Abstract

Dealing with identity in Montaigne is at least as uncertain an undertaking as in his writings the idea itself is. Yet a work in which the author does nothing but write about himself, likely has to do with identity or, at least, with the claim of modern subjectivity to define, produce, assemble, and disassemble its own identity. The article briefly discusses well-known interpretations, more or less recent, of the uncertain identity that Montaigne seems to propose. The relationship between the question of identity and the human lack of “communication with Beingµ is then considered, proposing a reversal of the prima facie reading of the conclusion of the Apologie. Finally, a well-known passage in which Montaigne seems to propose a remedy for the essential emptiness of identity through friendship for self and living for the others is looked upon