Logic in the Universities of the British Isles
In England, as we have seen in the previous chapter, Cambridge was the stronghold first of humanism and then of Ramism. The latter was particularly successful at Cambridge with the institution of its lectureship of dialectic. For instance, as Lisa Jardine
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Logic in the Universities of the British Isles
3.1
Cambridge
In England, as we have seen in the previous chapter, Cambridge was the stronghold first of humanism and then of Ramism. The latter was particularly successful at Cambridge with the institution of its lectureship of dialectic.1 For instance, as Lisa Jardine has pointed out, of the nine courses required by statute in Trinity College in 1560,2 five were devoted to dialectic: the first lectureship taught Aristotle’s Topica, which was the basic text for the study of logic; the second explained Agricola’s De inventione dialecticae or Aristotle’s Elenchi sophistici and Analytica priora; the third taught Porphyry’s Isagoge or Aristotle’s De interpretatione; the fourth and fifth lectureship taught using Seton’s textbook.3 This predominance of dialectic was due to the introduction of a norm in the statute, which established as a minimum requirement for the admission to the higher faculties the knowledge of the rudiments of dialectic: ‘nec quisquam ad ullum collegium assumatur nisi instructus et praeparatus fuerit ad dialecticam discendam’.4 The centrality of logic in the Cambridge curriculum has been recognized by Jardine through a careful study of the inventories of the books owned by students and teachers of the time, of varied contents but all related to humanist logic.
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Cf. Schmitt, John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England, 45. Cf. Jardine, ‘The Place of Dialectic Teaching in Sixteenth-Century Cambridge’, 44. 3 Cf. Samuel R. Maitland, ‘Archbishop Whitgift’s College Pupils’, The British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastic Information, 32 (1847), 508–528, esp. 509: ‘Primus legat Topica Aristotelis. Secundus exponat vel Rodolphum Agricolam de Inventione, vel librum de Elenchis vel libros qui Analytici dicuntur. Tertius Praedicabilie Porphyrii, vel Praedicamente Aristot: vel libros ejusdem de Interpretatione, prout classis ipsius postulat. Quartus et infimus interpretetur Dialecticae introductionem Johannis Setoni, sic ut classis infima commoda introductione veniat ad Porphyrium paratior’. 4 Documents relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge (London, 1852), vol. 1, 492. 2
M. Sgarbi, The Aristotelian Tradition and the Rise of British Empiricism, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 32, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4951-1_3, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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3 Logic in the Universities of the British Isles
The Ratio studiorum of 1559, confirmed subsequently in 1570, established that ‘primus annus rhetoricam docebit: secundus et tertius dialecticam. Quartus adjungat philosophiam’5 and added that the ‘professor of dialectic’ had to teach Aristotle’s Elenchi sophistici or Cicero’s Topica, while the lecturer of rhetoric had to teach Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria or Cicero’s works.6 The logical education in Cambridge conformed strictly to the humanist standard, but despite the Directions, we know from Ascham that the Aristotelian works were little known and taught.7 From Ascham’s words,
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