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Philosophical Scepticism and Its Tradition in Michel De Montaigne's Essais

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Philosophical Scepticism and Its Tradition in Michel De Montaigne's Essais This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Philosophical scepticism and its tradition in Michel de Montaigne’s Essais Manuel Bermúdez Vázquez. PhD in Philosophy University of Edinburgh 2012 1 Abstract: Montaigne has widely been regarded as one of the most significant sceptics of the XVI Century. Yet, if we consider his Essais as a whole, he turns out to be more a sceptical thinker like Socrates or Saint Augustine rather than a pyrrhonist like Sextus Empiricus. He is closer to the Academic scepticism rather than to the absolute scepticism of Pyrrhonism. This thesis contends that despite most of modern research, Montaigne’s biggest debt to ancient sources is with Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine and Plutarch rather than with Sextus Empiricus. I argue that Montaigne was familiar with the distinction between Academic and Pyrrhonian scepticism and his quest for truth meant that he had more affinity with Socrates and St. Augustine than with Sextus Empiricus or Pyrrho. He did not suspend his judgment more pirronico: on the contrary, he exerted it in every occasion. The Christian tradition left a more important mark than it was initially thought in Montaigne’s Essais. This reconsideration of Montaigne’s scepticism leads to a re-evaluation of different aspects of the sceptical tradition since the ancient times. In this thesis I show that Montaigne’s scepticism was partly shaped by the presence of scepticism in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Old Testament and in St. Paul, Lactantius and St. Augustine. Powerful currents of scepticism permeated different traditions during the Middle Ages and although their existence has been acknowledged, their potential debt to Greco-Roman antiquity and their influence in the recovery and transmission of scepticism in the early modern period still need further investigation. I argue that in the sceptical crisis of the early modern period Sextus’ writings may have fuelled this crisis, but they did not initiate it. I claim that Sextus Empiricus revival was more a result rather than a cause of the sceptical crisis. Considering that scepticism is a fundamental part of the Essais as a whole we can say that Montaigne was an important part of the sceptical crisis but his scepticism was not shaped by Sextus. I present in this thesis Montaigne’s originality and the complexity of his thought, and even though sometimes it is difficult to follow, his vision is utterly harmonious and consistent. Montaigne considered the ideas of many who had gone before him, sometimes following them, sometimes taking his own path. Montaigne believed in the possibility of real knowledge, even if, in the tradition of Socrates and Augustine, he despaired of achieving it in one person’s life. Montaigne was a sceptic who believed in the existence of truth and he sought that truth through the medium of the essay. 2 Table of contents: - Introduction: …………………………………………………………………page 4. - Chapter 1. Critical reconsideration of Michel de Montaigne’s scepticism: …page 10. The sceptical tradition: ………………………………………………….page 10. Michel de Montaigne and his Essais: ………………………………..…page 24. Montaigne’s scepticism reconsidered: ………………………………….page 30. - Chapter 2. Montaigne and Ancient scepticism: ………………………………page 41. Academic doubt and Pyrrhonic scepticism: …………………………….page 44. Montaigne’s knowledge of Ancient scepticism: ………………………page 64. Montaigne: facing academic doubt and Pyrrhonic scepticism: ……….page 84. - Chapter 3. Montaigne's Apology: ……………………………………………page 102. Judeo-Christian sceptical sources: ……………………………………..page 106. The problem of Montaigne’s belief: ……………………………………page 124. Montaigne’s Apology: ………………………………………………….page 132. - Chapter 4. Montaigne, man and society: …………………………………….page 154. The world: ……………………………………………………...………page 158. Man and society: ……………………………………………………….page 177. Know thyself: …………………………………………………………..page 193. - Chapter 5. Montaigne and the sceptical tradition: …………………………..page 200. Montaigne’s scepticism: ……………………………………………….page 200. Montaigne and the sceptical tradition: ………………………………..page 202. - Bibliography: ………………………………………………………………..page 205. 3 UBI DUBIUM IBI LIBERTAS. Despite recent concerns about the viability of the concept of the “scientific revolution” and ongoing debates over the relative “continuity” and “discontinuity” between ancient, medieval and early modern science, most historians of science agree that the western scientific enterprise was fundamentally transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The story of this transformation is, in part, that of the methodological debates that lay at the heart of the development of the “new learning” of the seventeenth century. The story of these methodological debates centers on the reactions to a “sceptical crisis”, a “crisis of doubt” about the human capacity to achieve meaningful knowledge independently of divine revelation. A central figure in this latter tale is the sixteenth-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne, generally regarded as one the most influential of the sixteenth-century sceptics and a very important figure in the story of the development of early modern scepticism. This study tries to be a story about the scepticism of Montaigne, a story about the “scientific revolution” that emphasizes both continuity and discontinuity. The standard account of Montaigne’s scepticism focuses on the supposed influence on Montaigne and his Essais of the writings of the ancient sceptic Sextus Empiricus. The principal responsible of this understanding of Montaigne’s scepticism was Pierre Villey with his book Les sources et l’evolution des Essais de Montaigne, (Paris, 1908). Important scholars like Richard Popkin, Donald Frame, Hugo Friedrich, and many others who are Montaigne’s most recent biographers, have followed Pierre Villey in this. This interpretation of Montaigne and this reading of the Essais, however, is problematic. It overlooks largely the use made by Montaigne of other classical 4 authors who are far more important to an understanding of the Essais than is Sextus Empiricus. My position is also that this interpretation dismisses, essentially, Montaigne’s complex relationship with the long-standing Christian commitment to the primacy of faith over reason and virtually ignores the important part played by the experience of self and other in the world of the later sixteenth century. The standard reading makes Montaigne a simple mouthpiece of ancient sceptical ideas, portrays his scepticism as a mere revival of ancient scepticism and diminishes the philosophical originality of the French. Finally, and perhaps more tellingly, it is based on a basic misreading of the Essais, for the scepticism of Montaigne is not the scepticism of Sextus Empiricus, and the evidence of the influence of Sextus Empiricus on the Essais is scanty at best. The scepticism of the Essais is in part the product of a voyage of self-discovery set within the context of the tumultuous events of the later sixteenth century, which included the expansion of Europe’s physical and intellectual horizons in the Age of Discovery and the chaos brought on by the Protestant and Catholic reformations and the wars of religion that spread all over the continent. In this journey, Michel de Montaigne sought guidance from a number of ancient and Christian authors and fought against the relative merits of reason, experience and faith in the search for veritable knowledge. His model in this quest, however, was not the Pyrrho of Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism, but his image of the Socrates of Plato and Xenophon, a Socrates who for him did not symbolize the impossibility of the attainment of knowledge, but rather the quest itself. For Montaigne as for the eidolon of Socrates, scepticism was not the result of the quest, but its sign, its emblem, encapsulated by him in the famous motto, “Que sçais je?” (What do I know?). As for Socrates, Montaigne’s scepticism was an affirmation rather than a negation. Ultimately, Montaigne did not embrace the Pyrrhonic epoché or “suspension of judgment”, but rather the Socratic search for knowledge, despite the inevitability of uncertainty. The story of Montaigne’s scepticism is part of the story of early modern science. It does not offer nor suggest a meta-narrative of the science of the period as a whole, but it does shed light on some of the things going on at the time. It is part of the story of 5 developments in one area of inquiry, and it is one of continuity and discontinuity for Montaigne partakes of a deeply rooted tradition, even as he helps to transform it. In the hands of Montaigne and some of those who come after him, like Bacon, Descartes, Mersenne, Gassendi or Newton, scepticism was not merely
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