Umberto Eco and Philosophy
Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 4:03 am
Name of the Rose wikipedia page provides some good points of introduction.
Yes, the best books are those that are informed by a deep humane vision, but which present this vision as an accessible parable in simple language, so that the general reader can like the book as a dramatic narrative while being opened to explore some of the philosophical background.MaryLupin wrote:I really enjoy the way Eco weaves his philosophic/semiotic understanding with the threads of the story. By doing that he makes this history you mention a thing with breath. By examining books like this much "education" is happening at the same time. In some ways this book is a bit like Sophie's World except The Name of the Rose is more difficult (meant for those willing to work harder at the acquisition of meaning.)Robert Tulip wrote:I really like Eco's semiotic references to scholastic philosophy. The debate on realism (now known as idealism) and nominalism (now known as empiricism) between Duns Scotus and William of Ockham is at the foundation of the rise of modern science, with roots going back to Plato's Sophist.
Your view is how I initially interpreted Plato too. Reading books such as Genevieve Lloyd's The Man of Reason, and some of my mother's feminist theology, led me to equate Plato and Paul as originators of the western alienation between body and spirit. However, then actually reading Plato made me change my view. For example, Plato's four cardinal virtuesI have to say I have never liked Plato. I have a visceral reaction to him and his views of the nature of matter and reality.Robert Tulip wrote:Just for fun, here are my views on Plato:Plato compares the effort to make sense of the world to a battle between giants and Gods, in which the difficulties of philosophy are discussed in terms of the quarrel between materialism and idealism. The giants "define reality as the same thing as body, and as soon as one of the opposite party asserts that anything without a body is real, they are utterly contemptuous and will not listen to another word", while on the other side the Gods "are very wary in defending their position somewhere in the heights of the unseen, maintaining with all their force that true reality consists in certain intelligible and bodiless Ideas" (246b)