Ramism

A trope is the transfer of a word from its usual meaning to a different one, justified by a relation of similitude, or of another kind, between the two meanings. Early modern students of grammar and rhetoric memorized the tropes and learned how to identify and use each of them through the use of widely reprinted ancient and contemporary manuals of rhetoric, as well as publications dealing exclusively with tropes, such as those by Despauterius, Mosellanus and Susenbrotus. In practical terms, tropes stood out as crucial ingredients of the ornament of style, and as such they were central to the way literate individuals would speak and, especially, write. Furthermore, from a theoretical standpoint, tropes were a catalyst for crucial developments in early modern linguistic and aesthetic thought. On the one hand, they provided a window to the mechanisms through which language works, opening as they did a distinction between literal and figurative meaning. On the other, tropes (and especially metaphor) attracted great attention as the locus of coalescence between cognition and pleasure and became, therefore, touchstones for the development of a theory of the beautiful.

How do practices contribute to the formation of the mind of Christ in community such that the community truly becomes the body of Christ?” This dissertation demonstrates that Christ acts on his Church through a complex interaction of community and practices to generate the identity, diversity, and virtue of his body. This is a controversial claim because many hold that the matter of virtue rightly consists of adherence to cherished foundations like Scripture and tradition accompanied by calls to obedience. Nonetheless, this study seeks to identify resources to help the Church imagine a virtue ethics appropriate to a 21st century communion ecclesiology. It does so by reading Richard Hooker as an ecclesial ethicist.

Examining Hooker’s accounts of Scripture, participation, and liturgical practices, the dissertation develops a Hookerian account that extends the ecclesial ethics of Stanley Hauerwas and Sam Wells on both ends. On the front end, it derives from first principles an account of how humans come to see themselves as part of the theodrama in which improvisation is required. On the back end, it grounds improvisation in a theory of mimetic virtue. Along the way it shows how a largely Barthian Christology coheres with a positive account of sacramental practices and that a Hauerwasian emphasis on practices is not sectarian. Hooker’s repudiation of appeals to timeless absolutes in ethical reasoning and his demonstration that the self-ordering of the Church is phronetic action means that contemporary “liberal accommodationism” and “postliberal traditionalism” can no longer coopt Hooker to justify their ideologies.

To date, there has been little scholarship on the influence of Petrus Ramus and Ramism on later Dutch Reformed theology, as mediated by Puritanism in general and by William Ames in particular. The present article first offers a brief overview of Ramus’s life, philosophy, and theology. Thereafter, it turns to Ramus’s influence on the method and content of Ames’s theology, highlighting six distinctives of his reception of Ramism in the Medulla (1623) or Marrow. Most of these distinctives reappear in several leading works from the Nadere Reformatie, including Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretica-practica theologica (1698) and Wilhelmus à Brakel’s Logike latreia, dat is de Redelyke godtsdienst (1700; The Christian’s Reasonable Service). This initial exploration allows us to suggest that traces of the work of Ramus can be found in Van Mastricht and À Brakel, as mediated by Ames. The same may be true also for other Nadere Reformatie theologians

In Sixteenth century Italy the growth of signorie, the loss of civil and political liberties, the advancement of foreign ruling and the consolidation of eclessiatical power, had undermined elites' confidence in the studia humanitatis to understand and rule the world. However, the role of history as a political and cognitive task resurfaces strongly in Venice and its Paduan hinterland. Here, a vernacular tradition of arte storica emerged. A traditon, which rather than providing a canon of stylistic rules for effective writers of historical texts, constituted a conscious reflection on the historiographical and erudite practices of the period. This is the history of the origins, developments and European reception of this tradition.

