Montaigne's Essays in Collaboration with Stevie Wisz

Book One- That our Deeds are Judged by the Intention:

   * Montaigne wrote this just before he died *

• His goal was to become one with his life and to accept his death as a rightful and moral one.
• Death is said to settle all obligations or issues that took place during ones path in life.
• Ex: Montaigne supports this argument by saying that the Count asked to be executed first (beheaded) because he wanted to be let free from his obligations for Count Horn.
• We cannot be held to promises beyond our power or our means.
• This statement is reiterating the fact that in life, not every promise can be fulfilled depending on specific circumstances that individuals are put under.
• Montaigne see’s some people as “Iniquitous judges”: postponing their judgment until they no longer can. This is exactly the opposite of what Montaigne wants for his death. He wants “to prevent” saying or portraying anything he hasn't already said.

Background:

• Montaigne was first attracted to Lucretius by his arguments against the fear of dying whih connected to Montaigne’s childhood.
• With the expansion of the Renaissance, Montaigne was able to open up his influences and knowledge for literature from all around the world including the Spanish and the Chinese.
• For Montaigne, the strength of Sebond’s book also lay in universality.
• Montaigne believed that Sebond’s elimination of the universal book of nature showed how all nature was in close connection to religion.
• Protagoras showed everyone that there is no universal standard of the truth.
• Montaigne was strongly influenced by Protagoras.. Hence the gradual importance of the Man throughout the Essays.
• Montaigne strove for:

~Know thyself- by  understanding yourself, you can better understand the universe and mankind.
~ By studying himself, he strives to learn Man.
~ A creature is always changing, shifting, and becoming.
~ The Natural Theology by Sebond taught each man to know himself in order to know god.
~ “Art Thou” shows god.
~ Montaigne became the forerunner of atheistic naturalism

Book One- On Idleness:

• Within this chapters essay, Montaigne used the essay as a way to deal with his depression, delusions, and illness and thus within his writing, you can tell that he wonders off topic occasionally.
• He states that souls without a goal or a purpose in life can easily get lost or lose their true selves.
• Montaigne also talked about how he is trying to branch out more because he feels he has been so self motivated and self minded. He wants to try and help others as well.

Book One- On Liars: 

• Montaigne’s belief with the concept of memory is what is a memory before it turns to lying.
• Ex: He uses Quintilian as evidence by saying that a liar often times has to have a better memory in order to remember there lies. 
• A man “has no memory” shows how stupid they are.
• Some see no difference between memory and intelligence.
• “An outstanding memory is often associated with weak or flawed judgment.
• Montaigne saw that the older one got the more he would remember and reminisce on the past instead of the present.
• Montaigne discusses how bad of a memory he has personally implying that he himself is not a liar.
• The truth about lying is mysterious. You are either creating a huge lie that you now have to deal with or are simply disguising the truth.
• Lying is seen as an accurse vice. In other words, it means that by communicating with one another, we become more human and intertwined or connected.
• The power of lying is that itself is limitless, thus it creates a more appealing feature to the eye of a human mind.
• “The Pythagorean's make good to be definite and finite; evil they make indefinite and infinite”

Book One- That we Should not be Deemed Happy till After out Death:

• Montaigne became fancied by death due to the death of La Boëtie as well as his own fathers.
• “ ‘Death’ is considered in the sense of the act of dying, not as the state of the soul in the after-life.”
• More about philosophy rather than religion.
• Stoic influence: Montaigne describes happiness as “notions of blessedness and of good fortune.” 
• He believed that one could never be happy until the last day of their life and death is upon them.
• Influenced by the intense social hierarchy during this time period, Montaigne saw good fortune as a key to happiness.
• Death reveals the reality of life and what others remember of that person after death truly shows whom that person was.
• The last day of life is seen as judgment day because they took a look back on the life that they lived regretting some decisions and praising oneself for others.

Book One- On the Power of the Imagination:

• Imagination: evokes mental images of thoughts, concepts, ideas, opinions as well as mental pictures.
• Religion can occasionally crash with imagination and cause a disturbance.
• Montaigne’s personal view on Imagination was cloudy and controversial, but wasn't orthodox. 
• Imagination sparks new ideas and events within a persons life.
• However, although imagination ca be both good and bad, it can also take over ones mind.
• Ex: Hallucinations
• “They see what they do not see”
• Imagination may be in your mind, but its very real
• People will sometimes escape to their imagination, which can cause them to lose sight of reality.
• Ex: The priest that Celsus describes in the novel on p.111
• Miracles, random events that occur or are to occur, visions, etc… all give food for thought and fuel the mind to imagine.
• Imagination can be used as bait for a persons mind to believe it is possible or it is the “perfect” thing to do.
• In life, men often imagine women which distorts the image on women in reality.
• Montaigne sees witch craft simply as the imagination running wild.
• We (human beings) imagine negative things and react as if they were truly there. p.117
• Mind and Body are one unit which makes imaginations so powerful on both aspects.
• Magicians take advantage of the mind and the power of imagination in order to make their tricks believable and the audience to stay in tune to the show. 

Book One- On Educating Children:

• School is a mandatory program of steps and deadlines.
• Learning for the sake of learning is not of value. One must learn with a passion and an intent to use that knowledge or it cannot be of value.