The Pyrrhonian Revival in Montaigne and Nietzsche

Berry, Jessica N.
Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 65, Number 3, July 2004, pp.
497-514 (Article)
Published by University of Pennsylvania Press
DOI: 10.1353/jhi.2005.0001
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Copyright 2005 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.
The Pyrrhonian Revival in
Montaigne and Nietzsche
Jessica N. Berry
Michel de Montaigne occupies a unique place in Nietzsches history of
ideas. He is one of a very few figures for whom Nietzsche expresses deep
admiration and about whom he has virtually nothing critical to say. This is a
rare enough mark of distinction; but contrary to what it might lead us to expect,
the relationship between Montaigne and Nietzsche has seldom been carefully
examined. There has yet to be a book-length study devoted solely to Montaigne
and Nietzsche,
1
and article-length treatments of the relationship between their
works and thought have been surprisingly scarce. What discussions there have
been tend to locate the connections between Nietzsche and Montaigne mainly
in matters of either literary or personal style,
2
but studies that examine
Montaignes influence on Nietzsche with an eye toward philosophical rather
than literary or stylistic issues have been almost non-existent.
3
This dearth of
treatments can be explained, at least in part, by the fact that, while Montaigne
is rightly recognized for the literary merits of his work and for its subsequent
influence on later prose stylists (and not only in French), his work on the whole
has seldom been appreciated as having any philosophical value in its own right.
Small wonder, then, that the connection between Montaigne and Nietzsche has
1
On Nietzsche and the French tradition more generally, however, see W. D. Williams,
Nietzsche and the French (Oxford, 1952), Brendan Donnellan, Nietzsche and the French Moral-
ists (Bonn, 1982), B. Bludau, Frankreich im Werke Nietzsches: Geschichte und Kritik der
Einflussthese (Bonn, 1979), and E. Martinez-Estrada, Heraldos de la verdad: Montaigne, Balzac,
Nietzsche (Buenos Aires, 1958). D. M. Marchi devotes a chapter to Montaignes influence on
both Emerson and Nietzsche in his Montaigne Among the Moderns (Providence, 1994).
2
Brendan Donnellan (ibid.), argues at length that Nietzsches aphoristic writing style is
due primarily to his reading of French writers.
3
Exceptions include David Molner, The Influence of Montaigne on Nietzsche, Nietzsche-
Studien, 22 (1993), 80-93, and Vivetta Vivarelli, Montaigne und der Freie Geist, Nietzsche-
Studien, 23 (1994), 79-101; see also the discussion in Petr Lom, The Limits of Doubt: The Moral
and Political Implications of Skepticism (Albany, 2001).
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 497
498 Jessica N. Berry
appeared more significant to commentators on Montaigne who are interested
in tracing his influence on later thinkers than to scholars of Nietzscheeven
those Nietzsche scholars who take an acute interest in his intellectual heritage.
What I will argue here is that Montaigne makes a more concrete and philo-
sophically more substantive contribution to Nietzsches thought than has gen-
erally been appreciated; specifically, by giving impetus to the naturalism that
develops in Human, All Too Human as an antidote to Schopenhauers pessimis-
tic metaphysics of will.
In this essay, I present a two-fold thesis about Montaignes influence on
Nietzsches early work. First, I will argue that the naturalistic turn in Human,
All Too Human reflects Nietzsches engagement with Montaigne during a cru-
cial moment in the development of his thought. Second, I will demonstrate that
the naturalism Nietzsche adopts from Montaigne has roots in the tradition of
Pyrrhonian skepticism that Montaigne carries forward into the Renaissance. In
the end, a better understanding of the skeptical ancestry of Nietzsches natural-
ism should help us make better sense of Human, All Too Human and its imme-
diate successors in Nietzsches oeuvre, which cultivate what otherwise seems
to be an uneasy partnership between naturalism and skepticism.
I. It is by now widely accepted that Nietzsches estimation of the value of
the techniques and methods of the natural sciences undergoes radical revision
in the period culminating in the first volume of Human, All Too Human (HAH),
4
a book sometimes described as inaugurating a positivist phase in Nietzsches
work. From the first of its nine major sections, Of First and Last Things,
HAH narrates a struggle between science on the one hand and philosophy on
the other. It is important to note the breadth of the extension of the term sci-
ence (Wissenschaft), which includes not only what we think of as the hard
or physical sciences (physics, chemistry, and the like) but also areas of inquiry
we now consider behavioral sciences such as psychology and sociology
and, Nietzsche would say, philology as well. Philosophy, by contrast is speci-
fied more narrowly. As Nietzsche uses the term throughout HAH, philoso-
phy is usually shorthand for metaphysical philosophy and singles out for
criticism the discourse of metaphysics that has dominated the philosophical
landscape at least since Plato.
In the sense in which Nietzsche worries about it metaphysical philoso-
phy promotes speculation about such supra-sensible entities as Platonic forms,
Descartess immaterial substances, and Kantian things-in-themselves. That
its contributions include, for instance, theories about the existence and immor-
tality of the soul accounts for Nietzsches grouping metaphysical philosophy
4
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, tr. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge, 1983);
cited below by volume number and aphorism.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 498
499 Montaigne and Nietzsche
together with religion and art as arts of narcosis.
5
Consciously or not they
endeavor to comfort us by assuaging our fear of death, our existential anxieties
about the purposelessness of suffering, and so on. According to Nietzsche, the
task and future of science as he sees it is to [cast] suspicion on the consola-
tions of metaphysics, religion and art
6
in two ways: by showing them up as
incommensurable with respectable standards of justification and explanation,
and by raising practical objections to these ersatz consolations.
