Lull, Ramón

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Lull, Ramón, or Raymond Lully, c.1232-1316?, Catalan philosopher, b. Palma, Majorca. Of a wealthy family, he lived in ease until c.1263, when he had a religious experience and was fired with ambition to convert Muslims to Christianity. He studied Arabic language and literature and founded (1276) a college in Majorca for the study of Arabic. In 1292 he went to Tunis and challenged Muslim scholars to public debates. He was forcibly deported but made a second trip to North Africa in 1307 to combat the teachings of Averroës and again was banished. The tradition that he was stoned to death on a third trip that began in 1315 cannot be substantiated. Lull's chief work—Ars magna [the great art]—was a defense of Christianity against the teachings of Averroës. Lull maintained that philosophy (including science) was not divorced from theology and that every article of faith could be demonstrated perfectly by logic.

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