Erasmus's The Praise of Folly

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was a Dutch humanist scholar and theologian who was born in Rotterdam and died in Basel. He was the second illegitimate son of Roger Gerard, a priest, and Margaretha Rogerius, a physician's daughter. Because his father was a Catholic priest, his parents could not be legally married. They died from the plague in 1483, and Erasmus was educated in monastic schools. He took monastic vows in 1486, and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1492. Shortly after his ordination, he was granted a temporary dispensation (later made permanent) from his monastic vows in order for him to be able to accept a post as Latin secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, in northern France. He studied theology at the University of Paris in 1495, and he traveled widely in France, England, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. 

      While in England in 1499, he taught at the University of Oxford, and he met John Colet, an English Catholic priest, scholar, and educator, and Thomas More, an English lawyer, diplomat, and statesman, both of whom became close personal friends. (Thomas More later became Lord Chancellor of England, and was executed in 1535 for refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England). Erasmus earned a Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Turin in 1506, and he was a professor of divinity at Queen's College, Cambridge from 1511-1514. 

      From 1521-1529, he lived in Basel, but due to religious unrest in the city in 1529, he moved to Freiburg. While in Freiburg, he received an invitation from Queen Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, to move to Brabant, and after having decided to accept the invitation, he preliminarily moved back to Basel in 1535. But in 1536, he died of an attack of dysentery, and was buried in Basel Münster (the city's former cathedral).

      His writings included his annotated text of the Greek New Testament, with his Latin translation (Novum Instrumentum omne, 1516), his Adages (Adagiorum collectanea, 1500), Handbook of the Christian Soldier (Enchiridion militis Christiani, 1503), The Praise of Folly (Stultitiae Laus, 1511), The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis Christiani, 1516), On the Immense Mercy of God (De immensa misericordia dei, 1524), and On Free Will (De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio, 1524). 

       Erasmus is regarded as one of the founders of Renaissance humanism, which emphasized the study of ancient Greek and Latin grammar, rhetoric, literature, history, and philosophy as a route to better understanding of the human capacity for virtue. He criticized the pedantry of scholastic theologians, and he condemned clerical abuses and corruption within the church. He was initially sympathetic to the Reformation, but later opposed it, and he rejected religious violence and dogmatism.

      The Praise of Folly was written in 1509 while he was in England, and it was published in Paris in 1511. It was written in Latin, and its title, Stultitiae Laus or Moriae Encomium, was a play on the name of Thomas More (Moria is the Greek word for folly), to whom it was dedicated. 

      Erasmus writes in a prefatory letter to Thomas More that the name "More" is as close to the Greek word for folly (Moria) as More himself is far from it. He describes the work as a declamation that he hopes More will accept as a memento of their friendship.

      In the text, Folly wears the costume of a jester as she delivers an oration in praise of herself. (Erasmus considers Folly to be a woman, since he considers women to be more foolish than men. Indeed, Folly says that a woman who considers herself wise is twice as foolish. But she also says that it's through folly that women strive to be attractive to men, and that this capacity for folly is precisely what attracts men to women. Thus, folly defines both men and women.¹ However, the personification of folly as a female jester is of course based on the sexist assumption that women don't have the same capacity for wisdom as men, and that women are less rational beings than men. Erasmus intentionally promotes the sexist and patriarchal conception that women have less capacity for rational judgment than men, and that it is in women's natures to be governed solely by their emotions and not by their powers of reason.)

      The oration is full of well-worn proverbs and is characterized by inflated, empty rhetoric. It's mocking and satirical, without any real attempt at disguise or subtlety. It's quite amusing, however.

      Folly is a goddess whose father was Plutus (the god of riches), and whose mother was Nethe (Youth). She was nursed by Methe (Drunkenness) and Apaedia (Stupidity). Among her attendants are Philautia (Self-love), Kolakia (Flattery), Lethe (Forgetfulness), and Misoponia (Laziness).

      Some of what we learn from the oration is that it's foolish to be impulsive and to unthinkingly blurt out whatever comes to mind. Folly is obvious and easily recognized. It's never disguised, and it can always be seen for what it is. It can't be concealed, even by those who call themselves wise. Those who call themselves philosophers and try to conceal foolishness are actually "foolosophers."²

      Those who overestimate their knowledge or understanding of things may also commit acts of folly. So may those who seek to be admired for their knowledge and understanding.

