Pierre Bayle

Contrary to what many interpretations claim, according to Bayle faith does not completely eliminate reason. It intervenes to reveal factual truths that can only be known through revelation (for example, that God allowed Adam and Eve to sin). To these factual truths can be applied a rational principle (an axiomatic and evident one, according to Bayle, which he calls a "common notion"), namely, that "what God does is well done." God allowed sin, so we must think it was justified, even (...) if we don't understand why. This approach is what I call, cum grano salis, Pierre Bayle's theodicy. (shrink)

Pierre Bayle and the impossibility of a rational debate on evil I claim that Bayle engaged with theodicy in order to show how philosophy was misused in religious matters. For Bayle, the debate on evil does not oppose dichotomically reason and religion, it just requires that the participants deal with revealed truths using reason alone. In this regard, Bayle does not only criticize the Calvinist theologians of his time, but also the very source of Christian theology, Augustine of Hippo. En (...) ese artículo, sugerimos que el debate sobre la teodicea bayleana tiene por finalidad hacer patente el uso ilegítimo que se hace de la filosofía al aplicarla al debate religioso. La discusión sobre el mal no supone una disputa entre la razón en sentido absoluto y la religión, sino que compromete el uso de la razón en la revelación, de modo exclusivo Por esa razón, como veremos, el filósofo de Rotterdam no limita su crítica a la teología calvinista de su tiempo sino que la dirige al mismo corazón de la teología cristiana: la obra de Agustin de Hipona. (shrink)

An annotated bibliography of the primary and secondary literature of Pierre Bayle.

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his doctrine of tolerance is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines. In this article, I intend to show that his doctrine rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership. Baylean tolerance is a political doctrine that allows the articulation between freedom of conscience (individual), minority confessions (private associations), and public religion (acknowledged as official).

An important step in In Pierre Bayle’s defense of religious tolerance is to refute St Augustine’s claim that heretics who refuse to convert to the true faith do so out of ill will. This claim legitimizes, for Augustine and his followers, the application of temporal sanctions to those heretics, in order to offset their wicked inclination and restore their free will. To counter this view, Bayle uses the theological notions of invincible ignorance and dutiful erroneous conscience, elaborated during the Middle (...) Ages. However, these notions had a very restricted scope, which needed to be extended to so-called heretical beliefs. I show how two early modern scholastics, the Jesuits Gabriel Vázquez and Rodrigo Arriaga, have prepared this evolution and have paved the way for Bayle's denunciation any form of coercion in religious matters. (shrink)

Hume’s discussion of space in the Treatise addresses two main topics: divisibility and vacuum. It is widely recognized that his discussion of divisibility contains an answer to Bayle, whose Dictionary article “Zeno of Elea” presents arguments about divisibility as support for fideism. It is not so widely recognized that, elsewhere in the same article, Bayle presents arguments about vacuum as further support for fideism. This paper aims to show that Hume’s discussion of vacuum contains an answer to these vacuum-based fideistic (...) arguments. Key to this answer is a distinction between two ways in which vacuum was conceived in the early modern period: i) as a genuine thing that has spatial properties, and yet is immobile, indivisible, and penetrable ; ii) as a mere absence of spatial things. This paper also aims to provide a novel defense of Hume against the long-standing objection that he is inconsistent in denying that we can conceive of a vacuum, while allowing that we can conceive of “invisible and intangible distance.” As I interpret him, Hume consistently denies that we can conceive of a positive vacuum, while allowing that we can conceive of two or more objects’ being arranged so as to have privative vacuum between them. (shrink)

For the philosopher of Rotterdam, religious coercion has two essential sources of illegitimacy: the linking of religious and ecclesiastical belief and the use of politics for religious purposes. Bayle responds to it, with his doctrine of freedom of conscience, on one hand and by means of the essential distinction between voluntary religious affiliation and political obligation, on the other hand. From my perspective, his doctrine of tolerance does not involve an atheist state, nor does it mean the rejection of the (...) presence of religion in the public space or its displacement to the intimate sphere of the conscience. This paper proposes a reading of Baylean tolerance as a political doctrine that allows the articulation between freedom of conscience, minority confessions, and official religion. Thus, the Baylean theoretical model could be considered a proposal to provide a normative form to the practice of toleration present in the seventeenth -century Netherlands. (shrink)

A survey of Bayle's skeptical arguments regarding Descartes' criterion of truth, which Bayle refers to as "evidence." Bayle's arguments for degrees of evidence, as well as for the necessity and sufficiency of possessing a high degree of evidence in order to form virtuous beliefs, are surveyed as well.