The first of these practical objections, which we might call collectively
Nietzsches pragmatic argument against metaphysical philosophy, is that its
claims and concerns are utterly idle epistemically. Even if the existence of
such a world [the metaphysical world] were never so well demonstrated,
Nietzsche charges, it is certain that knowledge of it would be the most useless
of all knowledge, more useless even than knowledge of the chemical composi-
tion of water must be to the sailor in danger of shipwreck.
7
Even if we could
produce evidence to support our hypotheses, the truths proposed by meta-
physics would still be empty of significance since knowledge of them would
do nothing to change our experience of the world. Once the scientific spirit has
taken firm hold, Nietzsche hopes, Perhaps we shall then recognize that the
thing in itself is worthy of Homeric laughter: that it appeared to be so much,
indeed everything, and is actually empty, that is to say empty of significance.
8
In addition Nietzsche views metaphysical explanations as psychologically
suspect on account of their origin in the need to secure a transcendent guaran-
tee of lifes value.
9
As such, they are symptomatic of psychological weakness
and ill-health. Like Freuds explanation of the belief in God as an infantile
projection, Nietzsches account of the origin of faith in various metaphysical
theories is intended not so much to demonstrate their falsehood in any conclu-
sive way as to undermine confidence in them. What is more, the belief in meta-
physical theories and religion will on Nietzsches account turn out to be incom-
patible with the achievement of the best sort of state either for an individual or
for a society. So one of his central tasks in HAH is to champion the spirit of
scientific inquiry as one that belongs to higher cultures, at the same time
exposing the psychological drives behind metaphysical philosophy in such a
way as to discourage its practice altogether. It is the mark of a higher culture
to value the little unpretentious truths which have been discovered by means of
rigorous method more highly than the errors handed down by metaphysical and
artistic ages and men, which blind us and make us happy.
10
The hoped-for
5
HAH, I, 108.
6
HAH, I, 251.
7
HAH, I, 9.
8
HAH, I, 16.
9
HAH, I, 6.
10
HAH, I, 3; see also I, 9; I, 264; I, 609.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 499
500 Jessica N. Berry
result is to save philosophy by purging it of metaphysical pretense, divorcing it
from religious, artistic, and other narcotic endeavors, and claiming for it a
place alongside other naturalistic disciplinesa view that directly reverses
the position Nietzsche advocates in the earlier Birth of Tragedy.
In HAH Nietzsche first embarks on the project of translating man back
into naturea project he later describes with characteristic urgency.
11
As this
translation begins in HAH, the central planks in Nietzsches naturalist plat-
form are laid down. Centrally, he maintains that human beings should be un-
derstood as continuous with the rest of nature, asserting that for too long the
animal has, especially in the interest of ecclesiastical teaching, been placed too
far below man.
12
And not only that, for as Charles Taylor has described it,
naturalism is not just the view that man can be seen as a part of naturein
one sense or other this would surely be accepted by everyonebut that the
nature of which he is a part is to be understood according to the canons which
emerged in the seventeenth-century revolution in natural science.
13
Indeed,
we have already seen something of Nietzsches appreciation of scientific meth-
ods of explanation: when he remarks that metaphysical assumptions, unlike
empirical claims, are supported by the worst of all methods of acquiring knowl-
edge [i.e., a priori speculation], not the best of all [i.e., empirical observation],
he goes so far as to conclude that When one has disclosed these methods as
the foundation of all extant religions and metaphysical systems, one has re-
futed them!
14
Nietzsches recommendation will be that, for the reasons his
pragmatic argument suggests (i.e., that metaphysical and religious beliefs are
psychologically suspect and do no positive good) and for the reason that they
fail to be methodologically well-grounded, we ought not to engage in discourses
that would place facts or statements about the structure of reality beyond our
capacity to verify them. If we take this recommendation seriously, we will keep
to scientific methods of explanation, which will prevent our straying into murky
areas of a priori philosophical speculation and committing ourselves to beliefs
that are incommensurate with the picture of psychological well-being Nietzsche
wants to draw. He observes that one cannot believe [the] dogmas of religion
and metaphysics if one has in ones heart and head the rigorous methods of
11
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New York, 1989),
230.
12
HAH, I, 101; this view is consistent throughout HAH and in later works. See for example
The Gay Science, tr. Walter Kaufmann (New York, 1974), 115 ([man] placed himself in a false
order of rank in relation to animals and nature ...) and 77.
13
Charles Taylor, Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers (Cambridge, 1985),
I, 2.
14
HAH, I, 9; see also I, 256: Science furthers ability, not knowledge..., and I, 635: the
scientific spirit rests upon an insight into the procedures, and if these were lost all the other
products of science together would not suffice to prevent a restoration of superstition and folly.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 500
501 Montaigne and Nietzsche
acquiring truth....
15
The abandonment of such dogmas means the banishment
of myths that had served to substantiate a hierarchy that ranks human beings
substantially above the rest of nature. The belief in that hierarchy becomes
unsustainable, further reinforcing the continuity Nietzsche emphasizes between
human beings and the natural world.
At this point it is important to see that the naturalism that finds its voice in
HAH does not commit Nietzsche to the positive ontological thesis, which comes
packaged together with some articulations of naturalism, that there are only
natural entities.
16
In fact in HAH Nietzsche explicitly avoids the dogmatic de-
nial of supra-sensible entities and instead adopts a skeptical attitude about the
existence of purely metaphysical posits: It is true, there could be a metaphysi-
cal world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We behold all
things through the human head and cannot cut off this head; while the question
nonetheless remains what of the world would still be there if one had cut it
off.
17
In short we cannot settle the question whether non-natural stuff exists
because there is nothing available to us that could count as evidence either for
or against it, and we cannot settle questions about what it might be like, since
there are no agreed-upon standards for adjudicating such disputes. True, the
question what remains of the world remains, but we ought to suspend our
judgment about such idle and speculative matters.
