Reforming Rhetoric

Other forms of Classical Education use the Scholastic or the Socratic dialectic method, which are rooted in secular-humanism. In particular, the Scholastics build upon Aristotelianism. However, Peter Ramus was busy reforming rhetoric in the sixteenth century to be didactic. The Protestant Reformers were inspired by Peter Ramus’s method known as Ramean Logic. Who was Peter Ramus and why is his work on reasoning with the didactic method essential to Christians?

Peter Ramus

He is considered the foremost French philosopher of his century. Additionally, “. . . he stands well among the great educators, effective orators, and lofty characters of the world’s history. He was a Christian professor . . . and played a major part, not only in the Reformation, but in the transformation of education in his day, and subsequently afterwards.” -Frank P. Graves

During Ramus’s lifetime, the Catholic Church used Aristotle’s secular humanist methods of dialectics. There came a point in time when Ramus realized that the Greek-rooted dialectics was useless. As a student and as a teacher who became increasingly influenced by Protestantism, he saw a need to reform rhetoric.

Useless Form of Dialectics

Aristotelianism, and the dialectic methods that built upon it, are a series of questions. The Greek-rooted dialectical process has individuals:

question their beliefs
cause doubt (perhaps, depending on who is leading the questions)
reason from within themselves as an attempt to arrive to truth
the goal is self-discovery

Those aims aren’t beneficial for one’s education and Peter Ramus acknowledged that. Nor were they beneficial for logic or reasoning. The issue is that there isn’t a starting point for reasoning from truth. The result is that people can wind up all over the place with their attempts at reasoning. Therefore, he took issue with the fact that such questions were useless:

“What repelled him most was the barrenness of the current dialectic method for any real use in the ‘arts’ or in life. “‘When I came to Paris,'” he tells us, “‘I fell into the subtleties of the sophists, and they taught me the liberal arts through questions and disputes, without ever showing me a single thing of profit or service.'” And, “‘In his Studies in Dialectic he gives a much more detailed and graphic picture of the whole formal and useless method of instruction then in vogue, together with the way in which a new point of view and freedom in thinking eventually came to him.'”(1)

Lacking Applications in Logic

Ramus made others aware of the fact that the Greek-rooted dialectic method wasn’t founded on truth and it didn’t apply logic:

“In his Studies in Dialectic he gives a much more detailed and graphic picture of the whole formal and useless method of instruction then in vogue, together with the way in which a new point of view and freedom in thinking eventually came to him. He declares : —”‘Never amidst the clamors of the college where I passed so many days, months, years, did I ever hear a single word about the applications of logic.'”(2)

Frustrated and disappointed with the current state of dialectics— especially its fruitless disputations— Ramus determined to reform it as well as rhetoric. He did this through didactic studies and discussions. In other words, he did this through Biblical Classical discussions which have teachers and students reasoning from truth. And he set out to do this in all academic subjects.

He reorganized the liberal arts with the use of the following three “laws of method”(3):

Only things which are true and necessary may be included (truth);
All and only things which belong to the art in question must be included (justice);
General things must be dealt with in a general way, particular things in a particular way (wisdom).

Ramus’s didactic tool divided each academic subject as far as it could be divided. He used logic to teach grammar, dialectic (logic), and rhetoric. He created a logical system for organizing and studying to reform rhetoric. His principles of method “naturally augured clearness and brevity in the curriculum, and facility, interest, and economy to the student.”(4) Ramean Logic was used by the Puritans and produced scholars who could think and reason Biblically.

It may be safe to say that rhetoric is only as valuable as the dialectic from which it flows. Of his reformative work, Ramus said: “If I had to pass judgment upon my own works, I should desire that the monument raised to my memory should commemorate the reform of logic.”(5) That is to say, the remarkable use of didactic methods applied to the art of logic.

In Summary

Peter Ramus’s contribution to education is invaluable and necessary to restore education to the Bible. Biblical Classical Education applies logic based on the truths of God’s Word to each academic subject and arena of life. Today’s Christians have an important role in restoring education to the Bible, which will result in true Liberty for individuals and nations.

Biblical Classical Education is classical in its truest sense and acknowledges God as the source of truth, holds to the law of non-contradiction, and applies Biblical principles to life and learning. Additionally, Biblical Classical education adheres to the “Logos” concept in its truest sense— Jesus is the the “Word” or “Reason.” Jesus Christ embodies the final logic and truth.

Biblical Classical Community serves Christian homeschooling families with self-paced, online Parent Practicums and academic courses for their homeschools. Let’s restore education to the Bible, starting with our families.

Footnote 1: Peter Ramus and the Educational Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, by Frank P. Graves, Ph.D., p. 6
Footnote 2: Ibid, p. 22
Footnote 3: University at Buffalo, A History of Speech – Language Pathology: Early Modern Period – The Renaissance: 1500 – 1700 AD, Peter Ramus 1515-1572 by Judy Duchan, Retrieved 8-27-2025 https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/new_history/early_modern/ramus.html#:~:text=Only%20things%20which%20are%20true,things%20in%20a%20particular%20way.
Footnote 4: Ibid, p. 85