From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and InterpretationThe way we create and organize knowledge is the theme of From the Tree to the Labyrinth, a major achievement by one of the worlds foremost thinkers on language and interpretation. Umberto Eco begins by arguing that our familiar system of classification by genus and species derives from the Neo Platonist idea of a tree of knowledge. He then moves to the idea of the dictionary, whichlike a tree whose trunk anchors a great hierarchy of branching