The fairest division

Good sense, Montaigne and Descartes

We are familiar with Descartes’ claim: 

“Good sense is the best distributed thing in the world: for everyone thinks himself so well endowed with it that even those who are the hardest to please in everything else do not usually desire more of it than they possess.” 

(Descartes, Discourse on Method, I). 

Good sense, which Descartes understands as “the power of judging well and of distinguishing the true from the false”, is “naturally equal in all men.”(Discourse on Method, I)

Every man is equal in his power of judging true from false. A peculiar claim, is it not? Descartes’ argument seems to rest purely on the fact that everyone thinks himself sufficient in sense. We would all like to be a little bit more creative, a little stronger, a little more courageous, or to have a better memory. But when it comes to sense, no one thinks themselves lacking. Everyone thinks himself well enough endowed to judge on a myriad of affairs, on what is morally right or wrong, on the state of geo-politics, and even on the nature of reality. Perhaps you have to give them some narcotic to lift their spirits, but once the confidence is there, everyone knows everything. And even as regards ourselves, at each decision we make, what food we will eat, what time we decide to wake, what career we decide to pursue, whether to speak or to stay silent, at the moment of each decision, we think we are doing what is best in the moment. With each decision we make, we deem no judgement more correct, than the one we make ourselves.

In one of Michel de Montaigne’s essays, we find a clearer explanation of what Descartes might have meant. After summing up all the different qualities in which Montaigne finds himself lacking, he goes to explain the one feature for which he does hold himself in esteem —good sense. We read: 

“The sole feature for which I hold myself in some esteem is that in which no man has ever thought himself defective. My self-approbation is common, and shared by all. For who has ever considered himself lacking in sense? That would be a self-contradictory proposition. Lack of sense is a disease that never exists when it is seen; it is most tenacious and strong, yet the first glance from the patient’s eye pierces it through and disperses it, as a dense mist is dispersed by the sun’s beams. To accuse oneself would amount to self-absolution. There never was a street-porter or a silly woman who was not sure of having as much sense as was necessary. We readily recognize in others a superiority in courage, physical strength, experience, agility, or beauty. But a superior judgement we concede to nobody. And we think that we could ourselves have discovered the reasons which occur naturally to others, if only we had looked in the same direction.”

(Montaigne, ‘On presumption’, in Essays, 218) 

We see here the exact same point that Descartes will later make in the discourse on method. Many have asked the question of plagiarism or influence, but this is not our question. And perhaps it should be no question at all, for as Montaigne himself says, “it is commonly said that the fairest division of her favours that nature has bestowed on us is that of sense.”(Essays, 219). There is no question of originality here, only of two great thinkers offering their attention to a common saying. A common saying, which, we must not forget, was also said as an ironic joke. For evidently: some people are just stupid.

Yet still, even the most ignorant among us think themselves well enough endowed with good sense. 

In the last sentence we cited by Montaigne, we read that because everyone thinks themselves to be endowed with good sense, we presume that we could have come up with the ideas of others in just the same way, “if only we had looked in the same direction.” Evidently, for if we are all equal in our basic capacity for judgement, in good sense. Then what differentiates us, what makes our opinions so diverse? Descartes gives the answer:

“The diversity of our opinions does not arise because some of us are more reasonable than others but solely because we direct our thoughts along different paths and do not attend to the same things.”

(Discourse on Method, I)

The knowledge of some particular area of study —literature, philosophy, mathematics, physics, or anything else—, doesn’t tell us anything about the sense of he who has knowledge in this area, it merely tells us this person spent more time dedicated to this area. This is the radical claim of Descartes, which we also find in Montaigne. 

But why, would one believe that everyone is endowed with good sense, no one finding himself lacking in it? Montaigne gives us the same answer as Descartes:

“It is commonly said that the fairest division of her favours that nature has bestowed on us is that of sense. For there is no one who is discontented with the portion she has granted him. Is not this reasonable? Anyone who saw further would see beyond vision. I think my opinions are good and sound. But who does not think the same of his?”

(Montaigne, 219) 

Let us assume that we are all endowed with good sense. If we are all endowed with such a good sense, by nature, then the stupidity or intelligence of a person wouldn’t rest on their natural superiority or inferiority, but only on how they have chosen to apply their good sense. With this in mind, the most important task of education, becomes choosing the right type of knowledge. In all senses, the accumulation of knowledge by the mind, is subordinated to applying the mind in the right direction. Before we gain knowledge of this or that, we have to judge by way of our good sense, that this is the right direction to apply our mind, that this is what we need knowledge of.

Before you seek to fill up your superior or inferior faculty of memory, before you seek to apply your naturally given courage, or your naturally given cowardice, before you think with your superior intelligence, before you do any of these things, ask yourself: in what direction should I apply my faculties?

In his essay, Montaigne complains about “the uselessness of our education. Its aim has been to make us not good and wise, but learned; and in this it has succeeded.”(222)  Rather than making men wise and virtuous, education has only made men learned. We know so much, but we do not know what really matters.

We are like travellers, who in order to prepare for a journey, fill their bags with all sorts of useless stuff, but never care to train their bodies for the journey, or decide where they are going. Knowledgeable, but aimless.

