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The doctor who prescribed doubt. Suspend judgment on everything, he said, and tranquility follows on its own.
He invented the essay to ask a single question of everything: what do I know? His honest answer was, almost nothing for certain.
Connection
Sextus Empiricus revived in the Renaissance Montaigne — The rediscovery of Sextus in the sixteenth century handed Montaigne the skeptical arguments behind his question, what do I know?
Ideas
Words
“To every argument an equal argument is opposed; and so we suspend judgment, and tranquility follows.”
“What do I know?”
Key Moments
c. 160 CE
Born
c. 190 CE
Outlines of Pyrrhonism
c. 195 CE
Epochē and Tranquility
c. 200 CE
Against the Dogmatists
1533 CE
Born near Bordeaux
1571 CE
Retreat to the Tower
c. 1580 CE
What Do I Know?
1592 CE
Death at Montaigne
Works
Outlines of Pyrrhonism
Essays