The Art and Logic of Ramon Llull BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd i 10/2/2007 1:00:20 PM Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters Begründet von Josef Koch Weitergeführt von Paul Wilpert, Albert Zimmermann und Jan A. Aertsen Herausgegeben von Andreas Speer In Zusammenarbeit mit Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Kent Emery, Jr. und Wouter Goris BAND XCV BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd ii 10/2/2007 1:00:21 PM The Art and Logic of Ramon Llull A User’s Guide by Anthony Bonner LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007 BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd iii 10/2/2007 1:00:21 PM This book is printed on acid-free paper. A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISSN 0169–8028 ISBN 978 90 04 16325 6 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. 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Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd iv 10/5/2007 10:59:30 AM To the memory of Robert Pring-Mill and David Rosenblatt BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd v 10/2/2007 1:00:21 PM BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd vi 10/2/2007 1:00:22 PM CONTENTS Preface ......................................................................................... ix Acknowledgments ....................................................................... xv Abbreviations .............................................................................. xvii List of Illustrations ...................................................................... xix 1. Introduction ............................................................................ 1 2. The quaternary phase ............................................................ 26 3. Changes in the Art during the quaternary phase, and the transition to the ternary phase ........................................ 93 4. The ternary phase .................................................................. 121 5. The post-Art phase: logic ...................................................... 188 6. Overview ................................................................................ 256 Appendices .................................................................................. 301 The Martin Gardner Problem ............................................... 303 Chronological list of Llull’s works .......................................... 306 Bibliography ................................................................................ 311 Index of Lullian works ............................................................... 321 Index of names and subjects ...................................................... 325 BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd vii 10/2/2007 1:00:22 PM BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd viii 10/2/2007 1:00:22 PM PREFACE This is a book about method, not content; about the how, not the what. This does not mean that the one is independent of the other, that the form of Ramon Llull’s message did not deeply in uence its matter, or, more importantly, that the matter and, above all, its goals, were not primary in determining its form. We will, in fact, frequently touch on such subjects, but only as they come up in connection with the form. It is therefore a question of priorities; as Llull would have put it, the rst intention of this book is the method, and the second intention the content. Even though, in the course of developing his method, Llull made frequent and important programmatic statements presenting its founda- tions, these should not be confused with the method itself, any more than we should confuse the foundations of a building with the nished edi ce. In both cases they can only provide a beginning for a future exploration of the structure. Moreover, Llull was not a speculative theologian, philosopher, or logician. His study of these subjects is never an end in itself, but only the means to an end. For the purposes of this book, it means that his interest in logic—and this applies to the Art insofar as it constitutes a logical system—is not theoretical but practi- cal. His is not a logica docens, speculativa, or theorica, but rather what the Middle Ages called logica utens, one to be judged by its usefulness. Since his logic was directed to producing what he called ‘necessary reasons’, it is these arguments to which we must turn our attention, to see what it was about them that he felt justi ed in considering ‘necessary’. This is particularly urgent because in the past a great deal of research has gone into these ‘necessary reasons’, but mostly from the perspective of what they imply concerning the question of faith vs. reason. Even more research has gone into the bases of the Art—the Dignities, the components of gures such as S and T, the Nine Subjects, etc. Singularly little effort, however, has gone into trying to bridge the gap between the theoretical foundations of Llull’s Art and logic, or between its bases and their nal expression in patterns of argument, and perhaps even less in the actual study of these patterns, which in fact constituted his ‘necessary reasons’, the backbone of his entire endeavor. BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd ix 10/2/2007 1:00:22 PM x preface Since it seemed to me that the best—if not the only—way to study these argument patterns is to display them along with appropriate comments, I have structured this book as a kind of explication de textes, always quoting in full (and in translation) those Lullian textes on which my explications are based, instead of just referring the reader to the place where he might nd the originals. That way the reader can see for himself the tenor of Llull’s arguments, and judge more closely the correctness or error of my assessments. Perhaps the principal purpose in writing thus is to let Llull speak for himself, and to try to avoid explaining what I (or others) thought he might have meant instead of what he actually said. In the few places where I have offered non- Lullian models, it has been for purely hermeneutic purposes, as an aid in trying to understand and explain what he is doing. Too often it has been assumed that when Llull used a particular word or discussed a particular philosophical or logical doctrine, it must be like that of contemporary usage, and if it wasn’t, that was because he hadn’t quite grasped what others meant. The latter option has, I think, now been discarded for a view of Llull as quite consciously setting up a system (or systems) alternate to that (or those) of his contemporaries. And because this alternate system of his was self-referential, it devel- oped its own network of meanings and doctrinal interpretations. Llull seemed aware enough of this problem to offer many de nitions and explanations of what he was doing, and if we can manage to listen carefully to his voice, we might better capture his intentions. Only when we nally see the structure as a whole can we begin to study its relation to outside structures. We must begin inside, and then, if we wish, begin to proceed outward. After a rst general chapter giving an outline of Llull’s life and a brief introduction to the Art, come four specialized chapters explaining the nuts and bolts of his system, or systems. Chapters 2 and 4 are more or less straightforward presentations of the two phases of the Art, the quaternary and the ternary. Chapter 3 presents the transition between the two, with its important cosmological and systematic changes (along with some methodological experiments). Chapter 5 presents Llull’s incursion into logic during the nal stage of his career. I have thought it necessary to venture into this domain because it starts as a natural prolongation of the Art, and because it represents Llull’s \ nal endeavor in providing ‘necessary reasons’. Chapter 6 is a conclusion, where I have tried to tie together some of the many threads woven throughout the book and arrive at some generalizations as to Llull’s methods. These BOONER_f1_i-xx.indd x 10/2/2007 1:00:22 PM preface xi chapters are to a certain extent independent of one another—in spite of many cross-references—and thus can, to the same extent, be read independently. For those more interested in the literary side of Llull, Chapter 2 deals with the period during which he produced his best- known literary works. Chapter 4 deals with the version of the Art for which Llull was best known in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Chapter 5 might be for those interested in Llull’s reshaping of classical logic. For a nal overview there is Chapter 6. As to things omitted from the book, I must rst of all say that to try an explication de textes with a man who wrote 260 texts means that I have had to severely limit where I took my samples. I have, for instance, not discussed the immense Book of Contemplation, partly because it precedes the Art, and partly because its relation to the Art of the \ rst quaternary phase has been so admirably discussed by Josep Rubio. I have said little about the earlier major works of the ternary Art such as the Ars inventiva veritatis or the Art amativa. I have instead chosen to concentrate on the works of the Art which seemed to best sum up its two main stages: the Ars demonstrativa for the rst phase, and the Ars generalis ultima with its small satellite, the Ars brevis, for the second. Such choices were made on the basis of what seemed objectively most central to Llull’s different formulations of his system, and what texts might serve best to exemplify them. My other important omission has been to include almost nothing on the question of in uences, both of predecessors and contemporaries on Llull, and of Llull on succeeding generations of thinkers. This is an area made delicate by two factors.