DESCARTES AND MONTAIGNE

  Overview: 

It is of interest to our inquiry that for two men who lived roughly within a century of one another, both are often credited with setting the modern age in motion.  What is unusual is that they reacted quite differently to their stimuli; one aesthetically, the other rationally.

Montaigne's Modern Vision

The chief influences on Montaigne were the philosophers in medieval times who slowly rejected Aristotelian principles and decided that nothing could be known for certain.  Montaigne is often described as a Renaissance version of the Greek skeptics, notably the Stoics in areas of morality.  As Montaigne gradually realized there was no agreement between earlier philosophies, he proclaimed both the senses and reason were unreliable and there was no criteria upon which true knowledge could be based.  His famous saying, “Trying to find reality is like trying to clutch water”, led him to recommend we suspend judgment, accept our experience and live according to nature, which might include embracing culture and religious traditions. (Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 581).

Most pertinent to our examination of the arts is Montaigne’s advancement of the Stoic method of inquiry, the practice of self-reflective writing.  This was not in a structured form of argument but accomplished through the essay (from essai, in French, “to try”), where Montaigne reflects upon and examines himself as many selves.  It is more accurately an interpretation of self, and his intention is to show his “passage”, day to day, minute by minute, moving from one self into another.  At the same time, his style reveals the limited possibility of capturing the definitive person in full, and thereby invites us to recognize ourselves.

Although Montaigne appeals to experience as a measure of how we ought to behave and suggests we live according to nature, he is also encouraging us to live for the moment and take immediate pleasure.  Montaigne did not share the idea of teleological ends; there was only one end for human beings and that was death.  Nor did he espouse Descartes’s idea of life as a series of problems to be solved; Montaigne saw life a consisting of difficulties to be coped with.

In this way, Montaigne moves into an aesthetic approach, both in his emotional exploration of self as well as seeing life as “process”, and not as striving towards a final destination after having discovered the “right” solution.  For us today, Montaigne represents the first modern voice with a postmodern stance.  Although Montaigne recommends a life of full experience, he also realizes experience will still lead to skepticism because we live in a confusing external world and the internal world is too ambiguous.  Therefore, self-knowledge in the Socratic sense is impossible.  The postmodern stance in Montaigne’s skepticism allows him to live with uncertainty, in direct opposition to the modernist obsession with concrete knowing.  Also resonating with postmodernism is his view concerning the diversity of paths to knowledge and acknowledging that all views are equal.  Life is not centered on “right” knowledge anyway; it is about differing opinions.  However, not all opinions are equal and judgment and taste play a role.

In terms of education, Montaigne held the striking belief that learning is ornamental and what having an education means is holding catholic views.  Debating with those of differing opinions is the best way to develop breadth and tolerance.

Not having a background in math and science, Montaigne set the stage for future thinkers who valued a more aesthetic approach.  Much later, both Foucault and Nietzsche would profit from Montaigne’s views and aesthetic exploration of ideas.  But following shortly after Montaigne we have philosophers who although were greatly influenced by his style of writing and agreed there were no definitive theories, felt coerced in different ways to seek new methods of grounding knowledge.  Montaigne’s brand of skepticism, elucidated in modern language, forged a new kind of philosophy -- and a new dichotomy -- with Descartes. 

Putting the Matter Out of Mind

            Descartes is less in direct contention with Montaigne than he is with the Aristotelian tradition, his Jesuit education and the violent, chaotic times in which he lived.  Prolonged religious wars and upheaval in society had an affect on Descartes’s formative years.  Consequently, Descartes’s agenda was no less than to find certainty.

            As a mathematician and scientist he believed that if the proper methodology was applied, reason will prevail and knowledge could be irrevocably established.  In this he opposes Montaigne in saying, I must find out for myself, not take ideas from outside, but re-learn everything for myself.  In that Descartes doubted everything and built up from the ground, he is also called a skeptic.

            With Descartes, the old worldview is overturned; Aristotle and the Catholic Church insisted that reason leads to certain truths through logical deduction of ideas as stated in syllogisms.  Descartes reversed this and began with simple, self-evident propositions and built towards more complex ones.  The defining method of inquiry was hypothesis and experiment.  In this way, by constructing theories, he moved toward certainty. 

            From the viewpoint of aesthetics, things start to go “wrong” when Descartes explicates the senses.  For Descartes, a human is a thinking substance.  In the Aristotelian world, a human is essentially both a soul and a body, and anything less is incomplete.  But to Descartes, our whole existence is mind, and “I think therefore I am”.  Mind is not only intelligence but also consciousness (Oxford Illus. History of Western Phil. 113).  Further, if we take Descartes’s view in the narrow sense of, “I am a thing which thinks”, here is the false step; that sensation and imagination are nothing other than modes of thought. (119).  Collingwood (175) tackles the problem by pointing out that Descartes assumed the view of the skeptics when he said there was no way of knowing if he was sitting in front of the fire or if he was dreaming about sitting by the fire.  For him, sensation automatically implied imagination.  The commonsense distinction was wiped out and therefore he denied all “real” sensation.  Descartes admitted sensation acts on our bodies but the fact that imagination may have an internal cause does not make it any less the imagination.  It would not be until Kant that sensation would mean something that has undergone interpretation in the mind though understanding.  (187).  Kant shows that imagination is an indispensable function of our knowledge of the world around us, and therefore sensations cannot be divided into the real and imaginary, but only in the way sensations are interpreted by thought.

            Yet Descartes’s goal is to remove all doubt.  How we see this today is reflected in the scientific revolution that is handed down to us from the seventeenth century, with its mechanical worldview, especially in conjunction with Hobbes.  The Cartesian world is devoid of all sensual qualities and therefore inanimate (Bai “Reanimating..”). 

            What this means in terms of education is that we benefit from Descartes’s intellectual autonomy and process of self-examination, but we must also balance this with Pascal’s “knowledge of the heart”.  When there is heavy emphasis on objectivity, education shifts to the business of cramming facts into student minds without asking if it is useful knowledge or will help them know how to live.  We see other implications in people’s increasing self-absorption, not participating in government, uniformity, globalization and the institutionalization of human activities. In our era, this seems to be leading towards extreme individualism as well.  By Descartes’s assuming there is one system and it will solve all problems, it is at the exclusion of all others.  Where in this picture is community, multiple voices and the particular?  Descartes saw philosophy as a tool for eradicating the world’s ills but perhaps Montaigne’s approach is a healthier means for coping with our problems.

            Unfortunately Descartes’s attitude has proliferated into many other related methods of problem solving; for instance, we believe we can manipulate our lives, dominate nature and feel in control.   We ought to distrust any system that is so removed from life that it would mathematize our existence. 

            Descartes was to be refuted by later philosophers and most of his views proven wrong.  Wittgenstein, for example, countered the mind-body split by saying even when we think our most private thoughts, we still use the medium of language which cannot be divided from communication with others and physical expression. (Oxford 113).  (from "The Aesthetic Corrective" Barber)