In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pierre Jurieu's Contribution to Bayle's Dktionnaire KARL C. SANDBERG PIERRE BAYLE'S VIEWSon faith and reason1as they appear throughout his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) may be reduced to two basic points. First, the doctrines of Christian theology are vulnerable to a great number of rational objections which would seem to destroy them. Second, reason itself is not a reliable guide in areas of speculative knowledge and should be (...) made to bow to the authority of revelation. This position in its essence is neither irreligious nor antireligious. On the contrary, it is closely related to the general stream of seventeenth-century fideism,~ and is only the logical extension of views which Bayle had expressed as a Protestant controversialist in his early writings2 Moreover, recent studies of Bayle in his milieu have presented compelling evidence that Bayle himself lived, wrote, and died as some kind of believing member of the Reformed Church. 4 It is not less certain, however, that Bayle's Dictionnaire was one of the most powerful antireligious influences of the Enlightenment, s for the eighteenth-century rationalists found in it such a tone of polemics coupled with such an abundant display of the rational insufficiencies of Christianity, that they could not take Bayle's ostensible fideism seriously. This paradox leads one to wonder why Bayle as a believer should so insist upon the disparity he found between faith and reason if he did not intend to lead an attack upon religion in general. What would account for the presence of the penetrating rational critique of Christian doctrines except a desire to discredit them? A partial answer might be suggested by Bayle's method of exposition and disputa1By faith is meant the belief in the speculative doctrines of Calvinist Protestantism, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence, and in the authority of revelation. By reason is meant essentially the Cartesian method, whose criterium of truth is incontrovertible evidence. See Richard Popkin, "Pierre Bayle's Place in 17th-century Scepticism," in Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam, ed. Paul Dibon (Amsterdam: 1959). 8During his participation in the Protestant-Catholic controversies of 1682-1687, Bayle became keenly aware that no Christian dogma was susceptible of rational proof. See his Commentaire Philosophique (1686)in his Oeuvres diverses (The Hague: 1737), II, 438. He had, however, previouslybeen convinced of the frailty of reason as a guide in speculative areas (but not in practical matters of morality). See his NouveUes de la Republique des Lettres, September, 1684, in Oeuvres diverses, I, 132-133. These works will hereafter be abbreviated CP, OD, and NRL, respectively. Other abbreviations to be used are DHC, Dictionnaire historique el critique; LFam, Lettres de M. Bayle ~ sa famille; SCP, Supplement du Commentaire philosophique (1687); PDC, Pens~es diverses sur la eomOte (1682); CC, La Cabale ehimdrique (1691). All of these works except the Dictionnaire are found in the Oeuvres diverses. The fourth edition of the Dictionnaire (1730) is the one cited here. 4See Paul Dibon, ed., Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam (Amsterdam: 1959), and Elizabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, Vol. I, "Du Pays de Foix i~la cit~ d'Erasme" (La Haye: 1963). 6Paul Hazard, La Pens~e europ$enne au XVIII~me si~cle de Montesquieu (~ Lessing (Paris [1946], I, 44. [59] 60 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tion, for in examining any question he felt intellectually obligated to set forth the strong and weak points of both sides. One can never boast of having proved a point, he said, without having stated and answered the strongest objections of one's opponent. ~ What subsequent readers found heterodox was possibly only Bayle's statement of his opponent's position. This answer is insufficient, however, because as Bayle had previously become aware of irreconcilable differences between faith and reason in the course of his early thought and writings, he had been extremely reluctant to voice the implications of his disquieting discoveries (1682-1687).7 Ten years later in the Dictionnaire, on the other hand, he seemed to go out of his way to state them with all possible clarity and vigor. It was this change in emphasis in the expression of his thought which was responsible for the great antireligious... (shrink)

