Literature, science and the Absolute: Julia Kristeva and Gaston Bachelard

The focus of this dissertation is to examine the status of the modern Absolute in light of two paradigms that have traditionally addressed it; science and literature, I have selected Julia Kristeva and Gaston Bachelard as harbingers of an Absolute which is neither scientific in nature nor exclusively artistic. Each recognizes the demise of the metaphysical concept of the Absolute, yet struggles with a need to replace it with a category that satisfies the perennial quest for meaning.;I begin by situating the discourse of Kristeva and Bachelard against the backdrop of contemporary findings in information theory, biology, and cosmology, in particular those of Prigogine, Stengers and Varela. I then address each of the thinkers individually, Kristeva, as a semiotician and psychoanalyst, and Bachelard, as philosopher of science and literary theorist. I maintain that, while Kristeva begins as a literary critic, she ultimately converts to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis, for Kristeva, is a science of the self which enlists both reason and imagination to construct a 'story' of absolute meaning that is at once immanent and transcendent. Bachelard resists any strict alliance with the rational or the aesthetic. A scientific relativist, he proposes a radical theory of "approximate knowledge;" at the same time he endorses the super-rational state of "cogito 4" as a meta-theoretical absolute. Later Bachelard sets forth his theory of the four elements---literary archetypes of the imagination that reveal an ontology of the imagination. Toward the end of his life, he revels in the quasi-mystical reflection of a candle flame, all the while reminiscing about the intellectual rigour of science. I argue that Bachelard's lack of commitment is in effect a commitment to relinquish a monolithic Absolute.;I conclude with an analysis of cosmology's consideration of absolute knowledge. Physicists such as Steven Weinberg draw a portrait of the Absolute that is as elusive as those of Bachelard and Kristeva---one which defies categorization, yet compels scientific thought to reconsider classical notions of Truth, Beauty, and Meaning.