[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"archetype-name-map":3,"thinker-michel-de-montaigne":100,"$fe9B0_r44zvwGPAmEGJY494wZbUzrmYKq9ecZA8ZGpPo":248},[4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46,49,52,55,58,61,64,67,70,73,76,79,82,85,88,91,94,97],{"slug":5,"name":6},"anarcho-capitalist","Anarcho-Capitalist",{"slug":8,"name":9},"establishment-progressive","Establishment Progressive",{"slug":11,"name":12},"progressive-activist","Progressive Activist",{"slug":14,"name":15},"techno-progressive","Techno-Progressive",{"slug":17,"name":18},"patriotic-progressive","Patriotic Progressive",{"slug":20,"name":21},"conservative-democrat","Conservative Democrat",{"slug":23,"name":24},"moderate-conservative","Moderate Conservative",{"slug":26,"name":27},"reform-conservative","Reform Conservative",{"slug":29,"name":30},"religious-conservative","Religious Conservative",{"slug":32,"name":33},"traditionalist","Traditionalist",{"slug":35,"name":36},"national-populist","National Populist",{"slug":38,"name":39},"left-nationalist","Left Nationalist",{"slug":41,"name":42},"moderate-liberal","Moderate Liberal",{"slug":44,"name":45},"pragmatic-centrist","Pragmatic Centrist",{"slug":47,"name":48},"authoritarian-left","Authoritarian Left",{"slug":50,"name":51},"authoritarian-right","Authoritarian Right",{"slug":53,"name":54},"welfare-nationalist","Welfare Nationalist",{"slug":56,"name":57},"democratic-socialist","Democratic Socialist",{"slug":59,"name":60},"christian-socialist","Christian Socialist",{"slug":62,"name":63},"market-socialist","Market Socialist",{"slug":65,"name":66},"trad-socialist","Trad Socialist",{"slug":68,"name":69},"civil-libertarian","Civil Libertarian",{"slug":71,"name":72},"compassionate-libertarian","Compassionate Libertarian",{"slug":74,"name":75},"left-libertarian","Left Libertarian",{"slug":77,"name":78},"traditional-libertarian","Traditional Libertarian",{"slug":80,"name":81},"classical-liberal","Classical Liberal",{"slug":83,"name":84},"social-liberal","Social Liberal",{"slug":86,"name":87},"national-conservative","National Conservative",{"slug":89,"name":90},"neoconservative","Neoconservative",{"slug":92,"name":93},"techno-authoritarian","Techno-Authoritarian",{"slug":95,"name":96},"market-liberal","Market Liberal",{"slug":98,"name":99},"independent-thinker","Independent Thinker",{"thinker":101,"archetypes":113,"traditions":114,"traditionLinks":134,"homeOut":135,"homeIn":141,"works":146,"homeTradition":117,"siblings":154},{"id":102,"slug":103,"name":104,"one_line":105,"bio":106,"birth_year":107,"death_year":108,"nationality":109,"primary_role":110,"era":111,"portrait_url":112,"figure_class":112},1154,"michel-de-montaigne","Michel de Montaigne","The inventor of the essay, whose sceptical self-examination made the ordinary self a legitimate subject and supplied Europe with its most durable case for toleration.","Michel de Montaigne retired from the Bordeaux parlement at thirty-eight to a tower on his estate, intending solitude, and produced a book that has no precedent: essais, attempts, in which a man of no special distinction examines his own opinions, tastes, fears, digestion and inconsistency at length, on the premise that each man bears the entire form of the human condition.\n\nThe method is inseparable from the scepticism. The longest chapter, the Apology for Raymond Sebond, is a sustained demolition of the pretensions of human reason, drawing on Sextus Empiricus, whose newly translated Outlines Montaigne had read: the senses deceive, the beasts may reason as well as we do, philosophers contradict each other on everything, custom governs what we take for nature, and our certainties are accidents of where we were born. His motto was a question — what do I know — and his emblem a balance. But the conclusion is not despair. It is that one should hold opinions loosely, follow custom in practice because it is where one is, and attend to what is actually in front of one.\n\nWriting through the same religious wars as Bodin, he drew a different lesson. It is putting a very high value on one's conjectures, he wrote, to roast a man alive on account of them. The essay on cannibals compares the Brazilian practice of eating dead enemies with the French practice of torturing living ones and finds the French worse, then observes that everyone calls barbarism whatever is not his own custom. This is the first sustained European argument that difference is not deficiency, and it runs directly into the Enlightenment case for toleration.