Ramon Llull

Ramon Llull
Born	c. 1232, Palma, Majorca
Region	Majorca (Crown of Aragon)
Died	c. 1316
Known for	Ars Magna; Lullian combinatorial method
Fields	Philosophy; Logic; Combinatorics
Notable works	Ars Magna; Ars generalis ultima
Also known as	Raimundus Lullus
Wikidata	Q193660

Ramon Llull (c. 1232–1315) was a Catalan philosopher, logician and writer from the island of Majorca (Mallorca). A devout Franciscan tertiary, he became famous for devising an elaborate logical system – the Ars Magna or “Great Art” – that used combinatorial methods to explore truth. Writing in Catalan, Latin and even some Arabic, Llull aimed to show that fundamental theological and philosophical truths could be demonstrated mechanically by combining a fixed set of basic concepts. He is remembered today as a pioneer of algorithmic thinking and as one of the first major writers in the Catalan language.

Early Life and Education

Ramon Llull was born around 1232 in Palma de Mallorca, shortly after his family – wealthy Catalan merchants – helped conquer the island from Muslim rule. He grew up in a Christian household but on a multicultural island, where sizable Muslim and Jewish communities remained. Little is recorded of his youth, but he received only a modest education and on reaching manhood managed family business and held a minor position at the royal court. In 1257 Llull married Blanca Picany; they had two children. According to his later accounts, in his early thirties Llull experienced a series of religious visions that convinced him to abandon worldly life and dedicate himself entirely to God. He eventually became a lay member of the Franciscan Order (the Third Order of St. Francis) and spent some years as a hermit.

During this conversion period (c.1263–1270) Llull sold most of his possessions and kept only enough for his family’s support. He resolved to dedicate his life to three objectives: converting non-Christians (especially Jews and Muslims) by reasoned dialogue, writing books to argue the truth of Christianity, and founding multilingual monasteries to train missionaries. Acutely aware that he lacked formal theological training, Llull embarked on an intensive self-education. He learned Latin from private tutors or local clerics and studied Arabic – reportedly even with the help of a Moorish slave – so he could engage Islam and Judaism on their own terms. Around 1274, while in retreat on the Puig de Randa in Majorca, Llull described having a vision of a “Great Book” or “Art” revealed to him. This insight gave him the form of a universal logical system he would spend the rest of his life refining.

Major Works and Ideas

Over four decades Llull wrote more than 250 works on theology, philosophy, science and literature. He composed in Catalan (his native tongue), in Latin (for scholarly audiences) and in rudimentary Arabic. His literary output included mystical poetry (such as the Llibre d’Amic e Amat, “Book of the Friend and the Beloved”) and one of Europe’s first novels (Blanquerna, c.1276–1283, in Catalan). But his most famous achievement was his Ars Magna (Latin for “Great Art”). This was meant to be a general art of reasoning – a step-by-step method for combining basic truths (dignities or divine attributes) to derive further conclusions.

In Llull’s system the most fundamental elements of knowledge were fixed in advance. For example, he listed a small set of “dignities” or primary principles — such as God’s goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth and glory — that everyone (Jew, Christian or Muslim) could agree on. He drew these on rotating diagrams (often called “Lullian wheels”), each inscribed with letters or symbols representing those attributes and related concepts. By mechanically rotating the wheels, all possible pairings or combinations of attributes could be generated. Llull believed that each meaningful combination would yield a statement (question and answer) about reality that was true and irrefutable. For example, one wheel might align “goodness” with “greatness,” yielding a phrase like “Goodness is great,” which Llull interpreted as a valid truth. Systematically doing this for every pair (and later triples) of concepts in his alphabet would in principle produce all logical consequences.

In practice the Ars Magna involved several “figures” (sets of concentric circles or tables) and a short Latin alphabet of core ideas. Early versions of the art (in the 1270s–1280s) had a larger set of attributes and multiple figures (called A, S, T, V, X, Y, Z). By the end of his life Llull had distilled it. The final Ars generalis ultima (Greatest General Art, written c.1305–1308) used nine fundamental attributes (as mentioned above) and four combinational figures. Each attribute was assigned a letter; for instance, Llull’s manuscripts associate the letter B with “goodness,” the letter C with “greatness,” and so on. He also included “relational” concepts (like difference, contrariety, majority, minority) which helped form complete propositions. By rotating the wheels or referring to his tables, the user would systematically “evacuate” and “multiply” combinations: essentially advancing through Llull’s algorithm to answer theological questions.

