Michel de Montaigne Apology Summary

Michel de Montaigne: Apology for Raymond Sebond – A Summary
A man named Pierre Bunel gives Montaigne’s father a book written in Latin called “Natural Theology or
Book of Creatures, by Master Raymod de Sabonde” as a gift. His father asks Montaigne to translate the
book into French. In this essay Montaigne plans to write a defence of the book but ends up presenting a
strong sceptical point of view. In the first 49 pages of the essay Montaigne discusses the situation of man
vis- a- vis that of animals and comes to the conclusion: “We attribute to ourselves imaginary and fanciful
goods, goods future and absent, for which human capacity by itself cannot answer, or goods which we
attribute to ourselves falsely through the license of our opinion, like reason, knowledge, and honour. And
to them for their share we leave essential, tangible and palpable goods: peace, repose, security, innocence,
and health.” (p. 434)
 Man’s knowledge cannot make him happy – artisans and plowmen are wiser and happier.
Cicero’s boast of letters is vain. Man vainly compares himself to God. Philosophers suffer from
various sicknesses. Our imagination and our knowledge make us suffer more. The primitive
Brazilians or animals live healthy lives. The flight of a free mind is like madness. Montaigne
quotes from his friend La Boétie who writes that we are not aware of our health even though the
slightest scratch in our body affects us.
 The Epicureans talk of ataraxia/apathy: equianimity of the soul before pleasure and pain. Man is
defined by his knowledge of evil and knowledge of pleasure.
 Montaigne presents a relative point of view that evil is sometimes good for man. He suggests that
ignorance, hallucination or illusion sometimes make us happy.
 Man’s knowledge cannot make him good. – Christianity has an idea about the evil nature of
curiosity. Man is full of presumption – a wise man like Socrates did not think himself to be wise.
 Man cannot conceive God. The mystery of religion cannot be known.
 In 1Corinthians worldly wisdom has been called foolishness.
 Man has no knowledge – Montaigne traces Academic Scepticism in Plato and Cicero.
 Montaigne goes on to talk about three kinds of philosophers: Those who say that they have found
the truth – those who think that it cannot be found – and those who are still in quest of it. The
sceptics or Epechists abstain from an assertion of truth. Stoics and Epicureans practice ataraxia.
Dogmatism is the opposite of Scepticism. The Pyrrohnists argue for and establish ignorance,
whether they win or lose in an argument. The Ciceronian in utramque partem argument favours
the suppression of judgement.
 The Epechists and Academic Sceptics hold back judgement and think that Pyrrho stupidly
suggests a life without action that is paralysed by lack of knowledge. Montaigne forcefully
praises Pyrrho by saying “The fantastic, imaginary, false privileges that man has arrogated to
himself, of regimenting, arranging, and fixing truth, he honestly renounced and gave up.”
Montaigne suggests that Pyrrhonism is particularly useful for a Christian because without
presumption and shorn of prejudice a Pyrrohnist Sceptic has an open and a receptive mind.
Montaigne suggests that even the dogmatists or the Stoics only put up an appearance of
knowledge. The Peripatetics write in obscure manner which, Montaigne suggests is a form of
affirmative Pyrrohnism. Most philosophers and Socrates declared the liberal arts (excepting
moral philosophy) useless. Plato is most non-committal.
 The pre-Socratic philosophers (Anaxagorus, Democritus, Parmenides, Xenophanes) are mostly
doubtful in substance and their dogmatism is only for the sake of form.
 Empedocles also denies the possibility of knowledge.
 Montaigne suggests that the very search for truth is pleasant. Epicurus, Plato and Pythagorus
arrived at their Atoms, Ideas and Numbers through their imagination.
 Epicureanism, Pyrrohnian and Academic Scepticism in spite of their doubts about everything still
abide by civil law.
 Theology that anthropomorphizes God is presumptuous because it brings down God to the human
level.
 Pythagorus realized that God is inscrutable, beyond our perception.
 Ronsard’s poetic depiction of the sun makes it appear like a divinity. Here Montaigne gives a
long list of elements and ideas worshipped by philosophers as gods.
 Montaigne questions Pythagorus’s idea of metempsychosis. He goes on to prove that man’s
worship as well as sacrifices in worshipping gods is false.
 Man’s notion of God arrived at by his reason is false. Our situation is like Plato’s cave dwellers in
his Republic.
 Montaigne rejects traditional cosmology by speaking in favour of the plurality of worlds.
 Human reason has no foundation. Everything suggested by reason is uncertain. The pre-Socratic
philosophers think that the nature of things is only a false shadow.
 The Pyrrohnians cannot even say ‘I doubt’ because that is an affirmation – they must say ‘what
do I know?’ (Que sçay-je?). Pliny the Elder doubts that God can do everything – even God cannot
change the past.
 Tertullian gives God bodily form which Montaigne thinks to be arrogance.
 Saint Paul speaks of the wise fool.
 Montaigne ridicules the scholastic attempt of deducing God’s existence from argumentative
reasoning.
 Hermes Trismegistus had praised man but man does not understand himself.
 Warning to the princess – in this section Montaigne advises Margaret of Valois to practise
moderation and temperance in everything.
 Man can have no knowledge – Montaigne sums up the position of the Academic Sceptic and the
Pyrrohnist and comes to the conclusion that both the groups depend heavily upon probability. We
always stick to the latest position as true that is later proved false. Our faulty condition should at
least make us behave in a restrained and moderate way. (P. – 515)

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Michel de Montaigne: Apology for Raymond Sebond – A Summary

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