Montaigne does not debate the great metaphysical questions. To the extent that there is any metaphysical content at all in the Essays, it would seem to be either merely presupposed or implied. Does this mean that Montaigne was just not interested in the question of being or that he regarded the Aristotelian teachings of the schools as sufficient and the great metaphysical issues settled?

The metaphysics of the Essays is a latent metaphysics. But in calling it latent I do not mean to suggest that Montaigne was either unaware of or uninterested in the metaphysical foundations of his own thought, rather that its latency is necessitated by the meaning and character of accidental philosophy. Accidental philosophy is purely human: it is not the activity of an intellect that sees itself as divine. Accidental philosophy is purely philosophical: it is not a theology that takes the truths of faith as its axioms or as simply presumed.

The revelation of being and the relation of thought to being, as displayed in the Essays, necessitate a latent metaphysics. Being is both revealed and hidden. It is revealed in the accidental movement of circular dialectic. But the fact that it must be revealed through dialectic implies that it is, of itself, hidden. The latency of the metaphysics of the Essays mirrors the revelation and hiddenness of being itself, and thus the Essays instantiate the condition of human being with respect to being as such.