Michel de Montaigne

First published Wed Aug 18, 2004; substantive revision Fri Jan 3, 2014

Franois Quesnel, "Montaigne",

c. 1590, drawing (H. 335 x L. 230 mm),
reprinted with permission from the
Montaigne Studies website
The question is not who will hit the ring,
but who will make the best runs at it.

Given the huge breadth of his readings, Montaigne could have been ranked among
the most erudite humanists of the XVIth century. But in the Essays, his aim is above
all to exercise his own judgment properly. Readers who might want to convict him
of ignorance would find nothing to hold against him, he said, for he was exerting his
natural capacities, not borrowed ones. He thought that too much knowledge could
prove a burden, preferring to exert his natural judgment to displaying his erudition.
1. Life
2. Work
3. A Philosophy of Free Judgment
4. Montaigne's Scepticism
5. Montaigne and Relativism
6. Montaigne's Legacy on Charron and Descartes
7. Conclusion
Bibliography

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1. Life
Montaigne (15331592) came from a rich bourgeois family that acquired nobility
after his father fought in Italy in the army of King Francis I of France; he came back
with the firm intention of bringing refined Italian culture to France. He decorated his
Prigord castle in the style of an ancient Roman villa. He also decided that his son
would not learn Latin in school. He arranged instead for a German preceptor and the
household to speak to him exclusively in Latin at home. So the young Montaigne
grew up speaking Latin and reading Vergil, Ovid, and Horace on his own. At the age
of six, he was sent to board at the Collge de Guyenne in Bordeaux, which he later
praised as the best humanist college in France, though he found fault with humanist
colleges in general. Where Montaigne later studied law, or, indeed, whether he ever
studied law at all is not clear. The only thing we know with certainty is that his
father bought him an office in the Court of Prigueux. He then met Etienne de La
Botie with whom he formed an intimate friendship and whose death some years
later, in 1563, left him deeply distraught. Tired of active life, he retired at the age of
only 37 to his father's castle. In the same year, 1571, he was nominated Gentleman
of King Charles IX's Ordinary Chamber, and soon thereafter, also of Henri de
Navarre's Chamber. He received the decoration of the Order of Saint-Michel, a
distinction all the more exceptional as Montaigne's lineage was from recent nobility.
On the title page of the first edition (1580) of the Essays, we read: Essais de
Messire Michel Seigneur de Montaigne, Chevalier de l'ordre du Roy, &
Gentilhomme ordinaire de sa chambre. Initially keen to show off his titles and,
thus, his social standing, Montaigne had the honorifics removed in the second
edition (1582).

Replicating Petrarca's choice in De vita solitaria, Montaigne chose to dedicate

himself to the Muses. In his library, which was quite large for the period, he had
wisdom formulas carved on the wooden beams. They were drawn from, amongst
others, Ecclesiastes, Sextus Empiricus, Lucretius, and other classical authors, whom
he read intensively. To escape fits of melancholy, he began to commit his thoughts to
paper. In 1580, he undertook a journey to Italy, whose main goal was to cure the
pain of his kidney stones at thermal resorts. The journey is related in part by a
secretary, in part by Montaigne himself, in a manuscript that was only discovered
during the XVIIIth century, given the title The Journal of the Journey to Italy, and
forgotten soon after. While Montaigne was taking the baths near Pisa, he learnt of
his election as Mayor of Bordeaux. He was first tempted to refuse out of modesty,
but eventually accepted (he even received a letter from the King urging him to take
the post) and was later re-elected. In his second term he came under criticism for
having abandoned the town during the great plague in an attempt to protect himself
and his family. His time in office was dimmed by the wars of religion between
Catholics and Protestants. Several members of his family converted to
Protestantism, but Montaigne himself remained a Catholic.

2. Work
Montaigne wrote three books of Essays. (Essay was an original name for this kind
of work; it became an appreciated genre soon after.) Three main editions are
recognized: 1580 (at this stage, only the first two books were written), 1588, and
1595. The last edition, which could not be supervised by Montaigne himself, was
edited from the manuscript by his adoptive daughter Marie de Gournay. Till the end
of the XIXth century, the copy text for all new editions was that of 1595; Fortunat
Strowski and shortly after him Pierre Villey dismissed it in favor of the Bordeaux
copy, a text of the 1588 edition supplemented by manuscript additions. [1] Montaigne
enriched his text continuously; he preferred to add for the sake of diversity, rather
than to correct.[2] The unity of the work and the order of every single chapter remain
problematic. We are unable to detect obvious links from one chapter to the next: in
the first book, Montaigne jumps from Idleness (I,8) to Liars (I,9), then from
Prompt or slow speech (I,10) to Prognostications (I,11). The random aspect of
the work, acknowledged by the author himself, has been a challenge for
commentators ever since. Part of the brilliance of the Essays lies in this very ability
to elicit various forms of explanatory coherence whilst at the same time defying
them. The work is so rich and flexible that it accommodates virtually any academic
trend. Yet, it is also so resistant to interpretation that it reveals the limits of each
interpretation.
Critical studies of the Essays have, until recently, been mainly of a literary nature.
However, to consider Montaigne as a writer rather than as a philosopher can be a
way of ignoring a disturbing thinker. Indeed, he shook some fundamental aspects of
Western thought, such as the superiority we assign to man over animals, [3] to
European civilization over Barbarians,[4] or to reason as an alleged universal

standard. A tradition rooted in the 19th century tends to relegate his work to the
status of literary impressionism or to the expression of a frivolous subjectivity. To do
him justice, one needs to bear in mind the inseparable unity of thought and style in
his work. Montaigne's repeated revisions of his text, as modern editions show with
the three letters A, B, C, standing for the three main editions, mirror the relationship
between the activity of his thought and the Essays as a work in progress.
The Essays display both the laboriousness and the delight of thinking.
In Montaigne we have a writer whose work is deeply infused by philosophical
thought. One verse out of sixteen in Lucretius' De natura rerum is quoted in
the Essays.[5] If it is true, as Edmund Husserl said, that philosophy is a shared
endeavor, Montaigne is perhaps the most exemplary of philosophers since his work
extensively borrows and quotes from others. Montaigne managed to internalize a
huge breadth of reading, so that his erudition does not appear as such. He created a
most singular work, yet one that remains deeply rooted in the community of poets,
historians, and philosophers. His decision to use only his own judgment in dealing
with all sorts of matters, his resolutely distant attitude towards memory and
knowledge, his warning that we should not mix God or transcendent principles with
the human world, are some of the key elements that characterize Montaigne's
position. As a humanist, he considered that one has to assimilate the classics, but
above all to display virtue, according to the opinion of Plato, who says that
steadfastness, faith, and sincerity are real philosophy, and the other sciences which
aim at other things are only powder and rouge.[6]

