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Thomas-Institut, Koln I. INTRODUCTION Can one speak coherently of Bonaventure's philosophy? Or is such an idea nothing more than a modern hermeneutical fancy? The arguments against the view that Bonaventure has a philosophy are of diverse origin. Certain influential students of medieval intellectual history have advanced the following argument: it is improper, a kind of basic category error, to speak of philosophy as an autonomous discipline practiced within medieval faculties of theology. This historiographical tendency derives from certain nineteenth-century continental ideas about enlightenment, progress, and secularization. As the French Revolution is viewed as the birth of modernity, so, on this view, the Condemnations of 1277 beget philosophy as an "autonomous" discipline within the Middle Ages. "Autonomous" in this context means little more than "independent from theology." In the writings of the Arts-masters at the University of Paris, so the argument goes, one can find enlightenment before the Age of Enlightenment, a renascence before the Renaissance, and a humanism before Humanism.' If we are to pose hermeneutical questions of the sort on which this historiographical hypothesis turns, we ought perhaps begin by asking the following general question: what is philosophy in the Middle Ages? Or, put more concretely: what remains of medieval philosophy, if we include in our account of the discipline of philosophy the notion that what the theologi do Earlier versions of this article were presented as lectures at Boston College, Yale University, St. Bonaventure University, and at the University of Notre Dame. I would like to thank the participants of these sessions for their comments.

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For Ramon Llull 1308 was a very special year 1 . Not only did it follow a dramatic year in which he was stoned while proselytizing in North Africa, imprisoned, and then shipwrecked on his return to Europe, but in its own way it was a kind of annus mirabilis, and this in two ways. In the first place, it was probably the most productive year of an extraordinarily productive careerone in which he finished thirteen works (see Appendix I). And secondly, it was a pivotal year in his presentation of three different approaches to the task which for him was fundamental: the development of techniques capable of converting non-Christians.The dramatic events of the year before occurred on his second voyage to North Africa, strikingly different from the first he had undertaken in 1293, fourteen years previously. Then he had gone to Tunis, where he had engaged the local doctors of the law in rational and pacific discussions on the merits of their various religions. When it became clear that his arguments were not completely unconvincing, he was simply asked to leave. All this was in striking contrast to his voyage of 1307, to the town of Bougie (or Bejaya) in presentday Algeria. There, as the ,Vita coaetania', an account of his life he dictated to Parisian monks near the end of his life, says, "In the main square of the city, Ramon, standing up and shouting in a loud voice, burst out with the following words: ,The Christian religion is true, holy, and acceptable to God; the Saracen religion, however, is false and full of error, and this I am prepared to prove'." 2 This was the only time in his life he used such provocative tactics. Why he did it, we don't know; it might have been an attempt to try the Franciscan model of gaining adherence by showing a willingness to face martyrdom. In any case, the reaction could scarcely have been more violent. He was stoned, brought 1 Abbreviations used in this article are: DI = A. Bonner/E. Bonner (eds.), Doctor Illuminatus. A Ramon Llull Reader, Princeton 1993; MOG = Raymundi Lulli Opera omnia, ed. I. Salzinger, 8 vols., Mainz 1721-42; NEORL = Nova Edició de les Obres de Ramon Llull, Palma 1990 sqq.; ROL = Raimundi Lulli Opera Latina, Palma-Turnhout 1959 sqq.; SW = Selected Works of Ramon Llull (1232-1316), ed. A. Bonner, 2 vols., Princeton 1985. This article is a distillation of chapters 4 and 5 of A. Bonner, The Art and Logic of Ramon Llull. A User's Guide (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 95), Leiden 2007.

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