Memory as shadow of the method in Peter Ramus and French Ramism

Abstract

The article examines the ambiguous role of memory in Peter Ramus' reform of logic and in sixteenth-century French encyclopedic Ramism. In particular, it shows how, in Ramus' writings on dialectics, the art of memory loses its identity as an autonomous discipline and is entirely absorbed by the doctrine of method. Such an identification of memory and method presupposes a conception of knowledge as an objectification of structures and mental operations that is inadequate to the setup of an encyclopedic project aimed at guaranteeing the objective and extra-mental contents of the disciplines, as the one that asserted itself among the first generation of the regius professor's scholars. It is precisely in this context that, also thanks to the revival of Lullist instances, memory is charged with classificatory and unifying functions regarded as necessary and preliminary to the application to all arts and sciences of Ramus' unique method.