3. A Philosophy of Free Judgment

Montaigne rejects the theoretical or speculative way of philosophizing that prevailed
under the Scholastics ever since the Middle Ages. According to him, science does
not exist, but only a general belief in science. Petrarch had already criticized the
Scholastics for worshiping Aristotle as their God. Siding with the humanists,
Montaigne develops a sharp criticism of science la mode des Geomtriens,
[7]
the mos geometricus deemed to be the most rigorous. It is merely a practice and
business of science,[8] he says, which is restricted to the University and essentially
carried out between masters and their disciples. The main problem of this kind of
science is that it makes us spend our time justifying as rational the beliefs we inherit,
instead of calling into question their foundations; it makes us label fashionable
opinions as truth, instead of gauging their strength. Whereas science should be a free
inquiry, it consists only in gibberish discussions on how we should read Aristotle or
Galen.[9] Critical judgment is systematically silenced. Montaigne demands a thought
process that would not be tied down by any doctrinaire principle, a thought process
that would lead to free enquiry.
If we trace back the birth of modern science, we find that Montaigne as a
philosopher was ahead of his time. In 1543, Copernicus put the earth in motion,
depriving man of his cosmological centrality. Yet he nevertheless changed little in

the medieval conception of the world as a sphere. The Copernican world became an
open world only with Thomas Digges (1576) although his sky was still situated in
space, inhabited by gods and angels.[10] One has to wait for Giordano Bruno to find
the first representative of the modern conception of an infinite universe (1584). But
whether Bruno is a modern mind remains controversial (the planets are still animals,
etc). Montaigne, on the contrary, is entirely free from the medieval conception of the
spheres. He owes his cosmological freedom to his deep interest in ancient
philosophers, to Lucretius in particular. In the longest chapter of the Essays, the
Apologie de Raymond Sebond, Montaigne conjures up many opinions, regarding
the nature of the cosmos, or the nature of the soul. He weighs the Epicureans'
opinion that several worlds exist, against that of the unicity of the world put forth by
both Aristotle and Aquinas. He comes out in favor of the former, without ranking his
own evaluation as a truth.
As a humanist, Montaigne conceived of philosophy as morals. In the chapter On
the education of children,[11] education is identified with philosophy, this being
understood as the formation of judgment and manners in everyday life: for
philosophy, which, as the molder of judgment and conduct, will be his principal
lesson, has the privilege of being everywhere at home.[12]Philosophy, which consists
essentially in the use of judgment, is significant to the very ordinary, varied and
undulating[13] process of life. In fact, under the guise of innocuous anecdotes,
Montaigne achieved the humanist revolution in philosophy. He moved from a
conception of philosophy conceived of as theoretical science, to a philosophy
conceived of as the practice of free judgment. Lamenting that philosophy, even with
people of understanding, should be an empty and fantastic name, a thing of no use
and no value,[14] he asserted that philosophy should be the most cheerful activity. He
practised philosophy by setting his judgment to trial, in order to become aware of its
weaknesses, but also to get to know its strength. Every movement reveals us, [15] but
our judgments do so the best. At the beginning of the past century, one of
Montaigne's greatest commentators, Pierre Villey, developed the idea that Montaigne
truly became himself through writing. This idea remains more or less true, in spite of
its obvious link with late romanticist psychology. The Essays remain an exceptional
historical testimony of the progress of privacy and individualism, a blossoming of
subjectivity, an attainment of personal maturity that will be copied, but maybe never
matched since. It seems that Montaigne, who dedicated himself to freedom of the
mind and peacefulness of the soul, did not have any other aim through writing than
cultivating and educating himself. Since philosophy had failed to determine a secure
path towards happiness, he committed each individual to do so in his own way.[16]
Montaigne wants to escape the stifling of thought by knowledge, a wide-spread
phenomenon which he called pedantism,[17] an idea that he may have gleaned from
the tarnishing of professors by theCommedia dell'arte. He praises one of the most
famous professors of the day, Adrianus Turnebus, for having combined robust
judgment with massive erudition. We have to moderate our thirst for knowledge, just
as we do our appetite for pleasure. Siding here with Callicles against Plato,

Montaigne asserts that a gentleman should not dedicate himself entirely to

philosophy.[18] Practised with restraint, it proves useful, whereas in excess it leads to
eccentricity and insociability.[19]Reflecting on the education of the children of the
aristocracy (chapter I, 26, is dedicated to the countess Diane de Foix, who was then
pregnant), Montaigne departs significantly from a traditional humanist education,
the very one he himself received. Instead of focusing on the ways and means of
making the teaching of Latin more effective, as pedagogues in the wake of Erasmus
usually did, Montaigne stresses the need for action and playful activities. The child
will conform early to social and political customs, but without servility. The use of
judgment in every circumstance, as a warrant for practical intelligence and personal
freedom, has to remain at the core of education. He transfers the major responsibility
of education from the school to everyday life: Wonderful brilliance may be gained
for human judgment by getting to know men.[20] The priority given to the formation
of judgment and character strongly opposes the craving for a powerful memory
during his time . He reserves for himself the freedom to pick up bits of knowledge
here and there, displaying the nonchalance or unconcern intellectually, much in
the same way that Castiglione's courtier would use sprezzatura in social
relationships. Although Montaigne presents this nonchalance as essential to his
nature, his position is not innocent: it allows him to take on the voice now of a Stoic,
and then of a Sceptic, now of an Epicurean and then of a Christian. Although his
views are never fully original, they always bear his unmistakable mark. Montaigne's
thought, which is often rated as modern in so many aspects, remains deeply rooted
in the classical tradition. Montaigne navigates easily through heaps of classical
knowledge, proposing remarkable literary and philosophical innovations along the
way.
Montaigne begins his project to know man by noticing that the same human
behavior can have opposite effects, or that even opposite conducts can have the
same effects: by diverse means we arrive at the same end. [21] Human life cannot be
turned into an object of rational theory. Human conduct does not obey universal
rules, but a great diversity of rules, among which the most accurate still fall short of
the intended mark. Human reason is a tincture infused in about equal strength in all
our opinions and ways, whatever their form: infinite in substance, infinite in
diversity[22] says the chapter on custom. By focusing on anecdotal experience,
Montaigne comes thus to write the masterpiece of modern moral science,
according to the great commentator Hugo Friedrich. He gives up the moral ambition
of telling how men should live, in order to arrive at a non-prejudiced mind for
knowing man as he is. Others form man, I tell of him.[23] Man is ever since
without a definition, as philosopher Marcel Conche commented.[24] In the chapter
Apologie de Raimond Sebond, Montaigne draws from classical and Renaissance
knowledge in order to remind us that, in some parts of the world, we find men that
bear little resemblance to us. Our experience of man and things should not be
perceived as limited by our present standards of judgment. It is a sort of madness
when we settle limits for the possible and the impossible.[25]

Philosophy has failed to secure man a determined idea of his place in the world, or
of his nature. Metaphysical or psychological opinions, indeed far too numerous,
come as a burden more than as a help. Montaigne pursues his quest for knowledge
through experience; the meaning of concepts is not set down by means of a
definition, it is related to common language or to historical examples. One of the
essential elements of experience is the ability to reflect on one's actions and
thoughts. Montaigne is engaging in a case-by-case gnti seauton, know thyself:
although truth in general is not truly an appropriate object for human faculties, we
can reflect on our experience. What counts is not the fact that we eventually know
the truth or not, but rather the way in which we seek it.The question is not who will
hit the ring, but who will make the best runs at it.[26] The aim is to properly exercise
our judgment.
Montaigne's thinking baffles our most common categories. The vision of an everchanging world that he developed threatens the being of all things. We have no
communication with being.[27] We wrongly take that which appears for that which is,
and we indulge in a dogmatic, deceptive language that is cut off from an everchanging reality. We ought to be more careful with our use of language. Montaigne
would prefer that children be taught other ways of speaking, more appropriate to the
nature of human inquiry, such as What does that mean ?, I do not understand it,
This might be, Is it true?[28] Montaigne himself is fond of these formulas that
soften the boldness of our propositions: perhaps, to some extent, they say, I
think,[29] and the like. Criticism on theory and dogmatism permeates for example his
reflexion on politics. Because social order is too complicated to be mastered by
individual reason, he deems conservatism as the wisest stance. [30]This policy is
grounded on the general evaluation that change is usually more damaging than the
conservation of social institutions. Nevertheless, there may be certain circumstances
that advocate change as a better solution, as history sometimes showed. Reason
being then unable to decide a priori, judgment must come into play and alternate its
views to find the best option.

