Montaigne

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani connects Montaigne first of all with the question of education. After Rabelais, he takes up a discourse on education with a political aim, education being "the antechamber of the political"1. The formula "better a well-made head than a well-filled one", directed against mind-numbing rote learning, shows in his view that this problem "rises to its zenith" at the end of the sixteenth century2. He also sees Montaigne as the first name inscribed on the columns of the temple of philosophy3: the "What do I know?" expresses the crisis of the Middle Ages, and the Essays begin philosophy's emancipation from theology. He reads in them the beginning of the conflict between individual consciousness and religious substantialism, and almost the beginning of secularism, with nature without grace4. He retains the "I am myself the matter of my book", for which Pascal reproaches him, and the attention to the body, down to kidney-stone colic. This attention works through reflection, not through Rousseau's discontinuous impressions5. He makes Montaigne the origin of the moralist tradition. Finally, in "Are we not the savages?" he sees a legitimate relativism against false universality6.

1. 1#5.2 bis FaceBookLive / Questions (1)6 Dec 2018 · 4:03
2. 2La Phénoménologie de L'esprit2 Jul 2018 · 1:01:02
3. 3#4.7 Angélique (de Nerval)12 Apr 2018 · 1:45:22
4. 4Dominique Pagani : De la débauche du sens à l'orgie du sentiment29 May 2023 · 2:25:14
5. 5#1 Bien-et Mé-faits de l'amnésie...8 Oct 2020 · 26:09
6. 6Musicosophie 11. Musiques modales et tonales24 Jan 2021 · 56:59

Summary produced automatically from 28 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.