My Montaigne Project - Latest Comments

Re: Montaigne Today, July 26, 2011

danconley — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 12:16:03 -0000

The crucial problem with your essay remains, Patrick. You set up Montaigne as a straw man and took his quotations and life decision out of context. You failed to acknowledge in your piece that Montaigne's decision to withdraw from a life of service was made mid-life after many years of toil, which is quite a different decision than one made at the beginning of a career. Was Montaigne an ascetic monk? No, and thank God for that, otherwise we'd have none of his writings today and the world would be far worse off. If you admire Montaigne, then you should respect the choice he made and not score cheap points on a decision taken after decades of service and toil. Once you've been out in the world for a couple decades and have seen what a miserable grind it can be, you might come to have some reverence for Montaigne's inward turn. And given how introspection is slowly dying from the world, perhaps you will see that Montaigne brought a light to the world that can easily flicker away if everyone insists on living purely on immediate surface impact, with transparent lives that are concerned only with the material concerns of the day. Montaigne is not the enemy of virtuous, it's the postmodern materialists who are the greatest threat to the humane.

Re: Montaigne Today, July 26, 2011

Patrick Mccabe — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:30:27 -0000

Hi Dan,

Some vain Googling of my article has led me to your
reflection. Thanks for taking the time to read and reflect upon my article –
it’s certainly very interesting to read your musings. However, in the spirit of
friendly debate, I want to take issue with a few of your objections to my
article.

First, you assert that Montaigne in fact selflessly served others,
inspired by the memory of his father’s altruism. You quote an excerpt from ‘On
Restraining Your Will’ to establish this, in which Montaigne admires his
father’s selflessness. I must say I think your selection of quotations is a bit,
well, selective. The very next sentence after the quoted passage reads:

“Such ways I praise in others: but do not like to follow
them myself: not without some justification.”

That is a pretty crucial qualification of the passage you
quoted. While Montaigne admired his father’s selflessness, he did not wish to
emulate it. Moreover, a number of other passages of ‘On Restraining Your
Will’ reinforces my characterisation of Montaigne, rather than undermines it.
Other pertinent quotations from the essay include:

“In my opinion we must lend ourselves to others but give
ourselves to ourselves alone.”

And most pertinent of all:

“I have enough to do to order and arrange those pressing
affairs of my own ... without having a jostling crowd of other folk’s affairs
... trampling all over me; I have enough to do to attend to [my own] matters
... without inviting in outsiders. Those who realise what they owe to
themselves ... discover that Nature has made that an ample enough charge...”

Next, you claim that I asserted Montaigne had no empathy for
peasants. That’s not correct – I wrote that Montaigne had no feeling of
obligation towards the peasants (or other citizens). I think that the above
quotations, combined with the quotations in the article, demonstrate that fact
sufficiently. That doesn’t mean he was a heartless snob who thought peasants
were devoid of any merit. It just means he didn’t think it was up to him to
help peasants get out of their predicament. While I haven’t counted the number
of references to peasants Montaigne makes, as an admirer of Montaigne, I’m sure
you’re right. But I don’t think Montaigne’s empathy for peasants contradicts
anything I wrote in my essay.

Third, you quote a passage of my essay and claim that it
ascribes to Montaigne a ‘proto-Randian’ viewpoint that he did not hold. I agree
that Montaigne was not a ‘proto-Randian’, and that the argument you quoted
could be described as such. However, I don’t agree that I ascribed that
argument to Montaigne. I clearly ascribed the arguments to “proponents of the
‘Montaigne approach’”, not Montaigne. In the context of the essay, it is made
clear to the reader before this point that ‘the Montaigne approach’ is merely
shorthand for ‘the idea that one should pursue one’s interests, rather than
devote oneself to the selfless service of others.’

