Early modern · 1533–1592
Who influenced Michel de Montaigne?
Influences and legacy
Invented the essay: skeptical, personal, humane — Que sais-je?
Michel de Montaigne was influenced by Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus and Erasmus, and went on to influence René Descartes, Pierre Bayle, David Hume and Ralph Waldo Emerson. That is 10 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Unknown author, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Michel de Montaigne?
Michel de Montaigne made the essay a literary genre. His Essais mix casual anecdote and autobiography with sharp thought, and they influenced many later writers.
In his lifetime he was admired more as a statesman than as an author, and his habit of digression and his line "I am myself the matter of my book" struck readers as self-indulgent. Later he came to stand for critical thought and open inquiry. His best-known question is the sceptic's "What do I know?"
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Michel de Montaigne?
6 direct influences on this map, earliest first.
Who did Michel de Montaigne influence?
4 thinkers on this map draw directly on Michel de Montaigne.
- René Descartes 1596–1650
- Pierre Bayle 1647–1706
- David Hume 1711–1776
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882
The line of teachers behind Michel de Montaigne
The longest documented line of influence ending at Michel de Montaigne runs 11 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Michel de Montaigne
Indirect influences
- Through Cicero: Plato, Zeno of Citium, Posidonius
- Through Lucretius: Epicurus
- Through Sextus Empiricus: Timon of Phlius
- Through Erasmus: Lorenzo Valla
The second generation
Contemporaries of Michel de Montaigne
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Michel de Montaigne, with no direct line between them.
- Giordano Bruno 1548–1600
Michel de Montaigne by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 6
- Direct followers
- 4 — #23 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 33
- Thinkers downstream
- 134
- Wikipedia languages
- 88 — #18 of 36 among early modern philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Questions about Michel de Montaigne
- Who influenced Michel de Montaigne?
- Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus and Erasmus.
- Who did Michel de Montaigne influence?
- René Descartes, Pierre Bayle, David Hume and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
- When did Michel de Montaigne live?
- 1533–1592. The map files Michel de Montaigne under the early modern period.
- How rare is the Michel de Montaigne card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Michel de Montaigne in 88 languages, which makes it an Epic card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More early modern philosophers
- René Descartes 1596–1650
- Immanuel Kant 1724–1804
- Voltaire 1694–1778
- Adam Smith 1723–1790
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778
- Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646–1716
- John Locke 1632–1704