Llull’s goal was to apply this method as a peacemaker among religions. He argued that instead of debating scriptures, disputants from Christianity, Judaism and Islam could agree on universal premises (e.g. all believe in one God with certain qualities) and use logic alone. In his dialogues and treatises, such as Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men (a 1278 Catalan dialog in which a Muslim, Jew and Christian consult the Art), he demonstrated how intelligent debate could ideally convert the “Gentile” by pure reason. He also tackled concrete topics: for instance, in one sequence of his Art he shows how each divine attribute has a threefold structure (agent, patient, act). By this “doctrine of correlatives,” Llull claimed that each attribute contains the others (e.g. God’s goodness includes doing good, receiving good, and the process itself). This idea was used to illustrate the Trinity: the threefold pattern reflected the three-in-one nature of God.

Beyond the Ars Magna, Llull authored works like the Ars Brevis (the “Short Art,” 1308), a simplified version of his combinatorial method. He also wrote on logic in other forms. For example, Ars Demonstrativa (c.1283) contained twelve figures with 16 fundamental principles, including the three powers of the soul, but he gradually dropped some tables in later versions. He even devised early “voting automata”: treatises called Ars electionis (c.1283 and a later edition 1299) and Ars notandi where he applied combinatorial rules to election problems. Remarkably, modern scholars have noted that these contain procedures akin to the Borda count and Condorcet criterion (methods of ranking choices) centuries before their official discovery.

To reach wider audiences, Llull also packaged his ideas in popular forms. He wrote El Llibre de Meravelles (“Book of Marvels”), El Blanquerna, and Llibre d’Amic e Amat, weaving his spiritual and logical teachings into narrative and poetic form. The Book of Contemplation of God (c.1273, in Catalan) is a lengthy mystical work divided into seven parts. He also compiled sets of proverbs (Les Cent Noves Paraules, 1302, “One Hundred New Words”) to teach moral wisdom in the vernacular. Much of his writing is framed as dialogues or allegories to illustrate the operation of his art.

Method

At the heart of Llull’s work is the idea of combinatorial logic – an early form of algorithmic reasoning. In plain terms, combinatorics is the branch of mathematics concerned with counting and combining things in systematic ways. Llull applied this by taking a small, agreed-upon set of basic concepts and “computing” all possible logical combinations of them. In practice he built physical tools – often imagined today as rotating cardboard or wooden wheels – labeled with letters or icons for each concept.

For example, one of Llull’s combinatorial devices (sometimes called a “Lullian circle”) might consist of two concentric disks. The outer disk lists a series of divine attributes (goodness, greatness, etc.), and the inner disk lists relational or predicate terms (difference, majority, etc.). By rotating one disk against the other, a user would align each pair in turn and write down the resulting statement or question. Each aligned pair of letters corresponded to a proposition in his system. In another figure he might use three disks, adding a third element like “agent, patient, act.” In modern analogy, Llull’s mechanical wheels are a primitive computing device: they generate all combinations of inputs in an exhaustive way.

Once the combinations are generated, Llull’s method “reads” them as statements to be evaluated. For instance, if the outer and inner disks align “B” (meaning “God’s goodness”) with “C” (“God’s greatness”), one reads this as the statement “Goodness is greatness,” which Llull accepts as a valid truth about the divine. Other alignments produce different statements or questions; Llull showed how these affirm central doctrines. To prove the Trinity, he would target propositions that reveal threefold patterns. In his tables, each divine attribute is labeled three times (reflecting the Trinitarian idea that God’s nature is tripartite). By systematically processing these combinations – what he sometimes called “evacuating the third figure and multiplying the fourth” – the Art could in principle answer any question expressible in its terms. He framed many outcomes as question-and-answer: “Q: Is there a Trinity in God? A: Yes,” backed by the combinatory proof.