In his own day, the name of Pierre Bayle was as famous as that of any philosopher in Europe. Yet despite his vast influence on the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, Bayle's name was eclipsed by those of other, more methodical thinkers of his age, eliciting the following remark from one modern scholar, J.C. Laursen: 'Why do professional philosophers spend so much time on Descartes and so little time on Pierre Bayle, when Bayle was clearly the better philosopher?'In the past (...) decades a surge of new interest in Bayle has led to the rediscovery of the depth of his philosophical thought as well as the extent of his influence-yet the scholarly debate is shadowed by deep uncertainty as to how to tackle his eclectic writings, especially the expansive historical-philosophical publication that became one of the Enlightenment's best-sellers: the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, first published in 1696 and counting more than six million words.This volume provides an important new study of both Bayle and the Dictionnaire. (shrink)

Scholars in history and philosophy know the extraordinary difficulty of producing original research that is simultaneously creative, well-documented, and methodologically rigorous. But this is exactly what Mara van der Lugt manages in her recent book, a comprehensive treatment of Pierre Bayle's magnum opus. Reading Bayle is not for the faint of heart; he is a complex thinker with a controversial legacy. Van der Lugt exhibits appropriate caution, and though other interpreters have professed similar caution, van der Lugt's methodological commitments necessitate (...) it. Her approach imitates Bayle's own by suspending judgment on his intentions as author; attending meticulously... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 225-237 [Access article in PDF] Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond? Thomas M. Lennon Of course Bayle read Saint-Evremond—he quotes him. Moreover, he published one of Saint-Evremond's texts. But there is reading, and then there is reading. There is selective, inattentive perusal of excerpts or even secondary sources, with no attempt to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding; and then there is comprehensive, close (...) scrutiny of the best primary sources, with sensitivity to nuance, and attention to context. In short, there is a difference between skimming and studying. Did Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) skim or study the work of Saint-Evremond (ca.1614-1703)?This article argues that Bayle's first-hand knowledge of Saint-Evremond's work was superficial and dependent on a secondary source that gives that work a less than obvious, and hitherto unappreciated meaning for Bayle. This shift matters because it bears on the question of the status of Bayle's religious faith. With her classic Pierre Bayle (1963-64), Elizabeth Labrousse set aside the traditional view of Bayle as a religious skeptic whose professions of faith cannot be taken at face value. Such had been the view held by many in Bayle's own time, most notably by Pierre Jurieu, and near-universally from the Enlightenment into the twentieth century. Very recently, in a work that is no less impressive than hers on this and other topics in Bayle, Gianluca Mori has defended the traditional view, basing a part of his argument on Bayle's use of Saint-Evremond. 1 Thus the question above. Moreover, the matter of Bayle's religious belief is not a merely biographical one. First, there is the fact of his [End Page 225] influence, especially given his huge readership, although Bayle's influence may well be other than anything he intended. Secondly, in any case, the interpretation of Bayle's work as a whole depends on it, for virtually everything he wrote besides the Dictionnaire has a religious dimension.To appreciate the importance of the question, something must first be said about Charles de Marguetel de St. Denis, sieur de Saint-Evremond. He was known in his time, and still is, as a libertine. It is difficult, however, to define libertinage beyond a combination of hedonistic mores and dubious religious beliefs—Epicureanism in some loose and popular sense. 2 What is more important, in any case, is how Bayle might have thought the term applied to Saint-Evremond; and here it is clear that outright atheism may have been at issue. Bayle reports that it was publicly known that Saint-Evremond "ended his long life, just as he had lived it, en esprit fort." He seems certainly to have died without benefit of religion. When asked on his deathbed whether he wished to be reconciled, says Bayle, he answered yes, "with all my heart. I would like to be reconciled with my appetite. For my stomach is no longer functioning in its usual way." Bayle was often at pains to insist upon the ultimate inaccessibility of others' real beliefs (and of the inappropriateness of attempting to reach them). In this case, however, he was prepared to hold up Saint-Evremond as a counter-example to the widely-held belief that there were no speculative atheists, i.e., people who would sincerely deny the existence of God, but only practical atheists, i.e., people who live as if they did not believe in the existence of God, but who, try as they may, are at least occasionally aware of it. 3This view of Saint-Evremond is important because, when accused of irreligion himself, Bayle cited the libertine's work as indicative of his own beliefs. To understand how Bayle came to be accused, and the significance of this response to it, some of the historical background is first necessary. Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique sold better than any text in the eighteenth century, philosophical or otherwise; and it was a best-seller right from the publication of its first edition, in... (shrink)

