Bakewell, How to Live (Mon) 1-4
Hope you enjoyed Fall Break. Ours was very happy.
1. What form of writing did Montaigne invent?
2. What does essay mean?
3. After his accident Montaigne described his inward feelings as tranquil and sweet, a slide into ____.
4. His library represented what to Montaigne?
5. What's the difference between learning to die and learning to live?
6. What coda must we imagine attached to everything Montaigne wrote?
7. How did Montaigne's attitude towards books invert his father's?
8. What did Montaigne look for in a book (that later readers looked for in his books)?
Discussion Questions:
- How are the questions How to live? and How should one live? different? 4
- Is the Whitman approach to self-contradiction intellectually defensible? 7
- What are some important implications of the claim that "there is no escaping our perspective"? 10
- COMMENT?: "To philosophize is to learn how to die." 13
- What do you hope or expect will be your last conscious thought? 20
- What does it mean to you to "go with the flow"? 22
- Were Plutarch and Seneca right about peace of mind? 32
- Do you experience your consciousness as a continuous stream? 33
- Are you motivated by the reminder that time (and life) are running out? 37
- Do you "write about everything"?
- Do you practice a "strolling meditation" like Montaigne's? 38
- "Learning should be a pleasure..." 57 Why are so many of our schools so bad at meeting this ideal?
- Would you rather hear a well-crafted, scripted speech or spontaneous and unpremeditated extemporized talk? 70
- Why is Calvinist ideology ("total depravity" etc.) so powerful? 79
2011-01-01 | Learning to live means preparing to die. So thought Montaigne, until his own death neared more »
2014-06-14 | Shakespeare was 16 when Montaigne published his first essays. The line of influence isn't easy to discern, but it's there more »
2011-01-01 | 'Montaigne''s self-absorption feels contemporary, but he was no proto-blogger. He aimed for self-discovery, not self-display' more »
2013-02-21 | Gone is the rigor of Montaigne. Today's essayists are yarn-spinners, tall-tale tellers, humorists parading as autobiographers more »
2012-08-16 | Gore Vidal, witty, acerbic gadfly, novelist, memoirist, essayist - "an American version of Montaigne" - is dead at 86 more »
2015-01-30 | Montaigne thought that animals could speak but that man was too arrogant to hear them. So if your dog spoke up, what would she say? more »
2012-08-16 | Sincerity is a fickle friend, an artful pretense. Machiavelli manipulated it, Montaigne prized it, the Romantics made a fetish of it more »
2011-01-01 | 'Essays are a "loose sally of the mind," but Montaigne''s were marked by an intellectual humility not common among opinionators today' more »
2016-01-01 | Beloved by Montaigne, belittled by Voltaire and Napoleon, Tacitus was a literary artist, moralist, and historian — but in what order? more »
2017-09-25 | Montaigne was a politician, soldier, bureaucrat, and courtier before he became a philosopher. His work stands as a reminder of the permanent necessity of judgment more »
2014-05-22 | Montaigne on cocaine. Geoff Dyer's books have no plot and are often based on dubious ideas. They work beautifully. Why? He puts life over literature more »
2016-02-24 | Habit prophecy - think Montaigne and Benjamin Franklin - was once a form of ethical inquiry. Now - think Stephen Covey - the genre has devolved into self-help more »
2015-08-20 | The myth of the melancholy genius. Montaigne, van Gogh, David Foster Wallace: Society celebrates the aesthetic insights of depression. But take a closer look more »
2020-11-30 | Montaigne studied classical philosophy but claimed to learn nothing from it — the only moral authority he recognized was his own more »
2014-06-06 | Death is a topic about which much has been said, little of it reassuring. For Montaigne, who thought about it constantly, life meant preparing to die more »
2015-02-10 | Aquinas, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Hobbes, Diderot, Rousseau: Esotericism ? disguising real meaning through surface contradiction ? was an art that is all but lost more »
2010-01-01 | 'Michel de Montaigne hated the cruelty of religion: "It is putting a very high price on one''s conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account"' more »
2010-01-01 | â?'I am myself the matter of my bookâ? wrote Michel de Montaigne. He knew that by being so, he was engaged in producing something wholly original more »
2014-10-23 | Working in different languages at nearly the same time, Shakespeare and Montaigne invented the stylistic means for reflecting on the human condition more »
2017-07-04 | Just a contemplative philosopher? Montaigne’s life was full of misadventure: He fled mobs, was kidnapped by bandits, was exiled from the city where he was mayor more »
2017-01-10 | The arriviste Montaigne’s ascent as mayor of Bordeaux was based on bribes and payoffs. But are the local politics of the father of modern liberalism beside the point? more »
2016-09-29 | Philosopher problems. “All we do is gloss each other,” complained Montaigne in the 16th century. Since then the field’s issues have only worsened more »
2017-02-07 | “When I play with my cat,” Montaigne wrote, “how do I know she is not playing with me?” We can learn a lot from cats — contentment, for instance more »
2015-08-18 | For Montaigne, the three finest things in life are friendship, sex, and reading. The best? Reading. Your friend may die, your sexual partner may betray you, but literature is always there more »
