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Specifically, I'm curious about the loci or categories that Agricola and later Ramus used extensively. Were they found to be problematic at a later time? If not, why not use them? They're so helpful in organizing information.

In order to clear up any possible misunderstanding, I'd like to explain my position a bit further. First of all, this question is not about syllogistic logic vs. symbolic logic. It's about what changed in the study of logic over the years and what we gained or lost from those changes:

  • Classical logic dealt with manipulation of ideas (logic as we know it), rhetoric and grammar.
  • Around the 1700s or so, the subject-predicate grammatical model was abandoned and grammar was no longer studied as a "logic" topic.
  • With the advent of symbolic logic, rhetoric lost its association with logic.

Humanistic logic was the first "movement" to rebel against the Classical (Aristotelian) model. It brought some very interesting developments in method and pedagogy. They grouped all that under the heading of logic, which we no longer do, but what I'm wondering is what do we have in its stead?

dwolfeu
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Mordechai
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    What do you mean by "anymore"? At what point in time were they taught regularly in schools, hundreds of years ago? The logic we learn today, i.e. the mathematical logic developed since the 1880s by Frege, Russell, Gödel, etc., is in every conceivable way (functionally, pedagogically) better than Aristotelian or Medieval logic. Society continues to develop, we learn new and better thing, and it becomes rare that how and what was taught hundreds of years ago is what we learn now. A question like "why don't schools teach what was taught in the 1600's anymore?" seems very strange to me. – Not_Here Nov 10 '17 at 09:15
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    Mordechai, in situations like this you have to write the book! This seems to be be based on Aristotle's Topics, am I right? I didn't even know Aristotle wrote such a thing until this year. How do the logics you mention differ from Talmud studies/Hermeneutics as a way of evaluating testimony, evaluating tradition, resolving disputes? Maybe this is irrelevant to these logics. I suspect the main reason that these logics receive little attention is that many people simply don't know about them. – Gordon 15 mins ago delete – Gordon Nov 10 '17 at 14:44
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    My interest was piqued so I did a search and came up with this book: Ramus, method, and the decay of dialogue : from the art of discourse to the art of reason Author: Walter J Ong Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1983, ©1958. – Gordon Nov 10 '17 at 20:50
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    @Not_Here humanistic logic is much more than mathematical logic of today. Also your statement about modern logic superseding Aristotelian or Medieval logic isn't entirely correct. Russel in his essays has a much more nuanced approach and doesn't make such sweeping claims. I am also not convinced that the modern collection of various specialized logics is somehow pedagogically superior. In fact, my question stems from observing the shortcoming of today's methods of categorizing information, especially as it relates to the field of logic. – Mordechai Nov 12 '17 at 08:16
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    @Gordon Aristotle's Topics and Cicero's loci. Humanistic approach logic and rhetoric (which to be honest makes a lot of sense). You're right that today not many people know about this method, but up to almost beginning of the 20th century it had a huge influence in Europe's major learning centers. Look up Ramist and post-Ramist influence on higher education. Not only that, but later developments in cognitive psychology confirmed the validity of this approach, and yet somehow it disappeared off the radar... – Mordechai Nov 12 '17 at 08:28
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    You asked "why isn't this logic taught anymore" and the answer is "because it's been superseded by modern logic." That is the fact of the matter, that's why when you go into a logic class you see that they're learning propositional and predicate logic with maybe a few days spent explaining the historical context of syllogistic logic. It has been superseded, as an empirical matter. Russell might have been more sympathetic (he wasn't) but that was over a hundred years ago. Today syllogistic logic has been eclipsed. – Not_Here Nov 12 '17 at 13:10
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    @Not_Here I am not talking about symbol logic eclipsing syllogistic logic. Whatever my opinion may be about either of these systems, as you put it, "it's a matter of fact". My question is about loci/categories which aren't directly tied to syllogistic logic and have more to do with how we organize information. what do we have in its place? – Mordechai Nov 12 '17 at 13:36
  • @Mordechai What caught my eye in your question was that this could be helpful in organizing information, which is certainly of interest in today's world. Now it's on my list of things to research. – Gordon Nov 12 '17 at 21:18
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    Your question asked "why isn't humanistic logic taught in schools any more?" which, again, is beacuse it was superseded by modern logic. It did not ask or imply any of the other questions that you've just edited into the question. "They grouped all that under the heading of logic, which we no longer do, but what I'm wondering is what do we have in its stead?" is a much more detailed question with a much larger answer than what you originally asked, you should change the title to reflect that because obviously "why isn't it taught in schools anymore" isn't your real question. – Not_Here Nov 13 '17 at 07:51
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    @Not_Here can't we just get along? The question consisted of a heading and details. I further clarified the details. I don't feel that the detailed description contradicts the heading, unless of course you insist on viewing the heading in isolation. – Mordechai Nov 13 '17 at 12:11
  • I've not come across the term 'humanistic logic' and I've just googled it; it looks very interesting and I'm curious to find out more about it; personally speaking, there's more to logic than symbolic logic, and I'd suggest that a subject like critical thinking might be how it's taught now. – Mozibur Ullah Nov 15 '17 at 13:19
  • Anyway, excellent question. – Mozibur Ullah Nov 15 '17 at 13:23
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    @MoziburUllah critical thinking is an interesting option. There are two issues with it, though.A. Modern universities don't teach it very well B. it is more concerned with analysis and less with organizing information for the purpose of learning and communication which is what Ramus categories are for. – Mordechai Nov 15 '17 at 18:31
  • @Mordechai: I've been through a modern university, and I agree that pedagogy is something that they don't do very well; somehow, people muddle through. Maybe this is more true now when they've been turned into businesses and profit centres. – Mozibur Ullah Nov 16 '17 at 02:11