4. Montaigne's Scepticism
With Cornelius Agrippa, Henri Estienne or Francisco Sanchez, among others,
Montaigne has largely contributed to the rebirth of scepticism during the
XVIth century. His literary encounter with Sextus produced a decisive shock: around
1576, when Montaigne had his own personal medal coined, he had it engraved with
his age, with Epecho , I abstain in Greek, and another Sceptic motto in French:
Que sais-je?: what do I know ? At this period in his life, Montaigne is thought to
have undergone a sceptical crisis, as Pierre Villey famously commented. In fact,
this interpretation dates back to Pascal, for whom scepticism could only be a sort of
momentary frenzy.[31] The Apologie de Raimond Sebond, the longest chapter of
the Essays, bears the sign of intellectual despair that Montaigne manages to shake
off elsewhere. But another interpretation of scepticism formulates it as a strategy
used to comfort fideism: because reason is unable to demonstrate religious

dogmas, we must rely on spiritual revelation and faith. The paradigm of fideism, a
word which Montaigne does not use, has been delivered by Richard Popkin
in History of Scepticism[32]. Montaigne appears here as a founding father of the
Counter Reformation, being the leader of the Nouveaux Pyrrhoniens, for whom
scepticism is used as a means to an end, that is, to neutralize the grip that philosophy
once had on religion.
Commentators now agree upon the fact that Montaigne largely transformed the type
of scepticism he borrowed from Sextus. The two sides of the scale are never
perfectly balanced, since reason always tips the scale in favor of the present at hand.
This imbalance undermines the key mechanism of isosthenia, the equality of
strength of two opposing arguments. Since the suspension of judgment cannot occur
casually, as Sextus Empiricus would like it to, judgment must abstain from giving
its assent. In fact, the sources of Montaigne's scepticism are much wider: his child
readings of Ovid's Metamorphosis, which gave him a deep awareness of change,
the in utramque partem academic debate which he practised at the Collge de
Guyenne (a pro and contra discussion inherited from Aristotle and Cicero), and the
humanist philosophy of action, dealing with the uncertainty of human affairs, shaped
his mind early on. Through them, he learned repeatedly that rational appearances are
deceptive. In most of the chapters of the Essays, Montaigne now and then reverses
his judgment: these sudden shifts of perspective are designed to escape adherence,
and to tackle the matter from another point of view.[33] The Essays mirror a discreet
conduct of judgment, in keeping with the formula iudicio alternante, which we still
find engraved today on the beams of the Prigord castle's library. The aim is not to
ruin arguments by opposing them, as it is the case in the Pyrrhonian antilogy, but
rather to counterbalance a single opinion by taking into account other opinions. In
order to work, each scale of judgment has to be laden. If we take morals, for
example, Montaigne refers to varied moral authorities, one of them being custom
and the other reason. Against every form of dogmatism, Montaigne returns moral
life to its original diversity and inherent uneasiness. Through philosophy, he seeks
full accordance with the diversity of life: As for me, I love life and cultivate it as
God has been pleased to grant it to us.[34]
We find two readings of Montaigne as a Sceptic. The first one concentrates on the
polemical, negative arguments drawn from Sextus Empiricus, at the end of the
Apology. This hard-line scepticism draws the picture of man as humiliated. [35] Its
aim is essentially to fight the pretensions of reason and to annihilate human
knowledge. Truth, being and justice are equally dismissed as unattainable.
Doubt foreshadows here Descartes' Meditations, on the problem of the reality of the
outside world. Dismissing the objective value of one's representations, Montaigne
would have created the long-lasting problem of solipsism. We notice, nevertheless,
that he does not question the reality of things except occasionally at the very end
of the 'Apology' but the value of opinions and men. The second reading of his
scepticism puts forth that Cicero's probabilism is of far greater significance in
shaping the sceptical content of the Essays. After the 1570's, Montaigne no longer

read Sextus; additions show, however, that he took up a more and more extensive
reading of Cicero's philosophical writings. We assume that, in his early search for
polemical arguments against rationalism during the 1570's, Montaigne borrowed
much from Sextus, but as he got tired of the sceptical machinery, and understood
scepticism rather as an ethics of judgment, he went back to Cicero.[36] The paramount
importance of the Academica for XVIthcentury thought has been underlined by
Charles B. Schmitt[37]. In the free enquiry, which Cicero engaged throughout the
varied doctrines, the humanists found an ideal mirror of their own relationship with
the Classics. The Academy, of which I am a follower, gives me the opportunity to
hold an opinion as if it were ours, as soon as it shows itself to be highly probable [38],
wrote Cicero in the De Officiis. Reading Seneca, Montaigne will think as if he were
a member of the Stoa; then changing for Lucretius, he will think as if he had become
an Epicurean, and so on. Doctrines or opinions, beside historical stuff and personal
experiences, make up the nourishment of judgment. Montaigne assimilates opinions,
according to what appears to him as true, without taking it to be absolutely true. He
insists on the dialogical nature of thought, referring to Socrates' way of keeping the
discussion going: The leader of Plato's dialogues, Socrates, is always asking
questions and stirring up discussion, never concluding, never satisfying
().[39] Judgment has to determine the most convincing position, or at least to
determine the strengths and weaknesses of each position. The simple dismissal of
truth would be too dogmatic a position; but if absolute truth is lacking, we still have
the possibility to balance opinions. We have resources enough, to evaluate the
various authorities that we have to deal with in ordinary life.
The original failure of commentators was perhaps in labelling Montaigne's thought
as sceptic without reflecting on the proper meaning of the essay. Montaigne's
exercise of judgment is an exercise of natural judgment, which means that
judgment does not need any principle or any rule as a presupposition. In this way,
many aspects of Montaigne's thinking can be considered as sceptical, although they
were not used for the sake of scepticism. For example, when Montaigne sets down
the exercise of doubt as a good start in education, he understands doubt as part of the
process of the formation of judgment. This process should lead to wisdom,
characterized as always joyful.[40] Montaigne's scepticism is not a desperate one. On
the contrary, it offers the reader a sort of jubilation which relies on the modest but
effective pleasure in dismissing knowledge, thus making room for the exercise of
one's natural faculties.

