Michel de Montaigne

The French word essais means attempts, which fits Montaigne's method of trying out ideas rather than building a closed system. The first two books appeared in 1580, and later editions expanded the project with more revisions and self-reflection.

Que sais-je? means What do I know?, and it captures Montaigne's skeptical habit of questioning his own certainty. It is tied to the spirit of the Essays, where he often examines himself as closely as the topic in front of him.

Of Cannibals is the essay most often read on that question. Montaigne uses reports about Brazil to challenge European assumptions about civilization and barbarism in sixteenth-century France.

Montaigne helped make personal experience a serious form of inquiry. His Essays influenced later writers and thinkers because they mix philosophy, anecdote, classical quotation, and ordinary self-examination in a form first published in 1580.