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Why did Petrus Ramus argue that reasoning should be taught through Euclid’s Elements?

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logic: universal affirmative — Modern logic Representations of the universal affirmative, “All A's are B's” in modern logic.

Petrus Ramus, a French philosopher and logician, advocated for teaching reasoning through Euclid’s Elements as an alternative to the traditional study of the syllogism.1

His proposal was part of a broader effort to reform logic during the Renaissance. Ramus was highly critical of what he viewed as the sterile and overly subtle logical systems inherited from the Middle Ages and the traditional Aristotelian approach. By emphasizing the Elements—a foundational treatise on geometry—Ramus sought to move away from the artificial techniques of scholastic logic and toward a more practical, clear, and demonstrative method of reasoning. This shift reflected his desire to replace abstract, textbook-bound syllogistic theory with a more effective, applied approach to logic that he termed "dialectics".1