On the Shoulders of Giants

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On the Shoulders of Giants Page 30

by Umberto Eco

Locke, John, 88

  logica modernorum, 8–9

  Lombroso, Cesare, 53

  Lordon, Frédéric, 251

  Lorre, Peter, 218

  Louis XVI (Louis Capet; king of France), 15

  Lourdes, 278, 279

  Luchet, Jean-Pierre-Louis de, 233–234

  Lucia, Sister, 236, 237, 279. See also Fatima

  Lucian of Samosata, 181

  Lying in Politics (Arendt), 193–194

  Macbeth (Shakespeare), 70

  Machiavelli, Niccolò, 173–174, 178

  Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 133. See also Bovary, Emma (fictional character)

  Maddalena de’ Pazzi, Saint, 272

  Magdalene with the Smoking Flame (La Tour), 32

  Magritte, René, 17, 73

  Maier, Michael, 228

  Malerba, Luigi, 121

  Mallarmé, Stéphane, 79–80

  manias, 243. See also conspiracy

  mannerism, 57

  Manuel Rosicrucie, 229

  Man who Laughs, The (Hugo), 59–60

  Manzoni, Alessandro, 128, 179

  Manzoni, Piero, 70

  Marcuse, Herbert, 18

  Margherita (wife of Dolcino), 120

  Marguerite Marie Alacoque, Saint, 273–276, 278

  Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 16, 17, 19, 39, 65

  Marino, Giambattista, 200

  Maritain, Jacques, 10

  Marot, Clement, 57

  Martini, Carlo Maria, 95–96

  Marx, Karl, 14, 16, 45

  Mary (Biblical figure), 279. See also Fatima; Lourdes; Medjugorje

  Masons, 231–233, 245, 254

  Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (Lenin), 81

  Mattioli, Ercole, 107–108

  maxims / aphorisms, 151–156; art of, 153; defining, 151–152; as expression of commonplace, 154; false, 166; Kraus’s, 168; Pitigrilli’s, 153–156; reversible, 155–156, 168; truth and, 152–153, 155–156; Wilde and, 157–166; wit and, 152–153, 156

  Mazarin, Jules, 176, 224–225

  meaning: attributing, 75–77; vs. signifier, 129, 130, 131

  Medea, 1

  Medjugorje, 237, 279

  melodrama, in The Count of Monte Cristo, 214

  Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme (Barruel), 234

  Merton, Robert, 11–12

  Message of Fatima (Ratzinger), 282–283

  Metalogicon (John of Salisbury), 12

  Metaphysics (Aristotle), 184

  Metsys, Quentin, 71

  Metternich, Clemens von, 248

  Michelangelo, 57

  Michelet, Jules, 249

  Middle Ages, 35; colors and, 32; light and, 32, 104–105; monsters in, 35–38, 43, 52; recurring themes in culture of, 13

  Milanesiana, La, ix; 2001, 1–24; 2005, 25–44; 2006, 45–72; 2007, 73–97; 2008, 98–124; 2009, 125–144; 2010, 145–169; 2011, 170–195; 2012, 196–221; 2013, 222–242; 2015, 243–261; 2016, 262–284

  Millenarianism, 14

  miniatures, medieval, 32, 33

  minimal realism, 86

  mistakes, vs. lies, 171

  modernism, past and, 16–17

  modernity, 15–16

  modernus (term), 3, 8

  modesty, false, 177

  monadic relationship, lies based on, 182–183

  Monde malade des jésuites, Le (Labruyère), 249

  Monde ou traité de la lumière, Le (Descartes), 178

  Mondrian, Piet, 39

  Monoteismo, Il (Ratzinger), 92

  monsters, 35–38, 43, 51, 52

  Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, 57, 88, 199–200

  moral beauty, 31

  Moral Essays (Shaftesbury), 38

  moral relativism, 90–91

  moral ugliness, 50

  Moravia, Alberto, 210

  Moro, Aldo, 248

  mourning, praise for, 65

  Muqaddima (Ibn Khaldun), 223

  music, bad, 219–221

  musical scores, 130, 131

  Mysteries of Paris, The (Sue), 28–29

  Mysteries of the People, The (Sue), 249

  mystery, 40

  mysticism, 266; female, 272–284; male, 268–272; of Sacred Heart, 278

  mythology, characters of, 142

  mythopoeia, 214–215

  Nabati, Abu Bakr Hammad an-, 223

  Name of the Rose, The (Eco), 121

  Napoleon Bonaparte, 172

  narrative fiction, vs. lying, 179–181

  Natural History (Pliny the Elder), 35

  nature, sublime and, 38–39

  Neoclassical style, 39

  neofascism, 57

  Neoplatonism, 32, 34

  new, conflict with old, 2–3. See also father-son conflicts; generational clash / generations