II. Nietzsches rejection of metaphysical speculation in HAH accompanies
his critical reappraisal of Schopenhauers philosophy after The Birth of Trag-
edy. He observes of Schopenhauer in HAH that Much science resounds in his
teaching, but what dominates it is not science but the old familiar metaphysi-
cal need
18
the condition that makes metaphysical philosophy psychologi-
cally suspect. The naturalistic turn in Nietzsches work and the overcoming
of his attachment to Schopenhauer go hand in hand once Nietzsche fully real-
izes the impossibility of mapping his own views successfully onto the frame-
work of Schopenhauers metaphysics. The re-evaluation and ultimate rejection
of metaphysical philosophy in HAH is in fact the culmination of a lengthy
struggle to overcome Schopenhauers extravagant and pessimistic doctrines.
In the winter of 1876, at the same time at which he began work on HAH,
Nietzsche announced his intention finally to step out of the shadow of
15
HAH, I, 109.
16
As in Philip Pettits Naturalism, A Companion to Epistemology, eds. J. Dancy and E.
Sosa (Oxford, 1992), 297, and Bernard Linsky and Edward Zalta, Naturalized Platonism ver-
sus Platonized Naturalism, Journal of Philosophy, 92 (1995), 525. Both are quoted in Brian
Leiter, Naturalism and Naturalized Jurisprudence, Analyzing Law: New Essays in Legal Theory,
ed. Brian Bix (Oxford, 1998), 79-104.
17
HAH, I, 9.
18
HAH, I, 26.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 501
502 Jessica N. Berry
Schopenhauers thought, and in a letter to Cosima Wagner he even gestured in
the direction his work would soon take:
[W]ould you be surprised, if I confess to you a difference with
Schopenhauers teaching that has been gradually emerging, but which
appeared suddenly to me? I have been in disagreement with him on
almost all general theses. Even as I wrote about Schopenhauer, I no-
ticed that I found myself beyond everything dogmatic in his work; with
me, everything rested with the human.
19
In order to make sense of this last claim we have to understand how the terms
dogmatic and human can be taken as contraries. It is not immediately ap-
parent perhaps, but if I am right about the relevant senses of philosophy and
science in HAH, then Nietzsche in his letter is juxtaposing Schopenhauers
metaphysical philosophy (which, like religion, is characteristically dogmatic)
with his own burgeoning interest in moral psychology and the question of the
origin of moral sentiments and values (scientific interests, on Nietzsches view).
The contrast Nietzsche expresses here prefigures the distinction between phi-
losophy and science that will be fully articulated in HAH. The publication
of HAH only marks the point at which Nietzsche was ready to commit in print
to a critical re-evaluation of Schopenhauer that (as he indicates here) had al-
ready been going on for some time. Of course, Nietzsche never fully repudi-
ated Schopenhauer or his thoughtindeed, he positions himself explicitly in
later works as an inheritor of Schopenhauers teaching.
20
Clearly, though, the
early 1870s marked a period of serious critical reevaluation of and disillusion-
ment with Schopenhauers thought.
21
Prior to and throughout the writing of HAH, however, Michel de Montaigne
remains an important behind-the-scenes interlocutor and ally in the struggle to
liberate himself from Schopenhauerian metaphysics.
22
In Schopenhauer as
Educator, the 1874 essay celebrating Schopenhauer as his greatest teacher,
19
Letter to Cosima Wagner, 19 December 1876.
20
See, e.g., The Gay Science, 99.
21
See the Preface to the second volume of HAH.
22
Contra Maudemarie Clark, On Knowledge, Truth, and Value: Nietzsches Debt to
Schopenhauer and the Development of his Empiricism, Willing and Nothingness: Schopenhauer
as Nietzsches Educator, ed. Christopher Janaway (Oxford, 1998), 37-78, surely the clearest and
most forcefully argued investigation of this issue to date, I look to Montaigne (rather than
Schopenhauer himself!) to help explain Nietzsches naturalistic turn and his rejection of
Schopenhauers metaphysical philosophy. I fully agree with Clarks general account of Nietzsches
naturalism and with her characterization of the major project of HAH as an attempt to induce
skepticism concerning the metaphysical world by showing it to be cognitively superfluous (49).
But my task here is to push this interpretation even further by using skepticism in a technical
(i.e., Pyrrhonian) sense Clark does not recognize and by connecting it to this long tradition of
radical Greek skepticism, for whose transmission Montaigne becomes partly responsible.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 502
503 Montaigne and Nietzsche
Nietzsche carefully refrains from discussing Schopenhauers doctrines, already
raising the question whether he is attempting to distance himself from their
content. Instead, he focuses on Schopenhauers style as a writer and his virtues
as a person; but even in these arenas, Schopenhauers imperfections have be-
gun to come to light. In a revealing passage Nietzsche makes a direct compari-
son between Schopenhauer and Montaigne in respect of two virtues he prizes
most highlynamely, honesty and cheerfulnesssuggesting strongly that
Schopenhauer comes up short both times. I know of only one writer whom I
would compare with Schopenhauer, indeed set above him, in respect of hon-
esty: Montaigne. That such a man wrote has truly augmented the joy of living
on this earth. Schopenhauer has a second quality in common with Montaigne,
as well as honesty: a cheerfulness that really cheers.
23
Now, our interest is in
Montaignes philosophical influence on Nietzsches reassessment of Scho-
penhauer, and strictly speaking this remark draws no more attention to
Montaignes doctrines than to Schopenhauers. But it does tell us that in the
years preceding HAH Nietzsche is not only reading both figures but reading
them comparatively. Their juxtaposition in the context of Schopenhauer as
Educator, a meditation on the intellectual backdrop of his own work, suggests
that both men are candidates for playing an important influential role in
Nietzsches thought.