Finally, after all your accusations of misrepresentation, I
dare say that you might just engage in one yourself. You preface a quotation
from my article with the words “McCabe concludes:” The quotation in question
begins with the words “I am inclined to conclude...” Presented thus, it appears
to your readers that this quotation is in fact my conclusion. However, the next
few sentences of my essay in fact quickly dismiss this initial conclusion as
“too easily expressed on paper”, before eventually reaching a much more
tentative, less bold conclusion.

I very much enjoyed reading
your post, and just to clear it up, I am a fellow admirer of Montaigne. I don’t
think he’s a solipsistic, amoral capitalist. I just think he made the very
reasonable decision not to devote his entire life to a noble, selfless ideal,
but to live a balanced, content existence.

Regards,

Patrick McCabe

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

danconley — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:01:09 -0000

I'm skeptical that humans make those choices both consciously and routinely. These choices rise to the level of consciousness only in the most extraordinary circumstances (Hamlet's dilemma, also Beckett's "I can't go on ... I'll go on") but those are moments of high drama. Heidegger exposes out how peculiar it is that we continually go on and have something that can be called a routine life. But I think it's a mistake to think of it as a conscious life. I have four year old twins who have to be begged and prodded to get ready for school every day. For them, the routine of waking up at the right time, getting dressed, eating, brushing their teeth and getting into the car doesn't exist. Every day consists of conscious acts of following orders. I would contend that ontological consciousness is something that becomes routine at birth. Fortunately, we never had to go through a period of being told to breathe, eat and go to sleep. Our continuing existence doesn't require us to answer why.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

Rex Styzens — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:44:22 -0000

It's called "ontology," as you well know. I do not go around telling myself, "I need to choose life. I need to choose life." Yet when I stop to think, that is what I am doing.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

danconley — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:36:06 -0000

Yeah, I get that. It's just that Heidegger has a way of taking the most dramatic human experiences and draining them of life. For Hamlet, it wasn't just a simple question of whether existence is worth it, it was more deeply a question of whether he wanted to live in a world where revenge was the only apparent option. This is a question Nietzsche wrestled with in numerous places. Montaigne's eternal examination of Stoicism fits too ... when is suffering and withdrawal the best option? Even Nietzsche, who despises all forms of asceticism, comes down on the side of saying yes to suffering, seeing it as something that makes him stronger. That seems to me like a renaming of Stoicism. Heidegger's world is an interesting examination of people and their furniture, but it often seems to be bereft of other people.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

Rex — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:22:15 -0000

Incidentally, I interpret "...in its being this being is concerned about its very being” to include what Hamlet in his most famous soliloquy represents. The choice may not be a conscious one, but we must choose each day to live, since we are fully aware of the option.

Re: Why Hollywood Sucks

danconley — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:14:22 -0000

I have read some reviews that raise a similar point in a more positive light -- viewing "Hugo" as an antidote to the mechanical "useless" man in a global economy, abandoned and unloved. But even this interpretation assumes that humans have a single defined purpose. I'm terrified by the Kurzweil myth of post-humanity and if Americans had any idea how much money technology companies such as Google are directing towards these goals ... well, they'd probably be just as apathetic.

There's also a Christian/existentialist element to "Hugo," like all Scorsese films. There's always a fish-out-of-water savior in a Scorsese film who restores the world to balance. I guess if you're the world's most famous director, you come to believe that your own success was inevitable and God ordained. The one-percent always believes in Providence.

Re: Why Hollywood Sucks

Rex Styzens — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:03:36 -0000

I am surprised to have seen no comments yet about how "Hugo" can be viewed as a cosmetic cover for "Frankenstein's Monster." While Ray Kurzweil can get away with his fantasies of mehanical men, surely the medical profession must object to the idea that living things can be "fixed" rather than "healed," which involves the capacities of the patient as well as the doctor. I know of no louder objections than those Heidegger raises to warn us of allowing ourselves to be treated as technology, whose images populate this Scorcese travesty..

Re: Pynchon on Newspeak

Rex Styzens — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:55:48 -0000

GW Bush may not have had Orwell in mind, but he sure seemed to have learned well Big Brother's program.