Though Llull described his system with mystical language, conceptually it has much in common with a modern algorithm. He defined clear inputs (the fixed list of principles or “alphabet” of letters), an unambiguous procedure (the rotation or table look-ups that generate combinations), and expected outputs (the valid logical conclusions). In effect, Llull attempted to reduce parts of theology and philosophy to a finite, mechanical process. It is this method of “calculation” that later thinkers recognized as a precursor to formal logic and computational science. Llull himself stressed that his Art was not meant to replace faith but to make arguments so clear and self-evident that believers and non-believers alike could not refuse them.

Influence

Ramon Llull’s work left a scattered but intriguing legacy across centuries. In his own time and the late Middle Ages, the Ars Magna garnered a following known as “Lullists,” but it was never adopted by mainstream universities. By the 14th century, some Church authorities viewed his bold universalism with suspicion: the Spanish inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich denounced many Lullian propositions, and in 1376 Pope Gregory XI issued a papal bull forbidding Lull’s method to be taught formally. In France, theologians like Jean Gerson wrote against “Lullism.” Nevertheless, Llull’s followers continued to explore his ideas, and hordes of manuscripts circulated, especially among Carthusian and Franciscan scholars.

The true renaissance of Llull’s Art came much later. In the 16th century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno studied Llull’s wheels as mnemonics for memory and logic, publishing works that built on the concept of combing ideas. Bruno saw Llull’s memory art as a step toward a universal science of thought. In the 17th century, the polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz took a strong interest in Llull. Leibniz admired the Ars Magna and coined the term ars combinatoria for his own envisioned universal language of reasoning. He believed Llull’s work pointed the way to a “calculus ratiocinator” – a symbolic logic in which disputes could be settled by calculation. Though Leibniz’s own achievements went beyond Llull’s medieval machines, he explicitly acknowledged Llull as a forerunner of combinatorial logic.

In modern scholarship and technology, Llull is occasionally celebrated as a precursor of artificial intelligence or computing. The concept of manipulating abstract symbols algorithmically – far ahead of its time in the 13th century – resonates with computer science. Some computer historians affectionately call Llull a “father of computer science” (though in a loose sense); for example, his method has been cited as an early form of information processing. In social choice theory, his electoral writings have been rediscovered: modern researchers found that Llull’s methods for consulting pairwise comparisons in votes essentially anticipated both the Borda count and Condorcet principles centuries early.

Llull’s legacy is especially strong in Catalan culture and education. He is often called the “father of Catalan literature” because his many works in Catalan helped make it a literary language. Today the Catalan language is sometimes nicknamed la llengua de Llull (“the language of Llull”), in the way French is la langue de Molière. Major institutions bear his name: the Research Council of Catalonia (and Spain’s main science council) uses Llull’s “Tree of Science” imagery in its logo, and the Universitat Ramon Llull (a private university in Barcelona) is named in his honor. His 700th death anniversary (2016) was marked by conferences and cultural events around the world, from Barcelona to London. Statues and monuments to Llull stand in Palma and elsewhere, and a 19th-century basilica tomb in Palma de Mallorca commemorates his memory. In 1847 Pope Pius IX beatified Llull as “Blessed Ramon Llull,” so he is also venerated in some Catholic circles with a feast day on June 30.

Critiques

While Llull’s ambitions were vast, his methods have always been controversial. Contemporary reviewers noted that his Art did not fit the standard logic of the Scholastic thirteenth century (which was based on Aristotle’s syllogisms). Llull’s system treated meaning of concepts more than formal inference, and relied on a kind of extreme Platonism (the idea that abstract qualities really exist). Mainstream theologians and logicians found this approach strange. The Ars Magna never became part of university curricula in Llull’s time. Critics argued that Llull’s “calculations” were more mystical or metaphorical than rigorous proof: rotating wheels of divine attributes, they said, could hardly settle serious debates.

Llull’s enemies also took issue with his missionary zeal. He was uncompromising in demanding conversion to Christianity. For example, in his writings he called for the expulsion of Jews who refused baptism – a policy that Christians in Aragon and Majorca acted on in subsequent generations. Some modern scholars see this stance as sharply intolerant, at odds with his ideal of interfaith dialogue. Martin Gardner, a 20th-century popular mathematician, famously described Llull as “quixotic and paranoid,” highlighting how odd Llull’s blend of mysticism and science appeared to modern eyes. Others note that Llull’s belief in divine revelation (the visions that guided his Art) sits uneasily with his claim to universal reason.