24
Montaigne surpasses Schopenhauer in some of the very
respects in which Schopenhauer has been a role model for the young Nietzsche.
Moreover, this remark is one of only three explicit references to Montaigne
in the Untimely Meditationsso the sudden, high praise of him may seem out
of place. In all three volumes of HAH, in fact, Montaigne is singled out by
name only four times.
25
(Though the great Arthur Schopenhauer is mentioned
more frequently, we should note that virtually all of these references temper
their praise with some qualification or other.) But Nietzsches infrequent men-
tion of Montaigne is in no way incompatible with his holding him in quite high
esteem; Nietzsche does not always acknowledge his intellectual debts. Fur-
thermore, it is important to take account of the tone and content of those scenes
in which these two characters play a role: in two of the four aphorisms of HAH
in which Nietzsche discusses Montaigne, Schopenhauer is mentioned also and
ranked either on a par with or else slightly below Montaigne in some respect.
26
Moreover, we must take into account what we might call Montaignes appear-
ances incognito in Nietzsches texts and not assume that Montaigne is present
only when named. (The same anecdote about superstition, for instance, that
23
Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, tr. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge, 1983), III, 2
(emphasis added).
24
I thank Christopher Janaway for pressing me to clarify this point.
25
HAH, I, 176; I, 408; III, 86; III, 214.
26
HAH, II, 408; III, 214. Note that the second passage draws attention to Montaigne as a
skeptic.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 503
504 Jessica N. Berry
Nietzsche relates in Part V of HAH, Tokens of Higher and Lower Culture, is
colorfully narrated by Montaigne in his essay On Prognostications.
27
) Fi-
nally, many of Nietzsches remarks about free and fettered spirits in HAH
are echoes or even paraphrases of Montaignes various condemnations of the
uncritical acceptance of traditionespecially religious tradition.
28
The image
of the free spirit was particularly significant for Nietzsche at the time of his
writing HAH, which he subtitled A Book for Free Spirits and which itself
replaced a fifth Untimely Meditation on the topic, planned but never written.
29
This motif makes for perhaps the most obvious comparison between Nietzsche
and Montaigne, one of the chief parallels noted by commentators so far.
30
In the first section of the Preface to the second volume of HAH Nietzsche
reflects on his previous publications, characterizing himself as having been
deep in the midst of moral skepticism and destructive analysis, which led
him to distance himself from Schopenhauers beliefsand from much else.
31
His retrospective assessment makes good sense in light of his heavy engage-
ment in the early- to mid-1870s with the skeptical tradition of French moral
psychology. Although as a young scholar Nietzsche had no more than a passing
familiarity with French thought as part of the regular curriculum at boarding
school at Pforta (1858-64), in Leipzig (1864-69) he encountered two major
sources of his interest in the French, the first Langes History of Materialism
and the second the work of Schopenhauer, both of which refer frequently and
favorably to the French moralists. It was not until Nietzsche took up his teach-
ing appointment in Basel in 1869, however, that his sporadic contact with the
French tradition began to bear more substantial fruit, prompting him to begin a
serious and systematic study of their work. One commentator speculates that
once that study got underway, from 1870 through the publication of HAH eight
years later, it is predominantly the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century [French]
moralists whom he reads.
32
During this time, Nietzsches friendships with the native French-speaking
Franz Overbeck and Ida Rothpletz-Overbeck were of critical importance.
33
Since
Nietzsches facility with French lagged behind his skills in the classical lan-
guages, he began to read and discuss works with friends from whom he urged
translations. Ida Overbeck was an especially helpful tutor and guide for
27
HAH, I, 255; Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne, tr.
M.A. Screech (London, 1985), I, 11, hereafter cited as Essais, volume number and number of
the essay, followed, where applicable, by page number.
28
Cf., HAH, I, 226 and Essais, II, 12, 497.
29
Karl Schlecta, Nietzsche Chronik: Daten zu Leben und Werke (Munich, 1975), 55.
30
See esp. Vivetta Vivarelli, ibid.; also Donnellan (ibid., 23) and Williams (ibid., Ch. 6).
31
HAH, II, P1.
32
See W. D. Williams, ibid., 8.
33
See the biographical sketches in Donnellan, ibid., and Williams, ibid.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 504
505 Montaigne and Nietzsche
Nietzsche; she had published some of her own translations of French authors,
and she held regular French evenings where friends met to read and discuss
works in French, especially those of the moral psychologists. Also, Nietzsches
intimate acquaintance with the Wagners, Cosima in particular, played a central
role in his growing interest in French thought. After accepting his appointment
at Basel, Nietzsche spent his first few holidays with the Wagners at Tribschen,
and at Christmas 1870 when Nietzsche gave Cosima Wagner a new essay On
the Dionysian World-view, she presented him with a complete edition of
Montaignes Essais in the original French, some of which they had been trans-
lating together.
34
The gift at least suggests that Nietzsches short acquaintance
with Montaigne had led to an immediate interest that continued to grow over
the next several years.
III. As for the naturalism Montaigne advocated and the skepticism which
so impressed him, we can get a vivid sense of both by considering his longest
sustained philosophical enterprise, An Apology for Raymond Sebond, which
essentially brings together a battery of skeptical arguments against what
Montaigne sees as the pretensions of human reason. The ostensible purpose of
this work was to defend a tract called Natural Theology (NT), written by an
obscure fifteenth-century Spanish physician and theologian, Raymond Sebond.
For whatever reason NT came to be seen by the French aristocracy of the time
as one of the last best hopes for holding at bay the pernicious influence of
Lutheranism. Sebond defends the thesis that, Without [divine] illumination
[human] reason can understand nothing fundamental about the universe.
