The Original Ivory Tower

First of all, I think that Dr. Gordon Mower’s Thursday lecture has given me a new literary hero: Michele d’ Montaigne. He received a whole education in Law, then returned to a tower on his estate to make wine and write essays. What admirable eccentricity! He cannot but be the toast of Greenland and Antarctica!

            I found a lot of value in Dr. Gower’s history of philosophy. I was unfamiliar with many of the terms and people that he used, but it was a good introduction to philosophy. Dr. Mower explained that skepticism begins by discounting everything one thinks that one knows and only building on certainty. I was interested, also in the concept of dispensing with reliance on logic. At first, I was shocked. If we don’t have logic, how can we think and discover? Dr. Mower later gave an interesting explanation. Montaigne, he said, believed that treating his logical and reasoning capabilities with “skepticism” complemented his faith. This reminded me of the lecture by the author of An Ambiguous Adventure, where science was represented by light, but the unknown mysteries of faith were found in the shadows. I suppose faith is an interesting mix of hope, trust, and even “skepticism” at times. The more I think about it, actually, the more sense it makes: as much as we like to talk about scientific inquiry (not that it isn’t valuable), taking any piece of information from the “thinking about it” stage to “knowledge” requires a leap of faith and trust. People have been known to hold to beliefs in spite of overwhelming evidence. How do we really make our decisions?

            Dr. Mower stated that Montaigne believed in a “gentle” education. In his view, the transition from ignorance to knowledge should be as smooth as waking from sleep to light orchestral music. I don’t know that I have had that experience—my mother would occasionally rouse us with sprightly songs about getting and doing push-ups, but that is not quite the same. To be honest, his thoughts on education reminded me of Lady Brackal in “The Importance of Being Earnest.” She believed that ignorance was like a delicate flower that should not be tampered with. Despite my disagreements with him in terms of education, I enjoyed this “gentle” introduction to the study of philosophy.