HKB
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Often appears with: human nature · education and the training of the young · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · devils and invention of letters · anti-intellectual critique
Usually: argument (1) · crisis of belief (1) · indignation (1) · skepticism (1)
“Sciences therefore crept into the world with other the pests of mankind, from the same head from whence all other mischiefs spring; we'll suppose it devils, for so the name imports when you call them demons, that is to say, knowing.” Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly · insight
Responding to philosophers, Erasmus argues that calling human foolishness “miserable” is wrong because error suits human nature; he then claims sciences and learning originated from deceptive devils and disrupt happiness.
What are you the worse if the people hiss at you, so you applaud yourself? And that a man be able to do so, he must owe it to folly. But methinks I hear the philosophers opposing it and saying 'tis a miserable thing for a man to be foolish, to err, mistake, and know nothing truly. Nay rather, this is to be a man. And why they should call it miserable, I see no reason; forasmuch as we are so born, so bred, so instruc…