From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation Author: Umberto Eco | Language: English | ISBN:
0674049187 | Format: PDF
From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation Description
The way we create and organize knowledge is the theme of From the Tree to the Labyrinth, a major achievement by one of the world's foremost thinkers on language and interpretation. Umberto Eco begins by arguing that our familiar system of classification by genus and species derives from the Neo-Platonist idea of a "tree of knowledge." He then moves to the idea of the dictionary, which--like a tree whose trunk anchors a great hierarchy of branching categories--orders knowledge into a matrix of definitions. In Eco's view, though, the dictionary is too rigid: it turns knowledge into a closed system. A more flexible organizational scheme is the encyclopedia, which--instead of resembling a tree with finite branches--offers a labyrinth of never-ending pathways. Presenting knowledge as a network of interlinked relationships, the encyclopedia sacrifices humankind's dream of possessing absolute knowledge, but in compensation we gain the freedom to pursue an infinity of new connections and meanings.
Moving effortlessly from analyses of Aristotle and James Joyce to the philosophical difficulties of telling dogs from cats, Eco demonstrates time and again his inimitable ability to bridge ancient, medieval, and modern modes of thought. From the Tree to the Labyrinth is a brilliant illustration of Eco's longstanding argument that problems of interpretation can be solved only in historical context.
- Hardcover: 640 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press; First Edition edition (February 17, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0674049187
- ISBN-13: 978-0674049185
- Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This book is entirely too academic for my taste. Mind you, I'm no slouch when it comes to wading through academic muck. I've journeyed through lengthy tomes on Desiderius Erasmus, slogged through fairly dense stuff on linguistics, struggled with the material in the IPCC WG1 reports, and trekked on a lengthy investigation of the development of rationalism. But this time, I definitely bit off more than I could chew.
This is a solidly academic work for a solidly academic audience. If you kinda sort like semiotics, don't buy this book -- it's just too heavy a tome. To appreciate this book, you have to be in love with semiotics. You have to bring a lot of semiotics background to this book. And you also have to have expansive short-term memory to make sense of the grand sagas that comprise a single sentence:
"Bacon's Novum Organum (1620) contains an appendix entitled "Parasceve ad historiam naturalem et experimentalem" ("Introduction to Natural and Experimental History") in which, after clarifying that we must steer clear of appealing to the authority of the ancients so as to avoid taking on apocryphal information, he draws up an ideal index which includes, in a reasonably logical order, celestial bodies, atmospheric phenomena, the earth, the four elements, natural species (mineral, vegetable, and animal), man, diseases, medicine, the arts, including the culinary arts, equitation, and games."
Eco is, at least, charitable enough to provide us with translations of the lengthy Latin quotes he presents. Apparently he expects his readers to be good enough in Latin as to wish to carry out their own, more precise translations.
You must also be thoroughly acquainted with intellectual history in order to appreciate the many subtleties.
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