À travers l’analyse des articles « florentins » du Dictionnaire historique et critique (Machiavel, Guichardin, Savonarole) l’auteur essaie de voir comment Bayle a lu Le Prince et les Discours de Machiavel sur des sujets cruciaux pour sa pensée : le rapport religion-politique, mais aussi la réflexion sur la république et la démocratie, la relation entre morale et société, la figure du prophète « armé » ou « désarmé ». Avec son anti-conformisme intellectuel coutumier, Bayle se distingue tant de l’appréciation libertine (...) (Naudé est l’une de ses sources) que de la condamnation huguenote, représentée par Innocent Gentillet. Derrière la figure historique de Savonarole se profile l’ombre inquiétante d’un prophète contemporain de Bayle, Pierre Jurieu. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bayle, Saint-Evremond, and Fideism:A Reply to Thomas M. LennonGianluca MoriIn a recent article published in this journal Thomas M. Lennon returns to the controversial question of Bayle's attitude towards religion. The point he debates is the particular use that, in expounding his conception of the relationship between faith and reason, Bayle makes of a passage from Saint-Evremond. In Lennon's view the correct interpretation of this point would show that (...) Bayle's fideism is to be "taken at face value" without any hint of irony and with no suspicion of dissimulation or insincerity.1 This would cast doubt on and greatly weaken the interpretation I proposed in my Bayle philosophe.2 My aim here is to respond briefly to Lennon's arguments and to clarify even more briefly what in my opinion is the right perspective in which to consider Bayle's position on this topic.The context in which Bayle quotes Saint-Evremond is to be found in the Eclaircissements he added to the second edition of his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1702) to counter the Dutch religious authorities' harsh criticism of the first edition. In particular the Walloon Consistory accused Bayle of taking a skeptical position that undermined the most important dogmas of Christian faith. In response Bayle wrote the Eclaircissement sur les Pyrrhoniens, a clumsy mosaic of quotations from the Scriptures and from patristic and profane texts, with which he sought to show that his skeptical fideism was not in the least heterodox but indeed the position that most closely reflected true Christianity. The quotation from Saint-Evremond, almost at the end of this text, is taken [End Page 323] from the Conversation du Maréchal d'Hocquincourt et du Père Canaye (written in about 1654).3 The final passage gives a clear idea of the general tone: after having disputed with a churchman the need to subject one's intellect to the yoke of faith, the marshal concludes by saying that he is ready to be crucified "without knowing why." Father Canaye replies: "No reason! That is the true religion. No reason! God has granted you a fine grace, mylord." So, and here Lennon obviously agrees (229), Saint-Evremond's is a text with no shadow of mystical inspiration, indeed strongly tending in the libertine direction, as is clear from the blatant way it pours scorn on the fideist approach.In my interpretation Bayle's use of this quotation does not at all demonstrate his atheism or unbelief, for in my view that question is undecidable. However, the quotation from Saint-Evremond is sufficient—and this is the onlyreason I mentioned it4 —to show that Bayle's approach to fideism is in no way innocent and naive as is sometimes claimed. On the contrary, his texts on this subject contain what amounts to provocations aimed at orthodox readers (to which they immediately reacted). This, together with other more important reasons, leads me to believe that Bayle's professions of Christian faith, though frequent, are generally far from being above suspicion: indeed, almost every line of them raises questions about their actual significance.The provocation contained in the quotation from Saint-Evremond appears in all its rhetorical weight if we associate this text with three other passages from Bayle's works. The first is from the Nouvelles de la république des lettres of December 1686, in which Bayle stresses the unedifying nature of the religious maxims contained in Saint-Evremond's Conversation (which, incidentally, he himself had just had printed in the collection Le Retour des pièces choisies).5 The second is taken from a letter by Jean d'Oulès to Bayle, written in 1696, in which the author deals with exactly the same passage from the Conversation that was later to be reproduced in the Eclaircissement. In this letter d'Oulès quotes the full passage which he considers to be a "naughty text" deliberately written to throw ridicule on the fanatical fideism of Pierre Jurieu.6 The third passage is from Bayle's Continuation des pensées diverses of 1704 in which, shortly after the death of Saint-Evremond, he publicly reveals the poet... (shrink)

