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The Arabic Background to Ramon Lull's Liber Chaos (ca. 1285)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Charles Lohr*
Affiliation:
Raimundus-Lullus-Institut der Uniuersität Freiburg i. Br.

Extract

One of the earliest works of the Majorcan Ramon Lull (1230/35–1315/16) was a Compendium logicae Algazelis (1271/72), a work based on the first section of the Maqâsid al-falâsifa (that is, “Opinions of the Philosophers”) of the great Muslim theologian, Abû Ḥâmid al-Ghazâlî (d. 1111). Algazel was Persian and his Maqâṣid an Arabic form of a Persian work by the celebrated philosopher Ibn Sînâ (d. 1037), known to the Latins as Avicenna. Algazel summarized the philosophy of Avicenna with the intention of refuting it in his Tahâfut al-falâsifa (that is, “Destruction of the Philosophers”). As is generally known, the Cordovan philosopher and jurist, Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198), sought to refute this latter work in his Tahâfut al-tahâfut or “Destructio destructionis.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University 

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References

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23 For Lull's notion of chaos see Lohr, C. H., “Chaos-Theory According to Ramon Lull,” in: Festschrift Jocelyn Hillgarth (forthcoming).Google Scholar

24 Lull, Ramon, Liber de natura, pars 1 de definitione naturae, no. 2 (Lulli, Raymundi Liber de natura [de Mallorca, Palma, 1744; repr. Frankfurt a. M., 1971], p. 4).Google Scholar

25 Lull, Ramon, Liber de natura , pars 2 de quo est natura, no. 2; pars 3 quare est natura, no. 2 (ed. cit., p. 67).Google Scholar