Despite his extensive study of classical philosophy, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) paid relatively little attention to Aristotle. He quoted Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Plato and Plutarch more often than he quoted Aristotle. He devoted more efforts to understanding stoicism than he devoted to the Aristotelian views on human nature and happiness. I have a theory that explains Montaigne’s disproportionate interest in Roman authors (Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero or Epictetus) compared to his light treatment of Aristotle. When I say “Roman authors,” I mean authors writing during the late Roman Republic or early Roman Empire, even if those authors had been born in Greece. Epictetus for instance is one of the authors born in Greece, but spent decades living in Rome. He returned to Greece when he was already forty years old and started a philosophy school that the young Marcus Aurelius attended before becoming a Roman Emperor. My theory is that Montaigne paid less attention to Aristotle because he did not have direct access to all works by Aristotle. Montaigne certainly possessed a Latin translation of Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” but the remaining corpus of Aristotelian works must have not been present in Montaigne’s library. I base my theory on Montaigne’s language, train of thought, and argumentation logic. I fail to find in his essays Aristotelian concepts such as potentiality and actuality, and the comparison of essential versus accidental traits. In Montaigne’s essays, I also fail to find syllogisms that are carefully constructed according to Aristotelian standards. Plato must have been a more frequent object of Montaigne’s literary explorations, if only because his works were widely available in Latin translation during the sixteenth century. When comparing Aristotle with Montaigne, the most salient discrepancies are detectable by their absence. That’s why I seldom find in Montaigne any criticism of Plato, Epictetus, Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius. Why has Montaigne overlooked the errors in those authors? If Montaigne had studied Aristotle’s philosophy in depth, he should have known better. Due to insufficient knowledge or for other reasons, the fact is that he overlooked the discrepancies. From reading only the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Montaigne could not acquire a solid knowledge of the Aristotelian theory of knowledge, metaphysics, logic, politics and aesthetics. I think that’s why he failed to detect the errors in stoicism, scepticism and hedonism. Aristotle had anticipated and refuted those errors, but Montaigne had studied only a small part of the Aristotelian corpus. Montaigne’s praise of self-knowledge and introspection are misleading in this respect. We can look into ourselves as much as we want, but it is unlikely that we find the right answers if we do not possess sufficient knowledge of Aristotle’s work. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/aristotle-michel-de-montaigne-and-classical-philosophy/

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