Montaigne's political education: Raison d'etat in the essais

• Autores: Doug Thompson
• Localización: History of political thought, ISSN 0143-781X, Vol. 34, Nº 2, 2013, págs. 195-224
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Montaigne is generally portrayed either as a principal proponent of the mix of scepticism, neo-Stoicism and Tacitism that feeds the early-modern reason-of-state literature or as a thoroughgoing political moralist who rejects this literature's politics of necessity and princely deception in favour of a politics of classical or Christian virtue. I argue that Montaigne inhabits neither of these positions exclusively. Instead, he argues in utramque partem, both for and against reason of state, in order to educate > his readers about the perils of following elites who would use either political necessity or religious moralism as pretexts for violence in pursuit of political gain