Introduction

Pierre Charron (1541–1603) was a lawyer-turned-theologian who was also a brilliant preacher. He served as vicar-general of Bordeaux from 1576 to 1593, and during that period came into contact with Montaigne, whose influence on him is evident. Charron lived during a time of intense religious wars, which he regarded as the playing out of uncontrolled passions. His De la sagesse (Wisdom) fits in with this preoccupation. It originally appeared in 1601 in Bordeaux. A revised edition was published in Paris in 1604, and the text for the present translation is that of the latter edition (Paris: Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1986).

Wisdom is a long work, in three books. Book I is a sixty-chapter account of the “parts” of human nature, including the body; the soul, the spirit, or mind; and the various passions. (The account of body, mind, and spirit does not look forward in any significant way to Descartes.) Book II is a general account of wisdom and how to achieve it; and book III considers wisdom more specifically in relation to the four virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. There are important connections between Charron's books I and III and Descartes' writings on ethics and the passions in the Discours and the Passions de l'âme. There are connections between all three books and Descartes' own remarks about wisdom in the preface to the French edition of the Principles of Philosophy. But the early chapters of book II have been chosen here for their connections to Descartes' Meditations.