Calvin and Montaigne: Knowledge of the Self, Translations, and Dialogues

I went to a research/alumni lunch where a few students who were doing research got up for a while and talked about it. One of the individuals spoke about her research involving comparing the essays of Montaigne and John Calvin; while her particular research was involved in the French writings of each, she mentioned some things that I think have some interesting philosophical implications.

One of these is that both individuals were interested in development of the self, although the manifestations of this were different. From what little I know of Montaigne, I understand that he spent a great deal of his life writing and rewriting his essays, which, I have heard it argued, allowed him to describe the details of his life for himself, as well as for everyone else. By continuing to write about himself, he was delving into what it meant to be a self and what it meant to be human.

Calvin, the lecturer told us, was doing the same thing, although he did it through his commentary and translations into French of political and religious works; he did this, she told us, so that the common man, those speaking French not Latin, could participate in the conversation about God, politics, and philosophy. Montaigne, she argued, did the same thing in a sense by writing his essays in French rather than Latin. It would seem that both of these individuals believed that such works should be available to all, rather than just the elite.

The second topic that has sparked thought in my mind that she went over was that of contemporaries playing off of each other. Apparently, Montaigne came briefly after Calvin and therefore was well versed in the manner in which he wrote and put forth various ideas. Why is this interesting: well, I think that philosophy should be (and has been in the past) a similar conversation in which one is developing, strengthening, and challenging not only one’s own philosophical understanding, but that of others as well.

For example, right now I am doing research for Dr. Rosental on the dialogue between Leibniz and Newton, two individuals who vehemently disagreed with one another, and yet they participated in a conversation (although with several intermediaries) which helped to develop in writing their individual thoughts. This sort of dialogue seems to be essential to the development of philosophical thought, whether it is one person building on that of another, or two bitter rivals trying to sway the other.