1. What form of writing did Montaigne invent?
ReplyDeleteHe became the master of a form of writing in which the flow of consciousness is recorded in detail, moment to moment recreating in words the “a sequence of sensations as they felt from the inside.” (Bakewell, p. 23) I remember years ago trying to get into the writing of James Joyce in Finnegans Wake and Ulysses. It was very difficult reading. More recently I have read many of the works of Toni Morrison and found that writing brilliant and fascinating. What I have seen of Montaigne's writing so far is not obscure like James Joyce, and thankfully so. Interestingly, while talking one of my sons recently, out of the blue, he mentioned that someone had recommended that he read Montaigne. Over 400 years later this man is still influential. Wow!
Montaigne's essays are an exploration of personal consciousness but not an experimental "stream" (as Joyce's writing was). He meant to be clear, to actually communicate with others. He definitely succeeded, reaching across the centuries.
DeleteThat is an interesting story about your son. I think it would be interesting to know more about who recommended the reading and why.
Delete6. What coda must we imagine attached to everything Montaigne wrote?
ReplyDeleteMontaigne liked to conclude his thought by saying “though I don’t know” (Bakewell, p. 41) This is a wonderful way of leaving the thought open ended and making conversation welcome. It also reminds me of a saying common among the U.S. Marines which is often their coda: "It is what it is".
The acknowledgement of fallibility is refreshing, in contrast to so much dogmatic certitude (and attitude) in common currency. On the other hand, I wish people wouldn't always begin or end a statement with "that's only my opinion." Opinions are better or worse, persuasive or not. We don't need to remind others of that. But maybe we do sometimes need to remind ourselves.
Delete7. How did Montaigne's attitude towards books invert his father's?
ReplyDeleteMontaigne sought pleasure from his reading and did not read things that did not interest him while his father rather that reading or writing preferred a focus on doing, fighting, duty, and home improvements. He was “restless and interventionist to a fault”. (Backwell, p. 45) As often happens, Montaigne formed his personality by deciding what he did not like about how his parents acted and raised him. He had a hard time focusing on taking care of the property he inherited while his father was highly focused on his property during his lifetime.
I can relate to this in a lot of ways. My father was a man who handled his problems with violence or the threat of violence. In response I decided to learn how to handle things with my words and my reputation of reason and calculation.
DeleteHis father was apparently a dilettante who wanted to impress with his collection of books, while actually engaging with and understanding them was less a priority for him. Montaigne (the son) read in order to catalyze his own thought and understanding. The father-son/daughter dynamic is perpetually challenging, isn't it? A parent's job is to provide but not impose an example, and to provide as well encouragement to his children to find themselves. One of each of us is enough, we don't need to replicate ourselves.
ReplyDeleteHow are the questions How to live? and How should one live? different? 4
ReplyDeleteThe biggest difference in the questions how to live and how one should live is simple: obligation. The question how to live isn’t focused on the “right” way to live or what you are obligated to do as a person, but more so focused on how you experience life. How to live and maintain a good and fulfilling life, not just one you “should” live. It is a more personal, feeling approach to life rather than a logical or philosophical outlook.