Il s’agit de montrer comment le rapport de Bayle à un scepticisme pyrrhonien ou académique, loin d’être d’adhésion comme le tient l’interprétation courante, évolue et se transforme. Il va en effet de la nécessaire concordance entre foi et raison sur le plan de la morale à l’impossibilité de tout accord entre elles, y compris sur le même plan. C’est que le contexte dans lequel s’inscrit ce rapport pèse dans la manière de le vivre, en particulier quand Bayle doit organiser sa (...) défense contre les attaques d’un Jurieu. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sozzini’s Ghost: Pierre Bayle and Socinian TolerationBarbara Sher TinsleyPierre Bayle’s Philosophical Commentary (1686–87), a Huguenot exile’s response to the Revocation of Nantes, established its author as a defender of free conscience for pagans, Muslims, Jews, atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Anabaptists, and Socinians. 1 The virtues of Pagans and Atheists are most fully treated in Bayle’s work on the comet. 2 In this work pagans, Catholics (whom Bayle equated with pagan (...) idolators), and atheists were compared to the advantage of the latter, a conclusion that caused widespread scandal and for which Bayle was obliged by his church to write an apology or clarification found in his Dictionary. 3 In toleration there was no juste milieu. 4 Everyone must act according to conscience no matter how errant. Bayle reiterated a position taken in his criticism of the Jesuit Louis Maimbourg’s History of Calvinism. 5 In it Bayle first enunciated the principle that he noted frightened readers and caused a scandal, namely, that error disguised as truth must be allowed all the privileges of truth, i.e., must be permitted to be believed by those convinced they had found truth. This doctrine of errant conscience was basic to Bayle’s understanding of God and man’s search for Him; and after his death it became basic to concepts of individualism, free [End Page 609] inquiry, free speech, and inalienable rights, concepts which were all made concrete during the Enlightenment. Forcing conscience was wrong. 6Bayle’s lack of partisanship in treating religious history invited criticism from Calvinists in Holland. He wrote to Mr. Pecher, a minister at Emmerick, that in his Dictionary he had avoided passionate prejudice with respect to Jesuits or to any other subject. 7 But had he also avoided an indifference to dogma? Not according to his chief critic who was his erstwhile patron turned enemy, Pierre Jurieu, Pastor of the Reformed church of Rotterdam and theologian in the Ecole Illustre. This school, founded expressly for Bayle and Jurieu by the city council of Rotterdam, 8 allowed Bayle to teach philosophy and history. Since Jurieu thought Bayle “indifferent” to dogma, he believed him to be a covert Socinian or atheist. In 1693 he managed to have Bayle dismissed from his teaching post.Indifference was a concept that started with the ancients, particularly Stoics, Skeptics, and Cynics, who regarded everything except virtue as matters of indifference, a posture with which many of Bayle’s writings, though not all, seemed to agree. In scholastic logic indifferentism meant that things were neither particular nor universal but indifferently so according to the viewpoint from which they were regarded. Jurieu made the charge of indifferentism in 1687. 9 He remarked then of Bayle’s concept of the erring conscience that it was “developed with a view to establishing tolerance and a general indifference of all sects and even of all religions.” 10 Bayle was not indifferent to doctrine. He remained loyal to the Reformed faith, defended orthodoxy, and in a letter to his cousin protested that he was ready to show that his work on comets contained nothing that was contrary to right reason, Scripture, or the Confession of faith of the Reformed Church. 11 Paul Dibon noted that Bayle was especially consistent in his concern for divine transcendance rather than indifference. 