Abordamos aqui a influência do método de Condillac sobre a história da química. Partindo da confessada dívida de Lavoisier com o abade, propomo-nos a avaliar o aporte que o método condillaquiano terá para a filosofia natural da segunda metade do XVIII, colocando-a primeiramente na perspectiva da onda newtoniana que contaminou progressivamente as ciências a partir do fim do XVII. Mostramos então como o método de Newton, via alquimia, é capaz de inserir aspectos alheios ao mecanicismo estrito nas discussões, o que (...) garantirá à química legitimidade para se valer de conceitos como atrações e afinidades. Mais tarde, ao constituir e sistematizar um método geral de conhecimento marcado pelo modelo newtoniano, Condillac legará aos naturalistas meios para ordenar proficuamente novas regiões de conhecimento. Quando adequadamente adaptado por Lavoisier aos problemas químicos, este método promoverá a “revolução” da química, ou seu estabelecimento definitivo como ciência positiva. (shrink)

This paper aims to single out and to highlight the fundamental tenets of Agricola’s De inuentione dialectica. After the structure of the volume, its theoretical perspective and its educational concern are illustrated, Agricola’s understanding of the fundamental notion of locus is expounded. In this relation his particular use of the medieval term habitudo and the exclusion of maxims, which had been the main concern of the Medieval doctrine of loci, show a certain distance from the Medieval tradition. Several innovative and (...) constructive contributions of Agricola’s work are stressed, in particular the elaboration of a new taxonomy of loci and the discovery of the relevant role played by loci not only in argumentation but also in exposition and in explanation. In this way, loci acquire the status of intentiones secundae, i.e. of meta-categorical concepts which govern the connections ensuring textual congruity. A reading of this text in the light of contemporary argumentation theory reveals a surprising topicality and richness of concrete contributions in some dialectical and rhetorical domains, like argument schemes, topical potential, and presentational techniques. (shrink)

As Roger Ariew shows, one of the most fascinating challenges for the authors trying to create a Cartesian complete course on philosophy was coming up with a Cartesian Logic based on the existing texts of the master. Were the few simple rules from the Discourse on Method the "logic" of Descartes? Were the Rules for the Direction of the Mind "logic"? How can we even have a logic without syllogism? When looking at the authors studied by Ariew one finds that (...) the best that they could come up was adding some Cartesian elements on what remains basically a traditional Aristotelian Logic. It seems that there was no Cartesian Logic after all.I want to show here that Cartesian Logic is something else, not exactly... (shrink)

This article provides a basic general introduction to Ramus, and evaluates his role in the history of logic and rhetoric, especially with relation to the study of argumentation. The author agrees with Ong and other historians of logic that Ramus is not to be taken seriously as a logician, and that his undoubted importance in the history of ideas is to be found elsewhere.Ramus advocates a belief in nature, experience and reason, and rejects the reliance on the authority of ancient (...) philosophers, above all Aristotle, though ‘experience’ does not mean scientific experiment and, paradoxically, includes the example of great philosophers and writers. In the end Ramus is seen as responsible for substituting for ancient classical rhetoric an entirely ornamental rhetoric of figures which was to take over education (with the exception of the Jesuit schools) almost until our own day. This curtailing and diminishing of rhetoric is seen as a degeneration. Ancient five-part rhetoric had been concerned with convincing and persuading: Aristotle distinguished the analytic, scientific reasoning of logic, from dialectic which was based on opinion and probability and had close links with rhetoric; by the time of Cicero and Quintilian, who addressed themselves to jurists and politicians, logic has given way to dialectic. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the two become assimilated; the evolution of this is traced here through the thirteenth-century Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain to the fifteenth-century German humanist logician Rudolph Agricola, who influenced Ramus partly through the intermediary of Johann Sturm. Ramus took over their topical theories but restricted them to logic/dialectic, and left rhetoric with little more than tropes and figures. He believed that there was only one method for teaching all the arts, and one dialectic common to them all. The distinction between analytical and dialectical has disappeared, with far-reaching consequences for the study of argumentation. Over the centuries logic has lost its connection with controversy and persuasion. With the development of the post-Cartesian, post-Baconian emphasis on the clarity of scientific discourse, and the mid-nineteenth-century interest in mathematical and formal logic, the process was complete. Argumentation, or the ‘new rhetoric’, aims to fill the gap thus created. (shrink)

In his first work, the Dialecticae Institutiones of 1543, Peter Ramus urged those who wanted to learn the truth about the world not to approach scholars, but vineyard workers. “From their minds, as...