Umberto Eco

Cited in The Collector’s Fallacy (Christian Tietze, Zettelkasten.de) as a witness against the illusion of knowledge created by hoarding texts. From How to Write a Thesis, Eco’s line: “there’s a lot someone doesn’t know anything about precisely because she photocopied a text; she has given herself in to the illusion of having read the text already.” The article uses Eco to make its core point — that “knowing about” a thing (being certain it exists) is not the same as knowing it, and that collecting bookmarks and photocopies feels productive while producing no actual knowledge.

Context: Umberto Eco (1932–2016) was an Italian novelist, semiotician, and philosopher, author of the novels The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum and the academic handbook How to Write a Thesis. He was famous for a vast personal library and reflections on the limits of what one can actually read versus merely own.

Where this appears

• The Collector’s Fallacy — quoted from How to Write a Thesis on photocopying as an alibi that substitutes for reading.