The Search for the Perfect Language

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by Umberto Eco

Blackwell Publishers

Due/Published May 1997, 400 pages, paper

ISBN 0631205101

The idea that there once existed a language which perfectly and unambiguously expressed the essence of all possible things and concepts has occupied the minds of philosophers, theologians, mystics, and others for at least two millennia. This is an investigation into the history of that idea and of its profound influence on European thought, culture, and history.
The story that Eco tells ranges widely, from the writings of Augustine, Dante, Descartes, and Rousseau, to arcane treatises on cabbalism and magic, to the history of the study of language and its origins. To this subtle exposition of a complex history, the author links the associated history of the manner in which the sounds of language and concepts have been written and symbolized. The book is a tour de force of scholarly detection and cultural interpretation, and provides a series of original perspectives on two thousand years of European history.