Wonderment, rational perplexities and the limits of representation: Infinite and the Space to the ineffable in “El Aleph”, “El Libro de Arena” e “La Biblioteca de Babel” of J.L. Borges

Abstract

This essay, from a series of studies on the notion of space in J. L. Borges’ short-stories, investigates the possibility of actual Infinite in El Aleph, El Libro de Arena e La Biblioteca de Babel. Mathematical, philosophical and theological discourses are intertwined in cosmological conjectures founded on wonder and fashion at the limits of rationality. Human impulses for understanding are associated with constant intellectual fascination in cosmological, scientific, philosophical, cultural and religious discourses. Fascination and Perplexities, originated on human rationality, permeate sensibility, reasoning, memory and imagination through several enigmas springing from mental attempts of understanding reality. Space in Borges' stories are human intellectual inventions allowing the reconnaissance of wonder in the world. It provides ways of exploring abstraction in understanding, fallacies of thought, and the limits of human conceptions in this author’s narratives.