How To Be An Agnostic

Following Socrates

become prohibition. That created the conditions within which
philosophy could become an autonomous discipline, a sepa-
ration of heart and mind that was sealed with the emergence
of the modern university. It became what Socrates must have
feared, a subject to be taught and examined.

Modern Socratics

Having said that, the separation of philosophy as a conceptual
exercise and as a mode of existence was never absolute. And
herein lies hope. Throughout the history of ideas in the Christian
West, thinkers have regularly lamented the opposition of phi-
losophy as a private art and as a public discourse – suggesting in
the process that the two may move closer together once again.
Michel de Montaigne achieved a new synthesis in the sixteenth
century. He wrote his Essays as a therapy to overcome a crush-
ing melancholia. They are philosophical not because he was
trained as a philosopher but because they are an analysis of his
life – ‘assays’ of everything from solitude to sleep: ‘I am myself
the matter of my book’, he wrote, forging the way of life of the
intellectual writer. He is called the French Socrates and has also
been attributed with the revival of an agnostic Pyrrhonism. He
had ‘Know thyself!’ and ‘What do I know?’ written on the beams
of his study-tower and realised that the philosopher’s real test
was his character not his conclusions.

The soul which houses philosophy must by her own sanity

make for a sound body. Her tranquility and ease must fl ow

from her; she must fashion her outward bearing to her

mould, arming it therefore with gracious pride, a spritely

active demeanour and a happy welcoming face. The most

express sign of wisdom is unruffl ed joy: like all the realms

above the Moon, her state is ever serene.

A more recent example of a philosopher for whom his living
became increasingly integrated with his thought was Michel