A little folly to be happy

Erasmus 1466 · 1536In Praise of Folly: learning against fanaticism.

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What it claims

There is no happy life without a little folly: "is it wretched to be deceived? Far more wretched not to be!"

Why

Without a little illusion no friendship or marriage lasts: bare truth often spoils the pleasure of living.

In short

"A little folly to be happy" is an argument by Erasmus (The Praise of Folly (c. 1511): Folly is speaking) on the question "What is happiness?" (answer: pleasure). Its claim: There is no happy life without a little folly: "is it wretched to be deceived? Far more wretched not to be!". According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

The Praise of Folly (c. 1511): Folly is speaking

Valid with an implicit premise

Beware: in this book it is not Erasmus speaking but Folly in person, praising herself before an audience. She argues that without her, life would be sad and unliveable: no friendship, no marriage, no pleasure, no happiness. Erasmus is joking and mocking, but also making us think. He warns that he had to respect his character's nature: so we cannot simply say "Erasmus thinks that...". We place this on the side of pleasure, because for Folly happiness is an agreeable life made of sweet illusions; but none of the positions offered fits it exactly, and this is Folly's position, not necessarily Erasmus's. Indeed, at the end of the book Folly places the highest happiness in a Christian "folly", union with God: that is where most readers hear Erasmus's own voice.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where one lives without illusion, hence without bonds or pleasure, and is nonetheless happy: nothing in P1 and P2 rules it out.

With P3 the conclusion follows: without illusion, no bonds and no pleasure (P1, P2), so no happy life (P3). P1 and P2 reinforce each other: either one alone would be enough. Without P3, one could imagine a happy life without bonds or pleasures, for example the Stoic sage's. That sage is exactly whom Folly mocks. But beware: the argument is logically valid, which says nothing about Erasmus's intention. Folly is a character, and part of what she says is satire of our weaknesses, not advice.

Analogy. Folly herself takes the example of the theatre: if someone climbs on stage and tears off the actors' masks to show their real faces, he does not make the play truer, he destroys it. For her, life is a comedy in which everyone plays a part behind a mask.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Robert Nozick (the experience machine) 1974 · attacks premise 2

Imagine a machine that would give you, for your whole life, the most pleasant experiences possible, while making you believe they are real. If happiness depended only on opinion, we should plug in without hesitation. Yet most of us refuse: we want actually to do things and to be in touch with reality, not merely to have the impression of it. So happiness does not depend only on what we believe.

Érasme replies

Érasme Folly's answer in advance (the character, not necessarily Erasmus)

What difference is there between those in Plato's cave who admire the shadows and desire nothing more, and the sage who has left it and sees things as they are? None, or else it is in the fools' favour: their happiness costs almost nothing, and many share it. If Lucian's Mycillus could have dreamed his golden dream for ever, he would have wished for no other happiness.

The debate goes on (our summary) For Nozick, precisely, almost no one would choose to stay in the cave or in the machine: this shows that we care about reality, not only our impressions. And Erasmus's reader is invited not to follow Folly all the way: in the Education of a Christian Prince, Erasmus himself defines the philosopher as one who sees through false images and pursues true goods.

Maarten van Dorp, theologian at Louvain 1514 · attacks the conclusion

Praising folly is not fitting for a theologian: the book ridicules theologians, monks and even Christian piety, and it offends many readers. Dorp invites Erasmus to write, by way of amends, a "Praise of Wisdom".

Érasme replies

Érasme Erasmus's answer in advance (prefatory letter to Thomas More, before Dorp's criticism)

He foresaw these reproaches: too light for a theologian, too biting for a Christian. To the first he answers that great authors did the same (Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucian, Seneca...), and that jesting is allowed especially when trifles lead to serious things: the reader then gains more from them than from many grave works.

Erasmus Continuation of the same letter, on the charge of biting

He names no one: he mocks everyone's faults, not a person; Saint Jerome was far more biting than he. And anyone this does not calm should remember that Folly is speaking: her character had to be respected.

The debate goes on (our summary) The letter to More says nothing about the end of the book, where Folly calls the happiness of Christians a "folly", which some readers found irreverent. Erasmus answers Dorp at greater length in a letter of 1515, which is not in our corpus. Dorp eventually came round to him. But the criticism did not die out: several Catholic theologians, then the Paris faculty of theology, censured Erasmus's books from 1526 onwards.