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Pierre Charron

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Pierre Charron
Born 1541
Paris, France
Died 16 November 1603 (aged 61–62)
Paris, France
Philosophical work
Era Renaissance philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Scepticism

Pierre Charron (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ ʃaʁɔ̃]; 1541 – 16 November 1603) was a French Catholic theologian and major contributor to the new thought of the 17th century. He is remembered for his controversial form of skepticism and his separation of ethics from religion as an independent philosophical discipline.

Biography

Pierre Charron was born in Paris, one of the twenty-five children of a bookseller. After studying law at Orléans and Bourges he practiced as an advocate, for a few years.[1] He then entered the church and soon became a popular priest, rising to become a canon.

He moved to the southwest of France, invited by Arnaud de Pontac, Bishop of Bazas.[2] He was appointed priest in ordinary to Marguerite de Valois, wife of Henry IV of Navarre. In about 1588, Charron decided to become a monk, but being rejected by both the Carthusians and the Celestines, he returned to his old profession. He delivered a course of sermons at Angers, and in the next year moved to Bordeaux, where he formed a famous friendship with Michel de Montaigne. On Montaigne's death, in 1592, Charron was requested in the will to bear the Montaigne arms.[3]

From 1594, he used his own name; he spent from 1594 to 1600 under the protection of Antoine Hérbrard de Saint-Sulpice,[2] Bishop of Cahors, who appointed him grand vicar and theological canon. His first book led to his being chosen deputy to the general assembly of the clergy, for which he became chief secretary.

Charron retired to Condom in 1600; he died suddenly of a stroke; his works were then receiving attention.[4][5]

Works

Charron first published his works anonymously. Later he wrote under the name of "Benoit Vaillant, Advocate of the Holy Faith." While Charron's reading of Montaigne is now considered dogmatic and indeed something of a distortion, it was important in its time and during the 17th century as a whole.[6]

Les Trois Vérités

In 1594, he published a long work, Les Trois Vérités, in which Charron sought to prove that there is a God and a true religion, that the true religion is Christianity, and that the true church is Roman Catholicism. It was a response to the Protestant work Le Traité de l'Eglise, by Philippe de Mornay. In the second edition (1595), there is an elaborate reply to criticisms of the third Vérité by a Protestant writer. Les Trois Vérités ran through several editions.

Discours chretiens

Then followed, in 1600, Discours chretiens, a book of sermons with a similar tone, half of which is about the Eucharist.

De la sagesse

In 1601, Charron published in Bordeaux his third work, De la sagesse, a system of moral philosophy that develops ideas of Montaigne.[7] Charron also connected Montaigne's scepticism with the anti-rational strand in Christianity.[4] It received the support of Henry IV and of magistrate Pierre Jeannin. A second revised edition appeared in 1603, supported by Claude Dormy, the second Bishop of Boulogne.[4]

De la sagesse also was attacked, in particular by the Jesuit François Garasse (1585–1631), who described Charron as an atheist.

A summary and defence of the book, written shortly before his death, appeared in 1606. In 1604, Charron's friend Michel de la Roche prefixed a "Life" to an edition of De la sagesse, which depicts Charron as an amiable man of good character. His complete works, with this contribution by de la Roche, were published in 1635. An abridgment of the Sagesse is given in Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann's Philosophie, vol. ix. An edition with notes by A. Duval appeared in 1820. It was translated into English as Of Wisdome (1612) by Samson Lennard;[8] and again by George Stanhope (1697).[9]

Views

Influences

Apart from the major influence of Montaigne, Charron took from Raymond of Sabunde (Sibiuda).[10] Another influence was neostoicism, as handled by Justus Lipsius.[11]

Psychology

According to Charron, the soul, located in the ventricles of the brain, is affected by the temperament of the individual; the dry temperament produces acute intelligence; the moist, memory; the hot, imagination. Dividing the intelligent soul into these three faculties, he writes the branches of science corresponding with each. On the nature of the soul, he quotes opinions. The belief in its immortality, he says, is the most universal of beliefs, but the most feebly supported by reason. As to a human's power of attaining truth, he declares that none of our faculties enable us to distinguish truth from error. In comparing humans with animals, Charron insists that there are no breaks in nature. Though inferior in some respects, in others, animals are superior. Namely, humanity's essential qualities are vanity, weakness, inconstancy, and presumption.

Theology

Charron writes that all religions teach that God is to be appeased by prayers, presents, vows, but especially, and, most irrationally, by human suffering. Each religion is said by its devotees to have commenced by divine inspiration. A human is a Christian, Jew, or Muslim, before he or she knows that they are persons. Furthermore, he writes that one religion is built upon another.

While Charron declares religion to be "strange to common sense," the practical result at which he arrives is that one is not to sit in judgment on his or her faith, but to be "simple and obedient," and to submit to public authority. He writes that this is one rule of wisdom with regard to religion. Another equally important is to avoid superstition, which he defines as the belief that God is like a hard judge who, eager to find fault, narrowly examines our slightest act, that he is vengeful and hard to appease, and that, therefore, he must be flattered and won over by pain and sacrifice.

Charron states that true piety, which is the first of duties, is the knowledge of God and of one's self; the latter knowledge being necessary to the former. The belief that what God sends is all good, and that all the bad is from ourselves is the abasing of humanity and the exalting of God. It leads to spiritual worship, for external ceremony is merely for our advantage, not for his glory.

Politics

Charron declares the sovereign to be the source of law, and asserts that popular freedom is dangerous.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pierre Charron — Moralist, b. in Paris, 1541; d. there 6 Nov., 1603. He studied law at Bourges, but after several years' practice he embraced the ecclesiastical state. For thirty years he preached with so much success that the bishops vied with one another to engage his services. Queen Margaret of Navarre entertained him as her preacher in ordinary, and King Henry delighted to hear him even before his conversion to the Catholic Faith. In Bordeaux he met the famous Michel de Montaigne. Their acquaintance ripened into a close and lasting friendship. Montaigne bequeathed to his friend the right to wear his coat of arms, and Charron in return made the sister of Montaigne heir to his possessions. Charron published three books: "Les trois vérités" (Bordeaux, 1594), "Les discours chrestiens" (Cahors, 1600), and "Sagesse" (Bordeaux, 1601). Whilst engaged in bringing out a second edition of the latter, he died suddenly of apoplexy.

At a period of extraordinary religious agitation the "Trois vérités" (Three Truths) proved to be a very opportune and valuable apology. The "Discours chrestiens" were published only a few months before "Sagesse", and, like "Trois vérités", they were perfectly orthodox. But the book which carried Charron's influence and fame beyond the borders of France and down to our time is his "Sagesse". Its rich material, which Charron had gathered chiefly from Montaigne's conversations and essays, he divides into three parts: the nature of man; the duties of man as man; and the particular duties of the various classes and conditions of men. His standpoint is invariably that of a human philosopher. The sceptic spirit which pervades the whole book allows it to be summed up in a very few words: by his own natural light and strength man is incapable of finding principles of religion and morality sufficiently certain; and, being sure of nothing, it is consequently wise to live as conveniently and pleasurably as the common usage of the people among whom one lives allows. No attempt is made anywhere in the body of the book to conceal the baldness of this doctrine.

Had Charron, instead of engraving his easy-going "Je ne sçay" as the essence of all his worldly wisdom on the title-page of his "Sagesse" and over the entrance of his house, taken, like Descartes, the time and the trouble of finding a solid basis of moral and religious certainty, he would have shown himself a deeper and more independent philosopher and a worthier moralist. As it is, we need not wonder that the second edition of the "Sagesse" encountered great opposition and was allowed to appear only after some passages had been softened down, and others explained or corrected. Nor is the fierce onslaught of Garasse, who called Charron "athée et le patriarche des esprits forts", surprising, especially when, even in our days, nearly the same charge is made and ably supported by Ad. Franck in the "Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques". These accusations, however, take account neither of the time in which Charron lived, when philosophic uncertainty was not held to imply clearly the rejection of revealed authority; nor of the author's explicit professions that he intended his "Sagesse" as the best introduction to his "Trois vérités" and his "Discours chrestiens"; nor of the constant good opinion in which the author was held to the end of his life by his many ecclesiastical superiors.

References

  1. Back to citation Schaff-Herzog article
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 "Annales du Midi".
  3. Back to citation Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pierre Charron". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  4. Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Back to citation occurrence 4.2 Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (1979), p. 56-7.
  5. Back to citation Gale Dictionary of Philosophy
  6. Back to citation "Michel de Montaigne". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2019.
  7. Back to citation Kraye, Jill (1990). "Moral Philosophy". In Charles B. Schmitt; Quentin Skinner (eds.). The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. p. 315. ISBN 978-0-521-39748-3.
  8. Back to citation Dictionary of National Biography, Lennard, Samson (d 1633), genealogist and translator, by Thompson Cooper. Published 1892.
  9. Back to citation "Stanhope, George". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  10. Back to citation Emmanuel Faye, Philosophie et perfection de l'homme: de la Renaissance à Descartes
  11. Back to citation "Neo-Stoicism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy".

Bibliography

Works

  • De la Sagesse Livres Trois; par M. Pierre le Charron, Parisien, Chanoine Theologal & Chantre en l'Eglise Cathedrale de Comdom Bourdeaus, S. Millanges, 1604.
  • Toutes les Oeuvres de Pierre Charron; Parisien, Docteur es Droiets, Chantre et Chanoine Theologal de Condom derniere edition. Reveues, corrigees & augmentees. 2 vols. Paris Jacques Villery, 1635.
  • Discours chrétiens (Bordeaux, 1600).

Secondary sources

  • Michel Adam, Etudes sur Pierre Charron. Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 1991.
  • Henry Thomas Buckle, Introduction to History of Civilization in England, vol. ii. 19.
  • Claudiu Gaiu, La prudence de l’homme d’esprit. L’éthique de Pierre Charron. Préface de Denis Kambouchner, Bucharest: Zeta Books, 2010.
  • Tullio Gregory, "Pierre Charron's Scandalous Book", p. 87-110 in: Michael Hunter & David Wootton (eds.), Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992. ISBN 0-19-822736-1.
  • Francoise Kaye, Charron et Montaigne; du plagiat a l'originalite, Ottawa: Editions de l'Universite d'Ottawa, 1982.
  • William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Rationalism in Europe (1865).
  • Adrien Lezat, De la predication sous Henri IV. c. vi.
  • Hugo Liebscher, Charron u. sein Werk, De la sagesse (Leipzig, 1890).
  • John Mackinnon Robertson, Short History of Free Thought (London, 1906), vol. ii.
  • John Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance (1893).
  • Jeffrey Zuniga, Toward a Life of Wisdom, Pierre Charron in the Light of Modern and Postmodern skepticism Manila: University of St. Thomas Press, 2000.

Further reading

  • Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Natural Law as the Foundation for an Autonomous Ethic: Pierre Charron's De la Sagesse, Studies in the Renaissance Vol. 21, (1974), pp. 204–227.
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