Montaigne and Burckhardt as Sources of Nicolas Gomez Davila's Reactionary Doctrine in Scholia

Abstract

Some of Gomez Davila's commentators have noticed that his work has an intertextual nature, that is, it is not a closed system: it is always implicitly linked to other works and writers. Gomez Davila himself points out in the Scholia that Montaigne and Burckhardt play a significant role in such intertextuality. The purpose of the article is to present an interpretation of the link of the aforementioned writers with the work of the Colombian one. In Burckhardt's case, it is shown how his anthropological pessimism -based on an idea of the original sin-, his skepticism regarding the human possibility of constructing utopias, his denial of the idea of progress, and his conception of the size and role of the State are found in the work of Gomez Davila, as well as the way in which the latter develops them. In Montaigne's case, his closeness to Gomez Davila is shown by means of their biographical similarities, their distance to the academic world of their own time, their own idea of philosophy, their use of skepticism as a tool to defend faith, and their strong conservatism. The article concludes that this intertextuality provides order and sense to Gomez Davila's political standpoint within his Scholia. Indeed, it is intended to show that Gomez Davila articulates the influence of his masters in a reactionary view of the world.