The second to last paragraph of On Presumption includes this odd inclusion, one that appears in only one edition of Montaigne’s essays—and curiously enough, not in the last one that is considered canon. It is about, and many speculate written by, Marie de Gournay. I’ll go into more detail in a bit about some speculation…

His his earliest batch of essays, Montaigne spent most of his time examining various strong emotions, and he admits that fear is the one that gripped him strongest: The thing I fear most is fear. Moreover, it exceeds all other disorders in intensity. What anger could be more bitter and more just than that of…

One reason why philosophers of ancient and classical schools were obsessed with moderation was the understanding of the body at that time and the theory about why illnesses emerged. Here’s how Hypocrates, in The Nature of Man, described the standard view in ancient Greece: The Human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile….

This morning I’m feeling a bit shy about writing anything, because I discovered that a blog post I wrote late last week purely to micro target an audience actually auto posted to my more mainstream blog and I hadn’t gone to that blog in several days, so I didn’t realize it. I’m just hoping no…

I recently spent some time on Montaigne’s 22nd essay, One Man’s Profit is Another Man’s Loss, and I am kind of excited by the new direction I found to examine it. You can read my new take here.  This has never been one of my favorite Montaigne essays, because it’s very short and its view…

Every once in awhile, I become curious about what I might have written in previous takes about Montaigne’s subjects and go looking for them. I received a ping from Singapore this evening looking for one such old essay, which gave me an idea to seek it out on the Internet Archive. And there it was….