First published in Paris in 1511, _The Praise of Folly _has__enjoyed enormous and highly controversial success from the author’s lifetime down to our own day.__It has__no rival, except perhaps Thomas More’s _Utopia, _as the most intense and lively presentation of the literary, social, and theological aims and methods of Northern Humanism. Clarence H. Miller’s highly praised translation of _The Praise of Folly, _based on the definitive Latin text, echoes Erasmus’ own lively style while retaining the nuances of the original (...) text. In his introduction, Miller places the work in the context of Erasmus as humanist and theologian. In a new afterword, William H. Gass playfully considers the meaning, or meanings, of folly and offers fresh insights into one of the great books of Western literature. _Praise for the earlier edition:_ “An eminently reliable and fully annotated edition based on the Latin text.”—_Library Journal_ “Exciting and brilliant, this is likely to be the definitive translation of _The Praise of Folly _into__English.”—Richard J. Schoeck. (shrink)

First published in Paris in 1511, _The Praise of Folly _has__enjoyed enormous and highly controversial success from the author’s lifetime down to our own day.__It has__no rival, except perhaps Thomas More’s _Utopia, _as the most intense and lively presentation of the literary, social, and theological aims and methods of Northern Humanism. Clarence H. Miller’s highly praised translation of _The Praise of Folly, _based on the definitive Latin text, echoes Erasmus’ own lively style while retaining the nuances of the original (...) text. In his introduction, Miller places the work in the context of Erasmus as humanist and theologian. In a new afterword, William H. Gass playfully considers the meaning, or meanings, of folly and offers fresh insights into one of the great books of Western literature. _Praise for the earlier edition:_ “An eminently reliable and fully annotated edition based on the Latin text.”—_Library Journal_ “Exciting and brilliant, this is likely to be the definitive translation of _The Praise of Folly _into__English.”—Richard J. Schoeck. (shrink)

In a recent article, William C. Roach offers a presuppositional critique, which is inspired by Carl F. H. Henry, of Michael R. Licona’s so-called New Historiographical Approach to defending the resurrection. More precisely, Roach attempts to defend six key theses, namely, that the NHA is an evidentialist approach, the NHA is a deductive argument, the NHA is an insufficient approach, believers and unbelievers share no common ground, the NHA does not embrace a correspondence theory of truth, and the presupposition of (...) divine revelation is necessary for apologetics. We respond to each of Roach’s arguments, respectively. (shrink)

Well-known in his day, but overlooked since, Erasmus King lectured in natural and experimental philosophy from the 1730s until 1756 at his Westminster home and twenty other venues, publicizing his frequent courses exclusively in the Daily Advertiser. In 1739 he escorted Desaguliers's youngest son to Russia, hoping to demonstrate experimental philosophy to the Russian empress. En route, he conducted trials with a sea-guage in the Baltic which were reported by Stephen Hales in his Statical Essays. Various sources testify to (...) King's subsequent experimental research for Hales in the fields of anatomy, respiration and electricity. There is recorded evidence for the exceptional range and quality of King's scientific apparatus and models. (shrink)

Polish intellectual historian Leszek Kołakowski proposed in the 1960s an innovative, now virtually forgotten, reimagining of a crucial concept in the history of Roman Catholicism: the idea of "Counter-Reformation." Kołakowski's lifelong affinity for early modern Europe's Catholic dissidents led him into dialogue in the era of Vatican II with Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the leader of a movement of young Polish reformers who styled themselves "Catholic socialists." Seeing them as the bedrock of a new Catholic Counter-Reformation, Kołakowski sketched the role he hoped (...) Poland might play in reinventing not only Catholicism, but religious life in the modern world. (shrink)