5. Montaigne and Relativism

Renaissance thinkers strongly felt the necessity to revise their discourse on man. But
no one accentuated this necessity more than Montaigne: what he was looking for,
when reading historians or travellers such as Lopez de Gomara's History of Indies,
was the utmost variety of beliefs and customs that would enrich his image of man.
Neither the Hellenistic Sage, nor the Christian Saint, nor the Renaissance Scholar,
are unquestioned models in the Essays. Instead, Montaigne is considering real men,

who are the product of customs. Here they live on human flesh; there it is an act of
piety to kill one's father at a certain age ().[41] The importance of custom plays a
polemical part: alongside with scepticism, the strength of imagination (chapter I,21)
or Fortune (chapters I,1, I,24, etc.), it contributes to the devaluation of reason and
will. It is bound to destroy our spontaneous confidence that we do know the truth,
and that we live according to justice. During the XVIth century, the jurists of the
French school of law showed that the law is tied up with historical determinations.
[42]
In chapter I,23, On custom, Montaigne seems to extrapolate on this idea : our
opinions and conducts being everywhere the product of custom, references to
universal reason, truth, or justice are to be dismissed as illusions. Pierre Villey
was the first to use the terms relativity and relativism, which proved to be useful
tools when commenting on the fact that Montaigne acknowledges that no universal
reason presides over the birth of our beliefs.[43] The notion of absolute truth, applied
to human matters, vitiates the understanding and wreaks havoc in society. Upon
further reflexion, contingent customs impact everything: in short, to my way of
thinking, there is nothing that custom will not or cannot do. [44] Montaigne calls it
Circe's drink.[45] Custom is a sort of witch, whose spell, among other effects, casts
moral illusion. The laws of conscience, which we say are born from nature, are
born of custom. Each man, holding in inward veneration the opinions and the
behavior approved and accepted around him ()[46], obeys custom in all his actions
and thoughts. The power of custom, indeed, not only guides man in his behavior, but
also persuades him of its legitimacy. What is crime for one person will appear
normal to another. In the XVIIth century, Blaise Pascal will use this argument when
challenging the pretension of philosophers of knowing truth. One century later,
David Hume will lay stress on the fact that the power of custom is all the stronger,
specifically because we are not aware of it. What are we supposed to do, then, if our
reason is so flexible that it changes with two degrees of elevation towards the
pole, as Pascal puts it ?[47] For the Jansenist thinker, only one alternative exists, faith
in Jesus Christ. However, it is more complicated in the case of Montaigne. Getting
to know all sorts of customs, through his readings or travels, he makes an exemplary
effort to open his mind. We are all huddled and concentrated in ourselves, and our
vision is reduced to the length of our nose.[48]Custom's grip is so strong that it is
dubious as to whether we are in a position to become aware of it and shake off its
power.
Montaigne was hailed by Claude Lvi-Strauss as the progenitor of the human
sciences, and the pioneer of cultural relativism. [49] However, Montaigne has not been
willing to indulge entirely in relativism. Judgment is at first sight unable to stop the
relativistic discourse, but it is not left without remedy when facing the power of
custom. Exercise of thought is the first counterweight we can make use of, for
example when criticizing an existing law. Customs are not almighty, since their
authority can be reflected upon, evaluated or challenged by individual judgment.
The comparative method can also be applied to the freeing of judgment: although
lacking a universal standard, we can nevertheless stand back from particular

customs, by the mere fact of comparing them. Montaigne thus compares heating or
circulating means between people. In a more tragical way, he denounces the
fanaticism and the cruelty displayed by Christians against one another, during the
civil wars in France, through a comparison with cannibalism: I think there is more
barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead, and in tearing by tortures
and the rack a body still full of feeling ().[50] The meaning of the word barbarity
is not merely relative to a culture or a point of view, since there are degrees of
barbarity. Passing a judgment on cannibals, Montaigne also says: So we may well
call these people barbarians, in respect to the rules of reason, but not in respect to
ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity (). [51] Judgment is still
endowed with the possibility of postulating universal standards, such as reason or
nature, which help when evaluating actions and behaviors. Although Montaigne
maintains in the Apologie that true reason and true justice are only known by God,
he asserts in other chapters that these standards are somehow accessible to man,
since they allow judgment to consider customs as particular and contingent rules.
[52]
In order to criticize the changeable and the relative, we must suppose that our
judgment is still able to bring things back to truth and reason. [53] Man is
everywhere enslaved by custom, but this does not mean that we should accept the
numbing of our mind. Montaigne elaborates a pedagogy, which rests on the practice
of judgment itself. The task of the pupil is not to repeat what the master said, but, on
a given subject of problem, to confront his judgment with the master's one.
Moreover, relativistic readings of the Essays are forced to ignore certain passages
that carry a more rationalistic tone. The violent detriment inflicted by custom
(I,23) is certainly not a praise of custom, but an invitation to escape it. In the same
way that Circe's potion has changed men into pigs, custom turns their intelligence
into stupidity. In the toughest cases, Montaigne's critical use of judgment aims at
giving a good whiplash to the ordinary stupidity of judgment.[54] In many other
places, Montaigne boasts of himself being able to resist vulgar opinion.
Independence of thinking, alongside with clear-mindedness and good faith, are the
first virtues a young gentleman should acquire.

6. Montaigne's Legacy on Charron

and Descartes
Pierre Charron was Montaigne's friend and official heir. In De la sagesse (1601 and
1604), he re-organized many of his master's ideas, setting aside the most disturbing
ones. His work is now usually dismissed as a dogmatic misrepresentation of
Montaigne's thought. Nevertheless, his book was given priority over
the Essays themselves during the whole XVIIth century, especially after
Malebranche's critics conspired to have the Essays included in the Roman Index of
1677. Montaigne's historical influence must be reckoned through the lens of this
mediation. Moreover, Charron's reading is not simply faulty. According to him,
wisdom relies on the readiness of judgment to revise itself towards a more favorable

outcome:[55] this idea is one of the most remarkable readings of the Essays in the
early history of their reception.
The influence Montaigne had on Descartes has been commented upon by many
critics, at least from the XIXth century on, within the context of the birth of modern
science. As a sceptic, calling into question the natural link between mind and things,
Montaigne would have won his position in the modern philosophical landscape. The
scepticism in the Apologie is, no doubt, a main source of solipsism, but
Descartes cannot be called a disciple of Montaigne in the sense that he would have
inherited a doctrine. Above all, he owes the Prigourdin gentleman a way of
educating himself. Far from substituting Montaigne for his Jesuit schoolteachers,
Descartes decided to teach himself from scratch, following the path indicated by
Montaigne to achieve independence and firmness of judgment. The mindset that
Descartes inherited from the Essays appears as something particularly obvious, in
the two first parts of the Discours de la mthode. As the young Descartes left the
Collge de La Flche, he decided to travel, and to test his own value in action. I
employed the rest of my youth to travel, to see courts and armies, to meet people of
varied humors and conditions, to collect varied experiences, to try myself in the
meetings that fortune was offering me ().[56]Education, taken out of a school
context, is presented as an essay of the self through experience. The world, as
pedagogue, has been substituted for books and teachers. This new education allows
Descartes to get rid of the prejudice of overrating his own customs, a widespread
phenomenon that we now call ethnocentrism. Montaigne's legacy becomes
particularly conspicuous when Descartes draws the lesson from his travels, "having
acknowledged that those who have very contrary feelings to ours are not barbarians
or savages, but that many of them make use of reason as much or more so than we
do". And also : It is good to know something of different people, in order to judge
our own with more sanity, and not to think that everything that is against our
customs and habits is ridiculous and against reason, as usually do those who have
never seen anything.[57] Like Montaigne, Descartes begins by philosophizing on life
with no other device than the a discipline of judgment: I was learning not to believe
anything too firmly, of which I had been persuaded through example and
custom.[58] He departs nevertheless from Montaigne when he will equate with error
opinions that are grounded on custom.[59] The latter would not have dared to speak of
error: varied opinions, having more or less authority, are to be weighed upon the
scale of judgment. It is thus not correct to interpret Montaigne's philosophy as a
criticism of prejudice from a Cartesian stance.

