Saber e fé em Montaigne

Abstract

This research proposes to approach the notion of knowledge and faith (was) suggested by Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), from the essay Apology to Raymond de Sebond (II, 12). For this, we present how the French thinker analyzed the ideological confrontation between opposing currents that marked his time. Having as a starting point the attempt to decipher the Apology, the research opts for a certain approach, in which there is possibility of contextualizing the apologetic essay by understanding the specificities treated. How does Montaigne rehearse the path of knowledge and the way of faith? What would a wise or faithful man be? Is the theoretical criterion superior to the practical one? How should they act amidst the chaos of ideas and the customary use of generalized violence? Where would reason and good Christian faith be through the practice of evil? In this essay, Montaigne apparently does the defense of Natural Theology (1434) by the Catalan physician Raymond de Sebond (? -1436), but we are faced with a framework of diverse attributes that permeate the work, whether in theological, scientific or political sense, ethical or philosophical. Re-evaluating the human instrument and evidencing the disconnection between the human sphere and the divine sphere from the ethical criterion becomes the central framework of Apology. Man would be condemned to occupy the space in which he is, limited, without supernatural protection. Neither chair nor cathedral has tools to dye the truth, or the truths of the world. In this way, the sense of analysis of the notion of knowledge and faith must be defined, from the author's point of view, either in the Apologia or in other secondary essays. For this research we also adopt the following interpretative hypotheses: i) the knowledge has limited sense; ii) skepticism allows us to face the questions about the truth; iii) the divine dimension is dissociated from the human dimension; v) the question of truth is not separated from the moral problems, nor from the anthropological, epistemological, political and ethical treatment considered by Montaigne.