2.9 THE IDEA OF CONCEPTUAL NETS

As previously mentioned, Llull's graphs were neither static taxonomical trees nor concept-structuring illustrations but an actual net of links that allowed the user to explore in a combinatorial fashion the relations that existed among the currently manipulated concepts. Thus they were a prefiguration of modern so-called conceptual graphs and semantic networks. They were meant to be not so static or self-structuring but rather they presupposed a dynamic interpretation: to know well the concepts meant -to Llull- to follow their associations and explore their consequences. (The inherent dynamic ontology such a vision gave of things was enthusiastically received by philosophical and scientific innovators like the influential l5th-century Nicholas of Cusa.)