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Thinkers

Desiderius Erasmus

Renaissance Humanist · Europe · 1466 to 1536

Dutch scholar of the Renaissance who urged peace, learning and plain, kind living, and who mocked pride and empty ritual.

What it is

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (born in the late 1460s, died 1536) was a Dutch humanist, theologian and scholar, and one of the most influential figures of the Northern Renaissance. He was the illegitimate son of a priest and was orphaned as a boy. He was taught at a progressive school at Deventer and then by the Brethren of the Common Life, who stressed a personal, practical piety.

He was not a systematic philosopher, but across many writings scholars find what they call an Erasmian habit of mind: an interest in nature versus nurture, in words and things, in good government, in faith and in how we know. His name became a byword for humanism in his own lifetime.

The main ideas

  • Humanism. In the sixteenth century a humanist was a student or teacher of classical languages, rhetoric and literature. Erasmus stood for returning to the sources and for education built on them.
  • Education matters more than birth. He believed nurture counts for more than nature, because of the power of the will, and that it is the duty of parents and teachers to help children become what they can be.
  • Self-improvement. He trusted in human beings' capacity to improve, a corollary of his belief in free will.
  • Against war. In The Complaint of Peace and in a well-known saying, "War is sweet to those who have not experienced it", he argued against the glorification of war.
  • A prince's education. In The Education of a Christian Prince he set out his ideals of government.
  • The philosophy of Christ. At the centre of his spiritual writing is a simple piety, the "philosophia Christi", a moral conscience that governs one's relation both to God and to others.

What it looks like in practice

Imagine a school that spends more energy on drilling rules than on helping children want to learn. Erasmus would say that character is formed more by what children are shown and encouraged to do than by what they are born with, and that the teacher's task is to bring out the potential already there. This is an illustration of his line of questioning, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

  • The Education of a Christian Prince (1516) sets out how a ruler should be formed.
  • The Complaint of Peace (1517) argues against war.
  • De Lingua (1525) is a treatise on the tongue and its misuse.
  • Handbook of the Christian Soldier is one of his main works on piety.

Questions and criticism

  • Not a system. He was not a systematic philosopher, and his thoughts on language, politics and knowledge are often unstructured.
  • Rhetoric as a source. His writings on politics and war are rhetorical in flavour, which makes them hard to use as plain statements of policy.
  • Free will and its limits. His faith in education and self-improvement rests on a view of the will, and it is fair to ask how far that can be justified.

Close neighbours

The pages on Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus show the Scholastic tradition that the humanists of his day were seen as challenging.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced

  • Thomas More · The two were close friends, and Erasmus urged him to publish his book on the ideal island.

Influenced by

  • Francesco Petrarch · Both urged a return to the writers of antiquity as guides to a good life. (scholars disagree about this link)

Other Renaissance Humanist thinkers

Sources we used

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