Abstract
Charron’s wisdom, although containing important Stoic and Christian elements, is basically Academic skeptic. This chapter shows, first, the ancient Academic skeptical conception of wisdom in Cicero and then Charron’s two main French Renaissance sources, namely, Omer Talon and Michel de Montaigne. Although the author of the Essays is the main source of Charron’s view of wisdom, I point out some crucial differences between Montaigne’s and Charron’s views of skepticism which illuminate specifically Charronian features of the skepticism present in Gassendi, La Mothe Le Vayer, Descartes and Pascal.
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Notes
- 1.
Cicero, De Officiis I.153 and De finibus bonorum et malorum II.37; Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, letter 89.5; Sextus Empiricus, Against the Physicists, I.13.
- 2.
This is the principle of intellectual integrity, alleged by skeptics and dogmatists alike but, according to the skeptics, actually held only by them. The principle rules that doctrines or propositions not fully warranted by reason shall not be held by the wise man for if he did assent to them he might commit an error. Intellectual integrity is fully stated by Cicero in Ac II.8, a passage which will be often cited and commented in this book.
- 3.
See also Ac II.67: “‘If the wise man ever assents to anything, he will sometimes also form an opinion; but he never will form an opinion; therefore he will not assent to anything.’ This syllogism Arcesilaus used to approve, for he used to accept both the major premiss and the minor. … But the major premiss … both the Stoics and their supporter Antiochus declare to be false, arguing that the wise man is able to distinguish the false from the true and the imperceptible from the perceptible.” Note that Arcesilaus is said to approve the minor premise, that the wise man will never form an opinion. Agreeing with the Stoics on this conception of wisdom, Arcesilaus disagrees that man can have knowledge, that is, clear and certain grasp of the truth, because of his view of the obscurity of things. The following statement also seems unequivocal in attributing this concept of wisdom to Arcesilaus: “the strongest point of the wise man, in the opinion of Arcesilaus, agreeing with Zeno, lies in avoiding being taken in and in seeing that he is not deceived—for nothing is more removed from the conception that we have of the dignity of the wise man than error, frivolity or rashness” (Ac II.66).
- 4.
The translation is mine. See also Levy (1997, 192–193): “A partir de sa critique de la représentation cataleptique, Arcésilas aboutissait donc à la définition d’un sage philo-sophe, chercheur obstiné d’une vérité insaisissable dans le flux des représentations et des arguments humains. Il pouvait ainsi objecter aux Stoïciens qu’il était le seul à réaliser concrètement le travail philosophique de lutte contre les opinions.”
- 5.
d’Angers (1976, 44–52), Horowitz (1971, 1998, 223–237), and Iofrida (1978) have wrongly concluded from apparently Stoic passages in De la Sagesse that Charron’s view of wisdom is Stoic. This would be mainly the case in chapter 3, book II, titled “Vraie et essentielle preud’homie: premiere et fondamentale partie de sagesse,” in which Charron claims that the wise man should follow nature, “entendant par nature l’equité et la raison universelle qui luit en nous, qui contient et couve en soy les semences de toute vertu, probité, justice, et est la matrice, de laquelle sortent et naissent toutes les bonnes et belles loix, les justes et equitables jugemens, que prononcera mesmes un idiot” (S, II, 3, 424). Charron uses Stoic language to describe a concept of wisdom which is mostly Academic since to follow nature is to follow a reason conceived in the Academic fashion, namely, capable of eliminating opinion but not capable of establishing the truth. The main source of this passage is Cicero (Tusculanarum disputationum, III.1–2) who accepted Stoic doctrines on ethics but under the Academic mode, namely, provisionally, as probable and not as true. For instance, in the Tusc disp V.33, Brutus challenges Cicero to be coherent with what he says in de Finibus about the only verbal dispute between Stoics and Peripatetics. He replies: “You are confronting me with sealed documents, and putting in as evidence what I have sometime said or written. Take that way with other people who are handicapped in argument by rules: I live from day to day; I say anything that strikes my mind as probable; and so I alone am free” (nos in diem vivimus; quodcumque nostros animos probabilitate percussit, id dicimus, itaque soli sumus liberi). This figures as the epigraph of La Mothe Le Vayer’s dialogue “Le Banquet sceptique” in DIA, p. 63. See Chap. 4. Supporters of the view that Charron’s wisdom is mostly skeptical are Popkin (1954, 2003), Taranto (1987), Paganini (1991), Gregory (2000), Gontier (1999). None of these scholars (who approach the skepticism in De la Sagesse very differently) holds that this skepticism is more Academic than Pyrrhonian. Adam (1991) claims that Charron’s wisdom is partially (and only strategically) Academic. Striker (2001, 172) claims that “le sage de Charron n’est pas un dogmatique manqué. Il est un sorte d’académicien qui n’a pas encore tout à fait accepté le probabilisme de Carnéade.”
