Technometry

by William Ames, Lee W. Gibbs (Translator)

English, Latin (translation)

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

William Ames (/eɪmz/; Latin: Guilielmus Amesius; 1576 – 14 November 1633) was an English Protestant divine, philosopher, and controversialist. He spent much time in the Netherlands, and is noted for his involvement in the controversy between the Calvinists and the Arminians.

Reviews

[Joshua Lister · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his dissertation on the arts, William Ames defines “eupraxia” as the motion of thought from agent, to form, to idea, and culminating in action and product. Eupraxia is “one unique and simple” phenomenon in God. In the Divine eupraxia is a monad, however, Ames argues that because humans only reflect the divine, therefore it expresses itself in a linear motion. Ames’s “physics” of thought is the basis for developing pedagogy and describing our relationship to the arts and sciences.

One of Ames’s major concerns throughout the Technometry is the abandonment of theology in the academic world and the subsequent overemphasis of metaphysics. Ames despises this cultural shift and refuses to acknowledge the metaphysics as an art. Instead, he identifies physics (using the broader philosophical sense) as a legitimate art and criticizes the term “metaphysics” as an attempt to pervert physics into categories of theology. Ames (rightly) points out, that physics is unable to sufficiently address issues of ethics when it is void of theology. Ames fought against the removal of God from academic philosophical studies. Today, Christians fight to make God relevant to anything outside of Sunday school.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

The English puritan, William Ames, building on Peter Ramus's philsophy, seeks to create a comprehensive view of how all knowledge and arts (making) cohere into one system, where God is the Master Craftsman and man participates in his creativity as creature: Gibbs summarises: “Moreover, after men have once grasped the principles and precepts of the individual arts, they may participate in their own limited way in the reality of God’s artistic activity, that is, men may imitate or make things as God the Supreme artificer makes things. ”
there is, underlying Ames philosophy, still a firm division between the liberal and illiberal and manual arts, the former being superior as they involve the mind more directly, but he is building a place for all creative arts, and all kinds of making in a coherent whole.

[Alex]

Some of Ames's thesis (following Petrus Ramus) are critical of the then and current attempt to treat ethics as a moral philosophy separate from theology. To quote the editor of this volume in his commentary on each of Ames's thesis:

"[S]ince the Scriptures sufficiently and perfectly reveal the principles of goodness and virtue, and since theology alone transmits the whole revealed will of God for directing man's morals, will, and life, there is no longer any need for a separate discipline, science, and art of ethics. The distinction that the ethicists make on the basis of their primary distinction between natural ethics and supernatural theology are distinctions that are outlined and rejected by Ames . . ." (Commentary on Thesis 63)

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a technical work produced by the great Puritan Theologian of the 17th century. The book is one of Ames' latest writings, and his last published work. It lays out his most general philosophy of a system of education--organizing everything under the principle of God's glory, and setting out the liberal arts in hierarchical order. For example, logic is the most general art, for its application is universal. Grammar and Rhetoric are next, for while they are also universal, they are logically subsequent to logic itself. The brilliance of Ames' is evident throughout, although there are some interesting quirks along the way. The introduction by the translator is quite good as well, and has a couple of superb quotes by Jonathan Edwards.