On Wisdom

Pierre Charron, a 17th-century French theologian, explored the concept of wisdom in his work On Wisdom. He was a follower of Michel de Montaigne and developed a form of skepticism, suggesting that true wisdom lies in doubting because human reason is unreliable. Charron argued that ethics could be separated from religion, proposing that individuals could find moral guidance in nature rather than solely through divine commands. This idea of a "noble savage" drawing morality from the natural world made him an early modern ethical theorist. His work was influential but also controversial, with some viewing it as irreligious.1