Kant and the Platypus Book

Describing Umberto Eco as a writer is like describing the platypus as an animal. What do readers expect when they see the name "Umberto Eco" on a book jacket? A tricky question to answer given Eco's range and versatility: He has written books on semiotics (the study of signs), children's books, studies of the Middle Ages, books of essays on contemporary culture and, of course, novels--notably The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before. So first a word of warning. Anyone familiar with Eco the novelist or essayist might well be dismayed by Kant and the Platypus, for this new book returns to his preoccupations of the 60s and 70s, to semiotics, the philosophy of language and cognitive semantics, and as such is initially daunting. The initial chapter, for example, discusses various philosophical concepts of "being". Secondly a word of encouragement. This is a wonderful engagement with issues of language, more than worth the effort, because Eco always returns to the perspective of "common sense", to the use of stories as a means of explicating even the most complex arguments.(i) Marco Polo, on coming across a rhinoceros for the first time, described the animal as a type of unicorn (thereby describing something real in terms of something legendary).(ii) People who encountered the platypus in the 18th century had great difficulty in deciding exactly what kind of an animal it was (It could have been classified as a reptile, a bird or a mammal).(iii) Given a dictionary or encyclopaedia definition of a mouse, how easy would it be to identify one if we had never seen one before? These are some of the examples that Eco uses to explore the ways in which we see and describe the world, the ways in which cultures develop definitions and taxonomies. So, if you want to know "the reasons why we can tell an elephant from an armadillo" or why mirrors do not in fact reverse images, this book will tell you. In fact, it will also tell you why you know what I am talking about when I say "this book". Got it? No? Then get it. --Burhan TufailRead More