- 6.
- 7.
According to Barbara de Negroni (1986), Charron is neither a skeptic nor a dogmatist. He believes man is capable of the truth, but needs to rely on experience and tradition.
- 8.
See Gilson (1947, 93–94) on the divorce between wisdom and knowledge in the Renaissance due to the crisis of Aristotelianism.
- 9.
For the role of the religious controversies in the development of skepticism in the period, see Popkin (2003, 3–16); for that of the discovery of the new world, see Marcondes (2009). For a variety of receptions and uses of ancient skepticism in the Renaissance, see the collective volume organized by Paganini and Maia Neto (2009). Floridi (2002) gives a very complete relation of the manuscripts of the works of Sextus Empiricus during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
- 10.
If we consider the history of ideas after the second half of the seventeenth century, Montaigne is by far the most influential among those who rehearsed ancient skeptical views. Recent studies specifically on Montaigne’s skepticism are numerous. I mention the main monographic and collective books published after Popkin’s pioneer study: Brush (1966), Laursen (1992), Brahami (1997, 2001), Mienorwski (1998), Giocanti (2001), Demonet and Legros (eds.) (2004), Carraud and Marion (eds.) (2004), Eva (2004, 2007), and Romão (2007). Paganini (2008) provides a very comprehensive and erudite study of early modern skepticism, highlighting the importance of Montaigne.
- 11.
Montaigne is the main source of Charron’s conception of a skeptical wisdom. Kaye (1982) gives quantitative analysis of the citations of Montaigne’s Essays by Charron. Most of these citations are about skepticism and the single essay most cited by far is the “Apology for Raymond Sebond.” Despite Charron’s debt to Montaigne, the charge of plagiarism which haunted Charron since the seventeenth century—Bayle says that “il y a dans les livres de la Sagesse une infinité des pensées qui avaient paru dans les Essais de Montaigne” (Dictionary article “Charron,” remark B) and in remark O of the same article, reports Sorel’s view that “Charron n’était que le sécretaire de Montaigne et de du Vair,” that he “a pris beaucoup de sentences philosophiques mot pour mot des Essais de Montaigne”—is no longer considered by Montaigne and Charron scholars who have pointed out numerous and important differences between the two. For example, Barbara de Negroni (1986) and Giocanti (2001, 21) hold that Charron, unlike Montaigne, is not a skeptic. See also the contributors to Demonet and Legros (2004) for a variety of differences (even oppositions) between the two authors’ views of human beings.
- 12.
- 13.
These are the matter of divine (not human) wisdom according to Charron’s types of wisdom related above.
- 14.
According to Charron’s biographer and friend Gabriel de la Rochemaillet, Charron met Montaigne in Bordeaux in 1589, that is, one year after the publication of the three books of the Essays. Charron “prit cognoissance, & vescut fort familierement avec Messire Michel de Montaigne, Chevalier de l’ordre du Roy, Autheur du Livre intitulé, les Essais, duquel il faisoit un merveilleux cas” (Eloge, non paginated, in Charron 1970). Apart from Rochemaillet’s rapport, which has been challenged by Philippe Ducoux (cf. Faye 1998, 260), we have the exemplar of a book by Bernardino Ochinno’s (Il Catechismo, o vero institutione christiana, Basilea, 1561) dedicated by Montaigne to Charron with the former’s indication that it is a “liber prohibitus.”
- 15.
The Hellenistic philosophical school New Academy thus recovered (above all against the Stoic school) the true Academic (in the sense of the educational institution) spirit exemplified by Plato’s Socratic dialogues.
- 16.
These biographical data about Ramus come from Sellberg (2011).
- 17.
- 18.
See also Cicero, De Oratoria 12, Nat deo II.168.
- 19.
Pro schola Parisiensi contra novam academicam Petri Rami oratio, published in 1551. See Schmitt (1972, 92–102). Schmitt also analyzes another work on Academic skepticism published at the same occasion—and probably related to the same context—by Guy de Brués (Schmitt 1972, 102–104). For the whole controversy around Ramus and Talon, see also Huppert (1999, 37–49).
- 20.
The title of book II of De la Sagesse is “Livre Seconde, contentant les instructions et regles generales de Sagesse.”
- 21.
For the internal constraints, see in particular chapters 14, 16, 17, and 18; for the external ones, see the “Cinquiesme … consideration de l’homme,” chapters 41–62 of book I De la Sagesse.
- 22.
