Abstract
Montaigne’s Essays is of major importance for the philosophy of fear. In this work, Montaigne provides narratives of a variety of fears, and in doing so describes a full palette of fear-related emotions, from individual doubts and avoidance, to terror and generalised panic. Montaigne’s analysis and treatment of fear is unique because he is among the first philosophers to openly discuss his own fears and the variety of philosophical therapies he used to subdue them. After employing Stoic and Epicurean remedies, Montaigne found the most useful philosophical therapy in the sceptical Pyrrhonian tradition. Thus, the Essays express an open-minded, particularistic and anti-dogmatic approach to life. Montaigne’s motto ‘What do I know?’ reflects his non-partisan approach and receptiveness to improving his emotional well-being, as well as increasing his knowledge and joy of life by accepting life events as these unfold.
It is fear that I am most afraid of: In harshness it surpasses all other mischances.
Michel de Montaigne, Essays (Book I, “On fear”) (Montaigne 2003)
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Notes
- 1.
It is difficult to introduce Montaigne as a philosopher, as he did not belong to the ‘establishment’ nor did he want to become a ‘professional’ philosopher. He was a ‘humanist’ in the sense of Petrarch and Erasmus, a man of letters, and a politician. Nevertheless, the Essays is the work of a profound philosopher, one of the most original thinkers of the Renaissance who understood the human soul as few before or after him. Julie Roberts (2015, p. 246) considers the Essays as a “pathographically curative” text, with the effort to examine oneself as one of the main aspects of philosophical therapy. She connects Montaigne’s therapy with Foucault’s “care of the self” (Foucault 1986). Rachel Starr (2012, p. 436) considers the Essays as the pinnacle of “humanistic psychotherapy.”
- 2.
After publishing the first edition in 1580, Montaigne continued adding material, which creates some confusion, as he did not correct his previous concepts even when they were in contradiction with the new ones. The additions from 1580 to 1588 are marked with a “B”, whereas the additions from 1588–1592 made in the 1588 ‘Bordeaux copy’ (first published in 1595) are marked with a “C”. I have used Screech’s translation (Montaigne 2003), but also added material from Frame’s translation whenever I considered the concept to be more clearly conveyed (Montaigne 1965). Reference to specific essays will be given to by volume and number, and page numbers within specific essays will be referred to by volume, essay, and page number. Letters A, B and C are used, when necessary, to indicate the different editions.
- 3.
The presence of clearly demarcated philosophical stages in Montaigne’s intellectual evolution has been contested by a number of authors, and is extensively discussed in Bermúdez (2015, pp. 54–61). Frame (1955, pp. 5–7) describes three periods in Montaigne’s philosophical development: the first one (“Stoic period”) extended from 1572 to 1574; the second one (“Sceptical period”) extended from 1575 to 1577, and the final period (“Epicurean period”) extended from 1578 until Montaigne’s death in 1592.
- 4.
This type of autobiographical writing was not new (Montaigne’s Essays was preceded by Augustine’s Confessions and Petrarch’s Secretum), but Montaigne’s text is unique in the frankness of personal descriptions, in which a reader of any place and period may be easily reflected.
- 5.
Fear is a main theme in I.6 “The hour of parley is dangerous”, I.11 “On prognostications”, I.16 “On punishing cowardice”, I.19 “That we should not be deemed happy till after our death”, I.20 “To philosophise is to learn how to die”, I.21 “On the power of imagination”, I.33 “On fleeing from pleasures at the cost of one’s life”, I.39 “On solitude”, and I.57 “On the length of life”.
- 6.
This sounds anachronistic, but the extrapolation of the Essays into contemporary life is commonly practiced and for good reasons (Lazar and Madden 2015, pp. 1–2), as fear is one of the most primitive human emotions, the phenomenology in terms of feelings and behaviour has not changed in its conceptual essence, and the main causes of this emotion are perennial, such as the fear of death, poverty, sickness and wars.
- 7.
- 8.
“When he is threatened with a blow nothing can stop a man closing his eyes, or trembling if you set him on the edge of a precipice…” (A.2.3.388).
- 9.
“Anyone who is afraid of suffering suffers already of being afraid” (3.13.1243).
- 10.
The main essays discussing the fear of death are “Constancy” (1.12), “That the taste of good and evil…” (1.14), “That to philosophise is to learn to die” (1.20), “Solitude” (1.39) and “The inconsistency of our own actions” (2.1).
- 11.
The topic on the futility of premeditation is discussed in-depth in the penultimate essay “On physiognomy” (3.22).
- 12.
“I am one of those by whom the powerful blows of the imagination are felt most strongly. Everyone is hit by it, but some are bowled over” (A.1.21.109).
- 13.
“When I contemplate an illness I seize upon it and lodge it within myself” (C.1.21.109).
- 14.
“Once the pain has gone I am not much depressed by weakness or lassitude. I know of several bodily afflictions which are horrifying even to name but which I fear less than hundreds of current disturbances and distresses of the mind” (C.3.13.1245).
- 15.
“Then, there is no madness, no raving lunacy, which such agitations do not bring forth” (A.1.8.30).
- 16.
“Resigned to any outcome whatsoever once the dice have been thrown” (B.2.17.732); and “Few emotions have ever disturbed my sleep, yet even the slightest need to decide anything can disturb it for me” (B.2.17.732).
- 17.
“In events I act like a man: in the conduct of events, like a boy. The dread of a tumble gives me more anguish than the fall” (B.2.17.733).
- 18.
“…thank God we have nothing to do with each other” (A.1.24.143).
- 19.
