Montaigne
Raymond
Sebond's Natural Theology
So, who is Raymond Sebond, and why does he need an Apology? If you are
not familiar with the classical use of the word "apology" as in Plato's
dialogue of that name, an apology is a defense. Raymond Sebond was a
Spanish theologian (possibly a Catalan) who wrote a book called
Natural Theology or The Book of Creatures, written in the 1420s
or 30s. The book, written in scholastic Latin, aims to firmly establish
one in the Catholic faith, free of wavering and doubt. M.A. Screech,
describing the book writes;
Sebond firmly bases his method on 'illumination.' He does not claim that
human reason by itself can establish Christian truths. Quite the reverse.
Without 'illumination' reason can understand nothing fundamental about the
universe. But, duly illuminated, man can come to know himself, and his
Creator as well as his religious and moral duties, which he will then love
to fulfill. It is a method of freeing Man from doubts; it reveals the
errors of pagan antiquity and its unenlightened philosophers; it teaches
Catholic truth and shows up sects as errors and lies. It does all these
things by teaching the Christian the 'alphabet' which must be acquired if
one is to read Nature aright. (Introduction to An Apology for Raymond
Sebond, M.A. Screech, trans, Penguin Books, 1987. Pg. xv)
Screech goes on to explain that in Sebond's view, God gave two books to
man -- one the book of creatures or Nature, the other the Bible. In the
book of Nature -- given to man at the creation, all created things are
like letters of the alphabet; they can be combined into words and
sentences which teach lessons about man and God (hence the title of the
book Natural Theology or the Book of Creatures). In fact, both
the Bible and the book of Nature teach the same lessons. At the Fall, man
lost the ability to read the book of Nature. Now, he can only read the
book of Nature, if he is enlightened by God and cleansed of original sin.
This is why the ancient philosophers could not read the book of
Nature.
Pierre Bunel, a Christian humanist from Tolouse, had visited the
Chateau Montaigne sometime between 1538 and 1546 and recommended Sebond's
book to Montaigne's father as an antidote against Protestantism.
Montaigne's father suggested to Michel that h e translate Sebond's
Natural Theology. His father died in 1568 and in 1569 Michel de
Montainge published his translation of Raymond Sebond's Theologia
Naturals. He wrote the Apology for Raymond Sebond in 1576
and it was published as the long twelfth chapter of the second part of the
Essays in 1580.
The
Apology for Raymond Sebond
Why did Montaigne write a defense of the Natural Theology and
given that Sebond's book aimed to remove man's doubts, what role could
skepticism play in such a defense? In Montaigne's hands, Sebond's method
shows enlightened Christians that revealed truths and the book of Nature
properly read say the same things. The Apology is divided into two
sections which correspond to two assertions of Sebond. The first is that
man, when properly enlightened can read the book of Nature correctly. The
second is that without God's grace, man can never read the book of Nature
correctly. Sebond had been criticized on the grounds that "...Christians
do themselves wrong in wishing to support their belief with human reason;
belief is grasped only by faith and by private inspiration from God's
grace." (quoted in Screech trans, An Apology for Raymond Sebond
Pg. xvi). Montaigne dismisses this view rather quickly. Once one has
Faith, it is reasonable to draw on ones other faculties to support it.
The second, and much longer section of the Apology is aimed to
counter the charge that Sebond's arguments that unaided human reason
cannot read the book of Nature are weak. It is here that Montaigne
deploys his arsenal of skeptical arguments to show that unaided human
reason (not to mention the senses) cannot give us knowledge. If we were
to look at a complete translation of the Apology for Raymond
Sebond, we would find that all of the reading we are going to do
comes near the end of the second and largest part of that work.
| (1) Text Map:
The complete Apology for Raymond Sebond |
|---|
Part I of the Apology from Pg. 1
through Pg
10 of the Screech
translation
|
| Part II of the
Apology from Pg.11 to Pg. 190
Our
selection corresponds to Pp. 140-152 of the Screech
translation |
|
We can now turn to our text to look at the nature of skeptical
reasoning, and the particular kinds of skeptical arguments which Michel de
Montaigne deploys. If we consider the eight pages we are studying,
Montaigne passes over a variety of topics. It is possible to cut these up
in a variety of ways. In what follows I have mapped them to suit my goals
to teach you various things about skepticism and Renaissance
skepticism.