What, if anything remains of religion after the demise of traditional theism and the theologies based upon it? What are the consequences of so-called Post-theism for the modern scholarly study of religion (in Religionswissenschaft and philosophical theology or church dogmatics, in the philosophy of religion as well as in the more recent phenomenon of comparitive religious studies)? This volume collects some thirty articles written in honor of Professor Hendrik Johan Adriaanse whose intellectual trajectory, recounted here in extensive personal reflections, has (...) lead to an incisive inquiry into the possibilities of thinking and experiencing "After Theism" (the title of a fundamental article reprinted here). Post-theism : Refraiming the Judeo-Christian Tradition raises this question from three different perspectives : first, by spelling out the historical and intellectual backgrounds that have led to the supposed end of theism as it had been known through the ages; secondly, by discussing the systematic relationship between the disciplines of theology and competing concepts of rationality; and, thirdly, by sketching out the contours of a philosophical thought that ventures beyond the most tenacious classical and modern presuppositions of theism. Along the way, the contributors explore a variety of ways in which the concepts and arguments, imagery and rhetoric of the Judeo-Christian traditions are in need and in the process of being constantly displaced. Henri Krop, Arie L. Molendijk and Hent de Vries teach Philosophy, the history of Christianity, and Metaphysics, respectively, at the Erasmus University, The University of Groningen, and the University of Amsterdam. (shrink)

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

Smith traces a major line in the history of theology and the philosophy of religion down the "slippery slope" of secularization—from Luther and Erasmus, through Idealism, to Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Habermas, Vattimo, and Asad.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Role of Scepticism in Modern Philosophy Reconsidered RICHARD H. POPKIN THE THEORY that the revival of ancient scepticism, and the application of its arguments to the controversies of the sixteenth century, played a vital role in the development of modern philosophy was first suggested by me almost forty years ago. A three-part article in the Review of Metaphysics entided "The Sceptical Crisis and the Rise of Modern Philosophy" (...) contained much of the theory.' What was added by the time of my History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes (published in x96o,' but finished by 1958 ) was the importance of the sceptical arguments in the controversies of the Reformation and the CounterReformation, and the development of a religious scepticismmfideism--as a way of fending off criticism of basic religious beliefs.s One of the first reviews of my book was by Charles B. Schmitt,4 which he soon followed with his volume on Gianfrancesco Pico and then one on Cicero Scepticus.5 Before Charles Schmitt and I entered this arena, scepticism as a living philosophical view was hardly mentioned in histories of philosophy, which, by and large, saw modern philosophy as a rejection of Scholasticism, with nothing in between. One leaped from William of Ockham and Duns Scotus to Francis Bacon and Descartes, with perhaps a momentary nod to Montaigne as an amus- ' R. H. Popkin, "The ScepticalCrisisand the Riseof Modern Philosophy," Parts I, II, and III, ReviewofMetaphysics8 0953-54): 131--51,3O7--33,and 499-51o. First published in the University of Utrecht series of Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy (Assen:Van Gorcum). sThis part of the story appeared independently in my article, "Scepticismand the CounterReformation in France," Archivfiir Reformatio~geschichte51 (a96o): 58-88. 4This appeared in Philosophyand PhenomenologicalResearch~3 (1963):455. 5His GianfrancescoPico dellaMirandola(I469-x533) and His Critiqueof Aristotleappeared in 1967, and CiceroScepticus:A Studyof theInfluenceof theAcademicain the Renaissancein 197~,both published in the International Archivesof the History of Ideas put out by Nijhoffin The Hague. [5ol] 502 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3 1:4 OCTOBER 1993 ing figure who provided Bacon with his stylistic form and Descartes with the opening line for the Discourse on Method. There were practically no articles about or studies of scepticism as a philosophical attitude or activity in modern philosophy before we went to work. The American philosopher Roderick Chisholm had written an article on Sextus and modern empiricism, and that was about it.6 When I took my first course in the history of philosophy with John Herman Randall, I frankly could not make much out of Plato or Aristotle, but when we were assigned to read Sextus Empiricus, I found an author who made sense. Later in the course I was introduced to Hume, whom Randall hated, and I loved. In a course with Paul Oskar Kristeller a few years later, on Hellenistic philosophy, Sextus appeared as a serious figure. A couple of years after that, in a seminar with Charles Hendel on Hume, I wrote a paper on Sextus and Hume. I showed it to Kristeller, who said drily and carefully that it might be worth looking into whether Hume had read Sextus, and whether there was a prior tradition of scepticism in European philosophy. Thus was I set off on the quest. Schmitt and I not only offered a lot of evidence previously ignored or unknown about the recovery of sceptical texts and their use in the philosophical discussions of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but we also offered a new paradigm, a new way of conceiving what problems were being agitated, a new way of understanding the kinds of answers being given as ways of resolving the sceptical crisis. The reception of our theory indicated that it provided a more meaningful picture of the making of the modern mind than what had previously been proposed.7 What I should like to deal with now are three questions: Has our theory stood up over almost four decades? Has it had to be revised or amended? And does it need to be expanded (as I have been doing) to encompass another kind of scepticism, that directed against traditional religion from about... (shrink)

