"This book aims to situate claims for the possibility and desirability of a science of criticism within the broader philosophical history, analyzing the motives behind the various rejections of, and strategic coalitions with, the sciences. Drawing on the work of thinkers such as Hilary Putnam, Stanley Fish, and Richard Rorty, this book evaluates the claims for a "disciplinary hierarchy," and examines the quarrel between the scientific realists and the cultural relativists about the nature of reality and our ability to comprehend this. Ultimately, this produces an account of disciplinary identity that dispenses with the hostilities between the two cultures, finally turning away from the academic debates, and toward those writers of fiction who have begun to engage in unexpected ways with the information science offers about our place in the world."--BOOK JACKET.