Re: More Trashing of Heidegger

Rex Styzens — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:39:03 -0000

Emerson was a snob, to be sure. My impression is that it was less a matter of his admiration of the wealthy than it was discomfort with the hordes of poor immigrants pouring into his elitist Boston neighborhoods. He most admired the poet, such as Whitman, who was far from wealthy.

And Heidegger's attempts using linear language to express what philosopher Donald Davidson later called "anomalous monism" require translation, to be sure. Davidson invented his phrase to preserve his primary loyalty to causality while including human freedom as spontaneous. We need sentences to offer a complete thought. Sentences require a subject and verb. How else can one write of the non-causal "Being is always the being of a being”? His efforts at the pre-cognative continue to receive attention, as no philsophy can begin without something "Given that."

Watched a 2D version of "Hugo" last night. It made me wonder also about the nostalgia of Hollywood, where the top awards go to self-serving pep talks. If it is entertainment or education, it seems the former will usually prevail.

Re: Of The Education of Children (take two)

Montaignem2012 — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:22:50 -0000

Hi Dan
I enjoyed this essay, and your project. I'm attempting something quite different but, I think, very relevant. I've only just started. I'd be reallt grateful if you could have a look and tell me what you thought

http://essaysbymontaigne.blogs...

Re: Burying Heidegger

Ryan — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:31:53 -0000

Stephen Mulhall's Heidegger and Being and Time in the Routledge Guidebooks series has a fair amount to say about Part II of being and time, arguing that the coherence of Part I turns upon it. It's been a few years since I read it, but I believe it was Dreyfus' reading he specifically had in mind to oppose.

Re: Emerson Seen Darkly

Steve — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:03:27 -0000

You have a fantastic way of writing Dan, so captivating...

Re: Philosophy for Kids: On educating children

Steve — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:58:11 -0000

I really like this quote which I think relates directly to the Philosophy of Education

Re: Strike Three

danconley — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:28:59 -0000

That's okay, I don't need confirmation and I'm perfectly happy to have my core beliefs challenged. Although I will say that my view is closer to the universe is cold, cruel and out to kill us, but life is a gift. In other words, given what we know about the universe, we're extremely lucky to be alive in it and we should treasure that fact. I'm much closer to Nietzsche's eternal recurrence than Schopenhauer's gloom.

Re: Strike Three

Rex Styzens — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:10:46 -0000

I have read that RWE maintained his belief in compensation the whole of his lifetime. While the details of his explanation in the essay by that name can be contested, and while in his later essay "Fate" he makes clear that he is aware of the dangers and threats to life, if you are looking for confirmation of your view of the universe as "cold and out to kill us," I am sure you will not find it in his work.

Nor will you find proof that life is a gift. But that is RWE's worldview.

Re: Strike Three

Rex Styzens — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:41:46 -0000

RWE's notion of compensation is also for me the most difficult to rationalize. I do it by crediting him with being a theologian as well as philosopher: compensation is a statement of faith. Elsewhere in his writings similar episodes give evidence of his faith that doing the right thing is rewarded beyond the evidence of calculation.

I read somewhere that some see it as simply the idea that we cannot do everything at the same time; in order to do one thing, we must accept that we cannot do the other thing. Then RWE's view of compensation might compare to Newton's law that every action provokes an equal and opposite reaction. I expect that had to be taken on faith in its time. Today we have a more complex view.

Re: Self-Reliance and Rhetoric

Rex — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:52:22 -0000

Part of the reason that Nietzsche denied RWE the status of philosopher may be that RWE placed a responsibility on the teacher to "to lift and cheer." RWE addresses genius again at the end of "Experience.":

"Patience and patience, we shall win at the last. We must be very suspicious of the deceptions of the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life. We dress our garden, eat our dinners, discuss the household with our wives, and these things make no impression, are forgotten next week; but, in the solitude to which every man is always returning, he has a sanity and revelations which in his passage into new worlds he will carry with him. Never mind the ridicule, never mind the defeat; up again, old heart!--it seems to say,--there is victory yet for all justice; and the true romance which the world exists to realize will be the transformation of genius into practical power."

