Woody Allen's latest film shares its title with philosopher William
Barrett's essay on existentialist philosophy: "irrational animal". If Umberto
Eco, when titling his thing "The name of the rose" he was poking fun on a
nominalist motto, Barrett and Allen seem to have something against Aristotle!
Yet, it would be interesting to trace the earliest apparition of that
slogan, "Homo est animal rationalis". I don't think Cicero came with the idea:
the Ancient Romans were _wise_ but not 'philosophical': the thing is
i. anthropos zoon logikon
which Barrett translates as
ii. man is the living thing that speaks.
The rest is Joaquin Phoenix!
Cheers,
Speranza