The suspension of judgment proposed by Charron as the perfect condition of the mind achieved by the wise man includes, in the Ciceronian/Philonian way, acceptance of the probable (“vraysemblable”). The assent is mitigated. It does not compromise the wise man’s intellectual integrity and philosophical independence with respect to the philosophical schools and doctrines. See S, II, 2, 399–400 and its source in Cicero’s Academics II.7–8.
- 23.
In “De l’instituition des enfans,” Montaigne says that “[A] Qu’il luy face tout passer par l’estamine et ne loge rien en sa teste par simple authorité et à credit; les principes d’Aristote ne luy soyent principes, non plus que ceux des Stoiciens ou Epicuriens. Qu’on luy propose cette diversité de jugements: il choisira s’il peut, sinon il en demeurera en doubte. [C] Il n’y a que les fols certains et resolus” (E, I, 26, 151). See also Montaigne’s “Apology for Raymond Sebond”. (E, II, 12, 539–541)
- 24.
See Aristotle. Topics, I–II, 100a–101b.
- 25.
The Academics opposed the Stoic view that the essential feature of the wise man is to have knowledge. “But you deny that anybody except the wise man knows anything; and this Zeno used to demonstrate by gesture: for he would display his hand in front of one with the fingers stretched out and say ‘A visual appearance is like this’; next he closed his fingers a little and said, ‘An act of assent is like this’; then he pressed his fingers closely together and made a fist, and said that that was comprehension …; but then he used to apply his left hand to his right fist and squeeze it tightly and forcibly, and then say that such was knowledge [scientiam], which was within the power of nobody save the wise man”. (Ac II.145)
- 26.
“Horum novorum Academicorum institutum erat de rebus obscuris utrinque disputare, philosophorum placita, non deorum oracula putare, nullam scholam perpetuò sequi, & tamen in omnibus scholis, quod verum aut verisimile videretur, liberè sequi: Defendat quidem, ait Cicero, quod quisque sentiat: sunt enim libera hominum iudicia: nos institutum tenebimus, nullisque ullius disciplanae legibus astricti, quibus in philosophia necessariò pareamos: quid sit in quaque re maximè probabile, semper requiremus. Idem, Cum Academicis incerta luctatio est, qui nihil affirmant, & quasi desperata cognitione certi, id sequi volunt, quodcunque verisimile videatur” (Talon 1550, 6). By holding a view as probable, the Academic keeps himself detached from it, so in conditions to change the view when something more probable appears. This detachment is the freedom of judgment so appreciated by the Academics. See Ac II.7–8 and note 3 above. According to Montaigne, “[A] Cicero mesme, qui devoit au sçavoir tout son vaillant, Valerius dict que sur sa vieillesse il commença à desestimer les lettres. [C] Et pandant qu’il les traictoit, c’estoit sans obligation d’aucun parti, suivant ce qui luy sembloit probable, tantost en l’une secte, tantost en l’autre: se tenant tousjours sous la dubitation de l’Academie”. (E, II, 12, 501)
- 27.
The Pyrrhonians also hold the view of philosophy deprived of doctrines but their view was therapeutic. They wanted to get rid of opinions because of the disturbance they brought (see PH I.12). They do not emphasize the ideal of critical rationality as the Academics did.
- 28.
These correspond to the two works published by Ramus in 1543.
- 29.
“Ego vero pro mea parte curavi, utistam quoque rationem adiuvarem: nam ut homines pertinaces, & certis opinionibus in philosophia mancipati, addictique indigna servitude liberarentur, intelligérentque verum philosophandi genus iudicio & aestimatione rerum liberum esse, non autem opinione & affectione constrictum, libellum quendam Academiae”. (Talon 1550, 4)
- 30.
Hervet, “Dedicatory letter of Sextus’ Adversus Mathematicos to the Cardinal de Lorraine,” English translation in Popkin and Maia Neto (2007, 91).
- 31.
“Haec cum fiant, necesse est ut haec exercitatio magnam vim habeat, ad excitanda & acuenda adolescentum ingenia, qui tum demum poterunt verum discernere, cum quae sunt probabilia & verisimilia, ab iis quae secus sunt, dijudicaverint & ex multis probabilibus & verisimilibus latens verum tandem eruerint” (Hervet 1569, preface not paginated).
- 32.
Augustine, Contra Academicos III.37.
- 33.
“Contra hos igitur homines [Stoics, Epicureans and Peripatetics] Archesilas, caeterique viriliter & fortiter Socratis exemplo, & virtute sese armarunt, ut nos ab eorum latrunculorum servitude liberate, & in naturae, quam veteres illi sumopere probaverant, libertatem praestantiamque restituerent: est enim verae philosophiae proprium, homines à opinione ad veritatem, à sensibus ad mentem, à singulis rebus ad universitatem, à caducis & mortalibus ad constantiam & aeternitatem convertere” (Talon 1550, 9). The scholastic Aristotelians held the famous epistemological doctrine that “nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu.”
