O presente estudo visa constituir uma introdução à reflexão ética que Michel de Montaigne desenvolve em seus Ensaios. Trata-se, de maneira mais específica, de uma análise do capítulo Da experiência, ensaio com que o autor encerra sua obra e apresenta, sob a forma de um testamento, os pontos essenciais de sua orientação moral. Procuramos compreender os fundamentos de sua recusa de toda ética normativa e a correlata elaboração de uma moral afeita à singularidade dos agentes e às circunstâncias das ações. Para tanto, buscamos reconstituir a crítica do ensaísta às artes que pretendem regular as condutas humanas a jurisprudência e a medicina e à moral estóica, assim como elucidar a experiência de si, de que Montaigne deriva uma ética em que o prazer se concilia com a virtude e o agente consigo mesmo. / The present study aims at introducing Michel de Montaignes ethical reflexion, as exposed in his Essays. It is, more specifically, an analysis of the chapter On experience, the essay with wich the author finishes his work, and presents, as in a will, the essential topics of his moral orientation. We seek to understand the fundaments of his refusal of all normative ethics, and the project of elaborating a moral fit to the singularity of agents and the circumstances of action. To do so, we undertake the reconstruction of the authors criticism to the arts that intend to regulate human conducts jurisprudence and medicine , and to the Stoic moral. We also try to clarify the experience of oneself, from which Montaigne derives a moral that reconciles pleasure and virtue, and the agent with himself.

La mort, lorsqu'elle se présente, bouleverse le quotidien. Suite à son passage, elle laisse souvent des êtres angoissés et désorientés. Or, il s'avère possible d'atténuer ses effets sur l'âme en pourvoyant celle-ci d'une attitude face à celle-là. Ce qui s'offre au lecteur des Essais se présente d'abord sous la forme de l'enseignement du sage, qui prêche une attitude de confrontation prophylactique afin de fortifier l'âme. Puis se dévoile l'attitude du vulgaire, qui, en fait, est la plus simple et la plus naturelle. Enfin, il y a celle des demi-sages, celle de Montaigne plus particulièrement, qui s'inspire à la fois de la naïveté du vulgaire et de l'austérité du sage. Les trois attitudes offrent leur part d'avantages et d'inconvénients selon l'individu qui s'y porte, mais celle que privilégie Montaigne est animée par l'idée de fidélité à soi et par la figure de Socrate.

Ce mémoire fait la synthèse entre deux aspects de la pensée politique de Montaigne. Certains passages des Essais laissent entendre qu’il encourage les humains à respecter les coutumes et les lois sans tenter de les réformer au moyen d’actions politiques. Il soutient ce conservatisme par un scepticisme en ce qui a trait à la possibilité de connaître les structures des sociétés et les ressorts des mouvements humains. Il est cependant aussi apparent dans ses écrits qu’il a une grande sensibilité face à l’injustice et qu’il reconnaît une certaine forme de morale indépendante des coutumes. Est-il possible de réconcilier ses deux aspects de la pensée du philosophe ? En interprétant ses critiques de la nature humaine non comme une invitation à l’immobilisme mais comme une invitation à l’autocritique et à la modération, il semble qu’une image complète de sa pensée puisse effectivement prendre forme. Cette nouvelle image n’empêche pas l’action mais appelle à certaines actions particulières, notamment à une forme précise d’éducation.

Le mot resverie fait l'objet d'une mutation sémantique au XVIe siècle. Alors qu'au Moyen Âge, on l'assimile à différents degrés de folie, le mot tend à désigner pour l'homme de la fin de la Renaissance un mouvement de repli sur soi. Nous nous intéresserons au sens de la rêverie dans le texte en tant que mot, expérience de vie, expérience d'écriture et de lecture. Comme phénomène vécu par l'auteur, la rêverie se caractérise par une suspension entre deux états souvent contradictoires. L'ambivalence de son statut nous invite à l'envisager sous différents angles, et à considérer ses multiples fonctions. À l'instar de Montaigne qui pose un regard oblique, critique et interrogatif sur le monde et sur soi, nous interrogerons le mode de fonctionnement de la rêverie dans les Essais au moyen d'une lecture oblique et génétique. Nous nous apercevrons que la rêverie, instrument idéologique et épistémologique par excellence, fonctionne également comme un instrument d'écriture contribuant à l'élaboration du style poétique de Montaigne.

