Those of you who have read Montaigne, what are some of your favourite essays of his?

That's sort of my point.

"Of the education of children" is a great crash course in, among other things, critical approaches to literature and philosophy, especially when considering those awful comments in the current Plato thread saying stuff like it's useless to read philosophers because you just end up parroting their ideas.
>Let him be taught not so much the histories as how to judge them.

"Of pedantry" is similar.
>We take the opinions and the knowledge of others into our keeping, and that is all. We must make them our own. We are just like a man who, needing fire, should go and fetch some at his neighbor's house and, having found a fine big fire there, should stop there and warm himself, forgetting to carry any back home...If our soul does not go at a better gait, if we do not have sounder judgment for all our learning, I had just as lief my student had spent his time playing tennis...He should have brought back his soul full; he brings it back only swollen.

"That the taste of good and evil depends in large part on the opinion we have of them"
>Things are not that painful or difficult of themselves; it is our weakness and cowardice that make them so. To judge of great and lofty things we need a soul of the same caliber...He who has not the courage to suffer either death or life, who will neither resist nor flee, what can we do with him?

"That the taste of good and evil depends in large part on the opinion we have of them"
>In the course of nature, if the pain is violent, it is short; if it is long, it is light...both come to the same thing. If you cannot bear it, it will bear you off.

"That to philosophize is to learn to die"
>Poor fool that you are, who has assured you the term of life?...How can we possibly rid ourselves of the thought of death and of the idea that at every moment it is gripping us by the throat?...It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere. Premeditation of death is premeditation of freedom. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint. There is nothing evil in life for the man who has thoroughly grasped the fact that to be deprived of life is not an evil...He who would teach men to die would teach them to live...This is the true and sovereign liberty, which enables us to thumb our noses at force and injustice and to laugh at prisons and chains.

I've only read ~150 pages of Montaigne but those were some of my favorite passages and essays so far.

If you like Emerson, your esteem will sink. Experience, the Sebond doozy, etc.

the part where he says that he does not mind being a cuckold

My favorite one is probably where he talks about the guy who did one long fart that lasted a whole year and resulted in him dying.

>Montaigne
>Exposes minorities
He's Jewish.

you got a lot more luck from this thread than the one i tried a while back. I wonder why, probably a better image.

>He's Jewish.
"His mother might have had a jewish ancestor"
sounds like he would not even be technically included by jewish standards

>sounds like he would not even be technically included by jewish standards
>technically
>e.i. he is Jewish
Jews believe a lot of other things which are also wrong.

>"His mother might have had a jewish ancestor"
>His maternal Grandmother was a Jew
I don't see how his mother only "might" have been Jewish.

The only source I can find speculates that his mother's great-grandfather was a marrano. Not much to go on.

>Sophie Jama, L’Histoire Juive de Montaigne
>Goitein, Denise R (2008). "Montaigne, Michel de". Encyclopaedia Judaica
>Hackett's Introduction: Montaigne's Life and Times

Not samefag, but that's actually the sources that defend the view that his mother's great-grandfather was a marrano. Still not much to go on. I think he was a reptilian.

that the opinion of good and evil depend in large part the opinion we have of them is a good one, just get a collected essays, theyre all really good. wonderful writer.

Fuck, I've been misreading grandmother instead of grandfather this whole time.
So you are correct in saying those links don't describe his grandmother, but they do describe his maternal grandfather .And why call them Marranos in this context? A Marrano is a Jew. I don't understand all the skepticism on the issue.

These are the facts we know.
>His maternal grandfather came from a Jewish family that converted to Catholicism
>His mother converted to Catholicism. The only thing tolerated in Europe asides from Christianity was Judaism.

>His maternal grandfather came from a Jewish family that converted to Catholicism
>His mother converted to Catholicism. The only thing tolerated in Europe asides from Christianity was Judaism.

The first statement didn't imply that his mother was born a Jew. In order to confirm the second statement you have to be sure that his maternal grandmother was a Jew.

I think Hitler would have regarded him as a Jew whereas a rabbi wouldn't. It's like Sartre or several others.

>Back man has daughter
>Black daughter has son
>Somehow that son isn't black

Who cares if a rabbi thinks he is a jew or not? We are use a non-stupid definition (as in the actual definition) of what it means to belong to an ethnic group, not the made up one the Jews have which goes against the science of biology.

So what about conversion ? What you're saying is basically that being Jewish has nothing to do with beliefs or religion or even practicing a cult.

While it can be argued that you can be both jewish and an atheist, you cannot just define being jewish as an "ethnicity".

