Problematizando a confissão de Montaigne sobre a vaidade que encontra em si mesmo, na Apologia de Raymond Sebond, tentamos defender a hipótese de estarmos diante de uma estratégia retórica, possivelmente destinada a ocultar posição cética do autor perante os costumes religiosos.

An essential companion to the most relevant works of Michel de Montaigne Essays: The Philosophy Classic delivers a carefully curated collection of thought-provoking works by sixteenth-century thinker Michel De Montaigne. Exploring topics as diverse as politics, poetry, love, friendship and the purpose of philosophy, this latest entry in the celebrated Capstone Classics series is accessible and intuitively organized. Follow the thoughts of the person who created the essay genre in literature as he expresses his philosophy, interests, and learning. (...) Throughout, you’ll be guided by an expansive introduction by leading Montaigne scholar Philippe Desan and the comments of series editor Tom Butler-Bowdon, placing the work of Montaigne in its historical and philosophical context. You’ll also find: Celebrated and famous works by Montaigne, including noted classics like “That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die” Lesser-known works that have taken on increased importance in the unique context of the 21st-century A version of the popular Charles Cotton translation first published in 1685: a simple, faithful, and clear adaptation of the French original An invaluable resource for anyone interested in the insightful and illuminating work of one of the most enduring thinkers of the 16th-century, Essays: The Philosophy Classic is an essential addition to the libraries of philosophers, historians, and laypeople seeking an eye-opening and fascinating exploration of life itself. (shrink)

This essay explores the educational implications of the thought of Michel de Montaigne and Friedrich Nietzsche on the subject of memory. It explores the sorts of cultural memory practices that Nietzsche has called ‘mnemotechnics’, that is, the aspects of memory use that allow human beings to live life more fully. Nietzsche and Montaigne's work is explored because their work offers a different, and much more philosophically oriented, perspective on memory than is commonly discussed when educators speak of memory. (...) Nietzsche and Montaigne show how remembering and forgetting might be understood more thoroughly and deployed with more finesse. The case is made that such deployments, such mnemotechnics, have great relevance for enhancing the agency of students. (shrink)

I have naturally a [comique] and [privé ] style...I hate men base in deeds but wise in words.Although we have many examples of men, contemporary to Montaigne, who claim to write about their private lives, few of them satisfy our curiosity about the state of intimate life in the French Renaissance. For example, in Blaise de Monluc's Commentaires, his vision of recounting his inner self means, as he writes, detailing the "honor and reputation... [he] acquired... by force of arms."3 (...) Similarly, each subject in Théodore de Bèze's Les Vrais portraits des hommes illustres is painted in a more public light. Kings and military leaders reach the "summit of knowledge" and "glory," "surpassing all. (shrink)

The disappearance of the technical notion ofspeciesin Montaignes’sEssaysis characteristic of the transformation that took place around the beginning of the trial of knowledge. The theory of the species is then replaced by a doctrine of the appearance as “fantasy”. The problem, which is epistemological, takes its source in the debate opposing Stoics, Neo-academicians and Pyrrhonists on the topic of the truth value of representation. The conclusive passages in theApologyenable us to grasp the neo-pyrrhonian problematic in all its complexity. In it, (...) Montaigne focuses on the difference between appearance and reality, or appearance and essence, by opposing — as Sextus did — the “nature”, in itself inaccessible, to the quality as we perceive it through our senses. The role of the senses in this process is described either as a qualification or alteration of the object, or as a “falsification” of it, which entails the classical sceptical problem of the difficulty to choose between one representation or another — and to discriminate between the qualities that are “normal” and those that are not. A comparison with Henri Estienne’s commentary to thePyrrhonianae Hypotyposesfinally sheds some light on Montaigne’s dependence toward Greek sources and Renaissance philology. (shrink)

One of the most important issues today is the conflict between identity groups. Can the concept of toleration provide resources for thinking about this? The standard definition of toleration – rejection or disapproval of a practice or belief followed by a constraint of oneself from repressing it –has limits. If we seek to make political and social conditions of toleration among diverse people a stable reality, we need to flesh out more deeply and widely what that depends upon. The essence (...) to which it has been reduced was not toleration’s original impulse. In the sixteenth century, the objective was to create conditions of peaceful collective life among diverse groups of believers. I examine one strand of change in moral valuation underpinning political toleration: ideas about the body, time and the self as explored by Michel de Montaigne. We can extract from this analysis a way to think about grounding toleration today: a recognition of the value of particular, embodied selves. (shrink)

