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 his all 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.

Why Montaigne is unique

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 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.

Montaigne and scepticism

Montaigne’s scepticism affects political and religious ideas. He calls for tolerance for minorities because, very often, there are no solid grounds for condemning their beliefs.

From where did Montaigne draw his sceptic ideas? Mostly from the ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho (365-270 BC), who had pointed out how hard it is to achieve certainty on complex subjects.

Montaigne’s scepticism shows in his essays that present a dozen arguments against an idea, and then a dozen arguments in favour. In the end, he declines to draw conclusions because he finds strong truths on both sides of the fence.

For instance, Montaigne declared himself at times unable to ascertain the best methods for children’s education, whether God exists, whether ancient historical facts are true or not, whether people who appear happy are actually so, or whether evil comes from ignorance or volition.

Montaigne and stoicism

Montaigne’s stoicism is drawn from his reading of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and the compiled sayings of Epictetus. Those are philosophers from the first and second century of our era, all of them living in Rome.

The stoicism predicated by Montaigne is mild, in the sense that it aims at coping well with adversity, not at provoking it. I am not talking about a radical stoic that remains indifferent to pain and misery, without taking any action to prevent them and reduce them.

Montaigne’s goal in embracing stoicism is to use his energy and time productively. He does not like empty lamentations or complaints because they fail to improve the situation. Failure and setbacks are the price we pay for living, he theorized. Let’s deal with them effectively and endure the occasional damage.

A man wants to be able to say at the end of his days that he has lived fully, wrote Montaigne. Our consciousness of death helps us to live better here and now. It help us disregard petty offences, deal with problems and overcome our own mistakes.

Montaigne and hedonism

Hedonism is the third pillar of Montaigne’s philosophy. He wanted to make the best of each day by concentrating on tasks that brought him joy. Writing was one of those tasks. When he left his study in the evening, he felt happy because he had used the day productively even if he had written only one page.

Montaigne regarded productiveness as a virtue, and he saw daily the proof of its benefits. Productiveness brought him joy. He loved it because it brought him regular happiness through tasks that he could carry out day after day.

The fact that life ends with death should not be a cause for sorrow, provided that one makes the best of each day. “I want death to find me planting my cabbages, not worrying about it,” wrote Montaigne on his essay on experience. He regarded the virtue of productiveness as the antidote to emotional suffering.

According to Montaigne, hedonism should prompt us to do more and worry less. Anyway, most preoccupations are a waste of time because they are based on speculations. We tend to fear in excess disasters that, statistically, are unlikely to happen.

“My life has been full of awful disasters,” wrote Montaigne, “but most of them actually never happened.” He had suffered unnecessarily because of the human tendency to worry. Stress in life is mostly self-created by the person who endures it.

Thus let us not fear death, concluded Montaigne, provided that we live correctly every day. He titled one his essays “To study philosophy is to learn to die” to convey the idea that to study philosophy is to learn to make the best of each day.

If you are interested in applying rational ideas to improving today’s situations in all areas, I recommend you my book titled “The 10 principles of rational living.”