Michel de Montaigne
1533-1592 · Renaissance Humanism · Prominent
Montaigne was a French nobleman who retired to a tower at thirty-eight and turned the rest of his life into a subject: his kidney stones, his cat, his fear of dying. Decades of that self-watching became the Essais and invented the personal essay. France was tearing itself apart in the Wars of Religion while he wrote, and he trusted no dogma and tolerated much. Que sais-je ran his motto, what do I know?
Signature
The position Montaigne is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Identity
- leans Changing
- Knowledge
- Skepticism
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Society
- mildly between Collectivism and Individualism (58 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Beauty
- leans Subjective (29 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Identity
- leans Changing (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly leans Multiplicity (69 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- mildly leans Immanence (33 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Subjective (25 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (71 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ethics
- mildly leans Means (67 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Montaigne refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Agnosticism / Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony / Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Social Invention
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Phenomenalism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Skepticism
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Law
- Common Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Agnostic
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Existence Precedes Essence
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Family / Friends
What is your primary bond and loyalty?