Montaigne est un philosophe et un philosophe difficile. Un philosophe ce n'est pas parce que les Essais ne suivent pas un ordre systématique, qu'ils ne relèvent pas de l'histoire de la philosophie. Un philosophe difficile. Pourquoi, en effet, les Essais ont-ils été souvent laissés dans les marges inexploitées de l'histoire de la philosophie? À cause d'une particularité, consciemment revendiquée, de leur auteur: pour comprendre Montaigne lui-même, sa propre situation philosophique nous impose de le comprendre immédiatement. Il était donc (...) urgent de s'appliquer à retrouver certains des contextes des Essais, en particulier l'arrière-fond scolastique, trop longtemps exclu des études montanistes. Mais aussi de leur appliquer un principe herméneutique, aussi simple qu'indiscutable en histoire de la philosophie : aller du plus clair au plus obscur, de ce qui est conceptuellement le mieux établi au plus problématique. En l'occurrence, aller du XVIIe siècle, singulièrement de Descartes, aux Essais : accéder au je de Montaigne à partir de l'ego cartésien et par différence avec lui ; plus encore, y accéder, avec et par-delà l'ego cartésien, à partir de l'ego transcendantal et de la réduction phénoménologique. Bref, lire conceptuellement et philosophiquement un philosophe. Le présent volume réunit donc des études d'approches différentes et complémentaires. Il vise d'abord à rapprocher Montaigne de ses lectures antiques - y compris celles dont on ne soupçonne pas ordinairement que Montaigne les a faites. Il entend ensuite confronter les Essais à la scolastique - le Dieu de Montaigne n'est peut-être pas si éloigné qu'on l'a cru du Dieu de certains Nominalistes, voire du Dieu cartésien, libre créateur des vérités éternelles. En résulte une détermination nouvelle du scepticisme de Montaigne, qui permet de mieux mesurer son irréductibilité à ses modèles antiques. Enfin, il s'interroge sur la pertinence actuelle de l'attitude philosophique de Montaigne, en le faisant dialoguer avec d'autres philosophes qui ne furent pas ses contemporains, mais qui sont les nôtres, et sans lesquels il n'est pas aujourd'hui de philosophie - singulièrement la phénoménologie. C'est en excédant les catégories dans lesquelles l'historiographie a voulu l'enfermer et les faux problèmes qu'elle ne cesse de lui poser, qu'un philosophe se révèle pleinement, Montaigne. (shrink)

In sixteenth century the great plague ravaged the city of Bordeaux, with the death toll of fourteen thousand. Michel de Montaigne witnessed many deaths and upsetting scenes. In this paper, I shall investigate how his experiences during epidemic affected his thoughts on death in the Essais.

Michel de Montaigne, el reconocido autor de Los ensayos, ha sido interpretado como un escéptico y, más en concreto, como un defensor del fideísmo escéptico; lectura que tiene su origen principal en la interpretación de B. Pascal. El artículo pretendereexaminar tanto la cuestión del fideísmo como la del escepticismo presente en Los ensayos, para concluir que quizá la interpretación de Pascal, que todavía perdura, se basa en un “desvío” involuntario o intencionado, pero en todo caso creativo y fértil.

Montaigne compone una ética moderna definida por el ejercicio de su pensamiento autocritico que acompañado de un método filosófico aborda la construcción de sÍ mismo como una "manera" filosófica. Las reflexiones intentan responder simultáneamente a dos cuestiones: ¿cómo le es posible proveerse de una ética que le permita una existencia ordenada y sensata, cuando la condición humana está signada por el desorden y la extravagancia? ¿Cómo le es posible fundar una ética moderna -antes que Descartes- con una posición escéptica?

