SOURCE: "Scientific Method and Rationality in Dürrenmatu" in German Life and Letters, Vol. 35, No. 1, October, 1981, pp. 64-72.

In the following essay, Wright shows how Dürrenmatt explores what is real by juxtaposing scientific method and speculation in his detective novels.

Dürrenmatt's work so often presents us with an incalcuable world thwarting man's attempts to shape it, that the world's rationality seems questioned and thus the whole scientific enterprise to understand it. Nowhere does this seem more evident than in the detective novels, where scientific procedures are apparently mocked. In lectures of recent years Dürrenmatt has dealt directly with such philosophical issues, comparing in particular the views of Spinoza and Einstein, and acknowledging the importance that the thought of Karl Popper has come to have for him. An analysis of the detective novels will show just how much of what he now makes explicit was contained...