When asked about someone’s contribution to philosophy, I reply by giving a list of his innovations. I want to underline the new concepts that he brought forth, the intellectual connections that nobody else had made until that point.
In the case of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), I couldn’t point to any innovation. He didn’t put forward any new concept nor did he make any new intellectual connection. Thus, I don’t share the view that he contributed to early modern philosophy.
Montaigne is an extraordinary author in many aspects, great in erudition and wisdom, but not a philosophical innovator. If anything, he looked at the past more than he was looking at the future.
He had drawn his more enlightened ideas from antiquity in the formulations given by Seneca (4 BC-65 AD), Plutarch (46-120 AD) or Aristotle (384-322 BC). Even his theological views draw more from medievalism than from modernity.
Nevertheless, Montaigne surpassed all his predecessors in a singular area: his passion from balance and perspective; no one in prior centuries had devoted so vast efforts to looking at both side of every issue.
I regard Montaigne in this respect as astonishingly modern, but more in terms of personal development than of philosophy. In order to prove my point, I’m going to refer to the only work of Montaigne that pre-existed his compiled essays, but that he published as one of them, no doubt because he was immensely proud of its contents.
Michel de Montaigne’s “Apology for Raymond Sebond”
Montaigne had written the “Apology for Raymond Sebond” years before he decided to abandon his legal career to relocate to the countryside and devote himself to research and writing.
In the “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” we find though that Montaigne’s personal philosophy had already congealed. It was not a rectilinear, symmetrical intellectual construction, but did the job beautifully.
Montaigne had defined philosophy’s objective as the pursuit of happiness, nothing less but also very little more. His interest in metaphysics, epistemology, politics or aesthetics was narrow and purpose-bound.
The ideas of theologian Raymond Sebond (1385-1436) may have been forgotten if Montaigne, instigated by his father, had not bothered to write an extensive piece in their defence.
Montaigne had intended to have his defence (“apology”) of Raymond Sebond published as a separate work, possibly as a tract or booklet. Due to their affordable price, booklets were a popular format in the early sixteenth century.
Printing had grown relatively inexpensive, enabling authors to have tracts and leaflets sold as mass-market products. Those were conceived as soft paperbacks, summarily held together by a thin thread. In this way, they eschewed the cost of binding.
Is Michel de Montaigne’s philosophy modern?
Raymond Sebond (1400-1460) was a Spanish physician and theologian who had written a book titled “Natural theology.” It was a typical late medieval essay, similar in purpose to those written by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) to demonstrate in logical terms the existence of God.
I have categorized Sebond as Spanish, but I should rather say that he was from the Kingdom of Aragon, which would not become part of Spain, as a unified polity, until two centuries later.
Sebond had studied at Barcelona University, graduating in three of the subjects in the curriculum: theology, medicine and philosophy. The fourth subject, law, consisted of an amalgam of Roman law, canon law, and edicts issued by medieval kings.
After becoming a doctor of medicine in 1421, Sebond had joined the faculty at Barcelona University. He devoted the next decades to teaching and practising medicine.
In his book “Natural theology,” Sebond’s sustains that, if we look at nature, we cannot fail to grasp the existence of God. He argues that the natural world, due to its orderly complexity and beauty, points to the existence of a Creator.
Sebond’s theological arguments are far more simplistic than those employed by Thomas Aquinas; they draw more concepts from Benedict and Francis of Assisi than from late scholastic thinkers.
Michel de Montaigne’s modern mentality
Montaigne’s father, who was not himself an intellectual, had Sebond in high regard. He had acquired a copy of the “Natural theology” in Latin and read it assiduously. He eventually asked his son Michel de Montaigne to introduce Sebond’s work to the French public.
How is Montaigne’s treatment of Sebond? I would rate it as rather bland and prone to circular thinking, but it has the merit of setting Montaigne on the path to literary achievement.
Montaigne’s best friend, Etienne de La Boetie (1530-1563), had also rated Sebond’s theology as simplistic. Augustine (354-430 AD) might have praised Sebond for his emotionalism, but there are centuries of philosophical debates between Augustine and Montaigne’s lifetime.
Despite the distinct medieval roots of Montaigne’s apology for Raymond Sebond, some historians consider it modern and a precursor Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).
I disagree about the modernity in the contents, but not in the mentality. Possibly in order to pre-empt censorship, Montaigne had softened his “Apology for Raymond Sebond” by pointing out that, in any case, human intellect is too limited to ascertain theological questions.
Indeed, Descartes and Pascal would express doubts as deep as those of Montaigne. As for Nietzsche, he would widened the doubts into an all-encompassing attack against certainty and in favour of subjectivity. Let us not make Montaigne responsible for those philosophical errors.
If you are interested in putting rational ideas into practice in all sort of situations and areas of activity, I recommend you my book “Rational living, rational working.”
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