Cette enquête sur l’origine et le sens de la doctrine cartésienne de la création des vérités éternelles vise à faire ressortir la distance qui sépare Descartes de Montaigne quand ils traitent l’un et l’autre du lien entre vérité et toute-puissance de Dieu. Tandis que, dans une perspective théologique, Montaigne soutient que la raison humaine ne peut connaître les choses telles qu’elles sont en elles-mêmes , Descartes soutient au contraire, dans une perspective d’articulation de la physique à la métaphysique, (...) que la raison humaine peut connaître les choses telles qu’elles sont en elles-mêmes . Toute la physique de Descartes repose en effet sur une double affirmation : que Dieu peut faire exister ce que lui-même rend possible et que Dieu ne peut faire exister ce que lui-même rend impossible . On entend réfuter par là l’interprétation, issue de Jean-Luc Marion, selon laquelle la doctrine cartésienne de la création des vérités éternelles équivaudrait à un « surcodage » de l’intelligible.The investigation on the origin and meaning of the Cartesian doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths aims at stressing the distance that separates Descartes of Montaigne when they both deal with the tie between truth and God’s omnipotence. Whilst, according to theological perspective, Montaigne insists that the human reason cannot know the things as they are in themselves , Descartes, reversely insists that, within a perspective of articulation between physics and metaphysics, the human reason can know the things as they are in themselves . The whole of Descartes’ physics rests indeed on a double affirmation : that God can make exist what he himself makes possible and that God cannot make what himself makes impossible exist. Hereby, one wishes to refute the interpretation according to Jean-Luc Marion who believes that the Cartesian doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths would be equivalent to an « out coding » of the intelligible. (shrink)

This essay explores the educational implications of the thought of Michel de Montaigne and Friedrich Nietzsche on the subject of memory. It explores the sorts of cultural memory practices that Nietzsche has called ‘mnemotechnics’, that is, the aspects of memory use that allow human beings to live life more fully. Nietzsche and Montaigne's work is explored because their work offers a different, and much more philosophically oriented, perspective on memory than is commonly discussed when educators speak of memory. (...) Nietzsche and Montaigne show how remembering and forgetting might be understood more thoroughly and deployed with more finesse. The case is made that such deployments, such mnemotechnics, have great relevance for enhancing the agency of students. (shrink)

This essay argues that Montaigne draws on elements of both the Academic and Pyrrhonian skeptical traditions, but that the fundamental desire for self-knowledge that initially led him to appreciate the insights of the ancient skeptics ultimately leads him beyond them. What lies at the heart of Montaigne’s skepticism is neither an epistemological position nor the experience of doubt, but rather the determination to philosophize self-consciously.

MONTAIGNE criou um novo gênero literário – o ensaio -, seus próprios Ensaios tiveram uma vasta influência sobre o pensamento e a literatura do Renascimento e dos séculos posteriores. Observador sereno e irônico da comédia humana, era notavelmente muito consciente do etnocentrismo de outros povos. Atraído pela diversidade humana, estava preparado para tomar a vida privada tão seriamente quanto a vida pública. MONTAIGNE tem sido muito freqüentemente tratado como um “moderno” nascido fora de sua época. Peter Burke apresenta-o (...) como um cavalheiro do campo, um homem do Renascimento e um membro da geração dos anos 1530 que floresceu numa sociedade dividida pela guerra civil, descreve as reações da posteridade aos Ensaios e pergunta se MONTAIGNE pode, em algum sentido, ser considerado nosso contemporâneo. (shrink)