Montaigne has widely been regarded as one of the most significant sceptics of the XVI Century. Yet, if we consider his Essais as a whole, he turns out to be more a sceptical thinker like Socrates or Saint Augustine rather than a pyrrhonist like Sextus Empiricus. He is closer to the Academic scepticism rather than to the absolute scepticism of Pyrrhonism. This thesis contends that despite most of modern research, Montaigne’s biggest debt to ancient sources is with Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine and Plutarch rather than with Sextus Empiricus. I argue that Montaigne was familiar with the distinction between Academic and Pyrrhonian scepticism and his quest for truth meant that he had more affinity with Socrates and St. Augustine than with Sextus Empiricus or Pyrrho. He did not suspend his judgment more pirronico: on the contrary, he exerted it in every occasion. The Christian tradition left a more important mark than it was initially thought in Montaigne’s Essais. This reconsideration of Montaigne’s scepticism leads to a re-evaluation of different aspects of the sceptical tradition since the ancient times. In this thesis I show that Montaigne’s scepticism was partly shaped by the presence of scepticism in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Old Testament and in St. Paul, Lactantius and St. Augustine. Powerful currents of scepticism permeated different traditions during the Middle Ages and although their existence has been acknowledged, their potential debt to Greco-Roman antiquity and their influence in the recovery and transmission of scepticism in the early modern period still need further investigation. I argue that in the sceptical crisis of the early modern period Sextus’ writings may have fuelled this crisis, but they did not initiate it. I claim that Sextus Empiricus revival was more a result rather than a cause of the sceptical crisis. Considering that scepticism is a fundamental part of the Essais as a whole we can say that Montaigne was an important part of the sceptical crisis but his scepticism was not shaped by Sextus. I present in this thesis Montaigne’s originality and the complexity of his thought, and even though sometimes it is difficult to follow, his vision is utterly harmonious and consistent. Montaigne considered the ideas of many who had gone before him, sometimes following them, sometimes taking his own path. Montaigne believed in the possibility of real knowledge, even if, in the tradition of Socrates and Augustine, he despaired of achieving it in one person’s life. Montaigne was a sceptic who believed in the existence of truth and he sought that truth through the medium of the essay.

The overarching goal of this study is to suggest that the essay as a genre, although seeming to manifest the epistemological conceptions of the modern, possesses certain qualities from its origin that justify and strengthen its position in the paradigm of the postmodern condition. It is my argument that misconceptions about such qualities have led to its mistreatment by writing teachers in accordance with two dominant pedagogical approaches, formalism (current-traditionalism) and romanticism (expressivism). My argument requires a detailed examination of the political, historical and cultural reality that cultivated and nurtured the genre of the essay, and a major focus of my study is on the way Montaigne conceived of the new mode of writing as his response to the new social realities of the sixteenth century, an age marked by discoveries and inventions. To justify this approach, I consider works by composition theorists who promote an agenda of critical literacy, scholarly works on Montaigne's essays, as well as various relevant works on postmodernism and literary theory. Perhaps more importantly, I look back to the chaotic, unpredictable, and skeptical mentality of the sixteenth century and attempt to draw connections between that time period and the present, as our present postmodern era is also marked by major shifts of conceptions about reality, knowledge, authority, and the self. From this framework, I indicate connections can be drawn between the two revolutionary ages, both marked by explosion of new knowledge and dissipation of authority and certainty. It is my proposition that the essay, arising from the need to question traditions and to adapt to new emerging realities, possesses qualities--explorative, skeptical, and dialogical--that procure a valid position in the ongoing questioning and challenging of the Modern by the Postmodern. Finally, I examine how essay has been and continues to be taught just for its formalistic merits and ignored for its epistemological, aesthetic, and philosophical values, an examination that serves to repudiate the wrongful relegation and dismissal of the essay and to establish a justification of not only the literary merits, but also the pedagogical values of the essay.

Diss.--München, 2001. / Bibliogr. p. 207-213.

Extrait de : Thèse doctorat : Littérature française : Paris III-Sorbonne nouvelle : 2000. / Bibliogr. p. [353]-382. Notes bibliogr. Index.

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