35
There is a definite irony in Montaignes taking up the task of defending
Sebondand, by extension, apparently Catholicism. At the same time as his
work on NT was gaining popularity, he was gaining a reputation as a kind of
intellectual libertine and a challenger of both religious and moral conventions.
Montaignes skeptical and iconoclastic tendencies earned him something of a
renegade status within the Churchan important facet of Nietzsches por-
trait of Montaigne. As he notes in one Nachla passage: One is amazed at all
the hesitation and halting in Montaignes argumentation. But having been put
on the Index [of Forbidden Books] in the Vatican, and having long been an
object of suspicion for all parties, it is perhaps on purpose that he expresses his
dangerous tolerance and his scandalous impartiality in the sardonic form of a
kind of question.
36
The irony is perpetuated even through the text of the Apol-
34
Nietzsche lists the gifts he received in a letter to his mother and sister (30 December
1870).
35
Essais, Editors Introduction, xxiv.
36
Friedrich Nietzsche, Smtliche Werke, Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and
Mazzino Montinari (Berlin, 1980), XIII, 32. References to this edition of Nietzsches work (KSA)
will be cited by volume number and page.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 505
506 Jessica N. Berry
ogy: not only is Montaigne an unlikely defender of the faith, but his de-
fense also proceeds in a fairly unorthodox way. For one thing, after the first
fifteen or twenty pages of the Apology (an essay that runs to just over two
hundred), Montaigne hardly mentions the author, never appeals to his text, and
draws little attention to Sebonds actual thesis. The Apology is compatible,
in a loose sense, with Sebonds original aim, but Montaignes forays into ques-
tions about human reason often take him far afield of Sebonds work. This
neglect of the ostensible subject of the Apology, in combination with the
essays length relative to Montaignes other essays and the force, number, and
variety of arguments Montaigne employs, conspire to suggest Montaigne was
more interested in settling for himself certain pressing questions, about the
scope of human reason, for example, than in defending Sebond per se. Yet
these are just the features that make the Apology one of Montaignes most
philosophically interesting and important works.
Mobilizing his best rhetorical resources, Montaigne begins by claiming
that he does not really think it is possible to do better than Sebond has with this
topic.
37
He suggests modestly that his goal is merely to help others appreciate
the work more by clarifying its ideas and heading off two objections that have
kept NT from being better received. The first objection is that Christians ought
not to defend articles of their faith by means of reason, and the second is that
Sebonds arguments are simply bad and not worth taking seriously.
The first charge originates internally, that is, from within the church. It is
advanced by believers and underwritten by a pious zeal that Montaigne
insists must be treated with respect. Nevertheless, rather than arguing against
what may seem to be the more philosophically and theologically significant of
the two charges, Montaigne brushes it aside, tossing off a quasi-Aristotelian
argument that we have certain rational faculties by nature; and since nature
does nothing in vain surely there can be no higher aim for a Christian than to
use reason in the service of coming to better understand God and His world.
38
Montaigne then moves expeditiously to the second charge against Sebond,
that the arguments of NT are incurably bad ones. This charge, which he indi-
cates is advanced primarily by non-believers, warrants the more lengthy treat-
ment he will devote to it: Some say that his arguments are weak and unsuited
to what he wants to demonstrate; they set out to batter them down with ease.
People like those need to be shaken rather more roughly, since they are more
dangerous than the first and more malicious.
39
But Montaigne does not at-
tempt to defend the strength or efficacy of Sebonds arguments at all. Instead,
he aims to trample down human pride in its own rational abilities and spends
37
Essais, II, 12, 491.
38
Essais, II, 12, 492.
39
Essais, II, 12, 500.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 506
507 Montaigne and Nietzsche
the next 180 pages demonstrating that if Sebonds arguments are not any good,
he should not be blamedno one could have done any better. Let us see,
says Montaigne, whether a man has in his power any reasons stronger than
those of Sebondwhether, indeed, it is in man to arrive at any certainty by
argument and reflection.
40
The arguments Montaigne brings to bear in this demonstration exhibit two
especially important features. First and foremost is that all the arguments of the
Apology must be understood within the framework of the naturalistic posi-
tion Montaigne outlines in the first half of the essay. Recognizing that this
approach characterizes much of Montaignes work, Nietzsche observes in a
Nachla passage, Montaigne, too, in relation to the ancients, is an ethical
naturalist, but a boundlessly more rich and thoughtful one. We are thoughtless
naturalists, and that despite all our knowledge.
41
The second crucial feature is
that the argumentative style and tone of the Apology is completely indebted
to the skeptical philosophy of Sextus Empiricus.
42
In general Montaignes work
is distinguished by its erudition and its frequent and illustrative use of classical
texts, and indeed, this is one of the features to which Nietzsche explicitly calls
our attention as especially admirable about him.
43
Like Nietzsche, Montaigne
was fascinated by the figure of Socrates, and more often than not he character-
izes Socrates as a kind of skeptical figure.
44
Montaigne is also heavily indebted
to Plutarch, Cicero, and Diogenes Laertius, and he read broadly in (and made
copious use of) all the major Hellenistic traditions, including Seneca, Lucretius,
and Sextus Empiricus; but the Pyrrhonian tradition seems to have had the most
substantial impact on Montaigne personally. He draws heavily on a wealth of
ancient sources in the Apology but borrows almost all of his best examples
and arguments directly from Sextuss Outlines of Pyrrhonism. This ancient
skepticism, for Montaigne, motivates the naturalism in his views on human
knowledge; that is to say, this position falls naturally out of an understanding
of Pyrrhonian skepticism as Montaigne understands and presents it.
IV. The Apology is in large part oriented toward establishing the view
that human beings overestimate the value of the rational faculty, especially in
supposing that it is unique to human beings. This overestimation, Montaigne
40
Essais, II, 12, 501.
41
KSA, VII, 741.