12 Henry Kamen wrote that Bayle wrote in “complete theological indifference,” 13 a statement ignoring Bayle’s disapproval of much theological heterodoxy, the orthodoxy of others. While Bayle was usually non-partisan, he was never indifferent. Kamen’s remark contrasts [End Page 610] with Theodore Rabb’s, who wrote that Jean Bodin and Bayle took their stand on “the equality of all beliefs” 14 a statement suggesting indifference, but in a positive rather than negative way.Bodin’s own religion was particularly problematic. Tolerant for his age, a whole century before Bayle, Bodin, a Carmelite friar for several years, had already repudiated forcing conscience. In his book on the state he warned that those who do so merely create more intransigence among their already alienated subjects. 15 He also insinuated that a multiplicity of religions—“all the religions of all people”—including natural religion, Jupiter’s... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reading BayleJohn Christian LaursenThomas M. Lennon. Reading Bayle. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 202. Cloth, $60.00. Paper, $19.95.One of the more philosophically interesting things about Pierre Bayle is the difficulty of interpreting his work. A myriad of interpretations have been advanced, but "the whole is [still] a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery"—to apply David Hume's famous judgment about religion to Bayle's work. This (...) book proposes a Bakhtinian reading of Bayle's philosophical activity, which means that Bayle is understood as letting his interlocutors speak for themselves in an ongoing dialogue over which he does not have full control and in which no one "wins." Bakhtin thought that Dostoevsky was the first major author to do this, but Lennon shows that he was anticipated by Bayle.The discussion is broken up into sections on Bayle's views of integrity, authority, toleration, idolatry, and providence. Integrity turns out to be largely a matter of honesty and fairness in dialogue, and at times it sounds like Bayle is prefiguring Habermas and discourse ethics or recent Anglo-American theories of deliberative democracy.Bayle's view of authority emerges from his analysis of the fact/law (fait/droit) distinction. [End Page 278] This was part of larger debates among Jansenists, Jesuits, and other philosophers such as Arnauld and Malebranche. Here, Lennon's intimate knowledge of seventeenth-century philosophy is put to good use. He shows that in Bayle's hands the distinction cannot hold up, as questions of fact and law are always mutually dependent and each can undermine the other. The upshot is that in the absence of truths of fact or law, dialogue is all that we have. That is good, because history cannot be used as a tool of oppression or homogenization if dialogue must go on forever.Some of the claims about Bayle that are advanced here are debatable. That Bayle "treated everyone with dignity" (44) is simply not true of his treatment of millenarians and others that he thought were fanatics. Rather than extending "toleration almost without limit" (74), he was downright intolerant of such folks. Lennon suggests that Bayle may not have fully thought through the question of the conscientious persecutor (85n.). It would have been appropriate to mention Bayle's reflections on this matter in his last work, the Réponse aux questions d'un provincial.The book contains valuable accounts of aspects of Bayle's debates with Pierre Jurieu, in which it often emerges that there was no great gulf of principle between the two arch-enemies. Disagreements with Ruth Whelan and Elisabeth Labrousse add to the interest of Lennon's discussion.Idolatry is one of Bayle's chief targets, and he finds it above all in the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Lennon nicely shows how this amounts to Spinozism, which in turn explains Bayle's hostility to both Spinoza and Rome. Both stifle Bakhtinian dialogue.One very interesting section of the book is on lotteries, which have important theological and philosophical significance. Often-forgotten authors like Barbeyrac, Ricotier, and Leti are discussed on this issue. Insights here include the observation that "it is hard to imagine Bayle praying" (146). Indeed it is. Mention of work by I. Hont, T. Hochstrasser, and others on Barbeyrac would have made Lennon's case stronger.One major conclusion is that Bayle's notion of providence and the problem of evil comes down to dialogue as well: evil emerges because God prefers to engage in open-ended dialogue with his creatures, which allows evil even if that is not God's intention (167). On this reading, we have a Kantian Bayle: autonomy is Bayle's most cherished value (182).Lennon's final evaluation of Bayle's fideism is that it is philosophically unsatisfactory. Blind and nonrational reliance on Scripture is, to say the least, undermined by Bayle's inability to establish that God is its author or to found his own beliefs in any way other than education. But if anybody still thinks that Pierre Bayle was merely a compiler and not a philosopher in his own right, this book and a lot of the other recent... