Anthony Gottlieb writes on the renewed interest in 16th Century French essayist Michel de Montaigne for The New York Times:
Like Socrates, Montaigne claims that what he knows best is the fact that he does not know anything much. To undermine common beliefs and attitudes, Montaigne draws on tales of other times and places, on his own observations and on a barrage of arguments in the ancient Pyrrhonian skeptical tradition, which encouraged the suspension of judgment as a middle way between dogmatic assertion and equally dogmatic denial. Montaigne does often state his considered view, but rarely without suggesting, explicitly or otherwise, that maybe he is wrong. In this regard, his writing is far removed from that of the most popular bloggers and columnists, who are usually sure that they are right.
And, funnily enough, Sarah Bakewell author of How To Live: Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer — one of the books mentioned by Gottlieb — recently spoke to Eleanor Wachtel about Montaigne for CBC Radio’s Writers & Company:
CBC RADIO WRITERS & Co. WITH SARAH BAKEWELL
The cover of the US edition of How To Live, published by Other Press, is by Mr. John Gall (pictured above). But you knew that already of course….