Philosopher and scientist

Illuminated page of an edition of “The Book of Science” (1635) by Ramón Llull. Engraving. J. Bedmar/Iberfoto. Photoaisa.

Llull was not educated as young, in the scholastic of the medieval universities. He was self-taught. He was one of the first European intellectuals that wrote about philosophy, theology and science in a common language (in his case Catalan). Investigator, communicator, polemicist and conciliatory. He made methodological contributions to astronomy, geometry, physics and medicine, disciplines that he formulates as new in the light of “Art”.

He was the precursor of combinatorial system (considered today the conceptual basis of computing) and of holism (interdisciplinarity and integration of science), which he defends in his “Arbol de la ciencia” (Tree of science). He rejected the esoteric and purely fantastic science like alchemy, however he gave prominence to astronomy very near to astrology, and the Hebrew Kabala. His thinking could be described as utopian because he includes the wish of building a better world.

 

Ramon Llull quotations

 
«The greedy man has nothing»
 

Messages about Ramon Llull

 
Ramon Llull has been considered by some an alchemist, a medieval science that he never practiced.
 

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