Michel De Montaigne Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was among the greatest thinkers of the French Renaissance. His most important intellectual achievements, which arose in reaction to the fanaticism and cruelty of France’s religious wars, included ground-breaking views of skepticism, self-exploration, and toleration. Moreover, although he did not argue for democracy, separation of powers, or many of the political and civil rights associated with liberalism, his views played a key role in creating the ethos on which liberalism’s institutions are based.

Montaigne published only one book, Essays (1575), in which he coined the current usage of the word essay (from the French “essaier,” to attempt or to try). The book is composed of a series of witty and erudite essays in which Montaigne tries to refine his judgment by probing human paradoxes and the contradictory character of humans. Famously dialogical, his essays explore several sides of every issue, often without apparent resolution.

Montaigne was the first great philosophical skeptic of modern times, but scholars disagree about the exact nature of his skepticism (academic, pyrrhonist, or fideist). He doubted humanity’s ability to know God and the reliability of reason and the senses. This thoroughgoing doubt influenced French philosopher René Descartes, who followed Montaigne in turning to the subjective self as the basis for a contingent knowledge. But whereas Descartes used subjective perception as a building block for science, Montaigne doubted whether such a project would succeed. For Montaigne, if any knowledge was possible, it would only be subjective knowledge of the phenomenological self.

One of the earliest and most influential advocates of the characteristically modern subjective self, Montaigne called on mankind to accept the “human condition” (a phrase he coined), that is, to live with imperfect knowledge and not to despair. The source of human problems, he argued, is not in the economic system or the political regime, but in the self. A talented psychologist, Montaigne showed how reason and imagination conjure up fears, hopes, desires, and anxieties that lead people to embrace unverifiable doctrines to satisfy their longings for meaning and importance. Montaigne aimed to tame the hubristic and to expose vain claims. More important, he urged his readers to turn inward, to explore themselves, to go “home.” Montaigne found nothing and everything in himself. What he thought he knew about himself dissolves under his (and the reader’s) analytical gaze, but he also finds seeds of everything in himself such that he deemed self-exploration a never-ending source of wonder and delight and the greatest source of happiness for reflective individuals.

Montaigne’s self-awareness led him to toleration. A self-knowing person identifies and empathizes with others, and Montaigne was extremely tolerant. He wanted to protect everyone, including religious believers of all kinds, ancient pagans, and the Indians of the New World. To protect individuals, Montaigne urged a separation of the private from the public sphere. He accepted some public conformity as necessary for peace and stability but insisted on freedom of conscience. He would give up the right to act publicly on his conscience in order to have his own boutique (back room) in his soul where he could explore and judge freely. This call for self-cultivation and the creation of a private sphere of free conscience and free political judgment formed the kernel of liberalism as it was to develop.

Bibliography:

Berven, Dikka. Sources of Montaigne’s Thought. New York: Garland, 1995.
Flygare,William. Montaigne’s Discovery of Man: The Humanization of a Humanist. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.
Quint, D. Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy: Ethical and Political Theories in the Essays. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Schaefer, David L. The Political Philosophy of Montaigne. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Tetel, Marcel. Montaigne. Boston:Twayne, 1990.

This example Michel De Montaigne Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.