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 146-149 [Access article in PDF] Gianluca Mori. Bayle philosophe. Paris: Champion, 1999. Pp. 416. Paper, N.P. Stefano Brogi. Teologia senza verità: Bayle contro i "rationaux." Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1998. Pp. 306. Paper, N.P. Why do professional philosophers spend so much time on Descartes and so little time on Pierre Bayle, when Bayle was clearly the better philosopher? I hope that the real (...) answer is not that Bayle wrote too much that is too hard to survey and synthesize, whereas Descartes wrote short works that are easy to teach to undergraduates. Of course, part of any answer will turn on what is meant by "the better philosopher," and [End Page 146] we will return to this issue. If the two books reviewed here get the attention they deserve, Bayle may begin to get more of the attention he deserves.Bayle is well-known for his attacks on Pierre Jurieu, but less well-known are his fights with the 'rationalist' theologian-philosophers Jean LeClerc, Jacques Bernard, and Isaac Jaquelot. They reveal that Bayle was not the automatic supporter of "Enlightenment" of later legend. Stefano Brogi explores these attacks in three of Bayle's last works, the Continuation of the Diverse Thoughts on the Comet (1705; very different from the Diverse Thoughts on the Comet of 1683), Response to Questions of a Provincial (1704-1707), and Conversations between Maxime and Thémiste (1707). Regrettably, none of these—nor any of the works of LeClerc, Bernard, and Jaquelot—have been translated. Greater attention to Descartes may derive from the excellent translations of his work, contrasted with the absence of translations of much of Bayle.Brogi begins with Bayle's reconstruction of "Pyrrho's theology." Faith, in Bayle's hands, is almost completely non-cognitive, accepting the Scripture without understanding it. Rationality, to Bayle, is a second Penelope, unraveling all that it makes. Then Brogi explores what Bayle could have meant by praising Simonides, the ancient Greek who, asked to define God, always asked for more time. He also reviews Bayle's views on euhemerism and the theory of impostorship, and cannot believe Bayle's pretended unawareness of some of the implications of his arguments.The third section, "Ethics against religion," tackles the paradox that Bayle fiercely attacked reason and the argument from consensus for the existence of God, but then invoked reason and consensus as proof of moral claims. In ethics, Bayle's skepticism evaporates. That leads to the further paradox that his rigorous moral evaluation of religion leads to atheism. The ostensible argument is that pagan religions have such immoral gods that it is better not to believe in them; the implication is that the same goes for Judeo-Christianity.It all comes together in Brogi's discussion of "Theology without morality." In his controversies with LeClerc about Origenism (universal salvation) and evil, Bayle brings out the dubious moral consequences of both Origenism and Augustinianism. There is no rational way of saving God's goodness. Then Bayle simply declares his faith in revelation. LeClerc thinks this is bad faith, but he ends up relying on blind faith. Jaquelot argues that God's glory requires the world as it is, but when Bayle asks what glory could come from human suffering, Jaquelot also takes refuge in the inscrutability of God. If anyone thinks these were insignificant controversies, remember that they provoked Leibniz's Theodicy (1710). Austin Farrar once pronounced, exignorantia, that Bayle was "hopelessly confused" ("Introduction," Routledge edition of Leibniz's Theodicy, 1951; now Open Court edition, 35), but Leibniz knew better.Gianluca Mori's book ranges far more widely than Brogi's. It is the best all-around book on Bayle's philosophy in twenty years. Mori begins with a chapter on interpretation, pointing out that everything that Leo Strauss said about encoded language can be found in Bayle. Using Bayle's own claims about such artifices to interpret his work, he explores the writer's ironies, dissimulation, self-censorship, and implied meanings. The interior thoughts of Bayle are unreachable... (shrink)