      We may be careless or imprudent and yet think ourselves wise. We may take pleasure in our acts of folly, because through folly, we are relieved of, or freed from, the cares and concerns that might preoccupy us if we were wise.

      Just as wisdom may be based on reason, prudence, and self-control, folly may be based on the swings of passion, impulses of desire, and vicissitudes of emotion. Folly is present everywhere throughout human society.

      Engagement in foolish amusements and pastimes may bring us pleasure. Indeed, the more trivial and foolish they are, the more lighthearted we may become.

      Even love and friendship may cause us to be foolish, since they may cause us to be blind to our own, and one another's, faults and shortcomings. Indeed, folly may cause us to overlook things we would otherwise be unable to ignore. Through folly, we may also be unjustifiably pleased with ourselves.

      It's human nature to be foolish and not wise, says Folly. Socrates wasn't actually stupid, since he refused to be called a wise man, reserving wisdom for divinity alone. But Socrates, for being wise, was sentenced to drink hemlock.³ And Plato, who said the state will be happy when philosophers become kings and kings become philosophers, failed to see that no state was ever more unhappy than when power fell into the hands of a pseudo-philosopher.⁴ Even Marcus Aurelius, if we grant that he was a relatively better emperor than others, did more damage to the state by leaving such a son as Commodus behind him than he ever prevented by his own rule.⁵ 

      And anyone who believes that anything as vague and empty as fame or glory is worth as much sweat and as many sleepless nights as it takes to be careful and persistent must be the greatest fool of all! What is wise is to profit from the folly of others.⁶

      Fools provide us with jokes, fun, and laughter. They alone speak the plain, unvarnished truth.⁷ They don't know any better than to tell the truth, even when their audience won't profit from hearing it. They can't conceal anything. They're swayed by flattery and easily deceived by liars. They deceive themselves, and they're easily deceived by others.

      Fools include those liars and frauds who think that if they throw into the collection basket one small coin from their plunder, then all their sins will be expunged, and all their acts of perjury, deception, dishonesty, and betrayal will be paid off like a mortgage.⁸

      Fools also include those philosophers who know nothing at all but claim to know everything.⁹

      Fools also include those theologians who brand anyone who disagrees with them a heretic. They claim to be able to explain sacred mysteries, such as by what channels original sin is transmitted to Adam's descendants, and for how long Christ was fully formed in the Virgin's womb.¹⁰ They claim to know whether God could have taken on the nature of a cucumber, and whether that cucumber could have preached, performed miracles, and been nailed to the cross.¹¹ Among all the competing schools of theology, including the Realists, Nominalists, Thomists, Albertists, Occamists, and Scotists, there's so much academic subtlety and dialectical precision regarding such matters as the difference between Christ's body as it is in heaven, as it was on the cross, and as it is in the eucharist that the apostles themselves would have been hard pressed to match wits with such theologians.¹²

      Fools also include those hypocrites who make a great show of their devotion and piety, and those scholars who, when preaching, make a great show of their learning by bringing forth their syllogisms, premises, conclusions, corollaries, hypotheses, and utterly pedantic concerns about matters that are trivial and irrelevant.¹³

      Fools also include those in the hierarchy of the church who, rather than teaching holy scripture, make frequent use of interdicts, suspensions, formal warnings, and excommunications. They interpret the patrimony of St. Peter as if it were merely fields, towns, taxes, and dominions to be defended by fire and sword.¹⁴

      Indeed, says Folly, Christianity has more of an affinity with folly than with wisdom. Who else but fools would give away all their belongings, ignore injuries received from others, allow themselves to be deceived, make no distinction between friend and enemy, find satisfaction in fasts and vigils, and desire self-sacrifice above anything else?

FOOTNOTES

¹Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, translated by Clarence H. Miller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 29-30.

²Ibid., p. 13.

³Ibid., pp. 36-37.

⁴Ibid., p. 38.

⁵Ibid., p. 38.

⁶Ibid., pp. 41-42.

⁷Ibid., p. 55.

⁸Ibid., p. 65.

⁹Ibid., p. 86.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 88.

