Ramon Llull and the Ladder of Knowledge

 

Ramon Llull, Ars Magna  (1305)

Ramon Llull, De nova logica  (Valencia, 1512)

The Catalan polymath, Ramond Llull (1232-1316) used the notion of the ladder of knowledge as one of the three visual models he produced for readers to understand his system of philosophy. This ladder of descent or ascent had nine stages, and was probably based on the Jewish Kabbalistic system of sefirot.

 The nine subjects appear in Ars inventiva Veritatis (1290), and then become part of the alphabet of the Art in the Tabula generalis (1293). In the  Liber de ascensu et descensu intellectus (1305) they are stages in the intellect’s ascent, to show the connectedness and continuity amongst all beings and between humans and the Divine. The ladder also appears in other books by Llull such as De nova logica.

From John Noyce,  The Inner Ascent (lulu, 2018)