Commonplace Learning Ramism and its German Ramifications, 1543-1630 [Hardcover]

Ramism was the most controversial pedagogical movement to sweep through the Protestant world in the latter sixteenth century. This book, the first contextualized study of this rich tradition, has wide-ranging implications for the intellectual, cultural, and social histories not only of the Holy Roman Empire but also of the entire Protestant world in the crucial decades immediately preceding the advent of the new philosophy in the mid-seventeenth century.

First-generation Ramism
1. Introduction: the earliest German Ramism
i. Ramism in Germany: a neglected tradition
ii. Ramism and Calvinism: an overworked explanation
iii. The spread of Ramism in north-western Germany: a fresh start
2. Foundations: Ramism in German context
i. The rudiments of Ramism
ii. Ramism and humanism, c.1580-1600
iii. Ramism in Hanseatic cities and imperial counties
Second-generation semi-Ramism
3. Institutionalisation: semi-Ramism in Reformed academies, 1580-1600
i. Adaptation: the advent of Philippo-Ramism
ii. Confessionalisation: Ramism and Calvinism revisited
iii. Expansion: Ramism and the encyclopaedia
4. Adaptation: Post-Ramist methods in Reformed universities, 1590-1613
i. Beyond Philippo-Ramism: Casmann, Timpler, Keckermann, and Alsted
ii. 'Methodical Peripateticism': Heidelberg and Keckermann's systema, 1590-1601
iii. Precursor to the Encyclopaedia: Danzig and Keckermann's Systema systematum, 1602-13
Third-generation post-Ramist eclecticism
5. Compilation: Alsted's Cursus philosophici encyclopaedia, 1609-20
i. Form: the Encyclopaedia as systema systematum
ii. Composition: the Encyclopaedia as bibliotheca universalis locorum communium
iii. Matter: the Encyclopaedia as bibliotheca philosophica
6. Culmination: Alsted's Encyclopaedia septem tomis distincta, 1620-30