Essays. Michel de Montaigne
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the world by himself and for himself. This self-sufficiency of the individual, out of its historical reality, also represents a trap for many modern readers of the Essays. In fact, one finds few references to possible political actions in Montaigne's writings; the accent is almost always placed on commenting on the world rather than changing it. Montaigne's trademark is the moment of introspection, withdrawal, and self-sufficiency.
The possibility of a theoretical truth of the world unconsciously conforms with our own bourgeois mentality, precisely because it isolates the subject from its immediate social and political environment. It is true that Montaigne offers a foundation for the liberal ideology that will soon assert itself from the eighteenth century on. Montaigne's doubts and questions about authority (leading to independence of thought and eventually liberty), and the confidence in his own judgment, have been associated with the birth of modern liberalism. A modern self emerges that is distanced from the authorities of the past, enjoying the victory of private judgment over institutions that limit individual freedom. However, this type of ideological appropriation often ignores the biography of Montaigne. He was not a political thinker, and the Essays were conceived in a specific political, religious, and social context.
Other critics have seen in Montaigne an adept of skepticism, but they seem to forget that one is not born a sceptic, one becomes one. Skepticism is not a philosophical choice for Montaigne; it is anchored in the reality of his time and resulted from a slow deterioration in moral values during the second half of the sixteenth century. With Montaigne, it is difficult to speak of skepticism in the singular – as the mere expression of the philosophical doctrine of this name. One should rather speak of “skeptical moments” in the plural. These moments were produced by personal experiences which were first and foremost of a political nature before becoming, eventually, a modus operandi. Indeed, it is difficult not to link philosophy and political experiences in Montaigne's work.
We have thus often confused a philosophical system – Skepticism – with what, in Montaigne's Essays, is essentially an inclination or a posture of the mind in the face of specific negative or dangerous political situations. The Essays are strewn with skeptical conclusions and impressions that are the result of Montaigne and his estate being in the middle of an atmosphere of unrest and terror. Shocked by the events he lived through – from the Saint-Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572 to the assassination of Henry III in 1588 – it is very difficult to regroup his conflicting reactions and attitudes into a doctrine. One thing is certain: the religious situation of France between 1563 (beginning of the religious wars) and 1592 profoundly influenced the writing of Montaigne's book and nourished his skepticism.
THE NECESSITY OF DOUBT
Resistant to models and systems, Montaigne takes pleasure in the fortuitous and contradictory aspect of the multitude of things encountered. He attempts to seize them in the fleeting moment of personal judgment that must be understood within its historical milieu. Judgment is never final, because it expresses a point in time and space, of this man in this world.
Montaigne's biography is filled with these “doubt moments” which, through their repetition, create in the author a skeptical reflex which in time becomes a natural reaction. Yet the reflex has the function of helping him rediscover a moral stability in a time of upheaval – a time when as he famously puts it, “the world eternally turns round” (III, 2).
The various political and religious crises that punctuated the second half of the sixteenth century called into question a morality that was now discredited and obsolete. In short, utility replaced honesty. Montaigne offers an excellent analysis of this moral crisis in “On Profit and Honesty” (III, 1). In this chapter written after 1585, he shows how bourgeois values gradually replaced noble values such as honor, frankness, loyalty, good faith, and moral transparency. Past behaviors no longer exemplified moral models, as personal profit was now established as the only rule of behavior. Montaigne is the witness of this ideological transformation – anchored in historical and economic developments – which sees honor and truth replaced by utility, success, and personal experience. It is perhaps a weaker path “which is a means much more weak and cheap; but truth is so great a thing that we ought not to disdain any mediation that will guide us to it” (III, 13).
The reappraisal of the notion of truth is obviously influenced by Montaigne's personal experiences. They leave him with a feeling of a permanent relativism which no longer allows him to judge anything in a lasting way. In a time when the vicissitudes of religious conflict seemed to govern everything, it makes sense to doubt what education has transmitted to you. In place of eternal values, a new truth has emerged: the truth of those who came out victorious.
Rather than commenting on the political, religious, and social situation of his country, Montaigne takes refuge in personal introspection. It replaces the rhetorical demonstrations of which he was always suspect. Morality is shaped by the military actions of clashing religious forces. Doubt then becomes a natural reflex at a time when all humanist benchmarks are systematically destabilized. The truths of yesterday crumble and the sandy soil upon which philosophy was built suddenly opens. The end of the Renaissance is a yawning abyss that engulfs past practices and knowledge, leaving only the necessity of doubt.
CONCLUSION
To summarize: The famous “the world eternally turns round” evoked by Montaigne no longer allows man to impose on others received knowledge or to claim possession of universal truths. The skeptical attitude which characterized the end of the Renaissance, and of which Montaigne is one of the best examples, was essentially due to an ideological and moral crisis linked to the experience of the wars of religion. In the second half of the sixteenth century, skepticism cannot be conceived of as a philosophical system; it rather a simple reaction to events – a response to a moral crisis which no longer allowed one to have ready-made answers.
The implication, which was clear to Montaigne, was that the truth could no longer be taught; it had to be discovered by the individual subject. In matters of authority, everything was now up for grabs. Far from being received, truth must now be conceived individually from unique and private experiences. Montaigne was for this reason outside any didactic scheme: “so many interpretations dissipate truth and break it” (III, 13). He further concedes that “example is a vague and universal mirror, and of various reflections” (III, 13) and therefore loses its exemplarity. This is why Montaigne systematically deconstructs models to reduce them to specific cases.
At this time of crisis in political, social, and religious authority, the best reasoning comes from seeing what is in front of our eyes, rather than looking for guidance from previously celebrated universal truths. As Montaigne writes in his chapter on Raimond Sebond:
“I always call reason that appearance or show of discourses which every man devised or forged in himself: that reason, of whose condition there may be a hundred, one contrary to another, about one self same subject: it is an instrument of lead and wax, stretching, pliable, and that may be fitted to all biases and squared to all measures” (II, 12).
Skepticism towards the religious and political situation relegates Montaigne to the role of a passive observer. He reports without judging, at least in a vindictive way. His approach of a “middle path” was aptly called politique (as the term was defined in the 1570s and 1580s), namely a compromise and juste milieu between extreme positions.
In the end, the Essays analyze what can be broadly defined as human nature, the endless process by which people attempt to impose themselves and their opinions upon others through the production of laws, policies, or philosophies. For Montaigne, this recurring battle for “truth” needs to be put into a historical perspective:
“The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe” (II, 18).
Montaigne's famous motto, “What do I know?” (inscribed above the fireplace in his study), is a question that always needs to be asked, even when others give us ready answers.
In summary, reading him today teaches us