42
See Dorothy Coleman, Montaignes Essais (London, 1987) and Jean Starobinski,
Montaigne in Motion, tr. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, 1985), 251; both purport to investigate
the sources and background of the Apology, but both neglect or surprisingly underestimate the
importance of Sextus for understanding the Apology.
43
HAH, III, 86; III, 214; see also Hugo Friedrich, Montaigne, tr. Dawn Eng and ed. Philippe
Desan (Berkeley, 1991).
44
See Hugo Friedrich, ibid., 53; and Paul Woodruff, Aporetic Pyrrhonism, Oxford Stud-
ies in Ancient Philosophy, 6 (1988), and Julia Annas, Plato the Sceptic, Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume, ed. J. Klagge and Nicholas Smith (1992).
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 507
508 Jessica N. Berry
thinks, is pure vanity on our part; and as a corrective he attempts to natural-
ize human beings by restoring them to their proper place and undermining
whatever ground we think we have for accepting a distinction between human
and animal capabilities. Harmonizing with the general spirit of HAH as well as
Nietzsches remark in Part II that the animal has, especially in the interest of
ecclesiastical teaching, been placed too far below man, Montaigne says that
one of his goals is to emphasize similarities with things human, so bringing
Man into conformity with the majority of creatures. We are neither above nor
below them.
45
To this end Montaigne makes use of a number of skeptical
strategies; here I discuss only the most prominent two.
First, Montaigne adopts a skeptical posture in the Apology by refusing
either to give his assent to or deny hypotheses that take us beyond the level of
straightforward empirical observation. According to the Pyrrhonists, when we
draw conclusions and make assertions that take us beyond simple reports of the
way things appear to us, we are entertaining speculations that cannot be justi-
fied, at least not without running afoul of one of the Modes of Skepticism.
46
It
is in this spirit that Montaigne takes up the issue about whether reason is the
possession of human beings alone and asks, How can [Man], from the power
of his own understanding, know the hidden, inward motivations of animate
creatures? What comparison between us and them leads him to conclude that
they have the attributes of senseless brutes?
47
Montaigne does not intend to
advance a positive argument in favor of the rational powers of animals. As a
Sextan Skeptic he is above all concerned that his attack on dogmatic convic-
tions about human reason not itself become dogmatic. Since Nietzsche is moti-
vated by a similar concern in HAH, namely, that his attacks on dogmatic meta-
physics not simply install new dogmas, this point is important. For it is this
concern that sets Pyrrhonism apart from other varieties of skepticism. Pyrrhonists
are well-known for their radical contention that they hold no beliefs at all
with the qualification, of course, that this holding back from belief does not
preclude their making reports about the way things appear to them.
48
Sextus
makes this qualification explicitly: When we say that Skeptics do not hold
beliefs, we do not take belief in the sense in which some say, quite generally,
that belief is acquiescing in something; for Skeptics assent to the feelings forced
upon them by appearances.... That is, when we investigate whether existing
45
HAH, I, 101; Essais, II, 12, 513-14.
46
See Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, tr. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (Cam-
bridge, 2000), I, 35-163; hereafter PH for Purrhoneioi Hupotuposeis, with citations by book
number and section numbers in Annas and Barnes. See also Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes,
The Ten Modes of Scepticism (Cambridge, 1985) and R. J. Hankinson, The Sceptics (London,
1995).
47
Essais, II, 12, 505.
48
See PH, I, 12ff.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 508
509 Montaigne and Nietzsche
things are such as they appear, we grant that they appear, and what we investi-
gate is not what is apparent but what is said about what is apparentand this is
different from investigating what is apparent itself.
49
It is by attending only to
the appearances that the skeptic claims to attend to the business of everyday
life without compromising his skeptical practice by holding opinions or form-
ing beliefs.
50
Second, Montaigne makes extensive use of a technique that is one of the
cornerstones of the Pyrrhonian strategy in argumentation. The strategy of in-
troducing equipollent arguments essentially involves the attempt to balance the
argument in favor of any conclusion with arguments of roughly equivalent per-
suasive force in favor of its opposite. Montaigne discusses the use of this strat-
egy explicitly (just after his first lengthy borrowing from Sextus
51
); but even
earlier than that he begins employing it himself and he continues to do so
throughout the Apology. Entertaining some of the reasons that might be of-
fered in support of the assumption that animals do not reason, for example, he
seeks to show that if we must draw a conclusion from appearances, the weight
of evidence on the side of animals having rationality fares just as well as the
evidence against it. Thus, we should hold back from formulating any conclu-
sions about the comparative power of animal and human rationality and stick
to the appearances, which suggest we are in much the same epistemic position
as the brutes.
His mode of demonstration here is pure Sextus: he introduces seemingly
inexhaustible catalogs of animal anecdotes hoping, by the sheer volume of
examples he produces, to make an equal case for raising animals up, as it
were, from the lowly position to which human arrogance would relegate them.
Rather than taking aim at one specific presupposition of this position, the argu-
ments that follow have rather the effect of grapeshot fired from a cannon: the
impact of any one of them is sufficient to cause some damage, but some may
overshoot and others fall short of the mark; their success really depends on
their being deployed collectively. This dialectical strategy (common in Sextuss
works and particularly fitting for the Skeptics, whose program precludes the
typical philosophical attempt to launch one solid argument in favor of a posi-
tion) accounts for the number and variety of Montaignes examples.
Montaigne does not attack religious orthodoxy overtly, but he challenges
the dogmas that accord with that orthodoxy, such as the belief that human be-
ings are endowed with special cognitive gifts, which properly exercised will
reveal the features of Gods design. Skepticism on this issue raises further ques-
tionswhich Montaigne leaves unasked and unansweredabout humans abil-
49
PH, I, 19.
50
PH, I, 23.
