The Infinity of lists

[In the history of Western culture we find lists of saints, ranks of soldiers, accounts of grotesque creatures, inventories of medicinal plants and hordes of treasure. There are practical lists that are finite, such as catalogues of books in a library; but there are others that are intended to suggest countless magnitudes and thereby arouse in us a dizzying sense of the infinite. This infinity of lists is no coincidence; a culture prefers enclosed, stable forms when it is sure of its own identity, whereas when faced with a jumbled accumulation of ill-defined phenomena, it starts making lists.] 

-from the cover page of 'The infinity of lists' by Umberto Eco

I Browsed through this book after I recieved the package yesterday as a gift from my dear friend. This book was one of my wish lists since I found out Umberto Eco's interview;

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SPIEGEL: But you also said that lists can establish order. So, do both order and anarchy apply? That would make the Internet, and the lists that the search engine Google creates, prefect for you.
Eco: Yes, in the case of Google, both things do converge. Google makes a list, but the minute I look at my Google-generated list, it has already changed. These lists can be dangerous -- not for old people like me, who have acquired their knowledge in another way, but for young people, for whom Google is a tragedy. Schools ought to teach the high art of how to be discriminating.
SPIEGEL: Are you saying that teachers should instruct students on the difference between good and bad? If so, how should they do that?
Eco: Education should return to the way it was in the workshops of the Renaissance. There, the masters may not necessarily have been able to explain to their students why a painting was good in theoretical terms, but they did so in more practical ways. Look, this is what your finger can look like, and this is what it has to look like. Look, this is a good mixing of colors. The same approach should be used in school when dealing with the Internet. The teacher should say: "Choose any old subject, whether it be German history or the life of ants. Search 25 different Web pages and, by comparing them, try to figure out which one has good information." If 10 pages describe the same thing, it can be a sign that the information printed there is correct. But it can also be a sign that some sites merely copied the others' mistakes.

The essays he wrote in this book are not about the interpretation or explanation of works of art but it's about a numeration, the lists about a system. It seems Eco indicates 'the aesthetics of lists' runs throughout the history of art and literature. I would like to find out what Eco wants to reflect through the works of art illustrating and literary anthology in this edition. Hopefully I'll finish to read the book and have a discussion about the content of the book soon. : )