Chapter 6 - 5

05 Philosophy

listen to a discussion in a philosophy class. fill in the diagram with the information that you hear.

W: OK, so today we’re discussing “positive skepticism”.

I’d like to spend some time talking about what it is, and more importantly, the influence of Michel den Montaigne on its development.

First imagine yourself living in a country that is being torn apart by bloody was fought between opposing religious groups.

You belong to one of these religious groups, but you see no point to the wars.

All they bring his disjunction.

You have been educated to see that life can be and indeed was once better for all humans.

What do you do?

M: I’d have to leave my country and go live somewhere else.

W: OK. Anything else?

M: I guess you could try to get the two sides to stop fighting. But that would be really tough.

W: Good. So you can see a little of what kind of decision Michael den Montaigne was facing when his home country was being devastated by religious wars between Protestants and Catholics during the 16th century.

Montaigne was a Catholic, but he had no desire to take sides.

So he left his job as a lawyer in the city and withdrew to live quietly in the country.

You see, Montaigne was educated to value human dignity and believe education could help people improve morally.

The world he saw around him was the opposite, so we decided to investigate why this was so.

His investigations and writings inspired an intellectual trend known as “positive skepticism,” a new approach for criticizing the harmful effects of tradition and authority.

M: Wait. How could he investigate the social problems of his time if he fled to the countryside?

It’s not like they had TV and Internet back then.

W: And even if they did, Montaigne would not have trusted them.

You see, he felt that all he really could know was himself, and so he began his investigation by rigorously questioning himself and everything he thought he knew and answered the questions honestly.

This prepared him to ask serious critical questions about society.

His method influenced “positive skepticism” in three ways.

One was that he found that extreme positions in politics and religion were dangerous but appealing to many people. Why?

Because they were easier than doing the hard work of thinking carefully.

It is much harder to understand the complexities of the world and to live with them.

So Montaigne criticized these extreme positions.

The brings us to his second contribution, and that was to promote moderation and tolerance.

If more people shared Montaigne’s view and refuse to give in to the extremes, then 16th century Europe may have been a much more prosperous and less bloody place.

Finally, he rejected absolute positions, especially in terms of religious truths and morality, even though he was a religious man.

This was an extremely important contribution since the wars of his time were fueled by religion and hatred of other religious groups.

The most extreme believers could not talk to one another to solve their differences because each side was convinced that it was absolutely 100 percent correct and the other side was 100 percent wrong.

These methods of critical thinking are still with us today and have inspired many writers to be skeptical of tradition and authority in their own times.

1) Based on information from the discussion, indicate whether or not Montaigne accomplished each task before beginning his investigations. Place a checkmark in the correct box.