“ We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so, every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth. ”
Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580). copy citation
| Author | Michel de Montaigne |
|---|---|
| Source | The Essays of Michel de Montaigne |
| Topic | truth dispute |
| Date | 1580 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Charles Cotton |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm |
Context
“Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed and commanded by passion? We first quarrel with their reasons, and then with the men. We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so, every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth. Therefore it is that Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred people. To what end do you go about to inquire of him, who knows nothing to the purpose? A man does no injury to the subject, when he leaves it to seek how he may treat it; I do not mean by an artificial and scholastic way, but by a natural one, with a sound understanding.”
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