Montaigne & Descartes. A philosophical genealogy

When we resolved to begin a multi-voiced research into “Montaigne and Descartes” and described it, in the subtitle, as a “philosophical genealogy”, we took two important decisions. The first relates to the cultural problem of revising the traditional classifications of the authors; the second to the even harder theoretical problem of the interpretation of the category of “philosophical genealogy” in historical, philosophical and hermeneutical terms. First decision The subtitle of our research – “a philosophical genealogy” – asserts the possibility of a philosophical reading of Montaigne, against interpretations stressing only the literary aspects of the Essais or just emphasising the psychological epic of the discovery of the self, whilst underestimating the place of the Essais in philosophy: this because of the absence of systematic thought as well as of his writing in the first person, too close to the style of the fragment. But are these elements not philosophical options? Is this absence of a doctrinal unity not the philosophical decision of renouncing the being for the becoming? Is his penchant for variety not the result of a research that chooses a sceptical questioning, rejecting the safety and the negations of the dogmatism? Is his free, “first person writing” not the personal choice of writing a “living book” living in the temporality of a moi, so that this moi-même becomes “la matiere de mon livre” (I, 3), offering at the same time “la forme entiere de l’humaine condition” (III, 2, 804)? And is this erratic style of writing not the philoso¬phical answer that Montaigne delivers to the god Theuth of Phaedrus, by writing a book that does not aim to contain clear and solid teachings, but simply to recall to memory a man: Michel de Montaigne (III, 2, 805)? Then, Montaigne belongs to philosophy and to its history. He does not belong to philosophy as the protagonist of a philosophical life following the ideal of wisdom of the mind and quietness of the soul. The “Apologie” multiplies the attacks on philosophical virtue and on stoical firmness, whilst the philosopher always has to face change and difference. “Je ne suis pas philosophe” (III, 9, 949), writes Montaigne in the chapter “De la vanité”: he refuses to incarnate the philosopher who has “bandé son esprit” (II, 6, 370) acknowledging the vanity of a firm resolution and a rigid inflexibility. If he is a philosopher, he is the interpreter of a new type of philosopher: “un philosophe impremedité et fortuite” (II, 12, 546) who can recognize “de bonne foy son irrésolution, sa foiblesse et son ignorance” (II, 17, 634). A philosopher, as he writes, “naturel et ordinaire” (II, 10, 409). Furthermore, Montaigne belongs to the history of philosophy: not as a living library of Ancient philosophy or as a cultured intermediary between Medieval and Modern philosophy, but as the interpreter of a philosophy close to the “pensée de l’essai”, always open to research and to inquiry, listening with “facilité” (I, 26,162) to a diversity of opinions and accepting with “humilité” (II, 12, 488) a variety of traditions. Second decision The sub-title of our research – “a philosophical genealogy” – again asserts the existence of a continuity between Montaigne and Descartes and, moreover, of an affiliation and lineage between these two authors. These aspects of continuity, affiliation and lineage, nevertheless, have been differently received, discussed and interpreted in contemporary literature according to different modalities that interweave with each other. The philological-philosophical modality of ‘the text’, based on the literary comparison of the works – e.g. textual occurrences, primary or secondary quotes, direct and indirect connections, explicit and implicit cross-references -, tries to retrace the role and the influence of the Essais in the construction of Cartesian philosophy. An influence that, as with any philosophical influence, becomes the acceptance of arguments or their discussion or even the explicit denial of theoretical positions, distinct and peculiar to the two authors. Hence, the question of ‘the text’ is converted into the question of ‘the theory’ and refers to the theoretical modality of ‘the concept’. Starting from the historical and philosophical ‘dialogue’ between the two authors, this modality permits conceptual analogies, theoretical variations, thematic discontinuities to emerge through the analysis of subjects and arguments and comparative studies of demonstrative practices involved. Thus, the philosophical research on the “philosophical genealogy” from Montaigne to Descartes raises the philosophical question of the actual pertinence of these philosophies, setting them in dialogue with other philosophers. This philosophical experiment, built on philological and historical data, exceeds, however, the classical categories of both text and history and nourishes a philosophical reflection on the present, for the present. Therefore, a broader view of the literature presents a long “bibliographical genealogy” of our research on Montaigne and Descartes, and confirms the relevance and also the problematic complexity of our decisions concerning their “philosophical genealogy”: namely, the literary contacts, conceptual proximities and hermeneutic continuities, and also the epistemological breaks, theoretical distances, and philosophical discussions between these authors. In their works and in their “genealogies”, they bear the signs of the first Modernity and interpret its various aspects, showing, at the same time, its ambiguities and its contradictions. The collection of texts we are presenting in this volume aims to be, above all, evidence that these subjects have not lost any of their contemporary relevance.