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The Treasure of Tesauro: Knowledge Organization, Rhetoric and Language

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The Treasure of Tesauro: Knowledge Organization, Rhetoric and Language 186 Gustavo Silva Saldanha and Naira Christofoletti Silveira The Treasure of Tesauro: Knowledge Organization, Rhetoric and Language Abstract Considering the studies of Ranganathan's theory and the post-ranganathanian studies on faceted analysis and documentary languages in Knowledge Organization, such as the logical analysis of the Indian mathematician carried out by Birger Hjørland (2013), we hereby suggest an epistemological-historical discussion on the potentials of rhetorical analyses about the same phenomenon. In his “The Infinity of Lists”, Umberto Eco draws attention to Emanuele Tesauro's work, a XVIIth century erudite intellectual, author of Il Cannocchiale Aristotelico, published in 1670, essential work for the modern understanding of the metaphor as a possibility of understanding of the world through language. Tesauro regards his work as a relationship among oratoria, lapidaria, and simbolica, based on the principles of the Aristotelian Rhetoric. The main focus of the present reflection lies in the clear potentiality of comprehending a complex theoretical approach in Knowledge Organization, potentiality which, placed in the present time, becomes an “epistemic enigma”: the metaphoricity in Tesauro (the man of the Italian Six Hundreds) directs thinking to the most recent discursive constructions and empirical challenges in studies of Knowledge Organization, like those in search of descriptions of conceptualizations and the exploration of dynamic relationships of a syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic character in the context of digital networks. With theoretical and methodological approach of a historical epistemology, based on Wittgenstein’s thought, this paper intends to recognize the proposal of Emanuele Tesauro and correlates it with contemporary approaches to Knowledge Organization. Preliminary considerations Knowledge Considering the studies of Ranganathan's theory and the post- ranganathanian studies on faceted analysis and documentary languages in Knowledge Organization, as the analysis of logical intakes of the Indian mathematician carried out by Birger Hjørland (2013), we hereby suggest an epistemological-historical discussion on the potentials of rhetorical analyses about the same phenomenon. Therefore, we pose the following question: How can the practices of Knowledge Organization be reconsidered from the point of view of the metaphorical construction of the representation of documental reality? In this sense, the method of study suggested here is founded on a theoretical- conceptual basis and it aims at the understanding of historical and conceptual elements which can contribute to the theoretical innovations applied in Knowledge Organization in our contemporary context. Specifically, the methodological proposal seeks to foster discussion about the philosophy of language and the relationship between Rhetoric and Knowledge Organization, having the support of Emanuele Tesauro; thinking, a scholar of the XVIIth century. Repercussions of his thinking are approached, in the philosophy of language, starting from Umberto Eco. In the scope of Information Science, Ranganathan and Hjørland thinking is adopted as a source for the discussion of the rhetorical impact on Knowledge Organization. In his “The Infinity of Lists”, Umberto Eco draws attention to Emanuele Tesauro's work, a XVIIth century scholar, author of Il Cannocchiale Aristotelico, published in 187 1670, essential work for the modern understanding of the metaphor as a possibility of understanding of the world through language. Tesauro regards his work as a relationship among oratoria, lapidaria, and simbolica, based on the principles of the Aristotelian Rhetoric. Tesauro's ideas anticipate key issues in the Philosophy of Language, existing, for instance, in authors like Charles Peirce, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Ricoeur, between the XIXth and the XXth centuries. Umberto Eco (2010) identifies in Tesauro a proposal of a model of the metaphor as a mode to discover unprecedented relationships among knowledge data. In Eco's (2010) view, for Tesauro, finding metaphors means, in an Aritotelian sense, getting to know new determinations of things, that is, all that could be said about an object. The main focus of the present reflection lies in the clear potentiality of comprehending a complex theoretical approach in Knowledge Organization, potentiality which, placed in the present time, becomes an “epistemic enigma”: the metaphoricity in Tesauro (the man of the Italian Six Hundreds) directs thinking to the most recent discursive constructions and empirical challenges in studies of Knowledge Organization, like those in search of descriptions of conceptualizations