Abstract: It is generally assumed that political scepticism is either reducible to conformism and conservatism or instead conceals subversive ideas. We intend to show that it can exist as a fully-fledged form of political commitment. Drawing on Montaigne’s Essais, and in opposition to Machiavelli, it is argued that scepticism approaches politics from the point of view of the common man in search of an appropriate « distance » : between the public and the private, but also with respect to circumstances.
