Montaigne and the Ethics of Skepticism

Montaigne and the Ethics of Skepticism

Author: Zahi Anbra Zalloua

Publisher: Rookwood Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 1886365563

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As one of the 16th century's most brilliant writers, Montaigne formed his ethical self and his eventual theories of physical and spiritual skepticism. Zalloua explores this enlightened thinker's mind. (Literary Criticism)


Unsettling Montaigne

Unsettling Montaigne

Author: Elizabeth Guild

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1843843714

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Striking new readings of Montaigne's works, focussing on such concepts as scepticism and tolerance.


The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne

The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne

Author: Philippe Desan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 841

ISBN-13: 019021533X

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Montaigne's Essays resemble a patchwork of personal reflections, but they engage with questions that animate the human mind, and tend to a single goal: to live better in the present and to prepare for death. For this reason, Montaigne's thought and writings have been a subject of enduring interest across disciplines. This Handbook brings together essays by prominent scholars that examine Montaigne's literary, philosophical, and political contributions, and assess his legacy and relevance today in a global perspective. It presents Montaigne's Essays not only in their historical context but also as a starting point for discussing issues that concern us today.


The Skepticism of Michel de Montaigne

The Skepticism of Michel de Montaigne

Author: Manuel Bermúdez Vázquez

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-10-24

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 9783319102306

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This book examines the work of Michel de Montaigne, considering his Essays as a whole. Building on the premise that Montaigne was an important part of the skeptical crisis but that his skepticism was not shaped by Sextus Empiricus, the book first describes the history of skepticism. It then shows that Montaigne is closer to the Academic skepticisms than to the absolute skepticism of Pyrrhonism, and that the Christian tradition left a more important mark in Montaigne’s Essays than originally thought. Through this exploration of Montaigne’s original and complex work, the book reveals Montaigne’s affinity with Socrates and Saint Augustine. It examines the powerful currents of skepticism that permeated different traditions during the Middle Ages and reveals the potential debt to Greco-Roman antiquity of these traditions. In addition, the book explores their influence in the recovery and transmission of skepticism in the early modern period. The book shows how Montaigne believed in the possibility of real knowledge, even if he despaired of achieving it in one person’s life: he was a skeptic who believed in the existence of truth and he sought that truth through the medium of the essay.


Sensual Philosophy

Sensual Philosophy

Author: Alan Levine

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780739102473

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Almost since their publication, the writings of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) have provided rich fodder for the work of scholars in myriad disciplines. Philosophers have considered Montaigne's views on skepticism; historians have examined his views on the Indians; deconstructionists and literary scholars have examined Montaigne's view of the self; and, political scientists have touched on his arguments for toleration. However, because each of these projects has been done largely in isolation, most scholars have failed to see the relationships between the various aspects of Montaigne's thought. Alan Levine, in Sensual Philosophy, unites Montaigne's thought for the first time, ably and convincingly demonstrating the significant role Montaigne played in establishing the liberal ethos in the West. In exploring Montaigne's grounding for liberalism, Levine considers Montaigne's conceptualization of skepticism and its relationship to toleration. He argues that Montaigne's theories of self ground his idea of toleration without leaving it open to the corrosive charges of relativism and nihilism. Levine also articulates the importance of Montaigne's thought for contemporary conceptions of personal freedom, individuality, subjectivity, and self-creation by bringing him into dialogue with modern and postmodern political theorists such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Richard Rorty. This lively book persuades those who might be tempted by postmodernism that they should turn to Montaigne instead.


Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy

Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy

Author: David Quint

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1400864801

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In a fresh reading of Montaigne's Essais, David Quint portrays the great Renaissance writer as both a literary man and a deeply engaged political thinker concerned with the ethical basis of society and civil discourse. From the first essay, Montaigne places the reader in a world of violent political conflict reminiscent of the French Wars of Religion through which he lived and wrote. Quint shows how a group of interrelated essays, including the famous one on the cannibals of Brazil, explores the confrontation between warring adversaries: a clement or vindictive victor and his suppliant or defiant captive. How can the two be reconciled? In a climate of hatred and obstinacy, Montaigne argues not only for the political necessity but also for the moral imperative of trusting and submitting to others and of extending mercy to them. For Quint, this ethical message informs other topics of the Essais: Montaigne's criticism of stoic models of virtue, his project to reform the cruel behavior of his noble class, his self-portrait that depicts his relaxed and unstudied nature, and his measuring of his own behavior against the classical virtue of Socrates. Quint's reading, attentive to Montaigne's verbal artistry and to his historical and cultural context, shows the essayist always aware of the other side of the issue. The moral thought of the Essais emerges as startlingly modern, both in the perennial urgency of Montaigne's concerns and in the self-questioning open-endedness of his doctrine. Originally published in 1998. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


The Limits of Doubt

The Limits of Doubt

Author: Petr Lom

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2001-07-19

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 0791490343

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The Limits of Doubt studies the skepticism of Nietzsche, Sextus Empiricus, Hobbes, Diderot, and Montaigne in order to illustrate how different forms of skepticism can produce remarkably different implications. These include toleration; chastening of character; the prohibition of cruelty; indifference; corrosiveness of liberal principles; and freeing of the will from moral restraint. Demonstrating how skepticism is an underdetermined and unstable category, accompanied by varying unquestioned intentions and beliefs, this book shows how these limits of doubt shape its various possible implications. A unique examination of skepticism from a moral and political perspective, The Limits of Doubt will interest all those concerned with the possibilities for life in an age of doubt.


The Limits of Doubt

The Limits of Doubt

Author: Petr Lom

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2001-07-19

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 9780791450307

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Shows how different forms of skepticism can lead to remarkably different moral and political implications.