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Humanistic logic was the first "movement" to rebel against the Classical (Aristotelian) model.

That's a flatly false statement. You contrast “syllogistic logic vs. symbolic logic.” but let's leave aside medieval workings in syllogistic logic (which themselves didn't take Aristotle at face value) and let's set aside – I'm going to say – developments from Boole onward (this is where most date symbolic logic from (though I don't, to be clear)) … Great … but what about,

… and what about what Peter Adamson calls,

Both pre-date Humanistic Logic (I'm going by this: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-renaissance-philosophy/logic-and-language-humanistic-logic/6757301E47B772C0CA7D4162B2C984B4) which given that humanism started with Dante/Petrarch & co. was a Renaissance endeavour which we can agree is post-thirteenth century and most definitely post-Stoics.

As to your question. This quote from the SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ramus/#LogiMeth

Logic, according to the Ramist and Stoic perspective, is a part of philosophy. Ramus rejected the Aristotelian definition of logic as a habitus instrumentalis, since an instrumental attitude could be considered to be an effect of logic but not equivalent to it. Instead he defined logic as the ars bene disserendi, the art of correctly discussing or analyzing something. Consequently, Ramus thought that logic was about being, which made the discipline of metaphysics superfluous.

shows that Ramus saw the study of logic as one of the normative disciplines like ethics and aesthetics. This places him as a precursor to Peirce – so maybe the answer to your question is that Humanistic Logic is taught in schools, it's just that it goes by other names. This frequently happens. This might seems like a non-answer and, hey, sometimes a non-answer is the best I've got :/ Thanks for bringing Humanistic Logic to my attention though – have you looked into courses which concentrate on that era of philosophy? So many undergrad course skip over the medieval and renaissance periods frequently jumping from the Church Fathers and the scholastics/theologians straight to modern philosophy and it's a crying shame that this is the case.

igravious
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  • a real answer to your comment about my statement being false would require a comprehensive review of history, but in leu of that I'll just point out that Stoic and terministic logic didn't directly challenge Aristotle. Ramus did. – Mordechai Jun 29 '21 at 19:27
  • about Stoic, and Term-inistic logic, Ramus didn't pop out of a vacuum he had many influences, including Rodolphus Agricola who introduced many innovations in regards to loci, which I'm sure was influenced by terministic logic development. You also left out Cicero's influence which I'll comment on next. – Mordechai Jun 29 '21 at 19:35
  • that standford article you quote is referring to a Ramian idea that the same logic is to be used for analysis and synthesis. So, it had to be tightly interwoven with rhetoric. That has many implications and is certainly not taught anywhere. – Mordechai Jun 29 '21 at 19:38
  • Thank you for bringing up Peirce. He may be the missing link that I was looking for. There are several interesting articles about his work on rhetoric that I want to look into. – Mordechai Jun 29 '21 at 19:57
  • BTW, you may want to look up "Peirce's New Rhetoric" by Liszka. He details Ramus' influence on Peirce. Maybe that's why Russell wasn't crazy about him. – Mordechai Jun 29 '21 at 20:26