¹¹Ibid., p. 89.

¹²Ibid., pp. 90-91.

¹³Ibid., p. 105.

¹⁴Ibid., pp. 112-113.

Susan Haack's Evidence and Inquiry

Susan Haack is a British philosopher who was born in 1945 in Burnham, England. (She is a citizen of the United Kingdom, but has been a permanent U.S. resident since 1990). She studied at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, earning her PhD in philosophy at Cambridge in 1972, with a dissertation that later became her first book, Deviant Logic. She served as Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, and later as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. Since 1990, she has been a professor of philosophy at the University of Miami, where she is currently Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law. 

      She has written on many subjects, including philosophy of logic, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophical and legal pragmatism, feminism, and social philosophy.

      Her many books have included Deviant Logic (1974), Philosophy of Logics (1978), Evidence and Inquiry (1993), Defending Science--Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism (2003), Pragmatism, Old and New (2006), Putting Philosophy to Work: Inquiry and its Place in Culture (2008), and Evidence Matters: Science, Proof and Truth in the Law (2014).

      In Evidence and Inquiry (1993), she offers a theory of epistemic justification that is neither foundationalist nor coherentist, but "foundherentist." She seeks to transcend what she calls the false dichotomies of foundationalism vs. coherentism, externalism vs, internalism, evidentialism vs. reliabilism, and apriorism vs. scientism.¹ She also aims to show that satisfaction of foundherentist criteria is an indication of the truth of beliefs.² She uses the analogy of a crossword puzzle to describe the true structure of relations of evidential support, and to indicate that beliefs can mutually support one another without being logically circular.³ Below is a brief outline of the first chapter.

      Haack describes foundationalism as the theory that (1) some justified beliefs are basic (justified independently of the support of other beliefs), and (2) all other justified beliefs are derived (justified via the direct or indirect support of basic beliefs).⁴ Coherentism is the theory that a belief is justified if and only if it belongs to a coherent set of beliefs.⁵ Foundationalism is a one-directional model of justification (basic beliefs are required to support derived beliefs, and never vice versa), while coherentism is not. Coherentism holds that justification is exclusively a matter of relations, while foundationalism does not.⁶

      Varieties of foundationalism include experientialist (or empirical) foundationalism, which holds that basic beliefs are justified, not by being supported by other beliefs, but by being supported by experience. The extrinsic version of empirical foundationalism holds that basic beliefs are justified by being causally connected to the state of affairs that makes them true, while the intrinsic version holds that basic beliefs are justified by their intrinsic nature and content.⁷

      Strong foundationalism, which holds that basic beliefs are decisively, conclusively, or completely justified, independently of the support of other beliefs, may be distinguished from weak foundationalism, which holds that basic beliefs are only prima facie, defeasibly, or to some degree justified, independently of the support of other beliefs.⁸

      Pure foundationalism, which holds that derived beliefs are justified wholly via the support of basic beliefs, may also be distinguished from impure foundationalism, which holds that derived beliefs are justified at least in part via the support of basic beliefs.⁹

      Haack notes that contextualism (which she describes as the theory that justification is a matter of conformity to the standards of an epistemic community) may be a third alternative theory of epistemic justification. Contextualism, like foundationalism, may posit certain basic beliefs by which all other justified beliefs are supported, but rather than seeing those beliefs as being supported in some other way than via the support of other beliefs, it may see them as not standing in need of justification at all for the epistemic community in question.¹⁰ A weakness of contextualism, however, is that it may lead to the impression that epistemic standards are merely conventional rather than objective, which may undermine the legitimacy of the project of ratifying certain beliefs as justified.¹¹

      Haack describes and evaluates some of the arguments for and against foundationalism and coherentism. According to the infinite regress argument for foundationalism, a belief can't be justified if it requires support via other beliefs, which then require support via other beliefs, which then require support via other beliefs, in an infinite regression. Some beliefs must be justified, independently of the support of other beliefs. But she contends that this argument makes the false assumption that the reasons for a belief must constitute a chain, rather than a pyramid or some other supporting structure.

