81: Michel de Montaigne - “What Do I Know?”

Nietzsche listed Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) among the best French writers of the Renaissance, and called him a link to classical antiquity. The personal seal of Montaigne read, “What do I know?” For Montaigne, doubting was no less pleasing than knowing, and he exemplified the philosopher’s proclivity to inquire about every proposition. In his work we find the forerunner of not only skepticism, but Descartes’ methodology of doubt and empiricist bent of Bacon. He is the inventor of the essay, a man who called his own mind “wandering and diverse”, and who wrote candidly about life, ethics, and the classics. He is a man of contradictions, who disparaged book-learning but whose works are abundant with quotations. In this episode, we’ll consider his essays, Of the Education of Children, Defense of Raymond Sebond, Of Friendship, and That Philosophy is to Learn to Die, as well as take a brief peek into a handful of others. Join me in exploring the man Saint-Beauve called, “the wisest Frenchman who ever lived.”