7. Conclusion
Montaigne cultivates his liberty by not adhering exclusively to any one idea, while
at the same time exploring them all. In exercising his judgment on various topics, he
trains himself to go off on fresh tracks, starting from something he read or
experienced. For Montaigne this also means calling into question the convictions of
his time, reflecting upon his beliefs and education, and cultivating his own personal

thoughts. His language can be said to obey only one rule, that is, to be an effect of
judgment and sincerity,[60] which is the very one that he demands from the pupil. His
language bears an unmistakable tone but contradicts itself sometimes from one place
to another, perhaps for the very reason that it follows so closely the movements of
thought.
If being a philosopher means being insensitive to human frailties and to the evils or
to the pleasures which befall us, then Montaigne is not a philosopher. If it means
using a jargon, and being able to enter the world of scholars, then Montaigne is
not one either. Yet, if being a philosopher is being able to judge properly in any
circumstances of life, then the Essays are the exemplary testimony of an author who
wanted to be a philosopher for good. Montaigne is putting his judgment to trial on
whatever subject, in order not only to get to know its value, but also to form and
strengthen it.
He manages thus to offer us a philosophy in accordance with life. As Nietzsche puts
it, that such a man has written, joy on earth has truly increasedIf my task were to
make this earth a home, I would attach myself to him. Or, as Stefan Zweig said, in
a context which was closer to the historical reality experienced by Montaigne
himself : Montaigne helps us answer this one question: How to stay free? How to
preserve our inborn clear-mindedness in front of all the threats and dangers of
fanaticism, how to preserve the humanity of our hearts among the upsurge of
bestiality?

Bibliography
Editions

Essais, F. Strowski (ed.), Paris: Hachette, 1912, Phototypic reproduction of

the Exemplaire de Bordeaux, showing Montaigne's handwritten additions of 1588
1592.

Essais, Pierre Villey (ed.), 3 volumes, Alcan, 19221923, revised by V.-L.

Saulnier, 1965. Gives the 3 strata indications, probable dates of composition of the
chapters, and many sources.

Michel de Montaigne. Les Essais, J. Balsamo, C. Magnien-Simonin & M.

Magnien (eds.) (with Notes de lecture and Sentences peintes edited by Alain
Legros), Paris, Pliade, Gallimard, 2007. The Essays are based on the 1595
published version.

La Thologie naturelle de Raymond Sebond, traduicte nouvellement en

Franois par Messire Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne, Chevalier de l'ordre du Roy
et Gentilhomme ordinaire de sa chambre. Ed. by Dr Armaingaud, Paris: Conard,
1935.

Le Journal de Voyage en Italie de Michel de Montaigne. Ed. by Franois

Rigolot, Paris: PUF, 1992.

Lettres. Ed. by Arthur Armaingaud, Paris, Conard, 1939 (vol. XI, in uvres
compltes, pp. 159266).

Translations in English

The Essayes, tr. by John Florio. London: V. Sims, 1603.

The Essays, tr. by Charles Cotton. 3 vol., London: T. Basset, M. Gilliflower

and W. Hensman, 16851686.

The Essays, tr. by E.J. Trechmann. 2 vol., Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1927.

Michel de Montaigne. The Complete Works. Essays, Travel Journal, Letters,

tr. by Donald M. Frame, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958, renewed 1971 &
1976.

The Complete Essays, tr. by M.A. Screech, London/New York: Penguin,

1993.

The Journal of Montaigne's Travels, tr. by W.G. Watters, 3 vol., London:

John Murray, 1903.

The Diary of Montaigne's Journey to Italy in 1580 and 1581, tr. by E.J.
Trechmann. London: Hogarth Press, 1929.

Secondary Sources

Auerbach, Erich, 1946, l'humaine condition (on Montaigne) in Mimesis:

The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard Trask. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2003 (originally pub. Bern: Francke).

Burke, Peter, 1981, Montaigne, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Compayr, Gabriel, 1908, Montaigne and the Education of the Judgment,

trans. J. E. Mansion, New York: Burt Franklin, 1971.

Conche, Marcel, 1996, Montaigne et la philosophie, Paris: PUF.

Desan, Philippe (dir.), 2007, Dictionnaire de Montaigne, Paris: Champion.

Frame, Donald M., 1984, Montaigne: A Biography, New York: Harcourt/

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965/ San Francisco: North Point Press.

Friedrich, Hugo, 1991, Montaigne, Bern: Francke, 1949; Berkeley:

University of California Press.

Fontana, Biancamaria, 2008, Montaignes Politics: Authority and

Governance in the Essays, Geneva: Princeton University Press.

Hoffmann, Georges, 1998, Montaigne's Career, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Horkheimer, Max, 1938, Montaigne und die Funktion der Skepsis, Frankfurt:
Fischer, reprinted 1971.

Imbach, Ruedi, 1983, Et toutefois nostre outrecuidance veut faire passer la

divinit par nostre estamine, l'essai II,12 et la gense de la pense moderne.
Construction d'une thse explicative in Paradigmes de thologie philosophique, O.
Hffe et R. Imbach (eds.), Fribourg.

Ulrich Langer, 2005, The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Leake, R.E., 1981, Concordance des Essais de Montaigne, 2 vol., Genve:

Droz.

Popkin, Richard, 1960, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to

Descartes, Assen: Van Gorcum.

Popkin, Richard, 1979, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza,

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Popkin, Richard, 2003, The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle,

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schmitt, Charles B., 1972, Cicero scepticus: A Study of the Influence of the
Academica in the Renaissance, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Screech, Michael, 1983, Montaigne & Melancholy The Wisdom of the

Essays, London: Duckworth.

Screech, Michael, 1998, Montaigne's Annotated Copy of Lucretius, A

transcription and study of the manuscript, notes and pen-marks, Geneva: Droz.

Starobinski, Jean, 2009, Montaigne in Motion, University of Chicago Press.

Supple, James, 1984, Arms versus Letters, The Military and Literary Ideals
in the Essays, Cambridge: Clarendon Press.

Tournon, Andr, 1983, La glose et l'essai, Paris: H. Champion, reprinted

2001.

Zweig, Stefan, 1960, Montaigne [written 19351941] Frankfurt: Fischer.