>So what about conversion?
What about it? We are obviously not talking about religious Judaism.

>What you're saying is basically that being Jewish has nothing to do with beliefs or religion or even practicing a cult
You are refusing to acknowledge that the term Jew means two separate but related things. We are only talking about the word in only one of its senses.

> you cannot just define being jewish as an "ethnicity".
Except it has been shown that Jews share a genetically distinct fingerprint which allows you to identify them. It might be a mistake to talk of a single Jewish ethnicity, as there are distinct ethnic groups within the Jewish ethnic family
but to claim that there is nothing ethnic about Jewish lineage is both absurd and contradicted by the scientific evidence.

I've only read a few of his aphorisms.

I know that he was one of Nietzsche's favourite writers though, along with a shitload of other French guys.

He was a Francoboo.

On cannibals and on clothing are two I like quite a bit.

>You are refusing to acknowledge that the term Jew means two separate but related things. We are only talking about the word in only one of its senses.
That's actually what I just said.
>>What you're saying is basically that being Jewish has nothing to do with beliefs or religion or even practicing a cult
You're taking the word "jewish" in a very specific meaning that is certainly not absurd, but then let's first admit that he wasn't jewish in the more common sense. Now go and have fun with haplogroups, I doubt that it can be of any relevance regarding Montaigne.

It's enough to say that blasting minorities would be a stunning example of stupidity or self-hatred, neither of which particularly characterise Montaigne.

Personally, I just say whichever's most convenient. And it is convenient, being able to be either.

You're still misreading more than that: "mother's great-grandfather" doesn't mean maternal grandfather, that's two generations further removed. You're also ignoring the fact that there is speculation and not proof. Add to this that his family would have even in that case been converted for several generations, and would have had culturally speaking nothing to do with the jews. I don't know why the idea of making him a jew is so seductive to you (and to apparently enough people to keep pushing the potential factoid since 1992), but it's basically as irrelevant to the man as the precise constituents of a modern south american's genetic makeup.

>Le cynical wise guy Frenchman

>worshipped by Alain de Botton and other self help hacks

>worldly wisdom

Yeah no thanks.

Nobody cares about the petty criteria you use to disregard an author.

>Dude cannibalism is okay for some people

Relativistic faggot.

The essay

>"mother's great-grandfather" doesn't mean maternal grandfather, that's two generations further removed.
You are completely right in that mother's great-grandfather" doesn't mean maternal grandfather. Except he is his maternal grandfather, not his mother's grandmother. He is Montaigne's grandfather, not great grandfather. I shouldn't have to fact check you on something so basic. Look it up.

>You're also ignoring the fact that there is speculation and not proof.
His grandfather is a Sephardic Jew who converted. There is no dispute about this point.
His daughter is therefore a Jew (who also converted, this conversion also being a indisputable fact) and therefore her son is a Jew. Unless there is some tiny chance that there is any secret adopting or cucking going on, Montaigne is an ethnic Jew.
You are mistaking there being disagreement about something to mean that both of the disagree parties are on equal footing. Unless you can find me a source involving adoption, cucking or Montaignes grand-father not being a Jew you don't have a leg to stand on.

>Add to this that his family would have even in that case been converted for several generations
His mother converted. That is a single generation, not several.

>would have had culturally speaking nothing to do with the jews.
Which would be a problem if I was talking about Jewish culture, when I am talking about ethnicity. How many times do I have to stress this point? I do not mean culturally or religiously, but ethnically and only that.

>I don't know why the idea of making him a jew is so seductive to you
>Having an opinion that you defend when people ask you about it means you have been seduced and there is no rational basis for what you believe
I stated a fact about Montaigne and was asked to defend it. Why even bring up language such as seduction when it does not advance the argument and merely insults the other person? Could I not argue that you are seduced by your skepticism of his Jewishness? Do you see how this adds nothing?

>but it's basically as irrelevant to the man as the precise constituents of a modern south american's genetic makeup.
I don't disagree, but it's still a non-sequitur.

Not samefag, but :
- What would you say are the conditions that must be provided so that an individual is of ethnicity X ?
- Can a single individual be of several ethnicities ? Two ? More than two ?

>What would you say are the conditions that must be provided so that an individual is of ethnicity X ?
Since ethnicity isn't something with any sort of ontology it would probably come down to a certain threshold as prescribed by scientists. I wouldn't really know to be honest.

> Can a single individual be of several ethnicities ? Two ? More than two ?'
Yes, people can have pretty complex ethnic makeups.