The pleasure and the search for knowledge in some of the 12th C Western Latin translators

Abstract

Throughout the twelfth century, a group of Western Latin intellectuals are struggling to learn the new philosophy and science texts translated into Arabic. We are witnesses of a process of transmission of knowledge that represent a search and a strong desire in the access to the contents and innovations that those texts could provide. It is not just a process of knowledge increasing but a change of perspective concerning the interests of knowledge. A new perspective which illustrates a change of intellectual attitude – a ‘rational’ searching for causes which tries to explain the order of nature – and a vivid interest in approaching to some scientific and philosophical texts that they see as a new knowledge filled with new answers. In this sense, I make several references to Adelard of Bath, Hermann of Carinthia and Dominicus Gundissalinus, whose work we consider paradigmatic of a search and desire for ‘rational’ knowledge, that enables us to delineate more precisely the phenomenon of transmission of knowledge, and the pleasure they find within it.