1. I. What is culture?  Relationship between res cogitans and the res extensa  Order vs chaos  Ideology vs epistemology Umberto Eco on the Edge of Complexity. Il nome della rosa and the Paradigm Shift Outline I. What is culture? II. Complexity and epistemology III. Logic as an ideological expectation IV. The Paradigm Shift

2. II. Complexity and epistemology  Simplification = passage from a natural state of nonlinearity to a state of linearity Chaos Predictability

3.  Gestalt II. Complexity and epistemology (continued)

4.  Noumenon and phenomenon  Duckbill Platypus II. Complexity and epistemology (continued)

5. III. Logic as an ideological expectation  “Omnis mundi creatura/ quasi liber et pictura/ nobis est in speculum” (Every creature of the world, like a picture and a book, appears to us as a mirror)  Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass  David Hume, Relations of Ideas and Matters of Facts  Monk vs Friar Plato vs Aristotle Rationalists vs Empiricists  Symbolon = gestalt  The Inquisition turns Judgment Day into Kafka’s Trial  William of Occam (1285-1349) Singularities vs universals (general concepts)

6. IV. The Paradigm Shift  Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Blindness of Jorge of Burgos = dogmatic belief Glasses of William of Baskerville = age of reason Credo ut intelligam changes into intelligo ut credam  The octagon as a symbol of renewal and resurrection  From chaos to order and back to chaos From chaos to ideology to epistemology and back to ideology then back to chaos

7.  Alpha and Omega = Genesis and Apocalypse In principio era il Verbo e il Verbo era presso Dio, e il Verbo era Dio (In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God) Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus (Yesterday’s rose endures in its name; we hold empty names) IV. The Paradigm Shift (continued)