Metaphors of Order and Disorder: From the Tree to the Labyrinth and Beyond

ABSTRACT: By means of historical-critical analysis of the evolution of metaphors for indicating the structure of knowledge, I will try to identify common themes and differences in the transition from a semantic domain expression of confusion or uncertainty (labyrinth, map) to a semantic domain in which metaphors express ordering systems of knowledge, or more generally of large masses of information (Semantic Web, Small World). The study of this evolution is particularly important because it tends to highlight some conceptual networks which today are protagonists of a real scientific revolution in the work of abstraction and application of theories to the domain of knowledge. We will see that there are some concepts underlying this transition, which are common to both domains and that we can identify with the concepts of space for the organisation and linguistic-dynamic structure. The reason for this can be traced to the change in signified and often in signifier of various metaphors, which keep the connection to the same subject, knowledge organisation, and which were initially adopted, especially during the early modern period, to highlight the impossibility of building a reference system capable of guiding a user through the complex encyclopedic order; object of these metaphors were the world map, the labyrinth, the ocean waters