How to Practice for Death

Practice, as Montaigne points out in his classic essay (“Of Practice”), is generally necessary for performing any task well. If so, however, we seem to be destined to face our own death in an ill-prepared state. As Montaigne soberly puts it:

“[F]or dying, which is the greatest task we have to perform, practice cannot help us. A man can, by practice and experience, fortify himself against pain, shame, indigence, and such other accidents; but as for death, we can try it only once: we are all apprentices when we come to it.” (267)

After drawing this pessimistic conclusion, however, Montaigne goes on to qualify it: it turns out there is a way of practicing for the greatest task we have to perform, “of familiarizing ourselves with death and trying it out to some extent” (268). Moreover, by the end of the essay, Montaigne has come to see a connection between the way he has found to practice death and his own literary project.

Stanford students are invited to join Zephyr for an evening dinner seminar with Prof. Lanier Anderson (Stanford, Philosophy), who will lead us in discussion of this short but classic essay and its implications—not just for whether we can practice for our own death, but, more generally, for the ways in which literature (like Montaigne’s essays) can enrich our lives.

Participants are asked to read Montaigne’s essay in advance, which can be found here.

Dinner will be provided to all attendees.

Space will be limited for this event. If for any reason you are no longer able to make it, please notify us promptly so that we can accomodate others.

About the speaker

R. Lanier Anderson is J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of the Humanities and Senior Associate Dean for the Humanities and Arts at Stanford University. His research concerns the history of late modern philosophy and connections between philosophy and literature.  In late modern history, he has focused primarily on Kant and his influence on 19th century philosophy. He is the author of a book on Kant's critique of metaphysics (The Poverty of Conceptual Truth (Oxford, 2015)), as well as numerous articles on Kant's theoretical philosophy, on Nietzsche, and on the neo-Kantian movement. He is currently completing a book on Montaigne's Essays.