- 34.
In Charron’s works “o cristianismo não é verossímil entendendo-se por este conceito a similaridade ao verdadeiro, o espelhamento da verdade, sentido criticado por Montaigne e jamais adotado pelos céticos acadêmicos… Por outro lado, compreendendo-se como verossímil o que é convincente, o que pode ser sustentado por argumentos mais impactantes e melhores que outros o cristianismo é sim a religião mais verossímil”. (Loque 2012, 192)
- 35.
“Se pose alors le but avoué d’une telle diffusion du scepticisme néo-académicien, qui a pour effet paradoxal—mais significatif de la place laissée au scepticisme dans un contexte catholique tridentin—de faire de la σκεψιζ le moyen privilégié de la refondation du rationalisme. C’est avant tout la promotion de la liberté de pensée, face au dogmatisme obtus de la tradition scolastique, qui est visée par Talon” (Naya 2008, 153).
- 36.
Augustine, Contra Academicos III.38–42.
- 37.
This position or strategy of Montaigne’s both to introduce skepticism and to contravene dogmatism comes straight from Cicero’s Academica: “Enough about authority—although you had put the question to me whether I did not think that with so many able minds carrying on the search with such zealous energy, after so many ages since the old philosophers mentioned, the truth might possibly have been discovered”. (Ac II.76)
- 38.
By perfection I mean the integrity or entirety of the faculty essential to human beings, the faculty of judgment. Perfection here thus has the Aristotelian sense of full accomplishment of a nature but does not agree with Aristotle’s own view of the perfection of the intellect. For according to Montaigne it is not natural to human reason to have knowledge (truth). The perfection of human reason is exercised in the search for the truth, not in its possession, which is a prerogative of God.
- 39.
The division derives from the philosophers’ position with respect to the truth. The Dogmatists claim to have found the truth, the Academics claim it cannot be found, the Pyrrhonians keep searching (PH I.2–3).
- 40.
Cicero complains to the Stoic Lucullus: “For you it will be obligatory to … defend [Stoicism] as you would your life and honour, while to me it is not even left to doubt” (Ac II.119). Defending Pyrrho against the anecdotes related by Diogenes Laertius about Pyrrho’s extravagant way of life such as being followed by friends to keep him from falling into precipices, being hit by cars and attacked by dogs (Lives IX.62), Montaigne cites Cicero. “Ils le peignent stupide et immobile, prenant un train de vie farouche et inassociable, attendant le hurt des charretes, se presentant aux precipices, refusant de s’accommoder aux loix. Cela est encherir sur sa discipline. Il n’a pas voulu se faire pierre ou souche; il a voulu se faire homme vivant, discourant et raisonnant, jouïssant de tous plaisirs et commoditez naturelles, embesoignant et se servant de toutes ses pieces corporelles et spirituelles [C] en regle et droicture. [A] Les privileges fantastiques, imaginaires et faux, que l’homme s’est usurpé, de regenter, d’ordonner, d’establir la vérité, il les a, de bonne foy, renoncez et quittez” (E, II, 12, 505). Montaigne’s view of Pyrrho is that he uses his body and mind plainly in accord to human natural capability. Montaigne’s sources are Academic: “For he [the Academic] is not a statue carved out of stone or hewn out of timber; he has a body and a mind, a mobile intellect and mobile senses” (Cicero, Ac II.101). The saying is Homeric as indicated by Socrates in Plato’s Apology. Socrates tells his judges that “[t]o quote the very words of Homer, even I am not sprung ‘from an oak or from a rock’, but from human parents, and consequently I have relatives—yes, and sons too, gentlemen … but all the same I am not going to produce them here and beseech you to acquit me” (Plato, Apology, 34d). Socrates means that he will remain strictly rational in his apology, not appealing to the emotions of the judges.
- 41.
“For all other people in the first place are held in close bondage placed upon them before they were able to judge what doctrine was the best, and secondly they form judgements about matters as to which they know nothing at the most incompetent period of life, either under the guidance of some friend or under the influence of a single harangue from the first lecturer that they attend”. (Ac II.8)
- 42.
The source of this Academic position is Socrates’ attitude exhibited above all (though not exclusively) in Plato’s early dialogues and, in particular, in the digression on the philosopher in Plato’s later dialogue the Theaetetus, 172c–177c. In the digression, the philosopher is contrasted with a lawyer. The latter is previously committed to some cause and interest, so his use of reason is entirely compromised by his non-strictly epistemic commitments. The philosopher, by contrast, has no interest and commitment whatsoever except the commitment to the truth. In the footsteps of the digression on the philosopher in the Theaetetus, Bayle opposes the dogmatist to the Academic skeptic philosopher by comparing the former to a lawyer and the latter to an impartial reporter of facts and views. See Montaigne’s Essays, II, 12, 566; Bayle’s Dictionary, article “Chrysippus,” note G and Maia Neto (1999, 271–272).