      Another argument against extrinsic foundationalism is the evidentialist objection, that this theory of justification seems to claim that a basic belief is justified if there's an appropriate connection between a belief-state and a state of affairs that makes it true, even when the subject has no other evidence for the belief or has evidence against it.¹²

      An argument against coherentism is the too much to ask objection, that consistency is assumed to be a necessary condition of coherence, and that a subject who has inconsistent beliefs can't therefore be justified in any of their beliefs (which makes consistency seem like too demanding a requirement).¹³

      Another argument against coherentism, however, is the consistent fairy story objection, which says, not that consistency is too strong a requirement for epistemic justification, but that it's too weak.¹⁴

      Still another argument against coherentism is what Haack calls the drunken sailors argument, which takes its name from an observation by C.I. Lewis that the coherentist claim that empirical beliefs can be justified by nothing other than relations of mutual support is like suggesting that two drunken sailors can support each other by leaning against each other, even when they have nothing to stand on.¹⁵ According to the drunken sailors argument, justification can't depend solely on relations between beliefs, and unless there's some role for empirical testing of our beliefs, we can't have any guarantee that our beliefs are justified.

      Haack describes foundherentism as the theory that (1) "a subject's experience is relevant to the justification of their beliefs, but there need be no privileged class of beliefs justified exclusively by the support of experience, independently of the support of other beliefs," and (2) "justification is not exclusively one-directional, but involves pervasive relations of mutual support."¹³ Since beliefs are seen to be justified partly by experience and partly by other beliefs, justification is gradational rather than categorical.¹⁶ Foundherentism may therefore be a middle ground between foundationalism and coherentism.

      Haack explains that foundherentism survives the decisive argument against coherentism, the drunken sailors argument. It also survives the evidentialist objection to extrinsic foundationalism, and "its superiority to even weak and impure forms of experientialist foundationalism is exhibited by its ability, and their inability, to accommodate the up and back all the way down arguments" for abandoning the one-directionality of justification. So foundherentism survives the strongest arguments against both foundationalism and coherentism.¹⁷

FOOTNOTES

¹Susan Haack, "Not One of the Boys: Memoir of an Academic Misfit," Against Professional Philosophy, August 3, 2020, online at https://againstprofphil.org/2020/08/03/susan-haacks-not-one-of-the-boys-memoir-of-an-academic-misfit/.

²Haack, Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p. 7.

³Ibid., p. 2.

⁴Ibid., p. 14.

⁵Ibid., p. 17.

⁶Ibid., p. 19.

⁷Ibid., p. 15.

⁸Ibid., p. 16.

⁹Ibid., p. 17.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 20.

¹¹Ibid., p. 20.

¹²Ibid., p. 28.

¹³Ibid., p. 25.

¹⁴Ibid., p. 26.

¹⁵Ibid., p. 19.

¹⁶Ibid., p. 20.

¹⁷Ibid., p. 33.

Baltimore 10 Miler, 2023

The Baltimore 10 Miler was held June 3rd, 2023. The start and finish were at Druid Hill Park, near the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. The weather was perfect, 68 degrees at 7 am. But the temperature quickly climbed to 75 degrees by 9 am. Fortunately, there were plenty of water stations along the course, and the sun was behind us during the second half of the race, since we were running west back toward the park.

      The course was the same as in previous years, with the exception that, since there was a construction project at Lake Montebello, runners went halfway around the lake before making a U-turn and coming back along the bike lane to the entrance of the lake (and then back down 33rd Street). 

      I've been battling various leg injuries over the last two years, so I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to run. I even thought of calling it quits as I was trying to get warmed up at 4 or 5 am that morning. Leg stiffness has become a real problem as I get older, leading to greater susceptibility to muscle strains and other injuries.

      This year's overall winners were Jeremy Ardanuy, in the men's division, who had a time of 54:05, and Meaghan Murray, in the women's division, who had a time of 1:02. Jeremy Ardanuy was also the men's winner in 2019 and 2021. Meaghan Murray was the second place finisher in 2022, and third place finisher in 2021.

      I finished with a time of 1:52, 8th out of 19 men in my age group (1476th out of 2285 runners overall). Two of the eleven women in my age group had faster times. (The first place women's finisher had a time of 1:42, and she finished faster than all but three of the nineteen men. The first place men's finisher in my age group had a time of 1:27.) I was very happy with my time!