Pansophism

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Wikipedia

John Amos Comenius created the main concepts of Pansophism in the mid-1600s.

Pansophism (from Greek pansophos and English -ism, lit. 'universal wisdom'),[1][2] also known as pansophy, is a pedagogical concept aimed to educate humanity to a complete understanding of everything. It was proposed by Czech philosopher John Amos Comenius in the mid-1600s.[3]

"[Comenius's] second great interest was in furthering the Baconian attempt at the organization of all human knowledge. He became one of the leaders in the encyclopædic or pansophic movement of the seventeenth century".[4]

Etymology

The word pansophism comes from the Greek words pansophos plus the suffix -ism.[2]

The word pansophy comes from the Greek words πᾶν (pan) 'all' and σοφία (sophia) 'wisdom', which originally came from the Neo-Latin word pansophia.[5]

The term was not originally created by Comenius, having been applied by Bartolomeo Barbaro of Padua in his De omni scibili libri quadraginta: seu Prodromus pansophiae, from the middle of the sixteenth century.[6]

Conceptions of pansophism

General conception

The pansophic principle is one of the important principles of Comenius: that everything must be taught to everyone, or in his words "to all men and from all points of view" (Great Didactic), as a guiding basis for education.[7] This continues the idea of universal education (characteristica universalis).[8] According to Comenius, pansophism

propoundeth to itself so to expand and lay open to the eyes of all the wholeness of things that everything might be pleasurable in itself and necessary for the expanding of the appetite.[9]

The early concepts of pansophism included potentates all across Europe to do nothing but:

  • Open schools for all[10]
  • Support impoverished children[10]
  • Mixed gender classes[10]
  • Investment in schoolbooks
  • Text and pictures in books
  • Gradual complexity[11]
  • Lifelong learning[10]

Pansophism was a term used generally by Comenius to describe his pedagogical philosophy. His book Pansophiae prodromus (1639) was published in London with the cooperation of Samuel Hartlib. It was followed by Pansophiae diatyposis. Pansophy in this sense has been defined as ‘full adult comprehension of the divine order of things’.[12] He aimed to set up a Pansophic College, a precursor of later academic institutes[13] He wrote his ideas for this in a tract Via lucis, written 1641/2 in London; he had to leave because the English Civil War was breaking out, and this work was eventually printed in 1668, in Amsterdam.[14]

History

Educational reform

Janua Linguarum Reserata.

Believing that the Protestants would win and liberate Bohemia from the Habsburg Counter-Reformation, John Amos Comenius, then a minister, wrote a "Brief Proposal" advocating for full-time schooling for the youth of Bohemia and maintaining that they should be taught both their native culture and the culture of Europe whilst hiding in Leźno in 1628 with the Bohemian Brethren during the Thirty Years' War.[9] Comenius wrote three books during this time: The Great Didactic, which focused on a reform on the education system, The School of Infancy, a book for mothers on the early years of childhood, and Janua Linguarum Reserata in 1629, which was then published in 1631.[15] After being translated to German, the Janua became famous in Europe and was subsequently translated into a number of European and Asian languages.[9][16] Comenius wrote that he was "encouraged beyond expectation" from the reception of the Janua.[9]

In 1638, Comenius responded to a request by the government of Sweden and traveled there to draw up a scheme for the management of the country's schools and by writing a series of textbooks modeled on the Janua.[17][18][9] Comenius interpreted the request as the Swedish government entitling him to base the textbooks on a system of pansophism, which he saw as an evolved form as philosophy.[9]

Pansophism at the time was not influential during Comenius' lifetime or afterward.[9]

Later esoteric reinterpretations

The Pansophic Lodges

In the early 1920s, Heinrich Tränker [de], a German occultist, founded multiple "Pansophic lodges" to promote his Rosicrucian interpretation of pansophism in Germany.[19][20][21] They were intended as esoteric societies combining elements of Rosicrucianism, western esotericism, and mysticism. One of the lodges was located out of Berlin from 1924 to 1926 and was called the Pansophische Loge der lichtsuchenden Brüder Orient Berlin (English: Pansophic lodge of the light-seeking brethren Orient Berlin), which was founded and led by Eugen Grosche.[21] The lodges generally studied gnosis, Kabbalah, philosophy, and mysticism in an attempt to cultivate pansophism.[21] The Pansophische Gesellschaft was succeeded by the Fraternitas Saturni in 1926 due to the closing of the lodges and Grosche's dissatisfaction with the lack of guidance from Tränker on the lodges.[21]