Le scepticisme de Montaigne a jusqu'à présent dominé le débat sur la portée philosophique des Essais. C'est pourtant le concept épicurien du plaisir qui oriente la pensée philosophique tout entière de Montaigne. En tant que force motrice principale régissant les actions humaines, le plaisir constitue en effet la seule mesure des choses, le tamis par lequel doit passer tout contenu existentiel, quelle que soit sa nature: religieuse, philosophique ou passionnelle.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 40-61 [Access article in PDF] Montaigne, Skepticism and Immortality Zahi Zallou I IN THE LAST PAGES OF HIS ESSAY "Of Experience," Michel de Montaigne warns against the desire to "go outside ourselves." 1 While Montaigne apparently spares Christian mystics from his biting critique ("those venerable souls, exalted by ardent piety and religion to constant and conscientious meditation on divine things" [p. (...) 856]), there is no suggested criterion enabling one to discriminate between these "venerable souls" and those individuals dangerously engaging in similar practices, claiming to have similar mystical religious experiences. The latters' "care of the self" (cura sui) is a kind of caring that would paradoxically do violence to their human self (conceived by Montaigne as both mind and body): "That is madness: instead of changing into angels [in order to be closer to the divinitas of God], they change into beasts [a regression to the realm of animalitas]; instead of raising themselves, they lower themselves" (p. 856). With this conduplicatio, the repetition of the verb "to change," Montaigne emphasizes the role of agency, thus pointing out that they are to a large measure responsible for their condition, through their practices of self-care, or rather what Nietzsche has called their spiritual "incuria sui." 2 Neither the mind nor the body should be excluded from serious consideration, Montaigne stresses: "For it is indeed reasonable, as they say, that the body should not follow its appetites to the disadvantage of the mind; but why is it not also reasonable that the mind should not pursue its appetites to the disadvantage of the body?" (p. 681). Divorcing the mind from the body is, indeed, seen as an unwise, and potentially disastrous, practice: [End Page 40] Those who want to split up our two principal parts and sequester them from each other are wrong. (p. 484) To what purpose do we dismember by force a structure made up of such close and brotherly correspondence? On the contrary, let us bind it together again by mutual services. Let the mind arouse and quicken the heaviness of the body, and the body check and make fast the lightness of the mind. (p. 855) Montaigne's suspicion of claims pertaining to the transcendent realm is perhaps most forcefully expressed in his late additions to "Of Experience": "Between ourselves, these are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct. [...] These transcendental humors frighten me, like lofty and inaccessible places" (p. 856). Not even Socrates, who is known to have engaged in excessive spiritual meditations, is spared from the essayist's critical reflections: "And nothing is so hard for me to stomach in the life of Socrates as his ecstasies and possessions by his daemon, nothing is so human in Plato as the qualities for which they say he is called divine" (p. 856). This should be seen as a qualification of his earlier discussion of Socrates's daimonion in "Of Prognostications": "The daemon of Socrates was perhaps a certain impulse of the will that came to him without awaiting the advice of his reason [discours]. In a well-purified soul such as his, prepared by a continual exercise of wisdom and virtue, it is likely that these inclinations, although instinctive and undigested, were always important and worth following" (pp. 29-30). What is at issue here is the contrast (yet without any tension) between reason's way and God's way, so to speak, between Socrates's "discours" (his reason, which dictates to him the appropriate and rational means of action) and his "demon" (Socrates's divine voice or "divine sign," 3 which informs him of what to do and, especially, not to do). 4 Due to Socrates's wise and virtuous character, the essayist speculates, the former never erred in acting on his impulses or undigested inclinations. Montaigne generalizes and is even tempted to translate some of his own past actions in terms of a Socratic-like divine inspiration: "Everyone feels within himself some likeness of such stirrings [...] And I have had some [...] by which I let myself... (shrink)

Muchos de los comentaristas de Gómez Dávila han notado que el carácter de su obra es intertextual, es decir, que no es un sistema cerrado: siempre está conectado implíci-tamente con otros libros y pensadores. El mismo Gómez Dávila nos indica en sus Escolios que Montaigne y Burckhardt tienen un rol central en esta intertextualidad. De tal manera, el siguiente artículo se propone interpretar la conexión entre los dos pen-sadores anteriores y la obra del colombiano. En el caso de Burckhardt, (...) se mostrará có-mo su pesimismo antropológico basado en una idea del pecado original, su escepti-cismo sobre la posibilidad humana de construir utopías, su negación de la idea de progreso y su concepción del tamaño y el papel del Estado aparecen y se desarrollan en el pensamiento del colombiano. En el caso de Montaigne, se mostrará su cercanía con Gómez Dávila a partir de sus similitudes biográficas, su alejamiento del espíritu académico de sus propios tiempos, su concepción de la filosofía, su escepticismo como arma para defender la fe y su fuerte conservatismo. Finalmente, se concluirá que esta intertextualidad que el autor mismo señala en su confesión sobre Montaigne y Bur-ckhardt nos ayuda a darle orden y sentido a sus posiciones políticas en los Escolios. En efecto, se intentará mostrar que Gómez Dávila articula las influencias de sus maestros para concluir en una visión de mundo reaccionaria. (shrink)

Les lectures de Montaigne les plus fréquemment enseignées construisent quelques artefacts (un Montaigne anthropologue, un Montaigne centré sur son « moi », etc.) et soulignent le poids déterminant du contexte et de la biographie dans la production des Essais. Nous souhaitons compléter ces lectures en mettant en œuvre une méthode contextualiste empruntée à l’école de Cambridge : le sens d’une œuvre philosophique est donné par l’intention de l’auteur dans un contexte précis. Cette méthode inverse le statut que (...) nous attribuons d’ordinaire au contexte, celui d’un déterminant de l’œuvre, pour voir plutôt celui-ci comme quelque chose dont le travail d’écriture veut faire un déterminé. Produire un effet dans le contexte : c’est en cela que consiste l’intention performative de l’auteur, c’est-à-dire le sens de l’œuvre. Respecter le sens du texte, c’est donc restaurer la dynamique de l’émergence du sens, autrement dit le processus vivant d’écriture. Pour contribuer modestement à cette tâche, nous allons examiner successivement trois points : l’intention de Montaigne quant à la censure religieuse, son intention épistémique, son intention philosophique. Nous posons autrement dit comme hypothèse que ses pages sur les Indiens du Brésil s’expliquent en vertu de trois décisions latentes : éviter la censure, établir un savoir et exprimer une conception générale de la vie humaine. (shrink)