51
Essais, II, 12, 562.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 509
510 Jessica N. Berry
ity to know religious truths. Like Nietzsche, Montaigne comes to think the
dogmas produced by religious and philosophical speculation are not only un-
sustainable but also idle: his position finds him in perfect harmony with
Nietzsches pragmatic argument against metaphysical and religious discourses.
In the second half of the Apology, he turns his attention to the issue whether
metaphysical inquiries, the kind to which philosophers devote themselves, have
any relevance to human happiness. Philosophical theories, he concludes, do
not help us overcome the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, nor do they
make physical or psychological pain easier to deal with. Such hypotheses, even
if ultimately justifiable, would be irrelevant for much of human experience,
and they certainly would do nothing to promote human well-being. The focus
of the attack on learning in this part of the Apology is the same as Nietzsches
indictment of the usefulness of inquiry into metaphysics: it is not an attack on
the value of inquiry itself. As Sextus remarks, on the question whether Skep-
tics should study natural science, We do not study natural science in order
to make assertions with firm conviction about any of the matters on which
scientific beliefs are held. But we do touch on natural science in order to be
able to oppose to every account an equal account....
52
In the end Montaigne issues a curious warning to his readers to regard
skepticism as a weapon of last resort in defending religious belief against unor-
thodox challenges.
53
It is a curious addendum, since as we have already seen
Montaignes Apology does more to undo Sebonds argument for natural the-
ology than it does to defend it. Sebond, arguing for divine illumination, insists
that without it human beings are in no better position than the irrational ani-
mals. The success of his reductio rests on his readers rejection of that possibil-
ity, which Montaigne re-opens. But Montaignes warning that one should not
undo oneself with skeptical arguments in order to undo an opponent unless
there are no other means available is a curious contrast not only with the rest of
the text, but with what we know about much of Montaignes life and work. In
1576 Montaigne, just three years before writing the Apology and exactly
three hundred years before Nietzsche set down the first words of HAH, had a
medal struck bearing the picture of a balance and the motto Que say-je?. He
was genuinely impressed with Skepticismhe clearly made a careful study of
Sextus Empiricus as well as Cicero and Diogenes as soon as the publications
became available. And among the dozens of inscriptions on the walls and beams
of his study many were taken from Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Montaigne medi-
tated on such Pyrrhonian phrases as Sextuss [It is] no more this than that ...
and It appears to me that.... This skeptical attitude led Montaigne to a level-
headed naturalism that put him many times at odds with the orthodoxy he pro-
fessed to support.
52
PH, I, 18.
53
Essais, II, 12, 628.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 510
511 Montaigne and Nietzsche
V. Now that we have seen the skeptical arguments Montaigne brings in to
introduce his naturalistic view, we should return to HAH and make its debt to
Montaignes thought clearer. Part I of HAH sets the stage for the debate be-
tween science on the one hand and philosophy on the other. Ultimately, Nietzsche
advocates science as a remedy for the sickness he associates with the meta-
physical outlook. The task of rigorous science, he reminds us, is quite gradu-
ally and step by step, [to] illuminate the history of the genesis of this world as
ideaand for brief periods at any rate, lift us up out of the entire proceed-
ing.
54
Fundamentally, the task is a psychological one insofar as illuminating
the history and genesis of what Nietzsche calls the metaphysical errors brings
to light their underlying psychological drives so as to show that they are sup-
ported only by the worst of all methods of acquiring knowledge.
55
This way of characterizing the task of science, I think, explains Nietzsches
move in Part II of HAH (On the History of the Moral Sensations) from a
critique of philosophy, that is, metaphysics, to an engagement with psychology
as a particularly indispensable and genuinely scientific project: [A]t its
present state as a specific individual science the awakening of moral observa-
tion has become necessary, and mankind can no longer be spared the cruel
sight of the moral dissecting table and its knives and forceps. For here there
rules that science which asks after the origin and history of the so-called moral
sensations....
56
The science Nietzsche has in mind here is moral psychology.
Accordingly, this part of the book opens with a lament about the general state
of neglect into which the French moralists have fallen: Why does one not
even read the great masters of the psychological maxim anymore?
57
The an-
swer, he suggests, is that the unpleasant consequences of [their] art have
compelled us to direct our eyes away from it.
58
The masters of the art of psy-
chical examination, according to Nietzsche, are like skillful marksmen who
again and again hit the bulls-eyebut it is the bulls-eye of human nature.
59
The art these marksmen undertake dispels metaphysical illusions by uncov-
ering the motivations that give rise to them in the first place. And their ap-
proach yields disconcerting results for the ordinary, everyday man for whom
the value of life rests solely on the fact that he regards himself more highly
than he does the world.
60
To give up the belief in a metaphysical world is to give up the flattering
idea that human beings stand above nature and are capable of a Gods-eye
54
HAH, I, 16.
55
Loc. cit.
56
HAH, I, 37.
57
HAH, I, 35.
58
HAH, I, 36.
59
Loc. cit.
60
HAH, I, 33.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 511
512 Jessica N. Berry
view of things. Nietzsche puts the point in terms of a conjecture about lan-
guage, the sourceas he sees itof much metaphysical confusion:
The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this,
that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world,
a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the
rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the
extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names
of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that
pride by which he raised himself above the animal....
61
The human pride and arrogance attacked by both Montaigne and Nietzsche,
however serviceable it may at times have been for the survival of the species,
originates in make-believe, a kind of projection. The non-naturalistic view ac-
cording to which human beings are over and above is founded upon meta-
physical fantasizing, which is why skeptical attacks on metaphysical philoso-
phy and other arts of narcosis are supposed to be effective against it. In a
human being who is not equipped with the proper temperament, giving up such
beliefs is apt to bring about a state of despair. Nietzsche acknowledges that this
is so but claims that whether psychological observation is more advantageous
or disadvantageous to man may remain undecided; what is certain, however, is
that it is necessary, because science cannot dispense with it.
