath them; second, because unbiased observation is not possible. "[K]nowledge cannot spring from experience alone," Einstein said, "but only from the comparison of the inventions of the intellect with observed fact."

But if induction from experience will not lead us to the general laws governing the universe, experience is nevertheless "the supreme arbiter." In fact, as Einstein said elsewhere, "all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it," so that "experience is the alpha and the omega of all our knowledge of reality." The physicist, prompted to explain the phenomena of his everyday world, finds the ultimate test of his explanations in this same world. Thus every theory, though conceived by an imaginative act, must be constructed so as to yield, through rigorous logical deduction, empirical consequences which can be tested by anyone with the proper training and instruments. In this way Einstein combines rationalism (setting up the theory) with empiricism (testing the theory). His method demands numerous guesses and also demands that the many wrong guesses we are bound to make be dismissed. Man proposes, but nature disposes—ruthlessly. And what nature fails to dispose of, other scientists try their best to finish off.

Here, too, we have in barest outline a model for criticism. First, it suggests that we give up the notion that a poem is a poem only when we consider it as such, and that instead we attribute to it enough self-identity to keep it from dissolving into prose when we stop thinking about it. Second, the model suggests that rather than regard our interpretations as "fictions," as Kermode and others, especially the structuralists, would have us do, we take them as either true or false. More specifically, it suggests that we should make bold hypotheses, guided by formal criteria, and that we accept the fact that most of our hypotheses will be refuted by a closer reading of the text, or fail to stand up to further critical scrutiny. The model also calls for formal criteria to play a role analogous to the role mathematics and logic play in the natural sciences. I have only the vaguest notion of what these criteria might be—a few critics have begun, I think, to formulate some that may well be valid; but I am convinced that they must not perpetuate the sociologism Kuhn argues for in the sciences and which now operates pervasively and perniciously in literary criticism.

But no criterion can be accepted a priori. Einstein rejected the Kantian category of the "synthetic a priori," both explicitly, in some of his essays, and implicitly, by destroying the concepts of absolute space and time and in replacing Euclidean with Riemannian geometry as the geometry of the real world. This suggests that whatever criteria are adopted, they must be submitted to constant reappraisal in light of experience. It also suggests that no "language" has an absolute hold on us; and here I am thinking not only of spoken and written languages but of the language of mathematics. No one nowadays shares Descartes's faith in mathematics as the sole key to the physical universe, as the language in which the Book of Nature is written. Today mathematics is widely believed to be a human invention, which grows and changes in interaction with experience. So, too, with natural languages. That these languages partially constrain and determine our view of the world and what we can say about it is, as I said earlier, true. But that they do not absolutely determine our worldview is, I think, almost self-evident—though not to many contemporary students of literature.

Einstein knew this in another context. He was well aware that "everyday thinking" is a complex affair. In his essay on "Physics and Reality," he argued that the physicist, in analyzing what he does and its implications, must not restrict himself "to the examination of the concepts of his own specific field," that he cannot even get started "without considering critically a much more difficult problem, the problem of analyzing the nature of everyday thinking." Thus Einstein moved the analysis of the scientific method back to the thinking process, to the common ground from which all views of the world originate. He suggested that we do not simply observe the world, since that would result in a chaos of sense impressions. Instead, we form concepts, and from them build up our picture of the world:

Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take … certain repeatedly occurring complexes of sense impressions … and we correlate to them a concept—the concept of the bodily object. Considered logically this concept is not identical with the totality of sense impressions referred to; but it is a free creation of the human … mind.

This much corresponds to what linguists like Sapir and structuralists like Barthes say about language. But whereas they ignore the feedback process, the impact of our experience on our ideas about the world, Einstein recognizes its essential role. Concepts and their interrelationships, formed as "free mental creations," are continually compared with experience, and they are justified "only in so far as they are connected with sense impressions between which they form a mental connection."

During his lifetime, Einstein dared to challenge some of the most venerated laws of physics and principles of mathematics. Now, a hundred years after his birth, we can find in his philosophy a challenge to some of the most fashionable epistemological and ontological principles of literary criticism, as well as suggestions for formulating better principles to take their place.