and the exploration of dynamic relationships of a syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic character in the context of digital networks. Therefore, it is a theoretical research, based on the approach of a historical epistemology of the studies of Knowledge Organization. Here we aim at a bibliographical-conceptual study in the construction of the concept of “thesaurus” starting from a rhetoric perspective, in its condition either as a theoretical approach or as documentary language tools, having for central focus the ideas of the Italian thinker Emanuele Tesauro. In general, the immersion in Aristotle's thinking – like Hjørland's (2013) analysis about Ranganathan – done in Knowledge Organization, initiates with his categorizing principles, for example, the Stagirist's five predicates (gender, kind, difference, property, and accident), concentrated in the reading of Organon. However, what is forgotten is that Aristotle's influence in the West happens either via “logicism”, or via “discourse”, that is, via consolidation of a reflection on language beyond Logic. Emanuele tesauro: theoretical-conceptual issues In a historical sense, we know that the term “thesaurus” has different meanings and uses. It appears as dictionary synonym or as linguistic tool similar to the vocabulary repertoire of a given tradition or context, like the Thesaurus linguae graecae, cited by Otlet (1934: 141) and Thesaurus linguae latinae, indicated by Peignot (p. 253) and the Thesaurus linguarum orientalium, turcicae, arabicae, persicae … (p. 346), and besides as grammar descriptions, which is the case of the Thesaurus linguae armenicae antiquae et hodiernae (p. 353), or compilation of medals (the example of the Thesaurus Morellianus) (p. 346). 188 Despite being mentioned, from time to time, in the foundations of studies on theoretical and applied approaches on the development of documentary languages, Emanuele Tesauro did not win any prominent chapter in the philosophical reflection on Knowledge Organization. His ideas appear, for example, in the scope of Information Science, in Almeida & Crippa (2009) and in Monteiro & Giraldes (2008). The latter say that it is possible to identify in Tesauro, the Aristotelian thinker, the creation of the thesaurus, an instrument of documentary language; in Almeida & Crippa (2009), Emanuele appears as a prominent baroque thinker, representing the lineage that points to the machinable potential of the metaphor to transform objects. In other cases, like in Dodebei (2002) and Gomes, Tesauro's pioneering spirit is not restricted, neither historically, nor theoretically, least of all instrumentally. According to Gomes (1990), the “term 'thesaurus' has its origin in Peter Mark Roget's analogical dictionary, entitled 'Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases', published, for the first time, in London, in 1852”, historical view shared by Dodebei (2012). Apart from informational studies, Emanuele Tesauro's thoughts appear, recurrently, in discussions about the philosophy of language, as in Eco (2001), and about philology and linguistics, as in the works of Molina Cantó & Chiuminato (2004) and Proctor (1973). Tesauro's thinking anticipates central issues of the Philosophy of Language, present in the works of authors like, for example, Charles Pierce, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Ricoeur, between the XIXth and the XXth centuries. Umberto Eco identifies in Tesauro's ideas the proposal for a metaphor model as a mode to discover unprecedented relationships among knowledge data. According to Eco, for Tesauro, finding metaphors means, in an Aristotelian sense, getting to know new determinations for things, that is, all that could be said of an object. The curious and/or historical “co- incidence” of the proper name “Tesauro” and the term of the instrument of documentary languages (entitled “thesaurus”) is only a marginal clue to this study. A obra Il cannocchiale Aristotélico, é dividida em 19 capítulos, a saber: 1. Delle argutezze e suoi parti; 2. Cagioni efficcienti delle argutezze Iddio, Spiriti, Natura, Animali et Huomini; 3. Cagioni Instrumentali delle argutezze oratorie simboliche et lapidarie; 4. Cagion formale dell’argutia circa le figure; 5. Delle figure poetiche o concertative; 6. Delle figure ingeniose; 7. Trattato della metáfora; 8. Delle metafore continuate: et prima delle propositioni metaforiche, lequali comprendono i più bei motti arguti et l’allegoria; 9. Degli argomenti metaforichi et dei veri concetti; 10. Causa finale: et materiale dell’argutezza; 11. Teoremi pratici per fabricar concetti arguti; 12. Trattato dei ridicoli; 13. Trattato delle inscritioni argute; 14. Passagio dalle argutezze uerbali a quelle dei simboli in figura, ò in fatti; 15. Idea delle argutezze heroiche vulgarmente chiamate Imprese; 16. Trattato degli Emblemi; 17. Dei reuersi delle medaglie; 18. Deffinitione, et essenza di
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