The Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast.

Brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich,

online at History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode, Renaissance Men, Ramon Lull and Petruch.

In my first week of graduate school I found myself at a gathering of philosophers,

explaining how I developed an interest in medieval philosophy thanks to my enthusiasm for Dante.

A professor of logic, who was present said, but Dante wasn't medieval, he was Renaissance.

Good grief, I thought. I've only been here for a few days, and already they've realized I don't know what I'm talking about.

I muttered something about Dante having worked in the early 14th century, which sounds pretty medieval, but I also knew what he meant.

Given his admiration for classical literature and his brilliant use of the vernacular, Dante can seem to be not of his time, a Renaissance man trapped

in the Middle Ages.

Nor was he alone in this respect?

In these past few episodes, we've been considering figures who prepared the way for the Renaissance and the Reformation,

but who were still recognizably medieval in their approach.

For all their theological innovations, Jean-Gherson and Jean Wycliffe were above all scholastics.

In this episode though, I want to look at two authors who were outsiders to the world of scholasticism

and whose works would go on to resonate powerfully in the 15th century.

The first is Ramon Lull, who might be described as the outsider artist of medieval philosophy,

and I do mean artist. He developed a stunningly

original method for doing philosophy and science and called this universal

method an art. This art could, low thought, free humankind from suffering and unite them all under the

banner of a single truth. Along the way, he would solve all the questions being discussed

...