Body, Health and Animals in Michel de Montaigne’s Essais.
Journal title RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Author/s Davide Bernini
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2025/4
Language Italian Pages 14 P. 566-579 File size 202 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2025-004002
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In the pages of the Essais, the body is omnipresent. It is a vast and complex theme, and one of the most discussed by scholars. This paper aims to investigate the theme of the body in its relationship with health, a key concept in the Essais. In this regard, the ultimate mod- els to follow in achieving health seem to be animals, as they are capable of listening to their bodies and the voice of nature. The guiding question of this study is the follow- ing: given that attaining health requires following nature, is the naturiste path – name- ly, the way of life of animals – the privileged route indicated by Montaigne? Or does it have its limitations? The proposed hypothesis is that this path appears inaccessible to humans and that Montaigne instead seems to point to the exercise of judgment as the true gateway to health and wisdom.
Keywords: Montaigne, Body, Health, Animal, Naïveté, Judgement
Davide Bernini, Corpo, salute e animali negli Essais di Michel de Montaigne in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 4/2025, pp 566-579, DOI: 10.3280/SF2025-004002