A novel about a boy raised by a gazelle argued reason alone can find the truth

In this 12th-century philosophical tale, a child grows up alone on a deserted island, raised by a gazelle, and reconstructs the truths of nature, ethics and eventually theology purely through solitary observation and reasoning, without any teacher, language or revealed scripture. The story influenced later empiricist thinkers and prefigures Robinson Crusoe.

— Ibn Tufail, Hayy ibn Yaqzan — c. 1160s CE
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