In summary, critics – medieval and modern – have often dismissed Llull’s system as impractical or misguided. Inquisitors branded some of his propositions heretical, and he was effectively banned in parts of Europe. Most contemporary philosophers and logicians regard Llull not as a founder of formal logic but as a curious historical figure: admirable for his creativity and zeal but not an authority on rational argumentation by today’s standards.

Legacy

Despite mixed assessments, Ramon Llull’s long-term legacy is real and multifaceted. In theology and philosophy, he is remembered as a unique medieval thinker who tried to bridge faiths by reason – an early advocate of dialogue between Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In computing and logic history, he is celebrated as an originator of symbolic reasoning and combinatorial methods. In the Catalan-speaking world, he remains a cultural hero who put his native language on the intellectual map. His Ars Magna continues to inspire artists, writers and computer theorists who experiment with the idea of exhaustive combinatory reasoning.

Institutes and awards perpetuate his name: there is a Ramon Llull Centre (Institut Ramon Llull) promoting Catalan culture internationally, and a Ramon Llull Awards in the Balearic Islands. The study of Llull’s works (called Lullism) is an active scholarly field; universities in Europe publish editions and research on his thought. While few people today read Llull’s original treatises, the image of Llull and his wheels has entered popular culture occasionally – from architecture (the fan-shaped Studio Weil in Mallorca is said to be inspired by Llullian wheels) to fiction (authors like Paul Auster and John Masefield have evoked him). In sum, Llull’s eclectic blend of mysticism, logic and literature left an indelible mark on Mediterranean intellectual history, even if his “great art” never fully achieved its universal goals.

Selected Works

Ars generalis ultima (Ars Magna, 1305–1308): Llull’s magnum opus on his universal combinatorial art.
Ars brevis (1308): A shorter version of the Ars Magna.
Ars demonstrativa (c.1283): Early form of the Art with detailed figures.
Ars electionis (1283 and 1299): Treatises on selection/voting methods.
Llibre de contemplació de Déu (Book of the Contemplation of God, 1273): A devotional and philosophical work in Catalan.
Llibre del Gentil i dels Tres Savis (Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, 1278): A Catalan dialogue introducing the Art.
Blanquerna (c.1276–1283): A long narrative in Catalan, often called the first Catalan novel, recounting a quest for spiritual wisdom.
Llibre d’Amic e Amat (El Libro del Amigo y Amado, 1298): A poetic meditation on divine love, in Catalan.
Les Cent Noves Paraules (One Hundred New Words, 1302): A collection of didactic proverbs in Catalan.

Timeline of Key Events:.

c.1232 – Born in Palma, Majorca, to a family of Catalan merchants.
1257 – Marries Blanca Picany; two children (Domènec and Magdalena) are born.
c.1263–64 – Experiences a vision of Christ on the Cross, prompting him to devote his life to God.
1274 – Retreat at Puig de Randa (Majorca); has a revelation of the form of his universal “Art.”
1278 – Publishes Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, illustrating his method.
1283 – Completes Ars Demonstrativa. Makes first attempt to preach in North Africa (expelled from Tunis).
1290 – Begins third phase of his Art (Ars inventiva veritatis).
1302 – Publishes One Hundred New Words.
1305 – Finishes Ars Generalis Ultima (Greatest General Art).
1308 – Publishes Ars Brevis, a simplified Art.
1311 – At the Council of Vienne, Chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic are established partly due to Llull’s advocacy.
1314 – Third mission to North Africa; reported stoned by a mob in Bougie (Algeria) and returns ill to Majorca.
1315/1316 – Dies at age ~83, probably in Majorca (tomb in Palma’s Franciscan church).

His beatification by the Catholic Church (1847) and institutional honors in Catalonia and Mallorca confirm the lasting imprint of his extraordinary career. Throughout history Llull has been a figure of both admiration and perplexity – a visionary whose combinatorial “Great Art” still captures our imagination as a medieval precursor to modern ideas of logic and computation.