The Review of Metaphysics

Volume 65, Issue 4, June 2012

The Invisibility of Philosophy in the Essays of Michel de Montaigne

The Essays do not look like philosophy in any traditional sense: there are no arguments, conclusions, or proofs, and no apparent philosophical teaching. Yet, Montaigne does describe himself as a philosopher: “a new figure: an unpremeditated and accidental philosopher.” Unpremeditated and accidental philosophy, however, just looks like the formless and disordered thoughts of ordinary life and conversation. While philosophy is invisible, Montaigne himself is always visible. Philosophy disappears into the pre-philosophical at the same time and in the same act by which Montaigne emerges into the public in his concrete particularity. The Essays do not look like philosophy because philosophy is not a teaching but an act, the act of bringing the private, common man into the public. At the same time and in the same act, Montaigne transforms both philosophy and human association: the philosophical act is the invention of modern society.