Se non mi cerchi, ci sono. Note sul “metarebus” di Kant e l’ornitorinco / If you don’t seek me, I’m there. Remarks on the meta-rebus in Kant and the Platypus

Abstract

In the sixth chapter of Kant and the Platypus, Umberto Eco presents a meta-rebus as an illustration of the dichotomy between alfa- and beta-mode in iconicity. As often in Eco’s writings, this joke conveys a huge amount of sense, which I try to show in this text. Firstly I will recall the theoretical path leading Eco from the topic of encoding to that of iconism, noticing the role of rebus as one the most interesting kind of puzzle for semiotic inquiry. Then, I will briefly state a comparison with Wittgenstein, and namely with his conception of “seeing as” and “aspect-dawning” as developed in Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology and elsewhere. Thirdly, I will notice the presence of a meta- aspect in other books by Eco: the meta-story of Alphonse Allais in the Appendix of The role of the Reader (showing the conditions of the interpretation of every story by its very failure as a story), and the meta-abduction as the necessary bet of our cognitive grasping on the external world. The emergence of this meta-level uncovers a dimension, an unspeakable ground of research, which retained the attention of both Peirce and Wittgenstein.