The goal of this article is to detail the opposition to “Ramean tree” dichotomic divisions which emerged in the age of swelling Antitrinitarianism, especially Socinianism. Scholars such as Bartholomaeus Keckermann, Jan Amos Komenský and Richard Baxter made a point of preferring the trichotomic to the dichotomic division of Petrus Ramus and the Ramist tradition. This paper tracks the origin of Komenský’s “universal triadism” as present in his book metaphorics and in his metaphysics. Komenský’s triadic book metaphorics (the notion of nature, human mind and Scripture as “the triple book of God”) has its source in late sixteenth-century Lutheran mysticism and theosophy, mediated perhaps by Heinrich Khunrath and, above all, by Johann Heinrich Alsted. Komenský’s metaphysics follows the same triadic pattern. What is more, Komenský illustrates both these domains by means of Ramist-like bracketed trees; regarding book metaphorics, clearly his sources are Khunrath and Alsted. Although inspirations from Lullus, Sabundus and Nicholas of Cusa are involved, the crucial role has to be ascribed to the influence of Lutheran mysticism and Alsted’s “Lullo-Ramism.”

The paper discusses the concept of a subject as an actor’s category in early modern philosophy and asks whether contemporary notions of subjectivity can be meaningfully related to this early modern understanding of the concept. When thinking about the early modern subject as an actor's category, we must distinguish three different meanings: the subject as a bearer of properties, as a reference point for predication, and as the foundation of a discipline. The paper defends the thesis that crucial elements of subjectivity in the modern sense, namely reflexivity and selfawareness, are at the same time characteristic features of a certain understanding of the subject of philosophy as a discipline in the early modern sense: namely for conceptions of philosophy as a transformation of the soul, most notably as a ‘medicine of the soul’. Such conceptions are, however, controversial: other early modern thinkers contend that such proposals do not conform to what we should expect from a definition of philosophy and that they are open to the objection of intellectualism: we need more than knowledge to better our souls, because knowledge in itself is not action-guiding. The paper traces conceptions of the subject of philosophy not only in various Ramist tracts, but also in writings of Melanchthon’s son-inlaw Heinrich Paxmann, the Helmstedt professor Duncan Liddell, and Reformed thinkers like Fortunatus Crell and Bartholomaeus Keckermann.

El Artis historicae Penus de J. Wolf y P. Perna (1579): reflexiones sobre el arte de leer y escribir historias en el tardo-Renacimiento europeo The Artis historicae Penus of J. Wolf and Pietro Perna (1579): observations on the art of reading and writing histories in late European Renaissance Resumen El presente artículo constituye una traducción española con aparato crítico de los prólogos escritos por Johannes Wolf (compilador) y Pietro Perna (tipógrafo) de la primera antología historiográfica del tardo-Renacimiento europeo, denominada Artis historicae Penus (1579); antología que formó parte de un proyecto editorial de nuevo cuño y sin precedentes en lo que respecta a sus propósitos y alcance. En el breve ensayo de presentación que antecede a la traducción se discuten cuatro aspectos relativos a la antología y sus autores: (i.) soportes materiales y paratextuales, (ii.) biográficos, (iii.) político-religiosos y (iv.) gnoseológico-pedagógicos. Abstract This paper is a translation into Spanish, with notes and commentaries, of Artis historicae Penus (Johannes Wolf [compiler] and Pietro Perna [typographer], 1579), the first historiographical anthology of late European Renaissance. This anthology was part of a new unique editorial project regarding its purpose and scope. In the brief presentation essay that precedes the translation, four aspects regarding the anthology and its authors will be addressed: (i) paratextual layout, (ii) biographies, (iii) political and religious contexts, and (iv) epistemological and pedagogical frameworks.

Berkeley's doctrines about mind, the language of nature, substance, minima sensibilia, notions, abstract ideas, inference, and freedom appropriate principles developed by the 16th-century logician Peter Ramus and his 17th-century followers (e.g., Alexander Richardson, William Ames, John Milton). Even though Berkeley expresses himself in Cartesian or Lockean terms, he relies on a Ramist way of thinking that is not a form of mere rhetoric or pedagogy but a logic and ontology grounded in Stoicism. This article summarizes the central features of Ramism, indicates how Berkeley adapts Ramist concepts and strategies, and chronicles Ramism's pervasiveness in Berkeley's education, especially at Trinity College Dublin.

