Primary Sources:
Montaigne, Michel de, and E. J. Trechmann. The Diary of Montaigne’s Journey to Italy in 1580 and 1581. Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1929.
Montaigne, Michel de, and M. A. Screech. The Complete Essays. Penguin Books, 1993.
Secondary Sources:
Philippe Desan. The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne. Oxford University Press, 2016.
—Moriatry, Michael. “Montaigne and Descartes.” 347-363
Traces the influences and precedents set by Montaigne for Descartes. The two major influences, succinctly, are the introspective nature of their experiments, rhetorically and philosophically, and the skepticism that Descartes’s Meditations and Discourse on Method rely heavily on to form his arguments. What Descartes does in Meditation 1 can be seen as almost wholly reliant on a Montaigne skeptical structure, and the introduction of the “evil genius” is just a logical limit of Montaigne’s disruption of the foundation of sensory and wake knowledge. In Discourse, Descartes will also often rely on patterns and defenses already set up by Montaigne to clear away any objections based on conceit or subversiveness. Montaigne has also already done much of the dismantling labor of scholasticism that Descartes will rely on. Montaigne’s influence went past positive influence; much of what Montaigne believed in his skepticism was to be refuted by Descartes in his Meditations, but without the ideas there to negate, Moriatry feels confident that Descartes would not have been the same thinker is was.
—Desan, Phillipe. “Montaigne’s Essays: A Book Consubstantial With its Author.” 1-13.
Attempts to relate how the author viewed his project and how we, his readers, should understand it. The Essays have to be understood in their historical and political contexts as well as Montaigne’s own life and experience. Desan overviews the reception of Montaigne throughout history from rejection to rebirth and all kinds of confusion and uncertainty of his future. Montaigne is a hard philosopher (or writer) to pin down. He has been revived in both occupations throughout history and each of his roles in these jobs has differed as time moves on. Desan argues though that Montaigne’s work has a sort of timeless quality that has allowed him to survive all of this ambiguity and shifting sentiments. His works are open-ended enough and provide enough room for free thought that people can easily make him fit into a myriad of positions and movements. Montaigne has, in the 21st century had a sort of revival among academics and globally. Philosophers are now actively trying to find a place for him in the western philosophical tradition.
Popkin, Richard H. “Michel De Montaigne and the ‘Nouveaux Pyrrhoniens.’” The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Rev. and expanded ed., University of California Press, 1979. Pg. 42-65.
Places Montaigne within the history of skepticism in the western world and specifically at the beginning of the revival period and the intellectual burdens and frameworks that will lead to Descartes and through Spinoza. Popkin sees Montaigne as a somewhat strict fideist-skeptic yet argues elsewhere he is not as religious as his Essays may prove. Although these two points are somewhat contradictory, they may show more the challenges of trying to pin down Montaigne in smaller and smaller schools. Popkin also lays out some of the groundwork for Montaigne’s translation of Raimond Sebonds’s Theologica Naturalis and the philosophical inheritance of ideas he would have received from that work. Sebond would have been a beginning for Montaigne’s skepticism, defense against the reformation, and a way to recover from the skeptic’s lack of knowledge by placing his faith in religion. Popkin traces three important skeptic moments in Montaigne that will have a great influence on the history of the skeptic tradition: 1. Theological crisis: Martin Luther and the reformation period and upheavals of long-held traditions put religious knowledge in question for many people, and Montaigne believed this burgeoning movement’s knowledge was based on human endeavors and not traditional and heavenly sources; 2. Crisis of knowledge: contact between Europe and America’s destroyed long-held beliefs about general knowledge of the world, human life and behavior, and people’s conception of culture; 3. Crisis of Scientific knowledge: Montaigne was one of the philosophers of the time that was helping to dismantle Aristotelian science and a revolution was happening across Europe that was sweeping away old scientific knowledge and attempting to replace it with new knowledge based on skeptical foundations.
Ullrich Langer. The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
—Hartle, Ann. “Montaigne and Skepticism.” 183-205.
Montaigne is often cited as a skeptic and this can be looked at in two differing ways: one, possibly an atheist because of his perceived lack of faith; two, others have placed him into a skeptic-fideist framework—keeping rational skepticism and faith separate, and so maintaining a middle ground. Ann Hartle argues for a more nuanced approach to the question and does not give credence to the atheist debate. She also wants readers to accept Montaigne’s defense of Raymond Sebond in his most well-known philosophical essay, “An Apology for Raymond Sebond,” rather than think it lacks a serious defense as some scholars posit. Hartle is also cornered with Montaigne’s skeptical origins and shows how the Catholic church found allies with ancient skeptics though. The ancients believed in tradition and trusting long-established customs. Since the Catholic Church could use this to believe many nascent ideas and movements could be distrusted, i.e. Protestantism, this Catholic conservative structure was something to uphold. Montaigne heartily believed in this and found Sebond to be a valuable argument against the encroaching Protestant movements. Hartle’s main reoccurring point would be her instance that Montaigne cannot be seen without his religious context.
—Langer, Ullrich. “Montaigne’s political and religious context.” 9-26.
As the title suggests, Langer overviews the cultural context in which Montaigne was writing and how these things would have shaped his ideas, and how his thoughts fit into the existing paradigms and structures of thought. He says it is important to remember the volatile time period in both France in the European world at this time. Luther’s teachings were causing waves of civil wars around the West, and France was not spared from the violent conflicts. Langer describes the bourgeoning economic conditions that allowed for Montaigne’s good fortune and recent familial title of nobility. This is important for a few reasons: Montaigne had conservative values (probably because things were going well for him); he believed in monarchy; there was a revival in stoic teachings and practices among the nobility of France. The internecine conflicts and massacres, in which Montaigne and his brother fought, also had a huge impact on Montaigne’s Essays and philosophical thought.