Umberto Eco: Summarized Classics: SUMMARIZED CLASSICS

By MAURICIO ENRIQUE FAU

The greatest thinkers of humanity at your fingertips, in minutes! 
If you thought you would never be able to understand the essential classic authors, you were wrong! 
With our "Summarized Classics" collection, you will understand the main ideas of the most important thinkers in a very short time and with little effort.

The present volume covers the central axes of this discipline.
Among them, the reader will find an analysis of the following: Who Is Eco, Treaty Of Economic Semiotics, The Abduction: Apocalyptic And Integrated, Culture Of Masses And Levels Of Culture Notes On Television, The Strategy Of Illusion, Telematic Academies, among others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BOOKS AND SUMMARIES BY MAURICIO FAU
• Release date: Oct 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201923389

MAURICIO ENRIQUE FAU

Mauricio Enrique Fau nació en Buenos Aires en 1965. Se recibió de Licenciado en Ciencia Política en la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Cursó también Derecho en la UBA y Periodismo en la Universidad de Morón. Realizó estudios en FLACSO Argentina. Docente de la UBA y AUTOR DE MÁS DE 3.000 RESÚMENES de Psicología, Sociología, Ciencia Política, Antropología, Derecho, Historia, Epistemología, Lógica, Filosofía, Economía, Semiología, Educación y demás disciplinas de las Ciencias Sociales. Desde 2005 dirige La Bisagra Editorial, especializada en técnicas de estudio y materiales que facilitan la transición desde la escuela secundaria a la universidad. Por intermedio de La Bisagra publicó 38 libros. Participa en diversas ferias del libro, entre ellas la Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires y la FIL Guadalajara.

Book preview

UMBERTO ECO: SUMMARIZED CLASSICS

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

UMBERTO ECO: SUMMARIZED CLASSICS

First edition. October 1, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 MAURICIO ENRIQUE FAU.

ISBN: 979-8201923389

Written by MAURICIO ENRIQUE FAU.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Umberto Eco: Summarized Classics

WHO IS ECO?

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Further Reading: Michel Foucault: Summarized Classics

Also By MAURICIO ENRIQUE FAU

About the Author

About the Publisher

MAURICIO FAU

Copyright © 2021 Mauricio Enrique Fau

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9789871719600

DEDICATION

To my children Elías, Selva, Greta, Ciro and Yaco.

To my life's daughter Emma.

To my wife Cecilia.

WHO IS ECO 5

TREATY OF GENERAL SEMIOTICS 7

APOCALYPTICAL AND INTEGRATED 17

NOTES ABOUT TELEVISION 29

THE STRATEGY OF ILLUSION 43

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE PERFECT LANGUAGES 51

TELEMATICS ACADEMIES 57

TRANSLATION PROBLEMS 61

THE PERFECT LANGUAGE OF IMAGES 63

THE SEMIOTIC FIELD AND THE SEMIOTIC THRESHOLDS 69

SIGN 73

THE SIGN OF THE THREE 77

LORD SIGMA 109

COUNTERFEITING AND CONSENSUS 119

THE NAMES OF FASCISM 125

WHO IS ECO?

Umberto Eco (1932-2016 ) was an Italian semiologist, philosopher and novelist, who specialized in aesthetic, semiotic and media issues.

Influenced by Peirce, he focused on the notion of unlimited semiosis, to underline the diversity of the possible meanings of the signs according to their sociocultural context of appearance.

In his terms, communication is an open and dynamic process. Thus, the sign is seen by Eco as a cultural unit that can assume multiple meanings, which refers to the concept of interpreter in Peirce.

Eco's strictly semiotic training has sometimes led him to argue with the postulates and methods of deconstruction.

Among his main works we find: Apocalyptic and integrated (1964), The absent structure (1968) and Treatise on general semiotics (1975).

TREATY OF GENERAL SEMIOTICS

ABDUCTION

The interpretation of a sign - the Peircean interpreter - is not only the decoding - the combination of meanings of the signs - it includes the association of new meanings according to the context in which the sign is applied.

This characteristic beyond decoding is abduction and works as an intuitive reasoning, the conclusion of which is an assumption, a hypothesis that creates an interpretation beyond what the code anticipates.

Peirce differentiates abduction from deduction, which starts from a rule to arrive at a case, and from induction, which starts from a case to arrive at a probable rule.

Abduction makes a hypothesis of a case from a rule and a result.

For instance,

Deduction:

All the corn kernels in this bag are white.

These corn kernels come from this bag.

Therefore, these corn kernels are white

Induction:

These corn kernels come from this bag.

These corn kernels are white.

So all these corn kernels likely came from this bag

Abduction:

All the corn kernels in this bag are white.

These corn kernels are white.

Therefore, it is likely that these corn kernels came from this bag

The interpreter

The notion of Peircean interpreter is confusing, it can mean many things, even a synonym for interpreter or it could be confused with the object or the representamen.

But the interpreter is not the user or interpreter, nor those other elements.

The problem is that Peirce is considering everything as a sign, both the representamen, the object, which is not the real but the one that is constructed in the sign, as well as the interpretant.

The only way to explain terms is by other terms, not by a possible relation to objective reality.

These cultural conventions that explain terms are the interpreters that form a chain of interpretations called unlimited semiosis.

Although this infinite chain of signs seems to be the only way for the semiotic system to establish itself, Peirce does not seem to see that its final interpretant is a global semantic field that functions as the structure that constitutes the signs.

The iconic sign

Peirce considered the icon as a sign that bears some resemblance to the object in question.

Morris takes this notion and expands it by considering that the iconic sign is one that has characteristics in common with the denoted object, in some respect.

However, the image, however perfect it may be, has two dimensions, the denoted objects have three dimensions.

Common sense considers that a drawing or a photograph has the same perceptual features as the actual objects represented.

But, in truth, iconic signs reproduce the conditions that we perceive of an object and those conditions are classified by recognition codes and inscribed in two dimensions by graphic conventions.

For example, if we draw a zebra we pay attention to marking the black and white stripes, but we do not pay attention to the type of jaw to differentiate it from a horse or an ass.

If an African tribe only knows zebras and hyenas, it does not need to recognize stripes as a distinctive element, both animals have them, but the shape of the neck and legs.

Our perception captures some qualities of objects forming a whole, a perception structure, the elements captured depend on a recognition code.

The iconic code relates a unit of recognition to a conventional graphic sign.

This sign is the signifying expression whose meaning is a previously recognized and encoded perceptual experience.

Meaning as a cultural unit

The common answer in linguistics when asked about the meaning of a term is its referent.

For example, the term chair refers to all possible real objects that we habitually sit on or to this particular real object.

However, there are terms that do not have a real referent, for example, although or to or from, then the meaning is not explained through the referent, but through a cultural convention.

The only way to explain terms is by other terms, not by a possible relation to objective reality.

These cultural conventions that explain terms are the interpreters that form a chain of interpretations called unlimited semiosis.

The interpreter of Peirce

The notion of Peircean interpreter is confusing, it can mean many things, even a synonym for interpreter.

But it is clear, for Eco, that the interpreter is not the user or interpreter and, on the other hand, Peirce breaks with the notion of meaning as a referent since the meaning would be given by the interpretant's connections with other signs.

Another problem to understand this concept of Peirce is that it cannot be enclosed in the theory of codes, the interpretant exceeds the notion of unity of a