Plato -- Pyrrho -- The academics -- Sextus empiricus -- Augustine -- Erasmus -- Gianfrancesco Pico -- Hervet -- Montaigne -- Charron -- Sanchez -- Bacon -- Gassendi -- La Mothe le Vayer -- Descartes -- Pascal -- Glanvill -- Foucher -- Huet -- Locke -- Bayle -- Leibniz -- Crousaz -- Berkeley -- Ramsay -- Hume -- Voltaire -- Diderot -- Rousseau -- Kant -- Schulze -- Stäudlin -- Hegel -- Kierkegaard -- Nietzsche -- James -- Santayana -- (...) Shestov -- Wittgenstein -- Russell -- Popper -- Feyerabend -- Derrida -- Popkin -- Fogelin. (shrink)

In this sequel to his classic study The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, Popkin examines the important role played by the revival and reformulation of classical scepticism in eighteenth-century philosophy.

Both individuals and governments around the world have willingly sacrificed a great deal to meet the collective action problem posed by Covid-19. This has provided some commentators with newfound hope about the possibility that we will be able to solve what is arguably the greatest collective action problem of all time: global climate change. In this paper we argue that this is overly optimistic. We defend two main claims. First, these two collective action problems are so different that the actions (...) that individuals have taken to try to solve the problem posed by Covid-19 unfortunately provide little indication that we will be able to solve the problem posed by climate change. Second, the actions that states have taken in response to Covid-19 might—if anything—even be evidence that they will continue to fail to cooperate towards a solution to the climate crisis. (shrink)

First published in Paris in 1511, _The Praise of Folly _has__enjoyed enormous and highly controversial success from the author’s lifetime down to our own day.__It has__no rival, except perhaps Thomas More’s _Utopia, _as the most intense and lively presentation of the literary, social, and theological aims and methods of Northern Humanism. Clarence H. Miller’s highly praised translation of _The Praise of Folly, _based on the definitive Latin text, echoes Erasmus’ own lively style while retaining the nuances of the original (...) text. In his introduction, Miller places the work in the context of Erasmus as humanist and theologian. In a new afterword, William H. Gass playfully considers the meaning, or meanings, of folly and offers fresh insights into one of the great books of Western literature. _Praise for the earlier edition:_ “An eminently reliable and fully annotated edition based on the Latin text.”—_Library Journal_ “Exciting and brilliant, this is likely to be the definitive translation of _The Praise of Folly _into__English.”—Richard J. Schoeck. (shrink)

Paperback. The book treats two general questions: 1. Whether Erasmanism and Erasmian Humanism existed as a recognizable attitude during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; 2. Whether Erasminism represented a definable middle way between the confessional conflicts of these times. How important was Erasmanism in these respects? The treatment of these two questions is geographically limited to those countries where Erasmus himself was active: Italy, The Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland and England.Erasmanism as a concept has hardly been studied (...) before, although the term is used freely by scholars of the early modern period. This book is a first attempt at a begriffsgeschichte of Erasminism. (shrink)

