The “fleaux de nostre ame” The vices in the thought of Montaigne and Descartes

The objective of this study is to analyse, through the understanding of vices, ignorance and curiosity, the thoughts of Montaigne and Descartes, in order to discover whether there is filiation, inheritance or even reception from Montaigne’s conception to the Cartesian one. In Descartes, ignorance produces vice and science creates virtue, but, for Montaigne, this distinction is not so simple: virtue and vice are conceived within the very interior of action and the human life.