\n\nHis influence is unusually wide because he does not argue systematically enough to be refuted. Shakespeare read him in Florio's translation; Descartes wrote the Meditations to answer the scepticism he had helped revive; Pascal wrestled with him for years; Rousseau took from him the confessional voice; Nietzsche said that such a man had increased the joy of living on earth. The genre he invented remains the standard vehicle for thinking in public.",1533,1592,"French","writer","Renaissance",null,[],[115,122,128],{"is_primary":116,"traditions":117},false,{"id":118,"name":119,"slug":120,"short_description":121},8,"Moral Philosophy","moral-philosophy","The discipline of reflecting systematically on ethics, virtue, and the conditions of a good life.",{"is_primary":116,"traditions":123},{"id":124,"name":125,"slug":126,"short_description":127},161,"Renaissance Humanism","renaissance-humanism","The intellectual movement that recovered classical learning and made human experience, rather than theological authority, the center of philosophical reflection.",{"is_primary":116,"traditions":129},{"id":130,"name":131,"slug":132,"short_description":133},41,"Skepticism","skepticism","The philosophical tradition of doubting whether we can have certain knowledge of the world, the self, or moral truths.",[],[136],{"relation_type":137,"traditions":138},"descends_from",{"name":139,"slug":140},"Ancient Philosophy","ancient-philosophy",[142],{"relation_type":137,"traditions":143},{"name":144,"slug":145},"Political Economy","political-economy",[147],{"title":148,"year":149,"year_display":150,"description":151,"kind":152,"sort_order":153},"Essays",1588,"1580; expanded 1588","The invention of the essay: a man of no special distinction examines his own inconsistency on the premise that each man bears the whole form of the human condition.","work",1,[155,159,163,167,171,175,179,180,184,188,192,196,200,204,208,212,216,220,224,228,232,236,240,244],{"name":156,"slug":157,"birth_year":158},"Confucius","confucius",-551,{"name":160,"slug":161,"birth_year":162},"Socrates","socrates",-470,{"name":164,"slug":165,"birth_year":166},"Seneca","seneca",4,{"name":168,"slug":169,"birth_year":170},"Epictetus","epictetus",50,{"name":172,"slug":173,"birth_year":174},"Peter Abelard","peter-abelard",1079,{"name":176,"slug":177,"birth_year":178},"John Duns Scotus","duns-scotus",1266,{"name":104,"slug":103,"birth_year":107},{"name":181,"slug":182,"birth_year":183},"Ralph Cudworth","ralph-cudworth",1617,{"name":185,"slug":186,"birth_year":187},"Blaise Pascal","blaise-pascal",1623,{"name":189,"slug":190,"birth_year":191},"Francis Hutcheson","francis-hutcheson",1694,{"name":193,"slug":194,"birth_year":195},"Henry Home, Lord Kames","lord-kames",1696,{"name":197,"slug":198,"birth_year":199},"Thomas Reid","thomas-reid",1710,{"name":201,"slug":202,"birth_year":203},"Adam Smith","adam-smith",1723,{"name":205,"slug":206,"birth_year":207},"William Paley","william-paley",1743,{"name":209,"slug":210,"birth_year":211},"Dugald Stewart","dugald-stewart",1753,{"name":213,"slug":214,"birth_year":215},"Arthur Schopenhauer","arthur-schopenhauer",1788,{"name":217,"slug":218,"birth_year":219},"Henry Sidgwick","henry-sidgwick",1838,{"name":221,"slug":222,"birth_year":223},"Charles Sanders Peirce","charles-peirce",1839,{"name":225,"slug":226,"birth_year":227},"Bertrand Russell","bertrand-russell",1872,{"name":229,"slug":230,"birth_year":231},"Reinhold Niebuhr","reinhold-niebuhr",1892,{"name":233,"slug":234,"birth_year":235},"Peter Singer","peter-singer",1946,{"name":237,"slug":238,"birth_year":239},"Jonathan Haidt","jonathan-haidt",1963,{"name":241,"slug":242,"birth_year":243},"Nick Bostrom","nick-bostrom",1973,{"name":245,"slug":246,"birth_year":247},"Eliezer Yudkowsky","eliezer-yudkowsky",1979,{"cards":249,"influenced":260,"shapedBy":271,"outbound":166},[250,256],{"slug":251,"name":252,"type":253,"strength":254,"description":255},"etienne-de-la-boetie","Étienne de La Boétie","influenced","foundational","Montaigne called him the greatest man of his age and wrote the essay On Friendship for him; he published La Boétie's poems but withheld the Discourse.",{"slug":257,"name":258,"type":253,"strength":254,"description":259},"sextus-empiricus","Sextus Empiricus","The Apology for Raymond Sebond is built from the newly translated Outlines of Pyrrhonism; Montaigne's motto and his emblem of the balance are Pyrrhonist devices.",[261,262,265,268],{"slug":186,"name":185},{"slug":263,"name":264},"friedrich-nietzsche","Friedrich Nietzsche",{"slug":266,"name":267},"jean-jacques-rousseau","Jean-Jacques Rousseau",{"slug":269,"name":270},"rene-descartes","René Descartes",[]]