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Other Internet Resources

Texts
The complete, searchable text of the Villey-Saulnier edition, from the ARFTL
project at the University of Chicago (French)
Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum, Philippe Desan, ed.,
(University of Chicago).
Portrait Gallery, in Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum

Translations
Montaigne's Essays John Florio's translation (first published 1603, Ben R.
Schneider (ed.), Lawrence University, Wisconsin, from The World's Classics,
1904, 1910, 1924), published at Renascence Editions, U. Oregon

Related Entries
civic humanism | Descartes, Ren | humanism: in the Renaissance | liberty: positive
and negative |relativism | Sextus Empiricus | skepticism | Stoicism

Como Montaigne vai mudar

sua vida

Ele virou o escritor mais reverenciado pela autoajuda. Mas oferece mais que
um manual de instrues
LUS ANTNIO GIRON
29/08/2013 07h30 - Atualizado em 29/08/2013 11h08
Kindle
inShare

Todo mundo corre loucamente atrs de modelos de vida,

comportamento, trabalho e sucesso. Eis a razo do sucesso duradouro
de autoajuda, gnero literrio que tem por mtodo converter todos os
objetos que trata em manual de instrues. Foi assim que Jesus Cristo se
tornou o maior CEO da Histria, o transviado Woody Allen treina os
gerentes da firma a subir na hierarquia e at vira-latas mais sarnentos
so promovidos a filsofos transcendentais. A autoajuda distorce
qualquer coisa e serve sobretudo para ajudar os autores de autoajuda a
vender livros. Isso mais que bvio. Para falar novamente no assunto
(quantas vezes j no comparei autoajuda a autoengano?), tomo ttulo
desta crnica emprestado de um livro de autoajuda exemplar, publicado
originalmente em 1997 pelo pensador britnico Alain de Botton:Como
Proust pode mudar sua vida (Intrnseca, 256 pginas, R$ 19,90).
Substituo Proust por outro autor francs: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne.
Este, sim, vai mudar a sua vida.
O romancista Marcel Proust, diga-se de passagem, no parece reunir
credenciais para mudar a vida de ningum. No s no foi capaz de
alterar a sua prpria vida, como passava o dia no seu quarto,
escrevendo, abandonado s doenas. Morreu aos 51 anos porque se
recusou a tratar uma friagem e uma subsequente pneumonia. Para
Botton, porm, trata-se de adequar Proust a seus propsitos curativos.
Assim, Botton afirma que o ciclo de sete romances Em busca do tempo
perdido (1913-1924) est longe de ser um livro de memrias, trata-se
de uma histria prtica e universalmente aplicvel como parar de
desperdiar a prpria vida e comear a apreci-la. A est uma maneira
redutora de tentar explicar um dos monumentos da literatura. Se o autor
ou o co mais desajustado pode colaborar na construo da reputao
da autoajuda, que dir um autor repleto de bom-senso como Montaigne.

Qualquer adaptao das ideias de Montaigne aos pressupostos da

autoajuda se torna uma tarefa fcil. O resultado que ele se tornou uma
espcie de arroz-de-festa dos best-sellers da autoajuda. Um exemplo o
livro Como viver ou uma biografia de Montaigne em uma pergunta e
vinte tentativas de resposta (Objetiva, 512 pginas, R$ 39,90), da
inglesa Sarah Bakewell, lanado no Brasil em 2012. Consiste em uma

reflexo menos sobre as ideias de Montaigne que um guia para viver

melhor inspirado em Montaigne. Ele combina com vinhos, gatos e
gastronomia. Foram lanados vrios livros sobre tais assuntos. Um dos
livros de maior sucesso na Frana nas ltimas semanas foi Um t avec
Montaigne (Um vero com Montaigne), do professor Antoine
Compagnon, que rene em um pequeno volume uma srie de 40
programas radiofnicos curtos que ele apresentou sobre Montaigne na
rdio France Internacional em 2012. So plulas de sabedoria que podem
ser ingeridas tanto como autoajuda quanto como parfrases em torno
dos textos de Montaigne. O livro de Compagnon vendido nos
supermercados, tamanho o interesse pelas ideias de Montaigne. Melhor
que buscar conselhos com o tot da casa.
>> Mais colunas de Lus Antnio Giron
Montaigne torna-se periodicamente uma fonte de consulta nos mais
diversos assuntos, desde formas de negociar com poderosos ao trato
com indgenas, da conversa e da melhor forma de levar a vida, do cio a
filosofar para aprender a morrer. Atualmente, ele parece mais um
homem do sculo XXI que seus contemporneos William Shakespeare,
Miguel de Cervantes e Torquato Tasso trio que, com ele, consolidou o
humanismo renascentista respectivamente no teatro, no romance e na
poesia. Shakespeare soa gtico e pessimista em demasia aos olhos do
cidado pragmtico de hoje em dia. Cervantes, um tanto prolixo e dado
a pilhrias. E Tasso, portador de dificuldades mentais e textos
protobarrocos. Montaigne materializa o senso prtico: suas ideias so
claras e desprovidas de preconceitos e seu texto as acompanha, sem
nenhuma pretenso de fazer estilo ou, como diz, sem pose nem
artifcio. Como um homem mdio atual, ele encarava a fico com
desconfiana. Dedicou-se no-fico e, dentro dela, a si prprio.
Sua vida fornece todas as tintas. Nascido no Sul da Frana em 1533 e
morto em 1592, aos 59 anos, durante uma missa rezada em seu leito,
Montaigne foi um cidado exemplar, nobre, proprietrio de terras e pai
de famlia. Aos 38 anos, depois de ter sido membro do conselho real,
magistrado e prefeito nas cidades de Prigueux e Bordeaux e ter viajado
pela Itlia, Alemanha e Sua, ele se retirou da vida pblica para se
dedicar a ler e a refletir sobre a vida e a morte. Exilou-se parcialmente
na torre de sua propriedade, a hoje Torre de Montaigne, onde mantinha
uma mesa, uma cama e cerca de mil livros. No deixava de
supervisionar os afazeres dos empregados de sua propriedade l de
cima, e at saa de vez em quando para tomar parte da vida de sua
comunidade. Viver na solido para ele era uma atitude serena e no
totalmente triste. Sua solido era um ato de introspeco melhor vivido
longe da companhia de amigos e mulheres, dois de seus principais
passatempos, alm dos livros - que preferia aos outros dois.