“We are able to decline virtue, even if we are unable to love it; if we do not know what wisdom is in fact and by experience, we are familiar with it as a jargon learned by heart.”

(Montaigne, 222)

This was also the critique made by Descartes; we, philosophers, our heads are filled with metaphysical jargon, with the systems of antiquity and the vocabulary of scholasticism, but we do not even know the answer to the most important question of all: whether we even exist or not. Hence the force of Descartes simple claim —I think, I am.

Montaigne says that he finds “the behaviour and conversation of peasants more accordant with the rules of true philosophy than those of philosophers.” Why? Because the common people “are no wiser than they need to be.”(223). The farmer knows everything he needs to know, he knows how to tend his land and how to feed his family. He knows everything he needs to know, and nothing more. He does not busy himself with unnecessary questions about the meaning of existence, the structure of Being, or figuring out what his pronouns are. The common man does not worry about what he doesn’t know. He knows what he knows, and calmly acts on this, in assurance that he is doing all he can. On the other hand, the philosopher, his head filled with all sorts of questions, is never satisfied with what he knows. He has to read more, learn more concepts, ask more questions. And so busy with all this thinking, and so conscious of his own lack of understanding, he never has the confidence needed to act on what is necessary. And he never has the knowledge that is truly needed in the moment. We think of the story recounted about Thales, who, with his eyes on the heavens above, and his head in the clouds, fell into a well. So much knowledge, yet he doesn’t even know where to plant his feet.  

Plutarch writes:

“Since, then, our souls are by nature possessed of great fondness for learning and fondness for seeing, it is surely reasonable to chide those who abuse this fondness on objects all unworthy either of their eyes or ears, to the neglect of those which are good and serviceable. Our outward sense, since it apprehends the objects which encounter it by virtue of their mere impact upon it, must needs, perhaps, regard everything that presents itself, be it useful or useless; but in the exercise of his mind every man, if he pleases, has the natural power to turn himself away in every case, and to change, without the least difficulty, to that object which he himself determines. It is meet, therefore, that he pursue what is best, to the end that he may not merely regard it, but also be edified by regarding it.”

(Plutarch, Pericles, I)

It is not our lack of knowledge that is to blame, it is our lack of direction. This is what Montaigne and Descartes are telling us; do not blame your lack of memory, your lack of creativity, or your lack of erudition. Rather, blame yourself, for it was you that chose to use all your faculties for the wrong ends, or for no end at all. And this good sense, this ability of judging what is worthy of our attention and what is not, this is equal in all men. This is the one thing, the exercise of which, you cannot outsource to anyone else. 

Montaigne spoke of good sense as “the sole feature for which I hold myself in some esteem.” And in many senses, it is the only thing for which we can hold ourselves in esteem. Our power of memory is given to us, the natural beauty (or ugliness) of our body is given to us, our teachers are given to us. What is up to us, is what we do with what we are given.

Descartes speaks of generosity as the supreme virtue. Generosity, which Descartes defines as the knowledge of our own freedom to act as good as we can on the basis of what we know, and the resolution to use this freedom for virtuous ends. To act well, on the basis of what we know right now, and the resolve to keep doing so. It is here that both Montaigne and Descartes find the basis for their critique of excess erudition. If we ‘know’ too much, and if we know too much of what we don’t know, we get overwhelmed, and the result is paralysis. The common farmer knows all he needs to know to sustain himself, and he can focus on the task at hand. The learned man, with his mind wandering already with the next book he has to read, lives in perpetual postponement of action.

“When Eudaemonidas saw Xenocrates, as a very old man busy over the lessons of his school, he asked: ‘When will this man have knowledge, if he is still learning?’”

(Montaigne, Essays, 225)

For what end do we gather knowledge? To refine our good sense, to increase our capability of judging well and acting on this judgement? Or to flee from judging, ‘for we are still learning’, and to refrain from acting?

If anything, the revolution of philosophical modernity, as seen in men like Montaigne and Descartes, exists as the anti-thesis to the Socratic ideal of ignorance. Socrates says he is the wisest, because he knows that he doesn’t know anything. It is on this wise saying, that philosophers have always based themselves. But is it not so, Montaigne and Descartes ask, that being so full of our own ignorance, is only a way to renounce the duty of having an opinion, of taking a stand. And consequently, to feel the pain of having been wrong. Yet also, to calmly adjust one’s opinion, when good sense deems it necessary.

For our two philosophers, highly practical in intent, the end is to know. And the end of knowing, is to act. And the end of action, is to learn from our failures and successes, so as to once again act on what we have learned. And this simple power, to judge, to act, and to continually judge and adjust our actions, this is good sense. And it is only this which confers blame or worth. Whereas those who imitating Socrates, claiming they have no good sense at all, merely, by some clever sleight of hand, seek to be praised for having judged well that they have no good judgement.

Good sense is the best shared thing of all, for all think themselves well endowed with it.

Sources:

Descartes. The Philosophical Writings. Volume I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Michel de Montaigne. Essays. Translated by J.M. Cohen. London: Penguin, 1958.

Plutarch, Lives. Volume III. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. London: Heinemann, 1916.