Le rôle de David Hume dans la philosophie moderne, par A. L. Leroy.--The enlightenment of David Hume, by E. C. Mossner.--Hume and Jurieu: possible Calvinist origins of Hume's theory of belief, by R. H. Popkin.--Hume: philosopher or psychologist? A problem of exegesis, by T. E. Jessop.--L'astrazione nella filosofia di Hume, di M. Dal Pra.--Infinite divisibility in Hume's "Treatise," by A. Flew.--Note a "La rgola del gusto," di E. Migliorini.--Kant, Hamann-Jacobi and Schelling on Hume, by P. Merlan.--Bibliografia humiana dal 1937 (...) al 1966, di E. Ronchetti. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 85 scientious search for principles of method (and of peace) may have been one of the reasons why he was suspect in England, as were the Ramist "methodists." In any case, it is quite clear now that Hobbes was not a materialist, not even when he was writing De Corpore. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, CallJornia Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary selections. Translated with an Introduction and (...) notes by Richard H. Popkin. (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. Pp. xliv q- 456.) This new edition of selections from Pierre Bayle's famous Dictionnaire will be welcomed by historians and philosophers alike. In it we find a representative sample from the book that was both the inspiration and despair of much of eighteenth-century thought, and that still presents modem man with both questions and methodological acid that makes it difficult to find or accept "truth." The young readers who will meet Pierre Bayle for the first time in these pages will find him to be the skeptical philosopher, the ribald, sometimes lewd, even pornographic storyteller, the detached scholar who prowled through the history and the ideas of men, dissolving all certainty by analyses that peeled off layer after layer of belief until the core itself was exposed as naive or ridiculous. Had Professor Popkin done nothing more than provide us with these excellently chosen selections from the Dictionnaire, we would all be in his debt, for he gives us a chance easily to bring this important work to the attention of our students. But this volume is considerably more than simply a selection. Professor Popkin's Introduction is an important statement in the controversy over Bayle's personal beliefs and involvemeat. For more than two decades a large literature has portrayed Bayle in many different guises: for some he was still the skeptic who intentionally forged the weapons with which Voltaire and his colleagues assaulted the Judeo-Christian traditions of European men; at the other extreme he was a devout Huguenot who merely wanted to do for the Calvinist world what Bishop Huet and other Catholic skeptics did for the Catholic one, namely to prove the necessity of accepting the Christian beliefs on faith since absolute knowledge was impossible. Professor Popkin has learned Bayle's methodology too well to allow himself to be trapped by a simple explanation. He refuses to identify Bayle with a Kierkegaard or a Lamennais whose ideas would dissolve under Bayle's pen just as did Pascal's and Jurieu's. But where are we to find the secret of this man who lived out his life as a member of the French Reformed Church in Amsterdam while he unfolded the absurdity or naivet~ of every intelligible Christian theology? The problem becomes more perplexing when we note his obvious sympathy for both Manicheanism and Judaism. Could he have been the last of the Cathars or a secretly converted Jew? Popkin calls attention to Bayle's interest in and affection for Maimonides' work which he translates "Guide for the perplexed", but which could be translated "Guide for those who have lost their way" or in our parlance, "the derailed." In a way Bayle's Dictionnaire was itself a "Guide" for men in trouble with their beliefs. But Bayle's approach to this problem must be understood in light of his own discussion of religion "of the heart" and religion "of reason." Like Madame Labrousse, Popkin is much impressed by the simplicity of Bayle's last words, written on the day he died, in which he described himself as "a Christian philosopher convinced of and pierced with the mercies of God.... " The statement omits all the im~ portant theological propositions of Christian theology as well as any emotional feeling. We must see Pierre Bayle as an erudite, unemotional man whose "religion had no expressed or expressible content.., but was only in the heart in some quiet unemotional way.... " Popkin sees him as "a quite Erasmian scholar, living out his days in the city of Erasmus, examining man's intellectual heritage and intellectual world.., by patient erudition [undermining] man's intellectual frame of reference while remaining secure and tranquil in his unemotional religion of the heart." Since... (shrink)

L’enjeu de cet article ne concerne pas les thèses sociniennes pour elles-mêmes, mais l’usage qui est fait de la référence au socinianisme dans les controverses théologiques en France au XVIIe siècle. Cet usage est essentiellement polémique, il sert avant tout à discréditer l’adversaire. L’erreur du socinianisme ne réside en fait plus dans ses thèses christologiques, mais dans son rationalisme indu appliqué à la lecture de la Bible. Cette question devient centrale en contribuant à réaménager les frontières confessionnelles. La lettre biblique, (...) plus que la nature du Christ, devient la question sensible des oppositions religieuses à la fin du Grand Siècle. (shrink)