Ramus, Petrus (Pierre de la Ramée, 1515-1572)

One of the most influential philosophers and pedagogical thinkers of the 16th century. He studied in Paris where Erasmus and Johannes Sturm the most outstanding humanist educators of the Renaissance made a great impression on him. Ramus was prosecuted for his Protestant faith, resulting in his fleeing to Germany in 1562, although he later returned to his country. In Paris in 1572 he was one of those to fall victim to the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. In his logical (dialectic) works issued in 1543 he had sharply attacked the scholastic way of thinking which was based on the prestige of Aristotle, upon which he himself founded a school. He had Hungarian followers as early as the end of the 16th century (for example the text- and hymnbook writer Imre Anderko Szilvásújfalvi), however, he only had any real effect on the pedagogy of the 17th century Puritans'. His followers gradually began to diversify, for instance Albert Molnár Szenci was also a "ramist" even though he never joined the movement itself.

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