Adelard of Bath c. 1080 – c. 1152
Adelard of Bath was an English natural philosopher, mathematician, and translator and one of the principal channels by which Greek and Arabic scientific learning reached the Latin West. After studies at Tours and Laon he traveled for years in Sicily, Spain, and the Crusader Levant, learning Arabic and gathering manuscripts. He translated Euclid's Elements and the astronomical tables of al-Khwarizmi into Latin and wrote two original works, the Quaestiones Naturales, a long dialogue on natural philosophy with his nephew, and On the Same and the Different. He defended the use of reason in natural inquiry against an unreflective deference to authority.
Key facts
- Nationality
- English
- Era
- Medieval
- Movements
- Medieval, Christian
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Adelard of Bath:
“I have learned from my Arabic masters to put reason first; from my Latin teachers, authority.”
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Attributed to Adelard of Bath:
“Nature is to be questioned, not merely accepted.”
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Attributed to Adelard of Bath:
“If reason cannot teach the cause, the appeal to authority is vain.”
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Attributed to Adelard of Bath:
“The world is a single causal order open to honest inquiry.”
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Attributed to Adelard of Bath:
“Travel makes the mind a citizen of the world.”