  New Age, 22–23

  Newton, Isaac, 12

  Nicholas of Cusa, 75, 80

  Nietzsche, Friedrich, 17; objections to, 96; On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense, 93–95; on ugliness, 51

  Niketas Choniates, 48

  9 / 11, 235–236, 244–245, 253, 254

  Noah (Biblical figure), 2

  nonconformity, 23

  novelistic statements, epistemological function of, 134

  numerology, 255

  obsessions, 243. See also conspiracy theory

  Ode on a Grecian Urn (Keats), 80–81

  Oedipus, 1

  old, conflict with new, 2–3. See also father-son conflicts; generational clash / generations

  One Lonely Night (Spillane), 49

  120 Days of Sodom, The (de Sade), 61

  On Imperfection (Greimas), 196

  On the Shoulders of Giants (Merton), 11–12

  “On the Skeleton of Filosette Exhumed” (Gryphius), 57–58

  “On the Tragic Art” (Schiller), 48

  On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense (Nietzsche), 93–95

  Open Society and its Enemies, The (Popper), 246–247

  opera, 69

  Oppenheimer, Robert, 122

  Or de Rennes, L’ (de Sède), 257

  Ortega y Gasset, José, 12–13

  Ovid, 3

  Pacioli, Luca, 30

  padding / excess, 203–214

  Palazzeschi, Aldo, 65–66

  Paradiso (Dante), 78; fire in, 104–105; light in, 33. See also Dante Alighieri; Divine Comedy (Dante)

  paradoxes: art of, 153; barber paradox, 148–149; false, 166; vs. interchangeable aphorism, 156; Kraus’s, 167–168; logical, 145–150; not interchangeable, 168–169; popular opinion and, 156; rhetorical, 150–151; truth and, 152–153, 156; Wilde and, 157–166; wit and, 156. See also maxims / aphorisms

  paralogisms, 146

  paranoia, 252

  Paranoid Style in American Politics, The (Hofstadter), 252

  paratext, 180

  Pareyson, Luigi, 201–202, 206–207, 208

  Parthenon, 187

  Pascal, Blaise, 249

  Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 252

  passion, ugliness as, 47

  Passion of Christ, The (film), 48

  past: conspiracy and, 243; modernism and, 16–17. See also ancestors / ancients; history; shoulders of giants

  Pater, Walter, 116

  Paul, Saint, 146

  Paves, Cesare, 226

  Peirce, Charles Sanders, 28, 76–77, 87

  Péladan, Joséphin, 237

  Pelat, Roger-Patrice, 260

  penances, 51–52

  Pentagon Papers, 194

  Pera, Marcello, 89

  perfection: attractiveness and, 200–201; as wholeness, 197–199

  Pernety, Dom, 110–111, 112

  Perrault, Charles, 2, 137

  Perseus (Cellini), 114

  perspectives, reality and, 88

  Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful (Burke), 38–39

  philosophy: authority of predecessors and, 10–11; generational clash in, 8; sacred and, 262–263

  Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
(Wilde), 165–166

  physiognomy, 53–57

  Physiologus, 35

  Pia & utilissima admonitio de Fratribus Rosae-Crucis (Neuhaus), 230–231

  Pia Società San Paolo, 237

  Picasso, Pablo, 17, 39

  Picture of Dorian Gray, The (Wilde), 161–165

  Piemme Editions, 245

  Pietà illustrata (Mattioli), 107–108

  pilgrimages, 261

  Pipes, Daniel, 248

  Pitigrilli [Dino Segre], 153–156

  plagiarism, 260–261

  Plantard, Pierre, 256–257, 258, 259, 260

  Plato, 15, 47, 112–113, 173. See also Neoplatonism

  Platonism, Renaissance, 15

  Pleasures and Days (Proust), 219–220

  Pliny the Elder, 35

  Plotinus, 102–103

  plots, 245. See also conspiracy; conspiracy theory

  Poesia, La (Croce), 204–206

  poets, absolute and, 79–80

  Polidoro, Massimo, 245

  politicians, 224–225

  Politicians’ Breviary, The (Mazarin), 224–225

  Polonaises (Chopin), 209

  poor, ugliness and, 54

  Popper, Karl, 246–248, 261

  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A (Joyce), 75, 117, 118

  positivism, 86

  postmodernism, 17–18

  Poussin, Nicolas, 258

  powerlessness, 78–79

  pragmatists, 87

  Prague Cemetery, The (Eco), 171

  Precepts of the Poets, The, 7

  Pre-Raphaelites, 16

  Princesse de Clèves, 137

  Priory of Sion, 255–261

  privacy, 225–226

  progress, 13–14

  Prometheus, 112–113, 115

  proof of silence, 245

  proportion: in abstract art, 40; beauty and, 29–31, 38–39. See also beauty

  Protagoras, 149

  Protagoras (Plato), 112–113

  Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 188–189, 234, 247, 248

  Proust, Marcel, 28, 219–220

  pseudepigraphs, 187–188

  Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, 32, 79, 80, 103, 266–267

  pseudo-doubles, 185

  Psychoanalysis of Fire (Bachelard), 100–101

  Ptolemy, 171

  puppet theatre, 181

  purification, 120–121

  Pythagoras, 15, 29–30, 227

  querelle des anciens et des modernes, 2. See also father-son conflicts; generational clash / generations

  Quinet, Edgar, 249

  Quixote, Don, 120

  racial enemies, 54–57

  racism, 54–57

  Rahn, Otto, 255

  ramshackle works, 215

  Raphael, 184

  Ratzinger, Joseph, 89, 91, 92–93, 281–284. See also Benedict XVI (pope)

  reactionary, Renaissance as, 15

  realism, minimal, 86

  reality, perspective and, 88

  Record of a Journey from Paris to Jerusalem and Back (Chateaubriand), 202–203

  Redon, Odilon, 26

  relative: ambiguity of term, 74; meaning of term, 73–74. See also absolute

  relativism, 85–86, 172; anti-relativists, 93; cultural, 88–91; moral, 90–91; secular critique of, 89–90; use of term, 74

  relativity: of beauty, 39, 43; of ugliness, 45, 71

  religions, characters of, 142–143

  Renaissance, The (Pater), 116

  Renaissance Platonism, 15

  Rennes-le-Château, 255–261

  reserve, 225–227, 238

  resurrection, 197–198

  Rifkin, Jeremy, 13

  Rimbaud, Arthur, 8

  Romance of Alexander, 35

  Romantics, 16, 104

  Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 209–210

  Romero, George, 70

  Rosenkrantz, Karl, 45

  Rosenkreutz, Christian, 228

  Rosicrucians, 227–231

  Rostand, Edmond, 58

  Rubinstein, Arthur, 78

  ruins, aesthetics of, 202–203

  Russell, Bertrand, 148

  sacred: direct experience of, 268–284; erotic experience of, 272–273; female saints and, 277; fundamental problem with, 264; historical period and representation of, 277–283; invisibility of, 262; philosophy and, 262–263; Pseudo-Dionysius on, 266–267; reactions to experience of, 263–264; representations of, 262–284; understanding of, 262–263; visions of, 277

  Sacred Heart, 278

  Sadiq, Ja’far al-, 222

  Sagrada Família, 69, 218

  saints, female, 277

  Salon of 1767 (Diderot), 203

  Sanguineti, Edoardo, 6

  Sarkozy, Nicolas, 136–137

  Sartre, Jean-Paul, 182–183

  Saturn, 1

  Saunière, Bérenger, 255–256, 259

  Savio, Dominic, 279

  Scala d’Oro series, 131

  Schelling, F. W. J. von, 74

  Schiller, Friedrich, 48

  Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 263

  Scholastics, 11

  Schwarz, Berthold, 121

  Scusa l’anticipo ma ho trovato tutti verdi, 166–167

  Secret Book of Artephius, The, 110

  secrets, 222–242; cryptographies, 223–224; difficulty of keeping, 246; empty, 238, 244; of Fatima, 236–237 (see also Fatima); gods of, 222; lying and, 238; mystery, 227; open, 224; power derived from, 238; privacy, 225–226; reserve, 225–227, 238; revealed, 237–242, 245–246; Rosicrucians, 227–231. See also conspiracy; Da Vinci Code, The (Brown)

  secret societies: Carbonari, 230; Freemasons, 231–233, 245, 254; Illuminati, 230, 234, 249; invisibility and, 230; Knights Templar, 231, 234, 248, 257, 259; Rosicrucians, 227–231

  semiotic objects, fictional characters and, 139, 140

  “Sentry” (Brown), 70–71

  Senza radici (Pera and Ratzinger), 89

  September 11, 2001. See 9 / 11

  Sermons (Tauler), 269

  Sgarbi, Elisabetta, 262

  Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of, 38

  Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, 217; Macbeth, 70; Romeo and Juliet, 209–210; The Tempest, 57; A Winter’s Tale, 129

