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Brian Boyd. ON THE ORIGIN OF STORIES: EVOLUTION, COGNITION, AND FICTION. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2009.
Creating a dialogue of some sort between "the sciences" and "the humanities" is not exactly a new project, but in recent years, it has once again become the talk of the (college) town. If reasons for this renewed concern are too numerous and heterogeneous to be listed exhaustively, I would nevertheless like to quote three main motivations: the durable success of a techno-scientific model of knowledge and intellectual organization, prompting some "humanists" to reform themselves; the considerable findings coming from the brain sciences and experimental psychology, allowing a precise description of "mental life" in much more positive terms; and, among scholars in literature, philosophy, or the social sciences, especially younger ones, a widely shared desire to bypass relativism or radical differentialism, the scientific element being perceived as possibly providing more assured "truths." The need for "dialogue" might be widespread, but it remains a relatively fuzzy, or plastic, entity. In fact, it is as vague as the ritual description of "the two cultures." But, as is the case with C. P. Snow's category,1 this half-baked slogan has some effective consequences-since approximate definitions or sheer misunderstandings are always apt to be operative nevertheless.
The present article is by no means an attempt to discourage scholars from thinking and elaborating beyond the usual divisions of knowledge. However, if we want to connect, say, some aspect of biology with a part of literary studies, we ought to refrain from accepting theoretical clichés such as "the two cultures," or the suddenly triumphant new era of "consilience." What follows is a reflection on the forces and limits of the disciplines, as well as a general theory of interdisciplinarity and polymathy.2 Furthermore, we must examine what both the sciences and the humanities could bring to the debate, without preemptively ensuring the success of one "camp" over the other. The facticity and the inner plurality of each "culture" have to be acknowledged, even by those who believe in Snow's simplifications. As for "the unity of knowledge" that Edward Wilson and others are promising to a growing crowd of adepts, let me just say that I have my doubts.3 After all, even the Enlightenment's encyclopedism was nothing more than...