Serendipities
Serendipities: Language and Lunacy (originally published in English, translated by William Weaver) is a 1998 collection of essays by Umberto Eco. Dealing with the history of linguistics and Early Modern concepts of a perfect language, the material in the book overlaps with La ricerca della lingua perfetta. As Eco explains it in his preface, serendipity is the positive outcome of some ill conceived idea. [1]
Chapters:
- The Force of Falsity
- Languages in Paradise
- From Marco Polo to Leibniz: Stories of Intellectual Misunderstandings
- The Language of the Austral Land
- The Linguistics of Joseph de Maistre
In Chapter 1, based on a 1994 lecture held at Bologna University, Eco introduces his thesis about consequences of erroneous beliefs. Chapter 2 contains essentially the same material as chapters 1 and 3 of La ricerca della lingua perfetta, while Chapter 3 is a reworking of its chapters 7 and 14(5). Chapters 4 and 5 have been published as essays in honor of Luigi Rosiello and deal with La Terre Australe connue by Gabriel de Foigny and Joseph de Maistre's views as exposed in his Soirees de Saint Petersbourg.
Editions
- Columbia University Press (1998) ISBN 0231111347.
- Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999
- Harvest Books (1999) ISBN 0156007517.
References
- ^ "I wanted to show how ... false beliefs and discoveries totally without credibility could then lead to the discovery of something true (or at least something we consider true today). In the field of the sciences, this mechanism is known as serendipity. An excellent example of it is given us by Columbus.." Eco U., Serendipities, Preface p. vii
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Novels |
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Non-fiction |
- The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas
- Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages
- The Open Work
- Misreadings
- Apocalypse Postponed
- The Middle Ages of James Joyce
- The Absent Structure
- Faith in Fakes: Travels in Hyperreality
- A Theory of Semiotics
- Il Superuomo di massa
- Dalla periferia dell'impero
- Lector in fabula
- The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts
- Sette anni di desiderio
- Postscript to The Name of the Rose
- Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language
- De Bibliotheca
- The Limits of Interpretation
- Interpretation and Overinterpretation
- The Search for the Perfect Language
- Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
- Incontro - Encounter - Rencontre
- Belief or Nonbelief?: A Dialogue
- Five Moral Pieces
- Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition
- Serendipities: Language and Lunacy
- How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays
- Experiences in Translation
- On Literature
- Mouse or Rat?: Translation as negotiation
- Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism
- On Beauty/History of Beauty
- On Ugliness
- Dall'albero al labirinto: studi storici sul segno e l'interpretazione
- The Infinity of Lists
- Confessions of a Young Novelist
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Manual |
- Come si fa una tesi di laurea
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Books for children |
- The Bomb and the General
- The Three Astronauts
- The Gnomes of Gnu
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