The article discusses the statutes, lectio lists and disputations of the Academia Gustaviana (1632–1656) in Tartu, Estonia. It is evident that academic life at the beginning of the Academia Gustaviana period was heavily influenced by Ramist thought, which was then clearly visible in the statutes. The Ramist influence persisted during the better part of the period and continued up to the late 1640s, when the rest of the German cultural space had already regarded Ramism as problematic and even harmful. One reason for this was undoubtedly the respect for the main author of the constitutions and the first chancellor of the university Johan Skytte (1577–1645), who was educated in a Ramist environment and was suspicious of scholastic philosophy. Skytte stressed the dangers of “papist” metaphysical speculation in the statutes for the Uppsala university
(which the university in Tartu adopted with some alterations) and in many of his speeches. He exhorted professors to give only practical and clear instructions to the students. In the context of Academia Gustaviana, the fact that a Jesuit seminary and gymnasium had been previously operating in Tartu gave an additional reason to be especially wary of possible Catholic influences. It is thus seen in the constitutions that no professor was appointed for theoretical philosophy, and metaphysics is only mentioned in a disparaging manner. In connection with this, there is no explicit mention of metaphysics in lectio lists and in the titles of disputations; metaphysical topics are also generally avoided, and when discussed, they are not categorised under metaphysics in the bodies of the disputations. In addition, in Academia Gustaviana, it appears that a fairly well-known scheme applied in which smaller and outlying universities tended to prefer Ramist logic and rhetoric because the simplified curriculum permitted one to move quickly to teaching higher disciplines. This trend is also confirmed both by the list of professors in the statutes and the nature of the teaching guidance materials, in which theoretical subjects are avoided and great attention is paid to practical disciplines. Practicality and usefulness for the state are stressed throughout the statutes.

From 1640 onwards (and especially after the death of Johan Skytte), Ramism in the disputations of Tartu starts to play an increasingly smaller role and the first critical remarks about Ramism also appear. At the same time, a rise in interest in Peripatetic philosophy is visible, and the first positive mentions of metaphysics in the disputations appear. However, until the end of the period no disputation using metaphysics as a subject in the heading of the disputation was found. This may also be connected to the fact that in Academia Gustaviana there was no professor of theoretical philosophy (in accordance with 1632 statutes) whose area would have covered this topic.

The purpose of the article is to look at the theological tendencies and attitudes of the early modern University of Tartu, based on disputations in Tartu (Pärnu) and outside Estonia. In terms of the number of disputations, the period of the Academia Gustaviana (1632–1656) in Tartu clearly seems to be more active theologically than the later Academia Gustavo-Carolina period (1690–1710). While there was a total of 211 disputations presented in the Faculty of Theology during the Swedish time, 202 of these were presented in the first period, and only nine in the second period. The article focuses firstly on the relationship between the official Ramist constitutions of Academia Gustaviana and Lutheran Orthodoxy; and secondly, it examines the Lutheran Orthodoxy that was officially established during time of Academia Gustavo-Carolina and its relationship to Pietism.

El presente artículo constituye un ensayo introductorio a la primera traducción española de los prólogos escritos por Johannes Wolf (compilador) y Pietro Perna (tipógrafo) de la primera antología historiográfica del tardo-Renacimiento europeo, denominada Artis historicae Penus (1579); antología que formó parte de un proyecto editorial de nuevo cuño y sin precedentes en lo que respecta a sus propósitos y alcance. Se discuten cuatro aspectos relativos a la antología y sus autores: (i.) soportes materiales y para-textuales, (ii.) biográficos, (iii.) político-religiosos y (iv.) gnoseológico-pedagógicos.This paper is a translation into Spanish, with notes and commentaries, of Artis historicae Penus (Johannes Wolf [compiler] and Pietro Perna [typographer], 1579), the first historiographical anthology of late European Renaissance. This anthology was part of a new unique editorial project regarding its purpose and scope. In the brief presentation essay that precedes the translation, four as...

