The Influence of Petrus Ramus
Studies in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Philosophy and Sciences
Description:... The volume originated in a workshop, held in the Bibelsaal of the Herzog August Library of Wolfenbüttel and devoted to an examination of the influence of Petrus Ramus. The papers, revised for publication, deal with the diverse use made of Ramus both by followers and adversaries in the religious and scholarly controversies that raged throughout (mainly) Protestant Europe during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In terms of organization the volume is divided along regional and thematic issues. The impact of Ramist ideas on Calvinism informs a first group of papers concentrating on various Reformed territories: Switzerland (Wolfgang Rother), the Netherlands (Theo Verbeek), Bremen and Gdansk (Thomas Elsmann). A second group examines Lutheran responses to Ramus: Joseph Freedman analyzes Melanchthon's view, Riccardo Pozzo evaluates the criticism by the Helmstedt Aristotelians, and Erland Sellberg scrutinizes Ramus' reception at the Swedish universities. Two further contributions probe the Ramist debate in the British Isles: in England (Mordechai Feingold) and in Ireland (Elizabethanne Boran). The section devoted to thematic issues places Ramus within Renaissance disciplines where his impact was most keenly felt: logic and literature (Kees Meerhoff), historiography and jurisprudence (Guido Oldrini), law and medicine (Ian Maclean), and astronomy (Nicholas Jardine and Alain Segonds).
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