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From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation Hardcover – Illustrated, February 24, 2014

by Umberto Eco (Author), Anthony Oldcorn (Translator)

4.8 13 ratings

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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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Lush, comprehensive scholarship.”―Kirkus Reviews

“From the Tree to the Labyrinth is a sort of summa of one of our most important thinkers on matters of language, signification, and interpretation. It illuminates all of Umberto Eco’s earlier work by providing a great deal of the historical contextualization for his arguments. It provides important and fruitful ways of thinking about the organization of knowledge and of our attitudes towards it. It intervenes in a number of debates in the philosophy of language and in linguistics. It contains a myriad of insights on medieval thinkers, Kant, and Peirce, to mention but a few. This is a book that will enjoy a wide readership.”―Wlad Godzich, University of California, Santa Cruz

About the Author

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) was an internationally acclaimed writer, philosopher, medievalist, and professor, and the author of the best-selling novels Foucault’s Pendulum, The Name of the Rose, and The Prague Cemetery, as well as children’s books. His numerous nonfiction books include Confessions of a Young Novelist, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, and The Open Work (all from Harvard). He was a recipient of the Premio Strega, Italy’s highest literary prize; the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities; and a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur from the government of France.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; Illustrated edition (February 24, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 640 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674049187
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674049185
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.48 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.44 x 1.73 x 9.51 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,328,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,015 in Philosophy of Logic & Language
- #7,927 in Essays (Books)
- #10,186 in Literary Criticism & Theory

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4.8 13 ratings

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Umberto Eco

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Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932) is an Italian novelist, medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, and literary critic.

He is the author of several bestselling novels, The Name of The Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of The Day Before, and Baudolino. His collections of essays include Five Moral Pieces, Kant and the Platypus, Serendipities, Travels In Hyperreality, and How To Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays.

He has also written academic texts and children's books.

Photography (c) Università Reggio Calabria

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4.8 out of 5

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History Book with an Eye to Wikipedia but DO LOOK INSIDE

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2014

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I have to admit that I'm a dyed in the wool Eco fan, and, as an Asbergers/ADHD/Autistic kid now looking up at 70, love rather than get bored by "infinities of lists" and their arcane details and connections. I wanted to first give you that context, so you don't waste money on the astonishing rigor in this text. I'm still Autistic, and although I can't look you in the eye, I can design you a rocking domain specific language with its own o/s, compiler and kernel.

Second, I have to congratulate Eco, Amazon and the publisher for their generous LOOK INSIDE feature for a 2014 book. I don't know if you've noticed (these are the types of details us autos see), but many of the look inside books are old, flailing, or past editions. DO look inside before you commit your hard earned funds, as you'll see the "core" of semiotic history that is attempted here, with an ending nod to Wiki links and mazes. Previous Eco books had a LOT of dry humor, and if you aren't a fan, you might miss his delight in strange groupings of taxonomies.

I'm not a big history person, but I do love endlessly following Wiki links, and am also an administrator there, so the whole idea of taxonomy past and future is exciting for my nerdy brain. The death toll for polymaths is the birth toll for autodidacts in this wonderful journey-- our humility in seeing there is no end to combinatorics and our astonishment that we can learn forever with banks of links upon links.

This is clearly not one of Umberto's "general public" offerings as you'll see when you use your Look Inside vision-- but as a programmer, I thoroughly enjoyed the academic and historic perspectives on trees vs. labyrinths -- very relevant to today's multiprocessor data structures as well as the ubiquity of trees from chess to domain specific languages and circuits/ kernels. Librarians, taxonomists, big data types, programmers and certainly linguists will likely all find a wealth of both history and projective trends here, not to mention a wealth of very current research references.

Finally, the price is not cheap, but considering the page count, thickness of content, amount of research, and solid recent, and relevant new material, it is beyond fair. If this were a niche Springer, it would be $300 US! This belongs on the shelf of every linguist, pro and amateur (like me), and certainly every taxonomy buff. If you like Eco in general, look inside first, but I'm guessing that with a little more work, you'll enjoy this, even though it is much tougher and tighter than his pop sci oriented titles, which I also enjoy.

23 people found this helpful

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Gary Moore

A CLASSIC OF 21ST CENTURY COMPUTER PHILOSOPHY!

Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2014

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This text gives a solid historical grounding to current computerise logi, explaining both its absolute necessity AND its tremendous shortcomings!

One person found this helpful

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Chris Crawford

Hated it, but it's my own fault

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2014

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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. At one point, Mr. Eco spells out for us the meaning of a statement "in a Spencerian way". You'd better brush up on the writings of Avicenna and Augustine, and if you haven't studied the works of Aristotle, you're doomed.

Here are a few other indications of the deeply academic nature of this work: the References section is 24 pages long. A portion of the index reads as follows:
De Leo, Petro
De l'esprit des choses
Deleuze, Gilles
Della Volpe, Galvano
De Lubac, Henri
De Magistro (Augustine)
Demaria, Christina
De Mauro, Tullio

Sure, you know all about these important authors, don't you? ;-)

I give the book four stars because it's not Eco's fault that I was dumb enough to purchase it based solely on the editorial reviews. I should have waited for reviews from others to appear here before spending $36 and many fruitless hours on it. I'm sure that, as a book on semiotics, it's excellent.

Here's the bottom line: if you love semiotics, if you keep books on semiotics on your bed stand, or if you're an academic working with semiotics, then by all means, read this book.

Otherwise, avoid it like the plague.

43 people found this helpful

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Roman

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

not light reading, but fascinating

2 people found this helpful

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Eugene Kupper

Review for a book not read - yet

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2016

I have not read this book. This review is in reply to the challenges offered by two or more of the above readers. Soon I will have this book in my hands and I am prepared for whatever comes my way. In 1968 I wrote a blurb - what today would pass today as a Facebook comment - or an Amazon review. The blurb was addressed to an article by Christopher Alexander, "The City is Not a Tree" [you see the connection?]. This article was in answer to his plea that so complex a phenomenon as a city could never be described by the mathematical diagram of strict hierarchy called a tree. Alexander had proposed that at least the diagram should be a "semi-lattice", i.e. a partially hierarchical, but mostly cross-connected network. A labyrinth. Or if one likes to be biological, a "rhizome". Now as for my blurb of 1968 : I proposed that the diagram be "more like FINNEGANS WAKE". Since Umberto began his career with a comparison between James Joyce and Medieval Theology ["The Aesthetics of Chaosmos" 1962] I figure that the hermeneutic circle will swing right by just in time. I'll keep you posted.

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