This essay argues that Montaigne and Emerson share not only a literary style and a form of skepticism, but also a moral project, namely—to borrow a concept from Charles Taylor—the affirmation of ordinary life. Moreover, Montaigne and Emerson approach this project in fundamentally the same way: rather than offering readers discursive arguments, they attempt to reform readers’ imaginations. Finally, recognizing the poetic nature of their respective affirmations of ordinary life allows us to appreciate how their seemingly dogmatic claims (...) regarding human equality and the human good are compatible with their shared form of skepticism. (shrink)

Montaigne and the Tolerance of Politics argues for toleration as a practice of negotiation, looking to a philosopher not usually considered political: Michel de Montaigne. Douglas I. Thompson draws on Montaigne's Essais to recover the idea that political negotiation grows out of genuine care for public goods and the establishment of political trust. This book argues that Montaigne's view of tolerance is worth recovering and reconsidering in contemporary democratic societies where political leaders and ordinary citizens are (...) becoming less able to talk to each other to resolve political conflicts and work for shared public goods. (shrink)

Despite their divergences, I argue that Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume are committed to several substantive points of commonality and that these commonalities justify us in speaking of them as belonging to a unitary Pyrrhonist tradition. In this tradition, Pyrrhonizing doubt serves to chart the boundary of that-which-resists-doubt, thereby simultaneously charting the shape of that complex of nature and custom which constitutes the bedrock of human life — the life that remains after doubt has done its worst.

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), author of the Essays (published in successive, revised and expanded editions from 1580 until after his death), deserves to be recognized as the first) philosophic architect of modern liberalism, that is, a doctrine that advocates the advancement of individual liberty (under law), and consequently a reduction in the scope and purpose of government to securing what are represented by Montaigne’s successors (Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and the American Founders) as people’s inherent rights to their life, (...) liberty, property, and the “pursuit of happiness” as they conceive it. His outward, periodic professions of extreme conservatism and of homage to the Catholic Church are merely a rhetorical cover designed to protect the author from being persecuted (and his book from being banned). As a practitioner of what he describes as esoteric rhetoric (attributing it to the ancient political philosophers), Montaigne invites careful readers to see through his rhetorical concealment by noting how his conservative professions are undermined by the overall train of his reasoning and argument. Although Montaigne’s argument for liberal individualism may have gone too far in its influence over the long run (that is, the 21st century), we citizens of modern liberal regimes owe him a debt of gratitude for helping to liberate us from the reign of arbitrary monarchs, oppressive aristocrats, and clerical oppressors. (shrink)

Brian C. Ribeiro’s _Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers_ invites us to view the Pyrrhonist tradition as involving all those who share a commitment to the activity of Pyrrhonizing and develops fresh, provocative readings of Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume as radical Pyrrhonizing skeptics.

Cet article se propose d’analyser ce que la théorie cartésienne des passions doit à la conception montaignienne du phénomène passionnel. Les deux philosophes rejettent l’idée de l’âme tripartite et conçoivent une explication similaire pour les mouvements corporels indépendants de l’âme, qui se délie de la tradition aristotélicienne et scolastique. De même, chez les deux, l’imagination joue un rôle primordial dans le déclenchement et le contrôle des passions, dépassant ainsi tout effort de la volonté. Pourtant, l’aspect physiologique de l’explication mécaniste des (...) passions distingue Descartes de Montaigne. (shrink)

This book rethinks Montaigne’s philosophical thought in terms of transversality by investigating the essayist’s debt to ancient life writers Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch. Its scope is of interest to scholars of ancient and early modern life writing, ancient and early modern philosophy, as well as scholars of early modern literary history.