This chapter comments briefly on Richard Hooker's rhetorical and polemical method, and then examines the concepts and methods of a subset of his opponents whom I dub the Ramist realists. My claim is not that Hooker’s opponents were all Ramist realists, but that Ramist realism was a rising ideology gaining traction among opponents and colleagues alike during the 1590s. I then contrast them with Hooker by briefly commenting on his critique of their view of Scripture in general, and then by digging deeply into his critique of their ethical reasoning. Finally, I thicken the Hookerian account developed throughout the thesis by offering both philosophical and theological critiques of Ramist realism, holding it in conversation with Barth’s doctrine of election. This chapter has strong implications for contemporary biblical interpretation and Christian ethical reasoning, for Hooker's critique of Ramist methods hold provides helpful insights as we consider contemporary biblicism.

This article discusses a largely overlooked aspect of the last work by Joannes Broscius (1585−1652), i.e. his Apologia pro Aristotele et Euclide contra Petrum Ramum et alios of 1652. While the past researchers focused their attention on the evaluation of Broscius’s contribution to mathematics and geometry in particular, they ignored the socio-scientific aspect of his work, that is the way Peter Ramus and his followers have been presented by Broscius and how the dark legend of Ramus have been revived at the Central-European university in the middle of 17th century. In the article, I am showing types of rhetorical arguments employed by Broscius and analyse the way he portrayed Ramus and depicted events related to the reception of Ramism at the Academy of Cracow. The article is followed by an appendix which contains a critical edition of excerpts from the manuscript rough draft of Apologia which has been preserved until nowadays (Jagiellonian Library MS 3205 I). In the critical apparatus, I identify the references and similia and show how Broscius rewrote and rearranged the original paragraphs of his anti-Ramist work.

This paper is dedicated to the study of a certain phenomenon related to the reception of Ramism in East-Central Europe in general and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in particular.
Ramism was an influential pedagogical movement which originated in the mid-sixteenth-century Paris and then became extremely popular as a teaching tool and method of shaping one’s discourse in various European academic centres. Books written by the movement’s founding fathers, Petrus Ramus (1515−1572) and Omer Talon (c.1510−1562), as well as volumes produced by their successors came out of the presses throughout whole Europe, from Paris to Basel to Frankfurt between the 1570’s and first decades of the 17th c. Thanks to the research published over the past 60 years, including studies by W. J. Ong, J. Freedmann, H. Hotson, and I. Maclean, we have now a better understanding of the trajectories of dissemination of Ramist prints and the scale of the impact of this intellectual tradition on the early modern market of learned book. Yet, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done with regard to the Ramist publishing history, as well as to the reception of Ramist ideas as mediated by printed volumes: textbooks, commentaries, editions of classical authors accompanied by Ramist scholia, encyclopedias using the binary tree as a method of disposition, etc.
I would like to examine closely one aspect of the history of Ramist prints, i.e. its relation to the “longue durée” of the manuscript culture in the early modern East-Central Europe. I will analyse examples of manuscript versions of Ramist texts which were made in various intellectual milieux of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth such as the Academy of Kraków and the Socinian gymnasium academicum in Raków (the so-called Rakovian Academy), focusing on the analysis of the ways in which Ramist prints shaped the methods of production of their manuscript counterparts and how typographical devices popularized by Ramus and his followers penetrated the student and scholarly manuscripts of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. I shall show these practices on the basis of two examples preserved in Kraków: Jagiellonian Library MS 2363 II (Logica Petri Rami) which belonged to Jan Brożek (Joannes Broscius) and Czartoryski Library sammelband 25035−25036 I, which contains several dozen pages of notes left by an anonymous Socinian student.

This paper is devoted to the rhetorical analysis of Nicolas de Nancel’s Petri Rami Vita, which is one of the most thorough biographies of Pierre de la Ramée (1515–1572), an early modern French scholar, rhetorician, philosopher, and reformer of education. In the course of analysis, the author points out intertextual relations between Nancel’s text and European tradition of biographical writings which emerges from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. The author reconstructs the image of Ramus as a rhetorician and then concentrates his attention on the function and usefulness of martyrological figures and images for further popularization of the Ramist doctrine.