What does it mean to you to "go with the flow"? 22
ReplyDeleteI think for me “go with the flow”, more than anything, means not being too burdened or overwhelmed by the things you cannot control. I think that is the easiest way we find ourselves stressed or overwhelmed, and it’s so freeing to realize you can’t control anything or anyone but yourself. The only thing you can do it act and respond accordingly and move on. I think another way of saying this would be kind of brushing things off. Not letting things outside of your reach take up free space in your mind.
What do you hope or expect will be your last conscious thought? 20
ReplyDeleteI hope that my last conscious thought will be of how fun my life was. I hope I think of having my children and all the fun we had while they were young. I hope that I think of the days I’m living right now and appreciate how much fun I had in my youth. I hope I think of all the years I spent with my spouse and appreciate the love we have for each other. I hope more than anything that I feel a sense of satisfaction with the life I lived and the things I left behind.
Would you rather hear a well-crafted, scripted speech or spontaneous and unpremeditated extemporized talk? 70
ReplyDeleteMy answer to this question is that it depends on the person speaking. Personally I think the person is more important wether or not it is scripted or spontaneous. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech as spontanious rather than scripted even though he wrote a script. The main reason why is becasue he already knew what he wanted to say. People know what they want to say if they are passionate enough and those are the speeches I want to hear. So I suppose my answer is that I prefer a passionate speech rather than a spontaneous one or a prepared one.
How are the questions How to live? and How should one live? different? 4.
ReplyDeleteHow one should live implies an ethical or moral imperative, equivalent to thou shalt not in the Ten Commandments. How ought vs how must.
Is the Whitman approach to self-contradiction intellectually defensible? 7. No, but it is not an intellectual argument he is making, he is just stating his own limitation.
What are some important implications of the claim that "there is no escaping our perspective"? 10. We can only understand our own perspective. People rely on their own life experience for knowledge.
COMMENT?: "To philosophize is to learn how to die." 13 Cicero’s claim, death is an essential subject, it symbolizes finality and for some the finitude of their existence. Death for Montaigne was not bleak, he was seduced by it, quite the opposite of being terrifying or introspective as to what it means to no longer be alive.
What do you hope or expect will be your last conscious thought? 20. Nothing, I would be dead before I realized death was imminent.
What does it mean to you to "go with the flow"? 22 Accept things as they are without worry or concern. Harmony with life as it is.
Were Plutarch and Seneca right about peace of mind? 32 Yes and no, obviously to be entirely present is how peace is attained but how one is entirely present is not clear, and actually, philosophical reflection is arguably at odds with being entirely present.
Do you experience your consciousness as a continuous stream? 33. I experience consciousness like a disease or demon that cannot be cured or exorcised. I would prefer to not be aware or doubtful of anything I do.
Are you motivated by the reminder that time (and life) are running out? 37. The fact I am mortal is my paramount motivation.
Do you "write about everything"? No. I write about what I am asked about. But I read a lot of books on my own.
Do you practice a "strolling meditation" like Montaigne's? 38. No, just still meditation.
"Learning should be a pleasure..." 57 Why are so many of our schools so bad at meeting this ideal? They are not designed to teach or be facilities for learning, a command from teachers, obedience, and regurgitation from students are the only concerns in school. Like a prison. In fact, the American Educational system is designed after the Prussian model which was made to make everyone an ideal soldier.
Would you rather hear a well-crafted, scripted speech or spontaneous and unpremeditated extemporized talk? 70 Spontaneous as the bulk of it, but with some points in mind to bind it together.
Why is Calvinist ideology ("total depravity" etc.) so powerful? 79 Because of its predeterminism. The predominant view of the entire Christian era has of free will, which gives each person accountability and responsibility, and our entire civilization and system are based on this credo. While the Calvinists claim “Humans have no virtues of their own”, indicating humans have nothing and