Lia muito, principalmente autores antigos gregos e latinos. Mandou

inscrever 57 citaes nas paredes e traves de sua biblioteca, que podem
ser lidas hoje pelos turistas. Algumas chamam ateno porque de
alguma forma explicam quem as inscreveu: Quem sabe se viver o que
chamamos de morrer, e morrer viver?, de Eurpides. Podemos dizer
muitas palavras em um sentido e em outro, da Ilada de Homero.
Guardar a medida, observar o limite e seguir a natureza, da Farslia de
Lucano. A vida mais doce que a de no pensar em nada, da
tragdia Ajax, de Sfocles.
Munidos apenas desses quatro aforismos, podemos compreender a
cabea do nobre senhor: sua maior preocupao era a morte; no
cotidiano, queria manter a razo e a sobriedade, e buscar entender os
outros; em literatura, ser claro e evitar os contorcionismos verbais; viver
sem pensar melhor, mas para ele isso se revelou impossvel. Seu retiro
o fez pensar e se angustiar demais, sem nunca perder a bssola. Foi
assim que criou um gnero literrio que nunca esteve tanto em voga
como hoje o ensaio e um tipo de figura que se tornaria proeminente
no sculo XX e hoje vive o ocaso: a do intelectual pblico, o guru a ser
seguido pelas multides de leitores.
Montaigne baseou-se em sua personalidade e sua experincia para
abordar qualquer assunto que lhe chamasse a ateno e, assim, fundar o
ensaio. Essais foi como Montaigne intitulou a srie de textos digressivos
que escreveu ao longo de 20 anos, entre 1571 e 1591, e os fez publicar a
partir de 1580, em quatro edies sucessivas. Adverte o leitor no incio
do volume, em nota escrita na primeira edio: Quero que me vejam
aqui em meu modo simples, natural e corrente, sem pose nem artifcio:
pois a mim que retrato. Meus defeitos, minhas imperfeies e minha
forma natural de ser ho de se ler ao vivo, tanto quanto a decncia
pblica me permitiu. Pois se eu estivesse entre essas naes que se diz
ainda viverem sob a doce liberdade das leis primitivas da natureza,
asseguro-te que teria com muito gosto me pintado por inteiro e
totalmente nu. Ele se refere aqui aos ndios brasileiros que aportaram
em Rouen em 1562, trazidos da baa de Guanabara. O fato o inspirou no
ensaio Sobre os canibais. No texto, critica a decadncia e a corrupo
do homem europeu diante da nobreza asctica e a espontaneidade dos
indgenas, exemplos de uma outra civilizao possvel.
So esses os traos que moldam as ideias de Montaigne tolerncia e s
atitudes politicamente corretas atuais. No foi um intelectual, apesar de
ser precursor dos literatos. Foi um especialista em generalidades, um
leigo que escrevia para leigos, como observou o fillogo alemo Erich
Auerbach no ensaio O escritor Montaigne. Como tal, cultivou a
liberdade e a distncia dos seres humanos. Talvez tenha sido egosta,
mas a independncia que mostra em seus textos o distingue da sanha

assertiva e exploratria da autoajuda. Felizmente, apesar da moda,

Montaigne se encarrega ele prprio de se esgueirar daqueles que tentam
aprision-lo aos lugares comuns dos manuais. queles que pretendem
adot-lo como modelo, ele parece responder com o braso que fez
cunhar em medalhas. Trata-se de uma balana com dois pratos
equilibrados. Abaixo dela, a divisa: Abstenho-me. Cada um que cuide
de mudar a sua vida.
Lus Antnio Giron escreve s quintas-feiras

Revista poca fonte: http://epoca.globo.com/colunas-e-blogs/luis-antoniogiron/noticia/2013/08/como-bmontaigneb-vai-mudar-sua-vida.html

Montaigne na histria da filosofia

Montaigne o homem que no deixa aprisionar-se pela rede dos
adjetivos, nem consente a separao espetacular do autor e do livro.
Je n'ay pas plus faict mon livre, que mon livre m'a faict: livre
consubstantiel son auteur, d'une occupation propre, membre de ma
vie, non d'une occupation et fin tierce et estrangire, comme touts
aultres livres, confessa, e de to ntima camaradagem resulta no
sabermos ao certo se foi Montaigne quem escreveu o livro, se foi o
livro quem revelou a Montaigne a plena conscincia de autor.
Pensamento que se procura em si prprio e atravs da variedade dos
homens se reconhece uno e diferente, se vai desdobrando sobre si
mesmo, ondulante e diverso como diversas so as perspetivas e os
ngulos de viso, pari passu que o livro avana, ele via dilatar-se o
territrio da sua conscincia psicolgica e da sua conscincia moral.
Autor e livro marcharam a par, e se certo que foi Montaigne quem
lhe redigiu as pginas, foram as pginas escritas e sempre
repensadas que lhe descobriram o homem que ele era, e, na sua
individualidade concreta, la forme entire de l'humaine condition.
Foi esta descoberta do humano atravs de si prprio, ou, por outras
palavras, da integrao da conscincia psicolgica na conscincia
moral, que, a meu ver, impediu Montaigne de se submergir na
anedota e no pitoresco do dirio ntimo.
Do dirio ntimo dizia Amiel, autoridade suprema na matria, que era
uma maneira de ocupar a ociosidade e um passatempo simulador do
trabalho. Montaigne, porm, ao escrever, no teve a sensao de
desperdiar o tempo em solilquios. Como o tmido pensador de

Genebra, entregou-se expanso de ntimas e s vezes

impertinentes confidncias, mas se se isolara e escrevia porque
tinha que dizer e se convencera de que, mediante as suas reflexes
objetivas, conquistaria uma viso da existncia, cujo conhecimento
talvez interessasse ao gnero humano. E assim desembocamos
naturalmente na pergunta que nos vai ocupar durante breves
minutos: o que Montaigne disse e se esforou por conhecer e decidir
merece o raro predicado de filsofo?
Montaigne conheceu no sculo XVII a hostilidade de Port-Royal, para
quem ele foi o monstro da sabedoria paganizada, que, se no ignora
Deus, pelo menos desconhece Cristo. No chegou Pascal, no paralelo
famoso de Epicteto e de Montaigne, ao exagero de repartir a
variedade infinita dos homens du monde infidle em dois bandos,
dos quais um e outro seriam os detestveis capites?
Depois, passada a crise problemtica do ideal do honnte homme,
isto , do homem de sociedade, acerca do qual vamos ouvir em breve
o nosso sbio colega Prof. Plattard, Montaigne foi o assunto
inesgotvel da crtica literria e da erudio, mas s no nosso sculo
foi descoberto pelos historiadores da filosofia. Montaigne filsofo ,
portanto, um tema contemporneo, mas este tema um
descobrimento ou uma inveno?
O homem ingnuo no compreende que sobre um escritor que
nasceu h quatrocentos anos e cuja existncia recordada por
monumentos, edies sbias e populares, e pelos estudos oficiais,
no tenha, como a sua fama, conquistado a unanimidade dos juzos. E
o homem ingnuo, isto , aquele homem que s tolera as respostas
precisas e macias, tem razo.
Simplesmente Montaigne no escreveu para homens ingnuos, nem,
sobretudo, os homens ingnuos devem ler Montaigne. um vinho
capitoso para cabeas fracas e ser-lhes-ia insuportvel este ser
escoante e esquivo que depois de dizer sim dir com insolncia no,
para nem sempre descansar sobre o fofo travesseiro do cmodo
talvez. Pensaro que ele fez da incoerncia a intriga urdidora do seu
livro, e no pensam mal, pois precisamente a incoerncia humana,
a instabilidade dos costumes e das opinies, o sal e o po que
Montaigne lhes oferece.
Esta incoerncia depara-se-nos logo que procuramos saber se
Montaigne considerou o seu labor como um ofcio de filsofo. Diz-nos
algures que no, mas noutra ocasio no hesita em se apresentar
como filsofo impremeditado e fortuito, e tal contraste instila a
suspeita de que o senhor de Montaigne no filosofou: tropeou com a

