“Scholarship as a Philosophical Way of Life:
The Case of Leon Battista Alberti”
Abstract
I examine a short work by Leon Battista Alberti, his De commodis litterarum atque incommodis, which considers both the disadvantages and the benefits of a life devoted to scholarship. Alberti mocks the scholar whose life is marked by extreme hardship and poverty with little chance of attaining the rewards of fame and wealth. Yet there are also more serious benefits that come from the study of ancient literature, leading Alberti to re-assess his own motivations for wanting to embrace the life of a scholar. It is only through a philosophical clarification of values that the true worth of a scholarly life can be grasped. Along the way Alberti makes plain that the ultimate goal is the cultivation of a virtuous character. This is what makes a life devoted to scholarship a philosophical way of life.
