Ramistn.adj.
/ˈreɪmɪst/, U.S. /ˈreɪməst/ Philosophy.
A. n.
A follower of Ramus; an advocate or adherent of the philosophical doctrines of Petrus Ramus (see Ramism n.).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > scholasticism > [noun] > logic of Ramus > adherent of
Ramist1598
Ramean1817
1598 T. Tyro Roring Megge sig. A4v And strouting it along the vnknowne street, With some fantasticke Ramist doth he meet.
1605 W. Camden Remaines i. 95 To reduce surnames to a Methode, is matter for a Ramist.
1669 J. Woodbridge Let. 14 Oct. in New Eng. Q. (1937) 10 566 The Church Consists not of Congregations as specificall or Individuall parts of the whole (as the Ramists call Individuum Species).
1702 C. Mather Magnalia Christi iii. iii. i. 180/2 He was an acute Ramist, but yet he professed himself a Lover of a Trichotomy.
1837 K. H. Digby Mores Catholici VIII. viii. vi. 194 Petrus Ramus, to whom adhered Francis Fabricius, the poet Milton, and others, who obtained the title of Ramists.
1876 H. R. F. Bourne Life J. Locke I. i. 45 At Oxford, in Locke's day, the Ramists and anti-Ramists fought out their interminable battle.
1889 J. Nichol Francis Bacon II. 84 The philosophical chairs in the universities were divided between Aristotelians and Ramists.
1952 PMLA 67 1038 The Ramists' conception of what constitutes an argument..will differ radically from that of Aristotle and Milton.
1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 2 July 812/4 The Ramists had already stressed that knowledge ought to be ‘for use’.
2003 Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 64 44 From Ramus and the Ramists..Alsted took the absolute faith that knowledge was ultimately comprehensible within a logical structure.
B. adj.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of Ramists or Ramism.
ΚΠ
1852 H. L. Mansel Artis Logicæ Rudim. of Aldrich (ed. 2) p. xl The mixed school represented by Keckermann, Aristotelian in matter, Ramist in method.
1882 R. Adamson in Encycl. Brit. XIV. 803 Bacon..expounds the system of logic with unmistakable reference to the Ramist principles.
1937 Philos. Rev. 46 566 One is grateful also for the summary of Renaissance logic, and, in particular, Ramist logic.
1976 Stud. Eng. Lit. 1500–1900 16 15 Ramist rhetoric brought greater emphasis to the role of ornament.
2004 Church Times 8 Oct. 25/2 This visual rhetoric, itself a development of popular Ramist philosophy, in turn benefited from the same availability of cheap print that Calvin had tried to contain earlier.
Derivatives
Raˈmistic adj. = Ramist adj.
ΚΠ
1940 Ethics 50 343 Althusius himself used the Ramistic logic in one of his lawbooks.
1962 Listener 5 July 19/1 Behind Bacon stands..the Ramistic Cambridge of his youth.
2003 Representations 83 136 In the New England method of Ramistic logic, the Puritan divines used the figure of the house to illustrate the discrete categories of knowledge.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.adj.1598