filosofia e acolheu-a com donaire de gentil-homem, sem se dar

cauta diligncia de a desnudar e vestir de novo.
Que filosofia encontrou este sibarita do esprito, que foi ao mesmo
tempo um excelente burocrata das letras?
quase impossvel extrair da matria constil dos Ensaios uma
generalizao global. Essais se intitula o seu livro, e logo no ttulo se
insinua a hesitao de Montaigne, pois em seu pensar ensaio no
era um gnero literrio, que alis criou e os ingleses definitivamente
afeioaram, nem uma composio sistemtica e intelectualmente
coerente. Significava simplesmente, esforo, tentativa, experincia.
O ttulo, em seu prstino sentido, , como vedes, o programa de um
sagitrio que prefere dardejar com argcia de setas bem fabricadas. E
com efeito, a construo dos ensaios no desmente o programa.
Factos graves de brao dado com anedotas; juzos meditados em
contubrnio com ditos hilariantes e facetos; glosas marginais em
livros clssicos e contemporneos, entre os quais devemos recordar a
Histria do Descobrimento da ndia, de Ferno Lopes de Castanheda,
o glorioso bedel da nossa Universidade, de mistura com sondagens
introspetivas; o narcisismo esttico a par da conceo estoica da
Natureza eis os ingredientes da arte singular deste prosador, que
soube converter a ideia e sua expresso num bloco inimitvel e nico.
Na floresta imensa de factos, anedotas, sentenas e juzos, de glosas
e observaes, ouve-se, porm, um nico canto: a voz de
Montaigne, bem timbrada e consciente de si mesma. Para a modular,
no se poupou a leituras, nem a viagens, nem a conversaes, e para
que o leitor se no maravilhasse de ele reportar tudo a si e s de si
falar, foi-lhe dizendo que les aucteurs se communiquent au peuple
par quelque marque spciale et estrangire; moy, le premier, par mon
estre universel; comme Michel de Montaigne, non comme
grammairien, ou pote ou jurisconsulte.
Eis-nos, pois, perante o ser universal do ensasta, e a pergunta fcil
que h pouco saltou diante de ns com lpida rapidez volve-se agora
nesta outra mais precisa: o ser universal de Montaigne tem a dedada
da criao filosfica?
Pela matria e pelo mtodo de trabalho Montaigne um glosador.
um pensador que comenta factos, que escreve margem de livros
velhos e novos, e por consequncia o antpoda do filsofo. No
entanto, as observaes, os comentrios e as glosas convergem para
um nico centro, e este centro a sua conscincia. De sorte que o
problema consiste em saber se o centro aglutinante, para onde tudo
converge, o ser universal de Montaigne, se insere numa concepo

original do Mundo e da vida. Graas s eruditssimas e penetrantes

investigaes dos professores Strowsky e Villey e no posso
pronunciar este nome sem me inclinar respeitosamente perante a
memria do sbio, glria da Frana e da cincia universal das letras
, sabemos que marcha cronolgica e literria dos Ensaios, de
1572 a 1592, e ao enriquecimento progressivo das respectiva fontes,
corresponde uma evoluo espiritual na qual as ideias capitais e
normativas no constituem um bloco anterior redao dos Ensaios.
Sabemos que, em 1572, um estoico ecltico, cujo acento antigo
quebrado pelo Cristianismo e pela meditao de Plutarco; sabemos
que o ceticismo lhe inundou o esprito, em 1576, quando escreve a
Apologia de Raimundo Sebunde, aps a leitura de Sexto Emprico e da
ingesto dos argumentos da Nova Academia; sabemos, finalmente,
que nos derradeiros anos da vida transitou do estoicismo mitigado e
do ceticismo universal para o epicurismo ctico, sobre o qual edificou
uma arte de bem-viver no seio da ociosidade tranquila.
Como vedes, o fundo ideolgico, assim como as ideias condutoras de
Montaigne, no so criao original sua. Dir-se-ia que so telas, nas
quais ele debuxa e pinta, mas jamais pode esquecer-se que quem
debuxa e pinta Montaigne e s Montaigne.
Pela dissecao crtica ns descobrimos que sob a estrutura dos seus
raciocnios quase voluptuosos de ctico est a argumentao de
Sexto Emprico, mas ao repeti-la Montaigne solta a voz da
modernidade, quando transfere a dvida do puro plano da razo para
o plano da crena e dos valores: Nous appelons valeur en les choses,
diz ele, non ce qu'elles apportent, mais ce que nous y apportons.
A meio caminho da antiguidade e da modernidade, o subjetivismo de
Montaigne foi o eplogo lgico da Renascena.
A Renascena conhecera toda a sorte de dogmatismos e de
entusiasmos, mas era acaso possvel a vida coerente no seio de tanta
contradio?
Comeando por duvidar de tudo, Montaigne chegou descoberta da
autonomia do homem, que no carece de dogmatismos teolgicos ou
metafsicos, e no h porventura nesta descoberta a ressurreio
consciente do gnthi sauton de Scrates? Il n'y a que vous,
escreve, qui sache si vous tes lche et cruel, ou loyal et dvotieux;
les aultres ne vous voyent point, vous devinent par conjectures
incertaines; ils voyent non tant vostre nature que votre art; par ainsi,
ne vous tenez pas leur sentence, tenez vous la votre.
A Renascena vira coisas admirveis e aprendera conhecimentos
insuspeitados, mas no conhecera um mtodo que ministrasse

inteligncia a possibilidade de extrair a verdade do monto de

opinies. Montaigne descobre o que ele chama o instrumento
judicatrio, e se certo que o aplica apenas para acentuar a
diversidade e as contradies lgicas, lana terra a semente que o
gnio de Descartes vai fazer frutificar.
Finalmente, da sua introspeo, aventureira e incerta, colhe o
contentamento da conscincia non comme de la conscience d'un
ange ou d'un cheval, mais comme de la conscience d'un homme.
No h, porventura, nesta apreenso a matriz da antropologia
filosfica moderna e uma ideia capital no desenvolvimento da tica
contempornea?
No entanto, em meu juzo, Montaigne no foi filsofo, ou, no formoso
predicado que o Sr. Thibaudet lhe atribui, l'homme qui s'appelle
Callias. Ele no viveu a vida teortica do homem Calias, e, por
caminhos diversos e mtodo diferente, creio poder dizer, como o Sr.
Van den Bruwaene, que a sua atitude reflexiva est proccupe non
pas de savoir quelles questions il faut poser, et encore moins quelles
solutions il faudra donner, mais elle s'habitue demander surtout
comment il faut poser les questions.
No sendo filsofo, o historiador da filosofia, porm, no pode
desconhecer este perturbante semeador de dvidas, que legou
Humanidade largo quinho da problemtica que o sculo XVII, o
sculo do Gnio, aspirou resolver, e sua Ptria, pela unio da mente
raciocinante ao corao tranquilo, uma imagem representativa do
esprito francs.
Fonte: http://www.joaquimdecarvalho.org/artigos/artigo/40-Montaigne-nahistoria-da-filosofia

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