Kant and the Platypus by Umberto Eco

Author:Umberto Eco [Eco, Umberto]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2016-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

4.2 Files and Directories

Let us try therefore to compare our cognitive processes, from the first perceptions to the constitution of any knowledge, not necessarily scientific, to the organization of our computer.

We perceive things as sets of properties (a dog is a hairy animal that has four legs, a tongue that hangs out, and barks, etc.). In order to recognize or identify things, we construct files (which may be private or public: a file can be our own work, or it may have been communicated to us by the Community). As the file is gradually defined, by our judging similarities or differences, we decide to insert it (or the Community presents it to us as already inserted) in a given directory. Sometimes, when we need to look something up, we call the tree of directories up on the screen and, if we have a vague idea of how the tree is organized, we know that files of a certain type must be in a given directory. As we continue to gather data, we can decide to shift a file from one directory to another. But as the task gets more complex, it becomes necessary to split certain directories up into subdirectories, and at a certain point we may decide to restructure the entire tree of directories. A scientific taxonomy is no more than a tree of directories and subdirectories, and the only difference between the taxonomies of the seventeenth century and those of the nineteenth was that the tree of directories was simply (simply?) restructured on a series of occasions.

But this computer-inspired example conceals a trap. The files in a computer are full (in the sense that they are collections of information), while the directories are empty—in other words, they can be collections of files but, if there are no files, they contain no other information. In a scientific taxonomy, on the other hand (as has already been pointed out in Eco 1984, 2.3), when, let's say, the CANIDS are inserted among the MAMMALS, saying that dogs and wolves are mammals does not mean only that they are housed in the directory called MAMMALS: the scientist also knows that MAMMALS (be they CANIDS or FELIDS) usually reproduce in a similar manner. This means that the taxonomist cannot open a directory headed, let's say, CRYPTOTHERIA, and decide to put any old files in there should the need arise: he must have decided what the characteristics (perhaps brand-new) of the CRYPTOTHERIA are, so that—on the basis of the presence of these characteristics in a given animal—he can justify the insertion of the animal's file in that directory. This ensures that when the taxonomist says that a certain animal is a MAMMAL, he knows what general characteristics it possesses, even though he does not yet know if it looks more like an ox or a dolphin.

Therefore every directory ought to contain a "label" with a series of data on the common characteristics of the objects described in its files. (All we need do is

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