Acquisition of Knowledge

The Name of the Rose sketches multiple lines of arguments by emphasizing a unique agenda to a specific character. William of Baskerville and Adso represent the rational amateur detective, we meet in the last nineteenth century in the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Jorge represents the fundamentalist and conservative religious persona hiding the philosophy book of Aristotle – Comedy – which might prove catastrophe to the Christianity. The monastery is a home of the monks engaged in the propagation of knowledge, copying the manuscripts. Although they seem to have been involved in the protection of knowledge, yet they burn with the desire to acquire the knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge through observations dates back to the primitive age but it popularity rises in the medieval ages when two schools of thought – scholastic and humanistic – lead to fragmentation of opinions. We find this struggle and its evaluation from a detective perspective in The Name of the Rose which represents struggle between humanistic and scholastic knowledge or struggle between faith and reason. Umberto Eco takes the responsibility of judging medieval ages struggle for supremacy with the help of his inquisitor – William of Baskerville. Baskerville favors humanistic school of thought as it depends on observations. Humanism promotes individuality; emphasizes on man and his acumen. Scholastic rejects individuality and promotes the supremacy of divine authority to man’s material existence. Humanism studies nature and its phenomenon as open text which should not be obscured from masses. Humanism is a resurrection of man’s glorious past, dismantling the stronghold of institutions propagating vested interests of powerful authorities. Roman Catholic Church is a hierarchical institution running on the ideology of scholastic belief system. It eradicates doctrinal issues and unifies knowledge into a cohesive system by inculcating good and evil knowledge. It disseminates order to Roman Catholic Church dominated land. Roman Catholic Church spread its wing through monasteries where proper channels are established to disseminate rigid theological doctrines. However, the voices against the administrative power of the Church continue to pose challenges to the papal authority. These voices project humanistic belief system wherein man is empowered to interpret the knowledge as per his convenience. The reason to call voices humanistic school of thought is the generation of plethora of interpretations against unified rigid system. Medieval ages witnessed the conflict between humanism and scholastic thought of school as we found in The Name of the Rose. Monastery of Melk parallels the Roman Catholic Church working like an institution having set rules and regulations. The central. 

Umberto Eco; Rethinking History and Fiction (Century Publication)

The debate on the substitutive nature of history and fiction becomes important when I read Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, which is drawn from a manuscript, narrating a story of monastery from the fourteenth century. The manuscript is based on a real incident and Eco employs its content to write the book incorporating real characters and organizations. He sheds light on the problems people faced owing to their religious positions, and how science proved detrimental to religion.  The book exhibits the significance of rational thinking and theory of deduction (primarily used by Sherlock Holmes) to access knowledge. The study has discovered that history is a source of knowledge about the past which uses scientific methods as a detective employs to solve a mystery.  The study also takes into account the theories of history and fiction with a specific reference to borrowing of content and characters from other sources without acknowledgment. Foucault’s Pendulum is a story of three editors who develop a PLAN from second rate manuscripts on historical incidents. A secret organization considers the fictitious PLAN to be real and kills the three editors. They borrow their content on the Templars and other secret organizations from the manuscripts. The study shows that history emerges through multiple texts. Each text has its own significance and essence; each text oozes from the other. The production of text questions the authenticity from which it has evolved. In Foucault’s Pendulum, Eco sets a conversation between past and present then move to the borrowing from the past and its articulation in new framework.

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