Pansophers.com

Pansophers.com is an online Rosicrucian blog created in 2015. According to the website, they claim to be the only non-denominational Rosicrucian blog.[22]

Pansophic Freemasonry

A group within Freemasonry is called Pansophic Freemasonry.[23][24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chambliss, J. J. "Education". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  2. 1 2 "Definition of Pansophism". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2025-12-20.
  3. ↑ Small, Mary Luins (March 1990). The Pansophism of John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) as the Foundation of Educational Technology and the Source of Constructive Standards for the Evaluation of Computerized Instruction and Tests (Report).
  4. ↑ "Comenius." The New International Encyclopædia (vol. 5), 1st ed.
  5. ↑ "Definition of Pansophy". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2025-12-09.
  6. ↑ On the Historical Source of Sanctian Linguistics, KU, archived from the original on 2005-04-19.
  7. ↑ "Learning from Nature | Christian History Magazine". Christian History Institute. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  8. ↑ Article of Comenius (MS Word), KR: Kangnam, His education system was focused on teaching everything to everyone, since, from the outset, it was intended to educate all men of society to develop their democratic qualifications. In a word, the system of education proposed by Comenius is universal by its very nature: "as he says, it is 'pansophic', it is intended for all men irrespective of social, or economic position, race or nationality. [...]he attempted to unite all kinds of human knowledge in the universal science of his pansophism on a larger or smaller scale.[dead link]
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "John Amos Comenius | Biography, Theory, Contribution to Education, & Facts | Britannica". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2025-10-19. Retrieved 2025-12-20.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Dent, Robert A. (2021-11-17). "John Amos Comenius: Inciting the Millennium through Educational Reform". Religions. 12 (11): 1012. doi:10.3390/rel12111012. ISSN 2077-1444.
  11. ↑ Monroe, W. S. (Will Seymour). "Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2025-12-21.
  12. ↑ Czech Baroque Literature, UK: Ox, archived from the original on 2007-10-14.
  13. ↑ Literatur, DE: Deutsche Comenius Gesellschaft, archived from the original on 2012-07-29, If he did not succeed in securing the establishment of the international center, or Pansophic College, for the coordination of the knowledge and sciences of the world, he did participate in, and probably contributed to, the discussions which ultimately resulted in the founding of the Royal Society.
  14. ↑ A biographical time chart, DE: Deutsche Comenius Gesellschaft, archived from the original on 2012-08-04.
  15. ↑ František Palacký: Život Jana Amose Komenského, Prague 1929, pp. 39–42 (in Czech)
  16. ↑ Václav Staněk: Stručné dějiny literatury české, Olomouc 1905, p. 53 (in Czech)
  17. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Comenius, Johann Amos" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  18. ↑ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Comenius, Johann Amos" . Encyclopedia Americana.
  19. ↑ Lechler, Volker (2013). Heinrich Tränker als Theosoph, Rosenkreuzer und Pansoph: unter Berücksichtigung seiner Stellung im O.T.O. und seines okkulten Umfeldes (in German). V. Lechler.
  20. ↑ Marco Pasi: Ordo Templi Orientis. In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Hrsg.): Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 978-90-04-15231-1 S. 904.
  21. 1 2 3 4 "'Heinrich Tränker' by Volker Lechler — PARALIBRUM". PARALIBRUM. Retrieved 2025-12-21.
  22. ↑ Robinson, Samuel (2020-11-05). "About Pansophers.com". Rosicrucian Tradition Website. Retrieved 2025-12-21.
  23. ↑ Pansophic, Home temple.
  24. ↑ "Pansophic Freemasons – The Square Magazine". Retrieved 2025-12-21.