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Llull is not a forgotten anticipator, nor a mere precursor. Llull's
work, which had to pay the unexpected toll of being augmented with all
kinds of apocrypha that were falsely attributed to him, was well known
and appreciated by many influential thinkers of the Renaissance and
after. He had a strong influence on -but no explicit recognition by-
such people as Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes or Newton (who had
Llull in his library, a fact that put him on a par with his
arch-enemy Leibniz). Giordano Bruno and Leibniz not only got the
influence but were not afraid to acknowledge it. Leibniz is our most
direct connection with Llull. By looking for a universal notation and
a universal way of acquiring and developing knowledge more or less
inspired by the methods of Mathematics (his mathesis universalis),
he avidly absorbed Llull, critically adapted him and proposed an
objective and mechanical way of founding Logic and rational inquiry.
In this he failed, after leaving a string of unpublished notes (which
included an algebra of thought and a graph formalism), and only some
150 years later could his blocked program be unleashed by Boole's
insights. But other Leibniz ideas went ahead, notably his push for
concept decomposition and analysis which had two unexpected
derivations: (1) the analysis of minute quantities (the
"infinitesimals", on whose development and rights his discussion with
Newton turned dismally bitter) and (2) the actual construction in
the 1670's of a calculating machine (the first practical
multiplier, which prompted an unanticipated reflection by Leibniz on
the idoneity of the binary system for calculating). Leibniz's
thoughtful 1666 'Dissertatio de arte combinatoria' is not only
good and interesting reading for today's logicians and mathematicians
It is the best criticism and homage that Llull has ever received: by
recognizing his merits and adapting his ideas to the modern needs of
Science, Leibniz did all to include Llull in our scientific
heritage, and did us a favor in the process.
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