  Shelley, Mary, 59

  shoulders of giants, 1–24; origins of metaphor, 11–13. See also ancestors / ancients; father-son conflicts; generational clash / generations; giant-dwarf metaphor; past

  signals of fictionality, 180–181

  signifier, 130, 131

  signs, 264–265; lies and, 170–171; meaning of, 28

  Simmel, Georg, 225, 230, 238

  Smullyan, Raymond, 150

  “Social Consequences of Conspiracism, The” (Douglas and Jolley), 252

  Socrates, 176

  “Song of Hate, The” (Guerrini), 64–65

  Songs of Maldoror (Lautréamont), 65

  sons, conflict with fathers. See father-son conflicts; generational clash / generations; giant-dwarf metaphor

  Sontag, Susan, 68

  Sorrows of Young Werther, The (Goethe), 135

  Soubirous, Bernadette, 173, 278

  Spillane, Mickey, 49–50

  Spinoza, Baruch, 74, 252

  stained-glass windows, 32

  stamps, imperfect, 199

  Stoics, 119

  Stout, Rex, 137

  Straus, Isidor, 249

  structure / support, 204–214

  sublime, 38–39; in The Count of Monte Cristo, 214; imperfection and, 219; inability to express, 79

  Sue, Eugène, 28–29, 249

  Summa logicae (William of Ockham), 265

  Summa theologiae (Aquinas), 176

  Supper in Emmaus (van Meegeren), 188

  Supplementum (Aquinas), 197

  Swift, Jonathan, 180–181, 194–195

  Symbols Public and Private (Firth), 278

  Tagliapietra, Andrea, 170

  Tanizaki, Junichiro, 200–201

  Tarski, Alfred, 81, 134
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  Tauler, Johannes, 269

  Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature, The (Marinetti), 65

  technology, generations and, 21

  television, 20

  Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 57

  Templars, 231, 234, 248, 257, 259

  Teresa of Avila, Saint, 272–273

  themes, recurring, ix; in medieval culture, 13

  Themis aurea (Maier), 228

  theology, 9; negative, 35–37. See also philosophy

  theophanic attitude, 266

  Theory of Semiotics, A (Eco), 170

  Thersites, 50

  Three Musketeers, The (Dumas), 140, 211

  Thyestes, 1

  time, Augustine on, 25

  Time of Indifference, The (Moravia), 210

  Titanic, 249–250

  tokens, 185

  tolerance: acceptability of truth and, 85; cultural relativism and, 90

  Tolstoy, Leo, 126, 134. See also Karenina, Anna (fictional character)

  torture, fire and, 120

  Tractatus de bono et malo (William of Auvergne), 197

  Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Spinoza), 252

  Tramaglino, Renzo (fictional character), 128

  transgenerational models, 20–21

  Traviata, La (opera), 69

  triadic relationship, lies based on, 183

  Triumphs of Death, 48

  Trovatore, Il (opera), 69

  True History (Lucian of Samosata), 181

  truth, 171; absolute and, 81–85; authority and, 10; vs. consensus, 93; criteria of verification, 172–173; fictional characters and, 130, 131–132, 138; historical statements and, 132; irony and, 183; maxims / aphorisms and, 152–153, 155–156; notions of, 91–92; paradox and, 152–153, 156; pragmatists and, 87; revision of, 132; as secret, 227; theory of, 81; tolerance and, 85; verifying, 172. See also absolute; lies

  Turba Philosophorum, 110

  Turing, Alan, 223

  ugliness, 45–72; aesthetic of, 35–39; in art, 51, 57–62; in avant-garde art, 65–67; bad caused by, 59; camp, 68–69; in children’s stories, 62; in Christianity, 51–52; criterion for, 45; of Cyrano de Bergerac, 58; identified with moral ugliness, 50; imperfection and, 197; kitsch, 66–68; in life, 70–71; Marx on, 45–46; of modern cities, 62–63; as passion, 47; physiognomy and, 53–57; pleasure in, 48; relativity of, 45, 71; understanding / sympathy for, 57. See also monsters

  Ulysses (Joyce), 17

  Un’etica senza Dio (Lecaldano), 95

  unicorns, 36

  Universal History of the Destruction of Books, A (Báez), 121

  Unkempt Thoughts (Lec), 168–169

  Untimely Meditations (Nietzsche), 17

  Uomo Delinquente, L’ (The Criminal Man; Lombroso), 53

  Valla, Lorenzo, 191

  van Meegeren, Han, 188, 191

  Veidt, Conrad, 218

  Venice, beauty of, 117

 

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