Why isn't humanistic logic taught in schools any more?

Question

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.

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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?

Answer 1

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,

• Stoic Logic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_logic#Stoics

… and what about what Peter Adamson calls,

• Terministic Logic? https://historyofphilosophy.net/thirteenth-century-logic

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.

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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.