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Lucretius and the Bat with Blue Eyes
Andrea Moro
其他書名
Explaining the Universe with the Alphabet
出版
MIT Press
, 2025-09-30
主題
Philosophy / Language
Philosophy / Individual Philosophers
Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical
ISBN
0262385651
9780262385657
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=_i46EQAAQBAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋
A novel reading of
De rerum natura
through the lens of neurolinguistics.
In the poem
De rerum natura
, written in the first century BC, Lucretius set out to explain the atomic theory of the universe and the triumph of reason over superstition to a Roman audience. In
Lucretius and the Bat with Blue Eyes
, a collection and critical translation of every passage on language in this great classic, renowned neurolinguist and novelist Andrea Moro explores the role of the human language and specifically the generative capacity of the alphabet to reach this goal.
In Moro’s reading,
De rerum natura
treats the birth of language as a case study in distinguishing humans from other animals, anticipating some key concepts of the theory of evolution, in both Darwinian and molecular terms. The book considers the major commentaries on Lucretius’s work, both ancient and modern, and concludes by looking at a recently discovered letter by Descartes that addresses the idea of a “perfect language.”
Focusing on a challenging yet highly poetic text and grounded in the ideas of neuroscience and linguistics, Moro’s book is also a deeply personal document ultimately addressing the role of reason on contrasting human suffering.
