Ramism and the Reformation of Method offers a fresh exploration of the philosophical and theological presuppositions of the early modern movement of Ramism. It shows how Ramism was grounded in medieval Augustinian and Franciscan thought and charts its reception within the wider movement of Reformed scholasticism. It thereby challenges a widespread narrative associating Reformed Protestantism with disenchantment and the onset of secularism. Tracing a broad arc from Ramus to Comenius, it examines the nature and formation of Ramism and its subsequent development and transformation, revealing that Ramism was at the epicentre of a methodological revolution which came to profoundly impact every sphere of early modern thought. For its devotees, Ramism became the hallmark of a truly Christian philosophy and theology, the divine pattern of all reality, and the key to restoring a unified Christendom. Fundamental to Ramism was a dynamic convergence of ontology, epistemology, and theology resonating with Franciscan reform. In particular, Ramism was profoundly indebted to an eclectic Neo-Platonist and Scotist approach to reality and developed as a supernatural logic of faith patterned on Scripture. It was also expressed according to a wider mathematization and systematization of knowledge grounded in Cusan and Fabrist ideals. Ramism and the Reformation of Method exposes the deep roots of the early modern encyclopaedia in medieval and Renaissance thought and shows how Ramism was realized in an important Edenic paradigm, issuing in a Trinitarian and eschatological drive for the universal reform of Church and society.
Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Franciscan Reformation of Method 1. Divine Dialectic: Ramus, Method, and the Ascent to God 2. Return to the Golden Age: Ramus and the Reform of Church and Society 3. Logics of Faith: Piscator, Herborn Ramism, and the Confessionalisation of Method 4. Archetypal Reform: Richardson, Ames, and the Reduction of the Arts 5. Catholic Symphony: Scaliger, Polanus, and the Reconfiguring of Ramism 6. Christian Philosophy: Keckermann, Encyclopaedism, and the Return to Eden 7. Philosophical Panacaea: Alsted, Lullism, and Trinitarian Encyclopaedism 8. Universal Harmony: Bisterfeld, Immeation, and Mystical Transformation 9. Pansophia: Comenius and the Quest for Human Omniscience Bibliography Index
Simon J. G. Burton is John Laing Senior Lecturer in Reformation History at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Hallowing of Logic: The Trinitarian Method of Richard Baxter's Methodus Theologiae (2012) and co-editor of Nicholas of Cusa and the Making of the Early Modern World (2019).
Reviews for Ramism and the Reformation of Method: The Franciscan Legacy in Early Modernity
A truly remarkable achievement, this pioneering book locates Ramism squarely within a tradition both far longer and far broader than anything proposed before, revealing for the first time the profound debt of the leading encyclopaedists, pansophists, and universal reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to their medieval Franciscan predecessors. * Howard Hotson, University of Oxford * This compelling study highlights the importance of Franciscan exemplarism for the Ramist remodelling of the arts and sciences. Based on meticulous analyses of primary texts, it poses a real challenge to all those who charge Ramism, and more generally the Reformed tradition, with the disintegration of the medieval worldview. * Ueli Zahnd, University of Geneva *
