Montaigne and Nietzsche: Ancient and Future Wisdom (original) (raw)

In this essay I begin with the similarities between Montaigne and Nietzsche that have been discussed in the most recent scholarly literature, which has generally orbited around the latter’s theoretical debts to the former author. Then I move to a particular case inside this growing area of contemporary research, which is gaining more and more consideration and respect among the historians of modern philosophy, namely to Graham Parkes’ interpretation of the relationship between Montaigne and Nietzsche and of their views on the issue of death. I criticize the oversimplifications that his work entails, and show how their attitudes towards death represent two distinct, sharply alternative forms of practical wisdom, each of which having a specific and separate historical root.