Humanities 3IV. Skepticism and Self-Knowledge

Lecture 12

Who Am I?

Outline

• Wars of Religion

• Michel de Montaigne

• The Essays

• “On Repenting”

Europe, c. 1560

Catherine de’ Medici and France

Francis IId. 1560

(m. Mary Queenof Scots, d. 1587)

Elisabeth(m. Philip II of Spain

following deathof Mary Tudor)

Charles IXd. 1574

Henry IIId. 1589

Margueritem. Henry of Navarre

later Henry IV

Catherine de' Medici(1519-1589)

Lorenzo II de' Medici(dedicatee of The Prince)

Henry II of France(d. 1559)

King Francis I of Franced. 1547

France: Wars of Religion• 1561-2 Catholics riot against Huguenots

(French Calvinists). Catholic League led byDuke of Guise, Protestants by King ofNavarre.

• 1563 Peace of Amboise ends First War ofReligion; Huguenots gain limited tolerance

• 1567 Huguenots start Second War withConspiracy of Meaux

• 1570 Charles IX signs Treaty of St.Germain ending Third War and givingreligious freedom to Huguenots

• 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre:50,000 Huguenots killed in and aroundParis

• 1573 Fourth War ends; Huguenotspromised freedom of conscience

• 1574 Fifth War of Religion begins

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92)• minor landed nobility• on mother’s side

descended fromChristianized SpanishJews (conversos)

• educated in Latin fromchildhood

• trained as a lawyer;magistrate and member ofparliament until hisfather’s death in 1568

How the Essays Came to Be

• 1563 Death of his closefriend, the humanistÉtienne de la Boétie

• 1571 Retires to theestate he inherits fromhis father

• 1572 Begins work onEssays

• 1580 Publication ofEssays (first two books)

“On Idleness”“Recently I retired to my estates… it seemed tome that the greatest favor I could do for my mindwas to leave it in total idleness, caring for itself,concerned only with itself, calmly thinking ofitself…. But I find… that on the contrary it boltedoff like a runaway horse, taking far more troubleover itself than it ever did over anyone else; itgives birth to so many chimeras and fantasticmonstrosities, one after another, without order orfitness, that, so as to contemplate at my ease theiroddness and their strangeness, I began to keep arecord of them….”

Montaigne at Work

65 Inscriptions on Ceiling

• “Everything under the sun has the same fate andlaw.” --Ecclesiastes 9

• “I am a human being; I consider nothing humanforeign to me.” --Terence

• “Human beings are tormented by the opinion theyhave of things, not by the things themselves.” --Epictetus

• “To every argument one can oppose an argumentof equal force.” --Sextus Empiricus

Montaigne’s Later Life• 1580 Travels to Italy; while gone, elected mayor of

Bordeaux

• 1582-85 Serves two terms as mayor during whichhe moderates between Catholic supporters of theking, Henry III, and Protestant supporters of Henryof Navarre, the designated heir to the throne

• 1589 Henry III assassinated; Montaigne helps tokeep Bordeaux loyal to Henry of Navarre, who iscrowned king (after converting to Catholicism)

• 1592 Montaigne dies

The Essays

• First edition 1580[A]

• Second edition 1582[B]

• Third edition 1588[C]

What are the “essays”?

• Montaigne invents a new literary form

• ‘Essay’ means to test, examine, or try

• The essays are in the first placeexaminations of himself: “for it is my ownself that I am painting…. I myself am thesubject of my book” (“To the Reader”)

Three Themes

• Self-knowledge (“Of Three Kinds of SocialIntercourse,” p. 248)

• Skepticism and humility (“That it isMadness to Judge the True and the False,”pp. 76, 78)

• Contentment with this life (“On Solitude,”pp. 106, 108)

Basic Ideas: “On Repenting”• Self-knowledge is the beginning of all knowledge• Mutability and variability is the condition of

human life• Because of this, there are no simple certainties

concerning oneself or others• Still, there is an underlying order to things and a

pattern to one’s life that can be uncovered• To discover this, and to accept it, is to be content

with oneself, i.e. happy

Self-Knowledge“Others form Man: I give an account of Man andsketch a picture of a particular one of them.... Youcan attach the whole of moral philosophy to acommonplace private life just as well as to one ofricher stuff. Every man bears the whole Form of thehuman condition.... If all complain that I talk toomuch about myself, I complain that they never eventhink about their own selves..... Never did a mantreat a subject which he knew or understood betterthan I know and understand the subject which I haveundertaken....” (232-3)

Mutability“The world is but a perennial see-saw.... Constancyitself is nothing but a more languid rocking to and fro.I am unable to stabilize my subject: it staggersconfusedly along with a natural drunkenness. I graspit as it is now, at this moment when I am lingeringover it. I am not portraying being but becoming: notthe passage from one age to another... But from day today, from minute to minute. I must adapt this accountof myself to the passing hour.” (232-3; see also “Onthe Inconstancy of our Actions”)

No Simple Certainties“This is a register of varied and changingoccurrences, of ideas which are unresolved and,when needs be, contradictory, either because Imyself have become different or because I grasphold of different attributes or aspects of my subjects.So I may happen to contradict myself but, asDemades said, I never contradict truth. If my soulcould only find a footing I would not be assayingbut resolving myself. But my soul is ever in itsapprenticeship and being tested.” (233)

Underlying Order“Provided that he listen to himself there is no onewho does not discover in himself a form entirely hisown, a master-form which struggles against hiseducation as well as against the storm of emotionswhich would gainsay it. In my case I find that I amrarely shaken by shocks or agitations; I am virtuallyalways settled in place, as heavy ponderous bodiesare. If I should not be ‘at home’ I am alwaysnearby.” (239)

Contentment with Self“It is my conviction that what makes for humanhappiness is not... dying happily but living happily.I have never striven to make a monster by sticking aphilosopher’s tail on to the head and trunk of aforlorn man, nor to make my wretched end disavowand disclaim the more beautiful, more wholesomeand longer part of my life. I want to show myself tohave been uniform and to be seen as such. If I hadto live again, I would live as I have done; I neitherregret the past nor fear the future. And unless Ideceive myself, things within have gone much thesame as those without.” (245; see also 234)