- 43.
“the Academic School [was] well advised in ‘withholding assent’ from beliefs that are uncertain; for what is more unbecoming than ill-considered haste? and what is so ill-considered or so unworthy of the dignity and seriousness proper to a philosopher as to hold an opinion that is not true, or to maintain with unhesitating certainty a proposition not based on adequate examination, comprehension and knowledge?” (Cicero, Nat deo I.1). See also Ac I.45, II.66–68, 77; De Officiis II.7–8, III.20; Tusc disp II.95, IV.7, V.33.
- 44.
There is a report in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives (IX.71) that it begins with Homer. See also Plato’s Theaetetus 152e, introducing the Heraclitian doctrine of the flux.
- 45.
It is no wonder that Cicero uses this image to report the Academic tradition. For Cicero the position of the so called Academic skeptics is basically that of Socrates and Plato. The image agrees with Plato’s view of the world of becoming of which human beings can have no stable knowledge. The main source for this view is again the Theaetetus, in particular the doctrine of the flux that Plato attributes to Protagoras. This doctrine is directly cited by Montaigne in the conclusion of the “Apology for Raymond Sebond”. (E, II, 12, 601–603)
- 46.
“Je ne suis pas subjet à ces hypotheques et engagemens penetrans et intimes”. (E, III, 1, 792)
- 47.
- 48.
For an interpretation of Charron’s wisdom which emphasizes human perfection in contraposition to theology, see Faye (1998, 252–274).
- 49.
One may wonder if this knowledge of the self is compatible with a skeptical wisdom. Demonet (1999) claims that it is not, based on a careful analysis of book I. I think that Charron’s claims about the excellence and universality of man and self-knowledge, though probably incompatible with Pyrrhonism, are not incompatible with Academic skepticism. They should be read as having the status of Academic probability and not of truth, as he points out in the Petit Traité (I cite the relevant passage at the end of next section). However, I shall not argue for this view here since the focus of this book is not on the coherence of Charron’s skeptical wisdom but on its influence.
- 50.
Another explanation for Charron’s difference from the ancient Academics on this point is the influence of Renaissance humanism.
- 51.
“l’homme ne sçait et n’entend rien à droict, au pur et au vray comme il faut, tournoyant tousjours et tatonnant à l’entour des apparences, qui se trouvent par tout aussi bien au faux qu’au vray: nous sommes nais à quester la verité: la posseder appartient à une plus haute et grande puissance”. (S, I, 14, 138)
- 52.
See Book I, chapter 14, in particular, pp. 140–144. According to Pyrrhonians and Academics alike, propotéian, which has been translated to English as rashness and precipitation, lies at the root of dogmatism.
- 53.
The impression that strikes or appears as true and therefore causes an inclination to assent is what Carneades calls the pythanos impression, translated by Cicero as probabile and verisimile. Charron’s wise men will rather “douter et tenir en suspens leur creance, que par une trop molle et lasche facilité, ou legereté, ou precipitation de jugement, se paitre de fausseté, et affirmer ou se tenir asseurez de chose, de laquelle ils ne peuvent avoir raison certaine” (S, I, 43, 292). This requires “preud’homie,” defined as “une droite et ferme disposition de la volonté, à suivre le conseil de la raison” (S, II, 3, 429). I argue in Chap. 5 that this position of Charron’s was crucial for Descartes.
- 54.
Another source of Charron’s move is Montaigne’s translation of sustinere as soutenir, hold fast by oneself, examined above.
- 55.
This frontispiece was briefly discussed in the Introduction. Opinion is the dogmatism of the ordinary men, Science is the dogmatism of philosophers (in particular, the Aristotelians), and Superstition is the dogmatism of the religious men. In the case of Passion, Charron builds on Sextus’ argument (M XI.141–167) that skepticism about values suppresses anxiety to get what one dogmatically considers as good as well as (in case one already possesses what one takes to be good) the fear of losing it.
- 56.
Plato, Apology, 38a.
- 57.
In the Sophist (230b–d), the Stranger says that the Socratic method makes possible a “purification through argument.”
- 58.
- 59.
“Socrates was the first person who summoned philosophy away from mysteries veiled in concealment by nature herself, upon which all philosophers before him had been engaged, and led it to the subject of ordinary life” (Ac I.15).
- 60.
