Philosophie et perfection de l'homme. De la Renaissance a Descartes.

Emmanuel Faye. (Philologie et Mercure.) Paris: Vrin, 1998. 397 pp. FFr 198. ISBN: 2-7116-1331-3.

As Emmanuel Faye rightly asserts at the beginning of his book, there is as of yet no synthetic study of French philosophy from Gerson to Descartes. French philosophical achievements are clearly underrepresented both in Kristeller's classic Renaissance Philosophy of Man, and in the recent Renaissance Philosophy by Copenhaver and Schmitt. This omission is particularly important, Faye argues, since it is precisely in France that one should look for what constitutes for him a truly philosophical idea: human perfection viewed as the result of the potentialities inherent to man's own nature. Such a restrictive definition of philosophy allows the author to limit his considerations to Raymond Sibiuda, Charles de Bovelles, Montaigne, Charron and Descartes. It frees him from discussing a whole range of French early modern thinkers, such as Lefevre d'Etaples or Ramus, whose methodological and pedagogical interests would fit more easily in a book devoted to "the history of ideas" (which Faye mentions with somewhat condescending quotation marks). Most of all, it distinguishes philosophy from what constitutes for Faye its main antagonist: theology, understood mainly as the dualistic vision of man failed and redeemed.

It is therefore clear, as the author acknowledges himself, that this book is not "merely" a thesis in the history of philosophy. Even more: it could have been written about another historical period (365). Indeed, Faye's restrictive notions of philosophy and theology are very far from Bude's encyclopedic bonae litterae, or Erasmus's "philosophy of Christ." Faye's concepts seem rather to be vehicles of a sempiternal struggle between the liberating forces of human intellect and the gloomy powers attempting to repress its natural potentialities. Faye's book takes up the fight by opposing the "theological way of thinking" which, as he argues, has penetrated modern Academia, especially in the field of medieval studies and phenomenology. This larger perspective leads him to speak of "Renaissance Philosophy" (or better "renascent philosophy" - philosophic renaissante) rather than of the "Philosophy of the Renaissance," almost as if to symbolize the rebirth of philosophy as he understands it, reaching at the same time beyond the French sixteenth century, back to its first manifestations among the Parisian Masters of Arts condemned in 1277.

In his discussion of particular authors, the stress on the real or potential impact that censure might have had on their work plays also a major role in Faye's interpretation. The goal is to focus on their "deep intentions," to look beyond the contingencies and the diversity of their works, in order to reach for the purely "philosophical" path leading to Descartes' "deep inspiration." Any "theologizing" readings of Bovelles, Montaigne, Charron, and Descartes - such as those by Joseph Victor, Michael A. Screech, Andree Comparot, Malcolm C. Smith, Christian Belin, or Etienne Gilson - have therefore to be reconsidered.

What space does such a narrow understanding of philosophy and theology leave for textual analysis? Paradoxically, one has to admit that Faye is a sensitive and very often scrupulous reader of philosophical texts. He studies attentively the duality of "the sciences of man" in Sibiuda's work, while at the same time acknowledging the "philosophical" content of the considerations that focus specifically on the human condition before the fall. He insists on the importance of the late treatises of Bovelles, and even reveals the existence of manuscript notes taken by Beatus Rhenanus and relating his conversations with the author of De Sapiente. However, he stresses that Bovelles' mysticism remains a philosophical endeavor (une pensee), as if mystical speculations were limited to the realm of emotions. Faye's analysis undoubtedly opens up new avenues to the work of these two thinkers. His reading of Montaigne, driven by the main thesis of the book, is less inspiring. In a way typical for those who see Montaigne mostly as a "philosopher" (or at least as a "humanist"), he downplays the importance of the discursive form of the Essays, notably in the key passage of "On prayers," where Montaigne reflects on those theologians who write trop humainement. This separation between "thought" and "style" leads him to praise Charron for having perfectly understood the philosophical legacy of Montaigne, without "plagiarizing" his way of writing.

Given its particular premisses, Faye's book cannot be read as a synthesis of French Renaissance philosophy. It is, however, an intellectually courageous and captivating study, which has every chance to spark a lively discussion. I am confident it will also be a fruitful one, since Faye sheds sharp light on the fundamental problem for the Renaissance: the distance separating - and linking - the human and the divine.

University of Wisconsin