The Desire for Knowledge as an Incentive for Life in Community, following Michel de Montaigne

Abstract

A tendency towards truth indicates an inclination towards being in tune with the world and inserting one’s own life within it. It is a process that requires the concurrence of other viewpoints, fragmentary and diverse, the incorporation of which ensures the objectivity of knowledge and respects the richness of what it is real. Knowledge requires habits of coexistence and communication that establish a common space for equality and plurality in exchanges. Michel de Montaigne, in the troubled sixteenth century, celebrated the pleasure of discussion and exhorted people to travel as a form of avoiding personal pride and increasing their being through the encounter. A loyal search for truth in conjunction with courtesy in controversy would entail the promotion of civic virtues beyond mere tolerance and bring about attitudes of mutual interest, cordiality, dialogue, inclusion and care for that which is common.