Ramon Llull, father of symbolic logic and computer science?

I am absolutely fascinated by Ramon Llull. It probably stems from my interests in Catalan and logic. Throw in his lifelong quixotic efforts to unify all knowledge, and I’m hooked.

Searching for Llull’s writings was not as easy as I had hoped. But I did find a nice little volume called Doctor Illuminatus: A Ramon Llull Reader, edited by Anthony Bonner. It has a sampling of his satirical and apologist work, plus the Ars Brevis, a summary of his unique philosophical system.

Llull (1231-1316) is a medieval philosopher, theologian, and poet from Mallorca who writes in Catalan, Latin and Arabic.   According to Bonner, his main goal is persuasion: i.e. the conversion of Jews, Muslims, and non-believers to Christianity. To that end, he writes for “all intellectual and social levels of society,” (p.46) writing in a variety of forms, e.g. poetry, the novel, scholarly treatises, etc.

In so doing…