An exploration of medieval philosopher and theologian Ramon Llull and his philosophical system through medieval and early modern book technology
The Art of Knowing Everything explores the legacy of medieval philosopher and theologian Ramon Llull, tracing the transformation of Llulls philosophical system, known as the Art (Latin Ars), through medieval and early modern book technology. Operated by paper devices and combinatory diagrams, the Art was designed to generate a system of notation to prove the incontrovertibility of Christian faith. Llull envisioned the Art as an evangelizing tool that would combat the errors of unbelievers, transcend differences of language and culture, and universalize Christianity. In its afterlife, however, the Art was primarily deployed as a means to mechanize the process of producing knowledge about the world. This promise of the mechanization of universal knowledge claims, emblematized by the Art, captivated early modern students and readers of Llulls work.
Drawing on the Lullian tradition to develop a rigorous theory of technology and its role in knowledge production, Noel Blanco Mourelle shows how Llull and his disciples sought to disseminate the Art by perfecting the technology of the book, incorporating a series of geometrical figures and moveable circles to offer preachers and academics a new intellectual language. Between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries scholars and humanists gathered and experimented with the corpus of Llulls works in university libraries and royal courts. Through this material intellectual history of Llull and his reception, The Art of Knowing Everything reveals how the universalist aspirations of these thinkers were formative to early modern ideologies of imperial expansion and Christian universalism.
Noel Blanco Mourelle is Assistant Professor of Medieval Iberian Literature at the University of Chicago.
"Noel Blanco Mourelle develops a supple but theoretically rigorous notion of technology through his sophisticated reading of Ramon Llull and of modern and contemporary theoretical texts about the place of machines in epistemological innovation. His innovative approach lays the groundwork for a convincing and original argument about the way Llulls figures and broader ideas were taken up by later thinkers, primarily in the early modern Iberian context." - Henry Berlin, SUNY Buffalo
"An original and welcome exploration of learning, knowledge, and Lulism, and an important contribution to the field today as we confront a new illusion of total knowledge and censorship thanks to AI and our digital environment." - Nuria Silleras-Fernandez, University of Colorado Boulder
