Fuzzy Fiction

Fuzzy Fiction examines the phenomenon of fuzziness, both figurative and structural, in the contemporary French novel. Fuzziness, as originally conceived by Bertrand Russell a century ago, eventually led to the fuzzy set theory of mathematics, on which Jean-Louis Hippolyte bases his theory of literary criticism. In literature the use of fuzziness as a critical lens reveals how semantic ambiguity translates into ontological uncertainty, and why we should look past singularity and toward...
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Fuzzy Fiction examines the phenomenon of fuzziness, both figurative and structural, in the contemporary French novel. Fuzziness, as originally conceived by Bertrand Russell a century ago, eventually led to the fuzzy set theory of mathematics, on which Jean-Louis Hippolyte bases his theory of literary criticism. In literature the use of fuzziness as a critical lens reveals how semantic ambiguity translates into ontological uncertainty, and why we should look past singularity and toward multiplicity. The paradoxical coincidence of order and disorder, the seemingly infinite exploration of narrative options, and the principle of undifferentiated identity all contribute to a general poetics of vagueness. It is this capital notion of vagueness that Hippolyte identifies as integral to contemporary French fiction and contemporary literature in general."