Michel de Montaigne’s thoughts

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was more a gatherer than a creator of philosophical ideas. He devoted twenty years of his life to writing essays on history, literature and morality, but all his conclusions are based on prior philosophers. Montaigne’s contribution is the personal touch that he gave to his compilations of knowledge. He mixed up observations on ancient literature with comments about his own children, his farm, and his personal troubles. When we read his personal comments nowadays, we get an accurate idea of the lifestyle in the French Renaissance. We get to know about their working habits, the harvest, sickness and medicine, nutritional habits and religious perspectives. Montaigne’s own life is also fascinating. He started like any other heir of a French wealthy family by learning Latin at an early age. At that time, a knowledge of Latin opened the door to higher education and high employment in the government. It was a prerequisite of a successful career. The whole point of learning Latin was to be able to read books, either contemporary or ancient. I meant the books from Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. The knowledge of Greek was less important because all major ancient Greek books have been already translated into Latin. For instance, Montaigne was very familiar with the works of Aristotle, but he had read them in Latin, not in Greek. As far as we know, Montaigne had only learned some rudiments of Ancient Greek and was unable to read books in that language. Montaigne was not unique in his breath of knowledge. In the Renaissance, thousands of people in Europe had read as much as he had, especially in France, Italy, Spain and England. His uniqueness comes from his writing, not from his level of knowledge as such. He made an effort that nobody else had even thought of doing, the effort of taking notes and compiling them into brief essays, addressing philosophical themes. Montaigne also did something that nobody else had done until that time, namely, he revised and expanded his own work. He published his first essays in 1580, when he was forty-seven years old, and kept revising and expanding them. By the time he republished them in 1592, many essays had doubled in size. Despite their wide range of subjects, Montaigne’s essays revolve around just three ideas. First, Scepticism about any kind of absolute ideals, especially in politics and religion. Second, a mild form of Stoicism for coping with setbacks and failure in life. Third, the determination to enjoy each day to the maximum. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/michel-de-montaignes-thoughts/