“I tell those who urge me to take medicine at least to wait until I am well and have got my strength back in order to have the means of resisting the hazardous effects of their potions” (A.1.24.143).
- 20.
“Can I feel something disintegrating? Do not expect me to waste time having my pulse and urine checked so that anxious prognostics can be drawn from them: I will be in plenty of time to feel the anguish without prolonging things by an anguished fear” (B.3.13.1243).
- 21.
His father lived to 74 years, a grandfather to 69, and a great-grandfather to almost 80, “none having swallowed any kind of drug” (A.2.37.864).
- 22.
“How many men have been made ill by the sheer force of imagination? Is it not normal to see men bled, purged and swallowing medicines to cure ills which they feel only in their minds?” (A.2.12.547).
- 23.
“Why do doctors first work on the confidence of their patient with so many fake promises of a cure if not to allow the action of the imagination to make up for the trickery of their potions? They know that one of the masters of their craft told them in writing that there are men for whom it is enough merely to look at a medicine for it to prove effective” (A.1.21.116). Thus, the trickery of doctors consisted in using medications as strong placebos to cure imaginary illnesses, as well as convincing patients that their drugs were curing an otherwise irreversible condition (Justman 2015).
- 24.
Robert (2015, pp. 721–744) has analysed the subtle way in which Montaigne ridiculed both physicians and patients for engaging in fully unproven expensive treatments.
- 25.
“… they rob us of feelings and concern for what now is, in order to spend time over what will be – even when we ourselves shall be no more” (B.1.3.11).
- 26.
“The continual suspicion, which leads a Prince to distrust everyone may torment him strangely” (A.1.24.145).
- 27.
“So vain and worthless is human wisdom: despite all our projects, counsels and precautions, the outcome remains in the possession of Fortune” (A.1.24.143).
- 28.
“The longest of my projects are for less than a year; I think only of bringing things to a close; I free myself from all fresh hopes and achievements” (C.2.28.797).
- 29.
“My old age…deadens within me many of the desires and worries which trouble our lives: worry about the way the world is going; worry about money, honours, erudition, health… and me” (C.2.28.797).
- 30.
“I am the most ill-disposed toward pain” (C.1.14.69).
- 31.
“When my condition is bad I cling violently to my illness: I abandon myself to despair and let myself go towards catastrophe” (B.3.9.1072).
- 32.
“Death is the only guarantor of our freedom, the common and ready cure of our ills” (A.1.14.53). Montaigne acceptance of suicide is not explicitly stated in the text, perhaps due to fear of the Inquisition.
- 33.
It may also be the case that Montaigne had no firm opinion about the best ‘remedies’ for fear, and left different options open.
- 34.
“The anxiety to do well…puts the soul on the rack, break it, and make it impotent” (Montaigne 1965 1.10.26, Frame’s translation).
- 35.
Bakewell states that premeditation did not liberate Montaigne from his fears, but actually served to imprison him (Bakewell 2010, p. 3).
- 36.
“Do we ask to be whipped right now…just because it may be that Fortune will, perhaps, make you suffer a whipping some day?” (B.3.12.1189).
- 37.
“No man has ever prepared to leave the world more simply nor more fully than I have. No one has more completely let go of everything than I try to do” (C.1.20.98) [my italics].
- 38.
“How many country-folk do I see ignoring poverty; how many yearning for death or meeting it without panic or distress? That man over there who is trenching my garden has, this morning, buried his father or his son” (B.3.12.1178).
- 39.
This description seems to idealise and romanticise the behaviour of the ‘lower classes’, but this is what Montaigne was contemplating, what he saw in his own estate. Although he cannot know what was going on in the minds of his peasants and he employs a clumsy generalisation I believe that this image can be read as being used to contrast different human responses to fear and to show that fear can be successfully dominated.
- 40.
Hartle (2013, p. 17) also believes in a more opinionated than a non-judgmental Montaigne, stressing that throughout the Essays Montaigne constantly makes judgments of all sorts. This is certainly true, except for the questions that obsessed Montaigne the most: the fears of sickness poverty and death. When discussing Montaigne’s scepticism in relation to Sextus Empiricus, Bermúdez Vazquez remarks that “philosophical speculation leads only to confusion because of the inevitability of uncertainty. It produces anxiety rather than peace of mind” (p. 17).
- 41.
“Fear, desire, hope, impel us towards the future; they rob us of feelings and concern for what now is, in order to spend time over what will be – even when we ourselves shall be no more” (B.1.3.11).
- 42.
This has obvious Buddhist resonances, and may be related to Montaigne’s admiration of Pyrrhonism, which has many affinities with Eastern thought (Beckwith 2015). Pyrrho’s main concepts as reported by Sextus Empiricus had been translated into French about 20 years before the first edition of the Essays (see Calhoun 2015).
- 43.
Montaigne’s purported unnoticed way of life was only partially true, since while trying to stay away from the daily nuisance at his chateau, he would eagerly seek the company of the few erudite Montaigne had in esteem to engage in conversation, and more reluctantly, work for the king on political missions.
- 44.
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself” (A.1.39.272).
- 45.
This is clarified in a footnote by Screech (Montaigne 2003) as “I make a distinction,” a term used in formal debates to reject or modify an opponent’s assertion.
- 46.
“Life must be its own objective, its own purpose. Its right concern is to rule itself, govern itself, put up with itself” (C.3.12.1191).
- 47.
The number following the year corresponds to the remark in Philosophical Investigations.
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Starkstein, S. (2018). Montaigne’s Essays: A Humanistic Approach to Fear. In: A Conceptual and Therapeutic Analysis of Fear. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78349-9_4
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