“the most important thing about my art is the ability to apply all possible tests to the offspring, to determine whether the young mind is being delivered of a phantom, that is, an error, or a fertile truth. For one thing which I have in common with the ordinary midwives is that I myself am barren of wisdom. The common reproach against me is that I am always asking questions of other people but never express my own views about anything, because there is no wisdom in me; and that is true enough. And the reason of it is this, that God compels me to attend the travail of others, but has forbidden me to procreate. So that I am not in any sense a wise man; I cannot claim as the child of my own soul any discovery worth the name of wisdom” (Theaetetus 150b–d). Cicero comments on this in Ac I.16 and Plutarch in Platonic Questions I.
- 61.
According to Charron, “[c]ette façon d’instruire par demandes est excellement observée par Socrates (le premier en cette besongne) comme nous voyons par tout en Platon” (S, III, 14, 697). Charron’s view of Socrates’ maieutics, like Montaigne’s, is also influenced by Plutarch: “C’est cette belle et grande qualité ou suffisance donnee par preciput à Socrates le Coriphee des Sages, par l’adveu de tous les Sages, duquel il est dit, comme discourt Plutarque, qu’il enfantoit point, mais servant de sage-femme à tous autres les faisoit enfanter”. (PTS, 839)
- 62.
Socrates “prise comme il doit la volupté corporelle, mais il prefere celle de l’esprit, comme ayant plus de force, de constance, de facilité, de variété, de dignité”. (E, III, 13, 1113)
- 63.
Charron claims that “Socrates en justice mesme ne le voulut faire [des faux soupçons et accusations] ny par soy ny par autruy, refusant d’employer le beau plaider du grand Lysias; et ayma mieux mourir”. (S, I, 37, 247)
- 64.
For Montaigne’s view of Socrates in “De la physionomie,” see Faye (2009).
- 65.
“I have gained this reputation, gentlemen, from nothing more or less than a kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom do I mean? Human wisdom, I suppose. It seems that I really am wise in this limited sense [viz. of learned ignorance]” (Plato, Apology 20e). “whenever I succeed in disproving another person’s claim to wisdom in a given subject, the bystanders assume that I know everything about that subject myself. But the truth of the matter, gentlemen, is pretty certainly this, that real wisdom is the property of God, and this oracle [that Socrates is the wisest of men] is his way of telling us that human wisdom has little or no value” (Apology, 23a).
- 66.
See also Sagesse I, 47: “Socrates fut jugé le plus sage des hommes, non pour estre le plus scavant et plus habille, ou pour avoir quelque suffisance par dessus les autres, mais pour mieux se cognoistre que les autres, en se tenant en son rang, faire bien l’homme.”
- 67.
See Montaigne’s commentary: “Apres que Socrates fut adverti que le Dieu de sagesse luy avoit attribué le surnom de sage, il en fut estonné; et, se recherchant et secouant par tout, n’y trouvoit aucun fondement à cette divine sentence. … Enfin il se resolut qu’il n’estoit distingué des autres et n’estoit sage que par ce qu’il ne s’en tenoit pas; et que son Dieu estimoit bestise singuliere à l’homme l’opinion de science et de sagesse; et que sa meilleure doctrine estoit la doctrine de l’ignorance, et sa meilleure sagesse, la simplicité”. (E, II, 12, 498)
- 68.
After presenting different views on the soul, Cicero says: “Harum sententiarum quae vera sit deus aliqui viderit: quae veri simillima magna quaestio est” (Tusc disp I.23). This view is much emphasized by Plutarch, as in the long citation of “The Ε apud Delphos” that concludes Montaigne’s “Apology for Raymond Sebond.”
- 69.
- 70.
Although Charron’s skepticism is not Christianized as Pascal’s and Kierkegaard’s (see Maia Neto 1995, 37–64), it receives a significant influence of the Christian religion and theology (more on this in Chap. 4). This theology certainly has a connection with negative theology (as Charron indicates in his Trois Vérités and Discours chrétiens, and in passing also in De la Sagesse). However, on what concerns morals, which is the basic subject and concern in De la Sagesse, its affinity is with Molinism not with Augustinianism. I therefore disagree from Saint-Cyran’s (d’Haurane 1626) and Christian Belin’s (1995) interpretation of this work of Charron’s.
- 71.
But note that Socrates is the main inspiration of Arcesilaus’ Academic skepticism, as it is clear in this very passage on the obscurity of things (Ac I.45) for Socrates is the first philosopher cited as avowing this obscurity.
- 72.
“il y a difference entre mon dire et l’advis des Pyrrhoniens, bien qu’il en ait l’air et l’odeur, puisque je permets de consentir et adherer à ce qui semble meilleur et plus vray-semblable”. (PTS, 858)
- 73.
Photius, Bibliothèque III.212.
- 74.
Carneades’ probabilism is one of Sextus’ main grounds to differentiate Pyrrhonism from the New Academy. “And as regards sense-impressions, we say that they are equal in respect of probability and improbability, so far as their essence is concerned, whereas they assert that some impressions are probable, others improbable” (PH I.227). Sextus recognizes that, unlike Carneades’, Arcesilaus’ “way of thought is almost identical with ours”. (PH I.232)
- 75.
Cicero considered Clitomachus’ interpretation truer to Carneades’ view. He cites a book by Clitomachus on suspension of judgment which is no longer extant. The key passages quoted from Clitomachus’ book are Ac II.99 and the following one: “‘The Academic school holds that there are dissimilarities between things of such a nature that some of them seem probable and others the contrary; but this is not an adequate ground for saying that some things can be perceived and others cannot, because many false objects are probable but nothing false can be perceived and known.’ And accordingly he [Clitomachus reporting Carneades’ views] asserts that those who say that the Academy robs us of our senses are violently mistaken, as that school never said that color, taste or sound was non-existent, but their contention was that these presentations do not contain a mark of truth and certainty peculiar to themselves and found nowhere else. After setting out these points, he adds that the formula ‘the wise man withholds assent’ is used in two ways, one when the meaning is that he gives absolute assent to no proposition at all, the other when he restrains himself from replying so as to convey approval or disapproval of something, with the consequence that he neither makes a negation nor an affirmation; and that this being so, he holds the one plan in theory, so that he never assents, but the other in practice, so that he is guided by probability, and whenever this confronts him or is wanting he can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ accordingly” (Ac II.103–104). See also Ac II.108. See Ac II.78 for the debate that opposed Clitomachus on the one hand, and Metrodorus and Philo on the other, about Carneades’ position on belief. For secondary literature, see Frede (1984) and Bett (1990).
- 76.
Cicero claims this kind of provisional and detached assent in virtually all his philosophical works. Some examples are Ac II.7–9 and 66; Tusc disp I.23, V.33; De Officiis II.7–8, III.20.
- 77.
For a different view, see Giocanti (2001, 21).
- 78.
See also the Petit Traité de Sagesse, 863: “en toutes telles choses, je n’y oblige personne, ny ne pretends les persuader, bien loing de les dogmatiser.”
- 79.
“You, Lucullus, if you have accepted the views of your associate Antiochus, are bound to defend these doctrines as you would defend the walls of Rome, but I need only do so in moderation, just as much as I think fit” (Ac II.137).
- 80.
“Accordingly Arcesilaus said that there is nothing that can be known, not even that residuum of knowledge that Socrates had left himself—the truth of this very dictum” (Ac I.45).
- 81.
Charron makes other divisions of human beings. One derives from different geographical locations, for which he relies on Juan Huarte (book 1, chapter 42). Two others (chapters 44, 52 and 53) are based on different social positions, professions and other contingencies.
- 82.
“[B] Certes il est peu d’ames si reiglées, si fortes et bien nées, à qui on se puisse fier de leur propre conduicte, et qui puissent, avec moderation et sans temerité, voguer en la liberté de leurs jugements au-delà des opinions communes. Il est plus expedient de les mettre en tutelle”. (E, II, 12, 559)
- 83.
Kogel (1972, 67) notes that Charron relies on Montaigne’s “Apology for Raymond Sebond” to make the diagnostic of man as miserable and irresolute but that whereas Montaigne argued that man should conform to this condition Charron proposes that it be overcome through the rules and instructions of wisdom.
- 84.
- 85.
For a detailed analysis of the complexity of Montaigne’s view of Pyrrho, see Gori (2009).
- 86.
“Ce que je tiens aujourd’huy et ce que je croy, je le tiens et le croy de toute ma croyance; tous mes utils et tous mes ressorts empoignent cette opinion et m’en respondent sur tout ce qu’ils peuvent. Je ne sçaurois ambrasser aucune verité ny conserver avec plus de force que je fay cette cy. J’y suis tout entier, j’y suis voyrement; mais ne m’est il pas advenu, non une fois, mais cent, mais mille, et tous les jours, d’avoir ambrassé quelqu’autre chose à tout ces mesmes instrumens, en cette mesme condition, que depuis j’aye jugée fauce?” (E, II, 12, 563). I argue in Maia Neto (2012) that the larger context of this claim is a dialectical move offered to Marguerite de Valois in order to provide her with an argument to justify her keeping Catholic even if Calvinism is shown more probable to her. This kind of skeptical fallibilist argument about our cognitive faculties is employed by Descartes in his methodical doubt.
- 87.
Because of “de la semence des parens, puis au laict nourricier, et premiere education”. (S, 35)
- 88.
