Erasmus and Philosophy. on the Concept of Philosophy Developed by Erasmus of Rotterdam (Philosophy as a Way of Life)

Erasmus of Rotterdam is not typically associated with the discipline of philosophy. Yet, he would himself employ the category of philosophia Christi in the sense of authentic Christianity which had not been contaminated by the abstractness and pedanticism of paganized mediaeval scholasticism. Does this reveal a contrarian attitude to philosophy in general or rather a special understanding of what a "true" philosophy as a way of life should be? This study attempts to answer this question by assembling and closely studying from Erasmus’ extensive oeuvre his scant and occasional remarks on the concept of philosophy.

Professor Juliusz Domański is a classical philologist, neo-Latinist, and historian of pre-modern philosophy. As the author of around three hundred publications across these disciplines, he has predominantly focused on the Middle Ages and Renaissance as well as on meta-philosophical studies.

Grzegorz Czemiel, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (Poland), Lecturer in the School of Ecopoetics at Warsaw’s Institute of Reportage, and a translator. His academic interests include contemporary poetry, speculative and weird fiction, translation studies as well as literary theory and philosophy, especially ecopoetics and speculative realism.

Krzysztof Jacek Bekieszczuk is a Latinist and theologian, and since 2017, he has been teaching Latin using a communicative approach. His research focuses on Renaissance humanism and the history of the modern era. He is the author of the first Polish translation and commentary on Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Discussion of Free Will.

Michael Chase is an Extraordinary Researcher at the Centre Jean Pépin of the French National Center for Scientific Research, Paris-Villejuif. He works at the intersection of Greek, Arabic, and Latin philosophy, and has published widely on ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, Greek and Latin Patristics, Medieval Latin and Arabic philosophy, and parallels between pre-modern and contemporary science. He is co-editor of the Brill series Philosophy as a Way of Life: Texts and Studies.

Eli Kramer is an Associate (University) Professor at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Wrocław. His research explores the complex and often contested relationship between philosophy as a way of life/humane learning traditions and institutions of higher learning across the globe. He also works in innovative/alternative higher education policy and practice. He is co-editor of the Brill series Philosophy as a Way of Life: Texts and Studies.

Lucio Privitello is Professor of Philosophy and Endowed Professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy at Stockton University in New Jersey. Publications include a translation/analysis of Parmenides's fragments, on Bataille, Deleuze, Marcuse, American Philosophy, Philosophy of Culture, and an analysis of a novel by Eco, in Library of Living Philosophers (2017), and La Nave di Teseo (2021).