Introduction

Umberto Eco (Italy, 1932) is an eclectic theorist whose work in semiotics has contributed greatly to the development of a philosophy of meaning. A journalist, professor, academic and novelist, Eco has made a study of textual pragmatics and the aesthetics of reception.

Eco's work is intended to be a theorization of general semiotics, the contemporary philosophy of various types of language, spoken, written, scientific and artistic. Eco proposes revising semiotic theory at the most basic level: its conceptual foundations.

Eco's fundamental postulate is that the sign is polyvocal. Since any work is composed of an infinite set of signs, it becomes an open work (Opera aperta, 1962), offering a multiplicity of possible interpretations. The reader of the text must use his/her encyclopedia to actualize the message and yet avoid overinterpreting the textual indices that are present (Interpretation and Overinterpretation, 1992). The model reader (Lector in fabula, 1979) is able to grasp the meaning of the text by discerning the modes of sign production and interpretation (A Theory of Semiotics, 1976 [1975]).

Umberto Eco is a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy ; he is also the president of the International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies .