Apology for Raymond Sebond

The longest chapter of Montaigne’s Essais — Book II, chapter 12, first published in 1580 — and the one that reads least like an essay and most like a demolition. Montaigne sets out nominally to defend a fifteenth-century Catalan theologian, Raymond Sebond, who had argued that the truths of Christianity could be established by natural reason. Montaigne’s defence is to destroy the premise: human reason is unreliable, the senses deceive, animals may be our equals, and the philosophers contradict each other so completely that nothing survives the comparison. Faith, on this account, is what is left when reason has been shown not to reach. It is where Montaigne’s motto Que sais-je? — what do I know? — does its real work, and it became the founding text of early modern scepticism.

Why it’s on the list: Assigned in the University of Austin’s Renaissance and Reformation course, opposite Erasmus. Where The Praise of Folly attacks institutions with humanist learning, the Apology turns the same humanist learning on the confidence of learning itself — which is the specifically Renaissance move that later runs through Descartes, Pascal and Hume.

Where I saw it: On the University of Austin’s Fall 2025 reading list, “65 Texts Our Students Are Reading”, November 13 2025, saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 65-text curriculum is transcribed on UATX Fall Reading List.

Connections

• UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
• The Praise of Folly — the other Renaissance and Reformation text in this shard; the two sit opposite each other on the syllabus.
• Renaissance · Humanism — the movement, and the moment it turns sceptical about itself.
• Christianity — the question at issue is whether reason can reach the faith.