I want to take a time out from my Bits and Pieces project to discuss briefly what I’m up to here. I started out with Bits and Pieces as a way to distill the essence of each Montaigne essay into three or four paragraphs, seeing it as a possible companion project to “Essai by Essay,” one that might invite readers to delve into the longer work if it interests them.
The more I get into it, I’ve discovered something surprising, that there’s an actual philosophical system to Montaigne if you assemble these bits and pieces just right. While it would be too strong to call Montaigne the father of phenomenology, it seems clear to me that his work was a definite precursor to this school of philosophy. In fact, phenomenology is commonly defined these days as the philosophy of experience, and On Experience was the final and greatest of Montaigne’s essays.
In addition, as I also discovered in the course of writing “Essai by Essay,” there is a great deal of political philosophy right under the surface of Montaigne’s work, and this has informed many of the most recent essays I’ve written. Montaigne is a powerful critic of authorities and systems of power, and that is hitting me at a time when I’m deeply disturbed by what is going on in the early days of the Trump/Musk administration.
So, the raw material of this blog might spin off in a couple of different ways, first as that short companion book, but perhaps also as a work of Montaignean philosophy. That, in turn, might have to be broken up into two works, Montaigne’s phenomenology and Montaigne’s philosophy of power.
Anyway, just felt like taking a breath and spelling out those possible paths. Back soon to the regular meditations.