Brahami, Frédéric
“The Presumption of Being”
- 2006.
68
For Montaigne as well as for Descartes, the philosophical meaning of the ego rests upon the philosophical meaning of God which in turn underpins two diametrically opposite conceptions of the Self and of God. This is why the relationship between Montaigne and Descartes offers a theoretical frame in which two conflicting theories of the Self are in direct opposition: in the one, the Self appears as an attribute of a real soul, in the other, it is the expression of a person. Whether it be the attribute of a substance or the superficial manifestation of an inner vacuum, what really matters is that the ego is henceforth seen in the perspective of the infinite, given in the figure of God. In fact, the opposition is possible only because, for Montaigne as well as Descartes, the individual has ceased to be a mere instance of the human race.