This additional volume offers a revised edition of Lingua , Erasmus’ work on language, its possibilities and the dangers in its use, ending in a praise of the Word of God. Since it deals with the moral implications of language, Erasmus placed it in Ordo IV that comprises works on moral issues.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 (2002) 550-551 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Hegel and Aristotle Alfredo Ferrarin. Hegel and Aristotle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xxii + 442. Cloth, $64.95. This is an important book which should be read by anyone interested in either of the two philosophers. Ferrarin demonstrates that the structure and detail of Hegel's executed project owe more to Aristotle than (...) to Kant or any other philosopher. He also shows that Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle is profound and worth careful study, even if it is in some ways mistaken. With the exception of the Poetics and Aesthetics, Ferrarin discusses all the relevant primary texts, and he judiciously uses secondary literature. To my knowledge, aside from his Italian dissertation (published in 1990 and here revised and greatly expanded), this is the first monograph which is exclusively devoted to comparing the executed projects of the two philosophers. He most thoroughly compares the Metaphysics with the Science of Logic and On the Soul with the Organics and Subjective Spirit sections of the Encyclopedia. This latter comparison forms the center of the book, and all scholars of Aristotle and Hegel will benefit from it. Ferrarin does not simply present and praise or criticize Hegel's interpretations of Aristotle; he also investigates Hegel's appropriation of Aristotle for the execution of his own project. Quite significant effort and insight went into the writing of this book, which is densely argued but only very rarely unclear.Ferrarin bases all comparisons on the understanding of energeia. Aside from God, all processes for Aristotle involve not only energeia but also dunamis. For Aristotle, the ends of processes are energeiai, but a process is either an activity (exercising a habit whose end is this exercising) or a motion (expending a power whose end is other than the expending) (cf. 22-5, 266, 270). Accomplishment of the end terminates the motile expending of power but not the active exercise of habit. For both philosophers, activity and motion are the two main types of intelligible. Ferrarin shows that Hegel, in part because of his accurate reliance on Erasmus's superseded edition, misinterprets Aristotle's God as involving both energeia and dunamis.Ferrarin excellently shows that for Aristotle nous (mediated by a dialectical consideration of endoxa) attains a noetic (rather than dianoetic) identity with an intelligible. Ferrarin also asserts that Hegel (supposedly following Leibniz) "efface[s] all notion of rest and coming to a stand from Aristotelian energeia" (229; cf. 20, 399) and "does not see... that... [the exercised habit of] nous finds rest in the discontinuous intellection of indivisibles" (320). However, Aristotle claims that "not everything which is motionless may be at rest but only that which is deprived of motion but can by nature be moved" (Physics 221b12-13, Apostle translation), so since habits cannot be moved by nature, neither unexercised nor exercised habits can be said to be at rest (even though the natural body without which the habits could not be can in some respects be said to be at rest). Therefore, Hegel does not diverge from but rather advances Aristotle's insight when he treats that noetic identity [End Page 550] as a moment of energizing the otherwise static intelligible to entail a further intelligible, so that these intelligibles and this entailing are part of a continuously intellected logos (but cf. 51, 318-9). Contra Ferrarin (98, 194), this is not to assert that some sort of supposedly hubristic modern nous thereby produces the further intelligible.Analogously to how a compulsion to examine one's past can lead one to enact a different future, Hegel claims that some already entailed, posterior intelligibles of this logos are sufficient (once energized by nous) to entail the prior intelligibles which entailed them and that by entailing these prior intelligibles the posterior intelligibles thereby also entail previously unentailed, posterior intelligibles of the logos. Ferrarin erroneously (albeit not without some textual basis) interprets this claim as the assertion that some as yet unentailed posterior intelligibles entail prior intelligibles (77, 251-3)—as the analog of... (shrink)

“Economic man does not ask himself ethical questions”. Yet securities trading inevitably raises many ethical issues, and ethical behaviour may be restricting and costly. Drawing on his economics background and his executive experience in the insurance and pension investment industry, as well as supervisory positions on the European Option Exchange, Dr Goslings analyses the securities markets and their structure, and explores their moral strengths and weaknesses in The Netherlands and elsewhere, before offering some practical recommendations. He has held part time (...) professorships at Erasmus University and Maastricht University teaching finance and is currently preparing a new course on risk and insurance. He is also active as an independent consultant at Wentholtweg 26, 7214 EG Epse, The Netherlands. (shrink)

