Poetic and mathematical axioms both proceed toward unrealizable totality

Evidence

Poetic thought, before or after the accident of the poern, or through it, attempts to set itself up in an axiomatic systern: to knit something up whose stitches won’t run. That creates the opportunity for an infinite sort of conjunction, in which science and poetry are equivalent. Here the axiom is a grounding fantasy, even if it is then perpetuated through conquests of ideas. This fantasy is privileged in not having to be either elucidated or resorbed; the psychoanalysis of knowledge is fixed on sornething else entirely. The poetic axiom, like the mathematical axiom, is illuminating because it is fragile and inescapable, obscure and revealing. In both instances the prospective system accepts the accident and grasps that in the future it will be transcended. Science transforms its languages; poetry invents its tongues. For neither is it a question of exploring, but one, rather, of going toward a totality that is unrealizable, without being required to say where they will corne together-nor even that they have any need to do so. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 462

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘poetic/mathematical axiom’ as an accepted grounding fantasy that is fragile yet inescapable — connects to Glissant’s detour since axioms are never resorbed into proofs.
• XREF: The notion that a grounding axiom can be held structurally but not literally believed bears directly on whether strategic essentialism can be sustained without residence — the axiom is ‘not required to be elucidated.’ — connects to: Totality thought as finality blocks the relational whole it purports to achieve. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 961; Philosophy’s highest concepts fail precisely through their claim to totality — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2540; Philosophic universals designate unrealized potentialities rather than existing states — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 753 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Philosophy’s highest concepts fail precisely through their claim to totality #corroborates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2540
• Philosophic universals designate unrealized potentialities rather than existing states #corroborates (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 753
• Identity is a contradictory, multi-discursive, non-closed totality #corroborates (0.72)