Abstract

All three thinkers (Jorge Luis Borges, Hannah Arendt, and José Ortega y Gasset) worry about the seemingly infinite increase in information and knowledge. This increase has outstripped the ability of humans to sort through all this information. They worry this may produce fragmentation, cacophony, and nihilism. I examine the thinking of each and attempt to establish the need to take more seriously the ethical problems of information production. I begin with Borges’ images of humanity lost in libraries and labyrinths. I then turn to Arendt’s discussion of the “onslaught of the new.” I finish with Ortega y Gasset’s discussion of the mission of the librarian. Taken together, these thinkers point to a set of key difficulties that arise with the exponential production of books and information which are currently rarely appreciated.