RESUMEN Michel de Montaigne, el reconocido autor de Los ensayos, ha sido interpretado como un escéptico y, más en concreto, como un defensor del fideísmo escéptico; lectura que tiene su origen principal en la interpretación de B. Pascal. El artículo pretende reexaminar tanto la cuestión del fideísmo como la del escepticismo presente en Los ensayos, para concluir que quizá la interpretación de Pascal, que todavía perdura, se basa en un "desvío" involuntario o intencionado, pero en todo caso creativo y (...) fértil. ABSTRACT Michel de Montaigne, the renowned author of The Essays, has been interpreted as a skeptic, and, more specifically, as a defender of skeptical fideism. This reading has its main origin in B. Pascal's interpretation. The article reexamines the questions of both fideism and skepticism in The Essays, and concludes that Pascal's enduring interpretation might be based on an involuntary or deliberate "deviation", which, in any case, has been creative and fruitful. (shrink)

Montaigne is generally portrayed either as a principal proponent of the mix of scepticism, neo-Stoicism and Tacitism that feeds the early-modern reason-of-state literature or as a thoroughgoing political moralist who rejects this literature's politics of necessity and princely deception in favour of a politics of classical or Christian virtue. I argue that Montaigne inhabits neither of these positions exclusively. Instead, he argues in utramque partem, both for and against reason of state, in order to educate > his readers (...) about the perils of following elites who would use either political necessity or religious moralism as pretexts for violence in pursuit of political gain. (shrink)

Montaigne’s _Essays_ are rightfully studied as giving birth to the literary form of that name. Ann Hartle’s _Montaigne and the Origins of Modern Philosophy_ argues that the essay is actually the perfect expression of Montaigne as what he called "a new figure: an unpremeditated and accidental philosopher." Unpremeditated philosophy is philosophy made sociable—brought down from the heavens to the street, where it might be engaged in by a wider audience. In the same philosophical act, Montaigne both transforms (...) philosophy and invents "society," a distinctly modern form of association. Through this transformation, a new, modern character emerges: the individual, who is neither master nor slave and who possesses the new virtues of integrity and generosity. In Montaigne’s radically new philosophical project, Hartle finds intimations of both modern epistemology and modern political philosophy. (shrink)

On a tous entendu parler de la théorie cartésienne de l'animal-machine. On sait moins que cette théorie a largement riposté à la bienveillance envers l'animal préconisée par certains penseurs de la Renaissance, Montaigne en particulier. L'intérêt de Montaigne pour l'animal est philosophique : il conteste l'arrogance de l'homme à s'estimer maître de la nature, et opère un renversement de perspectives. Il invente une pensée de l'animal regardant l'homme. A une vision verticale, Montaigne substitue une relation horizontale entre (...) les hommes et les bêtes, faite de solidarités réciproques. Les animaux ne rappellent-ils pas aux hommes le respect de la nature? La réflexion de Montaigne le conduit encore à réhabiliter le rôle de la sensibilité dans la compréhension du monde. Ne serait-ce que pour cette raison, les Essais méritaient bien un nouveau regard. (shrink)

I try to show that Descartes criterion of truth is neither viciously circular nor does it, alternatively, commit him to an infinite hierarchy of criteria. As a result, he is able to resolve the age-old "problem of the criterion" as it was known both to the Greek sceptics and Montaigne. Beyssade's interpretation of Descartes' criterion, on the other hand, is inconsistent with its being a criterion at all and has disastrous consequences for the rest of Descartes' philosophy.

Aborder Montaigne en pédagogue du jugement, c'est renouveler une lecture qui permit à Gabriel Compayré, Émile Faguet ou Pierre Villey de recommander la lecture d'un auteur réputé sceptique en dépit de son scepticisme. Comment bien juger? La connaissance des règles et l'aptitude à raisonner ne suffisent pas pour faire un bon jugement. En se confiant courageusement et lucidement à son jugement personnel, Montaigne apprend à penser en situation d'incertitude, tout en renouant avec l'expérience et les grands auteurs.

While contemporary readers may find what appear to be appealing streaks of liberalism in Montaigne's 'Essays', I argue that a more careful analysis suggests that Montaigne's overall stance is quietistic and conservative. To help support this claim I offer a close reading of 'Essays' III.11 ("Of Cripples"), where Montaigne offers his famous critique of the witch trials of early modern Europe. Once Montaigne's objections to the witch trials are properly understood, we see that Montaigne did (...) not seriously or consistently dispute the church's authority in political matters, though certain undeveloped seeds of liberalism do leave an unresolved tension in his writings. (shrink)