Another major problem with Pyrrhonism was its association with irreligion. Though this was a problem related to skepticism in general, the New Academy was less liable to the charge because of its Platonic and Christian use and qualified approval by some Church Fathers, notably Augustine.
- 89.
A third reason is the fact that in the “Apology for Raymond Sebond” the Pyrrhonians are used by Montaigne in an attack against reason whose aim is to contravene Huguenot rationalism. See Maia Neto (2012).
- 90.
Charron says in the preface to the first edition that he has “questé par cy par là, et tiré la plus part des materiaux de cet ouvrage des meilleurs autheurs qui ont traité cette matiere” (S, 33). He adds in the preface to the second edition that the second book, from which the passage under examination was taken, “est plus mien que les deux autres”. (S, 34)
- 91.
Here and throughout the book the italics are meant to show the similarities between Charron’s text and that of the other philosophers discussed in the book.
- 92.
The flux doctrine is in a sense also Academic—of the old Academy—for it is presented in Plato’s Theaetetus and Cratylus. According to some interpreters, it corresponds to Plato’s own view of the sensible world. See Cornford (1935).
- 93.
“J’ay le pied si instable et si mal assis, je le trouve si aysé à croler et si prest au banle…” (E, II, 12, 565). “Je ne puis asseurer mon object [that is, Montaigne himself]. Il va trouble et chancelant, d’une yvresse naturelle. Je le prens en ce point, comme il est, en l’instant que je m’amuse à luy. Je ne peints pas l’estre. Je peints le passage. … Si mon ame pouvoit prendre pied, je ne m’essaierois pas, je me resoudrois” (E, III, 2, 805). Charron says that an obstacle to wisdom is “la crainte et foiblesse … peu de gens ont la force le courage de se tenir droicts sur leurs pieds” (PTS, 841). “La sagesse conseille bien mieux de attendre [death] de pied ferme”. (S, II, 11, 523)
- 94.
If it is in a sense right to say that Charron is a kind of disciple of Montaigne’s, he certainly is not a docile one. Charron’s position here looks like a direct and explicit confrontation of Montaigne’s: “quand ils prononcent: J’ignore, ou: Je doubte, ils disent que cette proposition s’emporte elle mesme … [B] Cette fantasie est plus seurement conceuë par interrogation: Que sçay-je? comme je la porte à la devise d’une balance” (E, II, 12, 527). Charron thinks that, on the contrary, the assured way is “Je ne sçay,” which he “fait graver sur la porte de ma petit maison que j’ay fait bastir à Condom l’an 1600”. (S, II, 2, 402)
- 95.
Charron’s source is Montaigne’s essay “Du Pedantisme”: “[A] Or il ne faut pas attacher le sçavoir à l’ame, il l’y faut incorporer … C’est un dangereux glaive, et qui empesche et offence son maistre, s’il est en main foible et qui n’en sçache l’usage”. (E, I, 25, 140)
- 96.
- 97.
In the Theaetetus (149b–c), Socrates implies that he held views before he initiated his maieutic. After he began his maieutic, holding positive views become a hindrance to the practice. In Phaedo, 97c, Socrates says that he was once pleased by Anaxagoras’ view of the cosmos.
- 98.
“le sage jette sa veuë et consideration sur tout l’univers, il est citoyen du monde comme Socrates, il embrasse d’affection tout le genre humain, il se promene par tout comme chés soy, void comme un Soleil, d’un regard égal, ferme, et indiferent, comme d’une haute guette tous les changemens, diversités et vicissitudes des choses, sans se varier, et se tenant tousjours mesmes à soy, qui est un livrée de la divinité, aussi est-ce le haut privilege du sage, qui est l’Image de Dieu en terre”. (S, III, 2, 406)
- 99.
Attribution of a zetesis to Charron’s wise man does not distance him from the Academics. Sextus’ claim that the Academics abandon the search after the truth to the extent that they hold truth to be inapprehensible has been widely challenged. “For even though many difficulties hinder every branch of knowledge, and both the subjects themselves and our faculties of judgement involve such a lack of certainty that the most ancient and learned thinkers had good reason for distrusting their ability to discover what they desired, nevertheless they did not give up, nor yet will we abandon in exhaustion our zeal for research”. (Ac II.7)
- 100.
“qui juge bien et sans passion de toutes choses, trouve par tout de l’apparence et de la raison, qui l’empesche de se resoudre, craignant de s’échauder en son jugement, dont il demeure indeterminé, indifferent et universel”. (S, II, 2, 387–388)
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Neto, J.R.M. (2014). Charron’s Academic Skeptical Wisdom. In: Academic Skepticism in Seventeenth-Century French Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 215. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07359-0_2
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