In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Montaigne and the Ethics of Skepticism
  • Emily Butterworth
Montaigne and the Ethics of Skepticism. By Zahi Zalloua. (EMP Critiques). Charlottesville, Rookwood Press, 2005. xii + 191 pp. Pb.

This book tackles with enjoyable verve and originality questions that continue to occupy Montaigne scholarship: subjectivity, rhetoric, scepticism and ethics. Zalloua's approach is stimulating, and carefully hybrid, drawing on modern critical theory from Foucault to Levinas, and on Renaissance and classical discourses on charity, exemplarity and care of the self. His close attention to this last Hellenic notion supplies the book's most significant contributions: reading Montaigne through Socratic, Platonic and Stoic concepts of self-care and self-knowledge, Zalloua provides a refreshing approach to the Essais. The choice of focus will, of course, be familiar to readers of Montaigne: the emblematic 'others' that the book considers are Socrates, La Boétie, and the cannibal, and Zalloua situates his work carefully within the vast scholarship that has grown up around these questions. [End Page 73] He successfully adds nuance to the inevitable received critical opinions such as the exclusively literary status of Montaigne and La Boétie's friendship and Montaigne's lack of interest in any other alterity than that he finds within himself. These questions are usefully placed within their historical context in addition to their intellectual and literary background, following the historical turn of recent Montaigne criticism. In his conclusion Zalloua returns to the vexed issue of Montaigne's commitment to politics and behaviour during his mayoralty, arguing that the moderation which Montaigne champions, and which can also be seen in the writing practice of the essayist, constitutes a bridge between his public and private selves; a model for political action therefore seems embedded in the form of the essay. Zalloua argues that it is Montaigne's insistence on the open formula of 'Que sais-je?' that renders the Essais more complex and self-critical in their descriptions and relations of the other than the humanist, eurocentric position that Montaigne has occasionally been accused of. Paying close attention to the manner (rhetorical, essayistic, provisional) as well as the matter (the description of the other) of Montaigne's text provides another way in to the discussion of the implementation of sceptical method in the essay form. This approach offers a rich reading of the chosen essays which deftly navigates between intra- and intertextual references. Certain key concepts return as leitmotifs in the study: charity, friendship, good faith and the notion of the 'esprit genereux' are all pulled together at the end in a satisfying way that imitates the oblique counterpoint of the essay form. Zalloua argues that it is precisely this essay form that supplies the interpellative function and the ethical force of the questions Montaigne seeks to ask his reader. Drawing on the work of André Tournon, Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani and recent American critics of Montaigne such as Timothy Hampton and David Quint (but not on Emmanuel Naya's groundbreaking work on Renaissance scepticism), Zalloua nevertheless offers stimulating readings that encourage the reader to approach Montaigne's ethical concerns differently and with fresh enthusiasm. [End Page 74]

Emily Butterworth
King's College London
...

pdf

Share