Cassirer’s Die Platonische Renaissance in England und die Schule von Cambridge, of which the present work is a translation, was first published in 1932; it therefore necessarily takes no account of the mass of work on the English Catholic humanists of the Renaissance, beginning with Chambers’s Thomas More, and on 17th-century English religious thought, which has appeared in the last 20 years. This may partly account for the rather old-fashioned impression which the book produces. Cassirer still understood More, Colet, and (...) Erasmus after the manner of Seebohm’s Oxford Reformers, a book which he frequently quotes. But the misunderstanding which, so it seems to the present reviewer, makes the picture given by the book as a whole a distorted one, goes rather deeper. The eminent neo-Kantian author appears to think that authentic Christian orthodoxy is Augustinianism, and Augustinianism interpreted in the manner of Jansenius or Calvin. Hence the philosophy of St. Thomas, to which he gives some fine and understanding pages, appears to him as a heroic but unsuccessful attempt to establish a Christian humanism on an Aristotelian basis which had little lasting effect ; he is led to represent such great and profoundly Catholic figures of the Renaissance as Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and St. Thomas More as fundamentally unorthodox; in dealing with his main subject, the Cambridge Platonists, he presents ideas which any Catholic brought up in an enlightened Thomist tradition will naturally recognize as a normal part of his own religious and philosophical inheritance as if they were in the deepest disaccord with the teachings of orthodox Christianity; and he greatly exaggerates the opposition between the Cambridge Platonists and their Puritan contemporaries. (shrink)

Ethical youth work is ‘good' youth work but how do youth work practitioners collectively determine what is ‘good'? This article presents findings from four-country surveys of youth workers' attitudes and understandings of what constitutes ‘good', that is to say ‘ethical’ practice. The article presents the principles that youth workers say underpin ethical practice in Australia, Estonia, Iceland, and Ireland. The first three countries have well established Codes of Ethics and/or Practice and Professional Associations, while Ireland does not. A survey of (...) youth work practitioners funded by Erasmus Plus, was conducted across the four countries (n = 405). A comparative analysis of data across countries revealed consensus around key characteristics of youth work practice such as the participation, empowerment, and safety of young people. These core principles form the basis of good and ethical action by practitioners. In countries which have codified these principles, these Codes were reported to be useful tools to support practitioners in their work. The survey further suggests that reflective practice is important in the application of ethical codes to concrete practice situations acting as a form of collective accountability and praxis. To conclude, we consider the implications of these findings for professionalism, and professionalisation in youth work nationally and internationally. (shrink)

This volume of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus contains several works intended for scholarship in Classics. It includes discourse on the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek, rhetoric, and Classical Latin, in a compendium of the handbook by Lorenzo Valla, as well as a declamation in praise of medicine.

This work presents an annotated text of the most comprehensive and detailed arguments in Erasmus's conflict with the Catholic, conservative, scholastic theologians, the _Declarationes_. It also shows the contrast between the scholastic/logical and the humanist/rhetorical approach to Scripture and to theological questions.

This work presents an annotated text of the most comprehensive and detailed arguments in Erasmus's conflict with the Catholic, conservative, scholastic theologians, the _Declarationes_. It also shows the contrast between the scholastic/logical and the humanist/rhetorical approach to Scripture and to theological questions.

This work presents an annotated text of the most comprehensive and detailed arguments in Erasmus's conflict with the Catholic, conservative, scholastic theologians, the Declarationes. It also shows the contrast between the scholastic/ /logical and the humanist/rheorical approach to Scripture and to theological questions.

Als im Jahr 1516 die neue Ausgabe des Neuen Testaments, das Novum Instrumentum des Erasmus von Rotterdam erschien, war dies ein herausragendes Ereignis mit weitreichenden Konsequenzen und Wirkungen. Sowohl die Reformation des 16. Jahrhunderts mit ihrer zentralen Stellung der biblischen Schriften und ihrer Exgeses als auch die Entwicklung der in die Moderne weisenden biblischen Textkritik lassen sich ohne die Arbeiten des Erasmus kaum denken. Dennoch ist auch Erasmus in einem breiteren Zusammenhang der mannigfachen Bibel- und Text-orientierten Reformbewegung (...) des Spätmittelalters, der Renaissance und des Humanismus zu sehen. Des verdeutlichen die einzelnen Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes. (shrink)