Llull’s Ars brevis compresses knowledge into a deliberately finite system of letters, principles, figures and combinatorial procedures. Its iconic device is the rotating or concentric figure: a graphic machine in which abstract terms can be placed into changing relations so that questions and propositions are generated through formal recombination. The theoretical contribution is not simply mnemonic economy. Llull externalises reasoning into an apparatus whose elements remain stable while their conjunctions vary. Thought becomes procedural without becoming merely mechanical, since the combinations are intended to test relations among general principles rather than to enumerate arbitrary permutations. The visual figures on the surviving edition make this explicit: alphabetic terms surround circular structures that convert conceptual proximity into an operation. The wider bridge is to diagrammatic epistemology, algorithmic reasoning and generative systems, where a limited vocabulary can produce a larger field of propositions through controlled relational change.