(2) Text Map
of
the 8 pages of our reading |
|---|
PART I:
Foundations and First principles
Pg. 74 First
two paragraphs
| PART
II: That reality is determinate while human opinion is various and
inconstant
Pp. 74 to 81
This
section in turn has a series of parts |
Part I:
Foundations and First Principles
On the first page we are reading, Montaigne introduces an analogy which
compares building up a system of knowledge from first principles to
building up a house or other building from a foundation. In this analogy,
the bulk of the system depends on the first principles in the way in which
the bulk of a building rests on its foundations. Once you have first
principles, "...the rest of the parts are easily done, without
contradictions. By this path we find our reason well founded, and we
argue with great ease."
| Read the claims in the next box from
the bottom. The ones above depend on the ones
below like the stories of a house. | - Knowledge claims about
causal
interactions
"The dagger caused the cut in the upholstery." - Knowledge
claims about physical
objects.
"I see a dagger in front of me." - Knowledge claims about
perceptions.
"I seem to see a dagger in front of
me."
|
This metaphor is one which
Descartes adopts and it becomes a program in philosophy for the next three
hundred years -- to put knowledge on solid foundations. This effort to
base all knowledge in things which we intuitively or self-evidently know
for certain is called foundationalism. (It is really only in the
twentieth century that philosophers have begun to offer alternatives for
acquiring knowledge without needing to have secure foundations.) Note that
Montainge rejects this foundationalist approach. He claims that:
If you happen to crash this barrier in which lies the principal error,
immediately they have this maxim in their mouth, that there is no arguing
against people who deny first principles.
The first part of this sentence is a little ambiguous -- that is open to
more than one meaning or more than one interpretation. One might think,
for example, that the principal error lies in crashing the barrier -- one
should stay within the limits imposed by first principles. This,
however, does not seem to be what Montainge has in mind. A more likely
interpretation is that the barrier imposed by having first principles is
the mistake. Thus it becomes important to crash that barrier, in order to
overcome this "principal error." Given Montaigne's skeptical stance,
this is far more likely reading. This interpretation is confirmed at
least to some degree by the next sentence which suggests that those who
use first principles have a defense against those who try to crash the
barrier, which is to claim that there is no way to argue with such
folks.
The next paragraph suggests that one can only have first principles if
the Divinity reveals them -- and without such revelation, the whole
structure of knowledge, from so called first principles through the middle
to the last inference deduced, is all "dreams and smoke." (This rejection
of foundations had a big impact on some later French philosophers, like
Blaise Pascal, who held that first principles were assumed but not
known.)
Montaigne then goes on to suggest that every proposition has as much
"weight" as any other, unless reason says otherwise. Here Montainge
introduces another metaphor which is characteristic of skeptics, though
certainly not confined to them. He suggests that reason is like a scale
and that we are going to weight one proposition against another. The
metaphor here suggests that if there is more evidence for the truth of one
proposition than a competing one (competing propositions are ones which
cannot both be true), it is like there being more weight in a balance
scale on one side rather than the other.
 |
Evenly balanced evidence
requires
suspense of judgement |
If the
scale goes down one way we hold that the proposition is true, if it goes
down the other we hold that it is false, and if the scales are equally
balanced, we suspend judgment. Suspending judgement means that we cannot
determine whether the proposition is true or false. It also means that we
do not know which determinate state reality is in in this respect. So,
the suspense of judgement is the goal which skeptics aim to produce. The
ancient skeptics believed that the suspense of judgement stilled worries
and put one in a quite desireable psychological state. Still, this idea
of weighing evidence and argument is a perfectly reasonable way of
thinking about which propositions one should accept as true or reject as
false whether one is a skeptic or not.
Montaigne seems to believe that by proceeding in this way,
particularly in regard to first principles, we will come to see that
certainty "is a certain token of folly and extreme uncertainty." It is
somewhat of an irony that Montaigne goes on to deploy what one might call
"the first principle of skeptical reasoning." It is well to try to get
clear about this, for we shall encounter it again. We now turn to the
second and main part of the reading.
(3) Text Map of Part II
of the 8
pages of our Reading