Re: The American Religion

danconley — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:49:08 -0000

There is a Bercovitch/Lasch version of Emerson out there that blows up all American liberal/conservative notions. Given my disgust with politics (and my life spent feeding the beast), the search may be worthwhile.

Re: Emerson: Need I Continue?

danconley — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:46:14 -0000

Thanks for the comment -- I agree, Emerson hasn't been done. I've only scratched the surface myself. I can't go on, I'll go on.

Re: Emerson: Need I Continue?

Kelly Jolley — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:28:35 -0000

I write essentially for myself, accidentally for others. So--if it's working for me, it's working. If others find it works for them, great; if not, oh well, too bad, --they can spend their time elsewhere, with my blessing.

One problem with writing on Emerson. Everyone thinks they've read him. Everyone is wrong. (Unless a little numb perusal in a junior high English class counts.) Everyone thinks they understand him. Everyone is wrong. The basic problem with Emerson is that everyone thinks he'd 'been done', when he's barely been started. But it is hard to shatter that conviction. Emerson is the butt of his own quotability.

Re: Emerson: Need I Continue?

Rex — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:57:40 -0000

Take another look at the quote I posted some few days ago from Sacvan Berkovich on the distinction between individualism and individuality. Yes, all the easy questions about RWE have already been answered. The subtlety of such a distinction as Berkovich's -- there's a difference between self-interest for self-advancement and self-interest for a more perfect commuity--has to the best of my knowledge not been explored. Comparing RWE to radical right-wing so-called conservatives could be explosive.

Re: The Nonconformist

Rex — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:37:06 -0000

RWE is a poet and, even when he writes prose, his poesy can sing out the sense. If poems ought not "mean but be," "Self-Reliance" succeeds as its endless interpreters testify. David Van Leer, in his fine study Emerson's Epistemology, suggests "Emerson writes the word" [invoking "the talismanic power of the written over the spoken"] "not because whim is the thing sought, but because to claim to pursue anything more would be hubris."

I read RWE's reference as a counter-thrust at the human practice of treating the engraved figures in classical buildings as things compared to which humans must deny their own nature. Divinity is at first-hand.

Re: Emerson Seen Darkly

Rex — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:10:34 -0000

A story regarding Thoreau, I have heard, is told by a Harvard history professor. John Brown and some of his close associates came to Boston and were met at the warf by Thoreau driving Emerson's buggy. It seems one of Brown's men resisted the help for fear of being trapped. Whereupon Thoreau, no small-fry he, gave the man a clunk upside the head and tossed him into the carriage. So, non-violence to be sure, but only in its place.

That RWE seems to defer to the message of American exceptionalism (and his diaries are full of snobbery) does call for keeping him in context. Yet his poet's skill for zingers tempts the easy quotation. Such is his complexity.

Re: Bringing History to Life

Rex — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:29:41 -0000

I have now read these excerpts at least three times. I am certain I have read the original at least twice. I have read that what Nietzsche appreciated about RWE was his style of almost epigrams to express his ideas. Others have said that one can read a single RWE sentence and then spend etermity thinking about it. Which is simply to say that I appreciate the form of presentation used here. I also understand RWE's lack of appeal for some of my acquaintances: he's hard to understand on first or casual reading.

I was struck this last time by, "Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself—must go over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not live, it will not know." That's why educating is such a difficult and problematic project. What we learn by rote only gains sense when we have an experience that illustrates it. If I am not mistaken, that is what John Dewey (who knew Emerson's work well) tried to tell us about education. I read recently that the contemporary German philosopher Jurgen Habermas has turned to Dewey's work. But I have yet to see any additional references to that.