62
In the face of the stark naturalistic picture offered by science we can fully
appreciate the value and importance of the cheerfulness Nietzsche attributes
to Montaigne. For it is only with such a temperament that In the end one [will]
live among men and with oneself as in nature, without praising, blaming, con-
tending, and so on.
63
That Nietzsche opens Part II of HAH by paying homage
to the French tradition indicates that he views these figures as the progenitors
of the scientific spirit in moral psychology. But Nietzsches regard for Montaigne
is not due to his eminence as a fore-runner of naturalism and as a psychologist
only. Nietzsche is also keenly attuned to Montaignes skepticism, since in HAH,
too, skepticism is a necessary antidote to metaphysical dogmatism. It is what
unseats the justification for metaphysical hypotheses without forcing Nietzsche
into the opposite (negatively dogmatic) position of denying the existence of,
for instance, things-in-themselvesrecall Nietzsches reluctance to dispute the
absolute possibility of a metaphysical world in HAH, I, 9. There are many
reasons to think this is in fact a priority for Nietzsche, and among them is
61
HAH, I, 11 (emphasis added); see also HAH, I, 5 and his earlier unpublished essay On
Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense.
62
HAH, I, 38.
63
HAH, I, 34.
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 512
513 Montaigne and Nietzsche
certainly the sustained attack on convictions (those dangerous enemies of
truth) with which the final section of HAH begins and ends.
64
There, Nietzsche
urges that gradually the scientific spirit in men has to bring to maturity that
virtue of cautious reserve [jene Tugend der vorsichtigen Enthaltung], that wise
moderation [jene weise Mssigung] which is more familiar in the domain of
practical life than in the domain of theoretical life.
65
The attitude recommended
here resonates deeply with the Pyrrhonists adherence to epoch, or holding
back from judgment.
Finally, we must ask what effect this holding back from judgment has on
Nietzsches naturalism and on his advocacy of scientific methods of investiga-
tion. Does the very skepticism that inoculates him against the sickness of the
metaphysical outlook inadvertently infect and undermine his naturalism and
his desire to install the sciences as models for rational inquiry? This question
expresses a general philosophical worry about the compatibility of skepticism
and naturalism; to see the problem more clearly, we need only recognize that
skeptics claim not to dogmatizethat is, to hold any beliefsand that natural-
ists, surely, have at least a few beliefs. How can the two positions be commen-
surable?
The resolution to this problem will inevitably turn on the hotly-contested
interpretive issue of what the Pyrrhonist means by belief. The most radical
interpretation gives belief a very wide scope, such that the skeptic claims to
withhold his assent from every proposition: the skeptic has no beliefs at all. On
this interpretation, it is clear that no skeptic could also be a naturalist. More
restricted interpretations, however, offer a strong reading of Sextuss claim
that skeptics do not hold beliefs in the sense in which some say that belief is
assent to some unclear object of investigation in the sciences.
66
This qualifi-
cation, say proponents of the restricted interpretation, gives the skeptic license
to hold all sorts of beliefs without abandoning his skeptical program.
67
Neither
avenue of interpretation is without its difficulties, yet each can claim a follow-
ing in the scholarship on ancient skepticism.
Let it remain an open question whether the restricted interpretation of
Pyrrhonian skepticism gives us the most historically accurate way of reading
the extant texts: it is evident that it offers us a perfectly plausible way of under-
standing the skeptical project carried out in Pyrrhos name, and one that has
enjoyed a long and quite respectable career in the scholarship on skepticism in
the Hellenistic era. The restricted variety of skepticism, aimed as it is at beliefs
supported by reason alone (i.e., a priori speculations about matters that are
64
HAH, I, 483; I, 629-37.
65
HAH, I, 631.
66
PH, I, 13-15 (emphasis added).
67
See Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede, The Original Sceptics: A Controversy (India-
napolis, 1997).
65.3berry. 12/17/04, 11:05 AM 513
514 Jessica N. Berry
unclear or hidden [adlos] and cannot be settled by recourse to the way
things appear), leaves room for preferring certain methodological (skeptical
or scientific) practices for making diagnoses of the sort we find in Nietzsches
pragmatic argument and for entertaining views about the way things arestop-
ping short of making claims about the way things really are.
68
It supports rather
than rules out Nietzsches and Montaignes naturalist intuition about the way
things are with respect to human beings and their place in the worldby all
appearances, human beings ought to be counted among the rest of the ani-
malsand it cautions us against drawing further conclusions that would be
grounded in nothing more than vanity and insecurity. The Pyrrhonian skeptics,
whom Sextus also characterizes as students of natural science, advocate sus-
pension of judgment as a therapy for a variety of psychological ills associated
with the having of beliefs, at least beliefs of certain highly specific varieties.
Nietzsche and Montaigne, who discuss the dogmas of religion and metaphysi-
cal philosophy in similarly pathological terms, take up those arguments in a
similar spirit of service to the well-being of individuals and (for Nietzsche)
entire cultures.
69
University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
68
See Michael Frede, The Sceptics Beliefs, ibid., 12-15.
69
For his helpful comments on earlier drafts, I am especially indebted to Brian Leiter. I also
thank Kathleen Higgins, Robert Solomon, Richard Bett, R. J. Hankinson, Matthew Evans, Tim
OKeefe for their comments and suggestions, and Eric Loomis for translation advice on second-
ary sources. Finally, I would like to thank the participants of the 23-24 March 2001 conference
Nietzsche: Philosophical Influences and Philosophical Legacies in Austin, Texas: Maudemarie
Clark, Nadeem Hussein, Christopher Janaway, John Richardson, and my commentator Paul
Woodruff.
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