A 1400-word article presenting Bayle's philosophical defence of the possibility of a virtuous atheist. I argue that this defence is an important moment in the history of the secularization of Western morality.

La conception malebranchiste de la liberté est originale. Malebranche ne croit pas en une liberté d’indifférence absolue, c'est-à-dire en une capacité d’opérer un choix indépendamment de toute motivation. Il ne croit pas non plus que nous puissions indifféremment choisir entre deux motivations de force inégale : au moment où on se détermine, le bien le plus grand (du moins selon l’apparence) l’emporte. La liberté réside seulement dans le fait que l’on n’est pas obligé de se déterminer : nous pouvons toujours (...) suspendre notre consentement. Cette conception est exposée à des objections que Pierre Bayle a formulées et qui tentent de la mettre en contradiction avec d’autres thèses de Malebranche : son occasionalisme, sa théorie de la création continuée, l’obscurité de l’âme à elle-même, sa théologie des voies de l’action divine. Nous discuterons ces objections et verrons si Malebranche est en mesure de leur résister. (shrink)

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his political doctrine is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines, and so an image of Bayle as a political philosopher is not usually presented. To my mind, however, only by analyzing his political doctrine can the extent of his religious proposal be understood. In this article, I intend to show that both the Baylean criticism of popular sovereignty and his rejection of the right of resistance are analyses that are (...) indissociable from the Baylean doctrine of tolerance. The protection of individual freedom of conscience and the defense of a multi-confessional state model, tolerant regarding religious minorities, can only be articulated as historical reality if they rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership. (shrink)

This article analyzes the physical theory presented by Pierre Bayle in the new Spanish translation of Various Thoughts on the Occasion of the Comet. First, it deals with his critcism of the supertitous aspects of tradition, and subsequently, it analyzes his position, inspired by Descartes, regarding the physical nature of comets as opposed to the aristotelian cosmology, trough the analysis of five key issues: influence of distance, propagation of light, interaction between particles, difference between systems and problem of qualities.

Pierre Bayle shows that, in order to avoid devastating objections, materialism should postulate that the property of thinking does not emerge from certain material combinations but is present in matter from the start and everywhere—a hypothesis recently revived and labelled “panpsychism”. There are reasons for entertaining the idea that Bayle actually considers this enhanced materialism to be tenable, as it might use the same line of defence that Bayle outlined for Stratonism. However, this would lead to a view similar to (...) Locke’s superaddition theory, and I contend that such cannot be Bayle’s position because he embraces the Cartesian principle that each substance has only one principal attribute. This makes untenable, in his eyes, any system that conjoins thought with matter in the same simple substance. By contrast, this makes clear which kinds of metaphysics and epistemology panpsychists need to adopt to defend their view. (shrink)

An English translation of Pierre Bayle's posthumous last book, Entretiens de Maxime et de Themiste (1707), in which Bayle defends his skeptical position on the problem of the evil. This book is often cited and attacked by G.W. Leibniz in his Theodicy (1710). Over one hundred pages of original philosophical and historical material introduce the translation, providing it with context and establishing the work's importance.

will give an overview of the fascinating communication between G. W. Leibniz and Pierre Bayle on pre-established harmony and sudden change in the soul which started from Bayle’s footnote H to the article “Rorarius” in his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) and ended in 1706 with Bayle’s death. I will compare the views presented in the communication to Leibniz’s reflections on the soul in his partly concurrent Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain (1704) and argue that many topics in the communication (...) with Bayle are discussed with more details in Nouveaux essais. I also argue that the communication helped Leibniz to respond to Locke’s views concerning uneasiness in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, xxi. Bayle himself, however, was not able to completely understand Leibniz’s views on spontaneity as he was unaware of the contents of the Nouveaux essais, especially the systematic role of petites perceptions in Leibniz’s philosophy of mind. I will also reflect on whether the controversy could have ended in agreement if it would have continued longer. (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)

In popular opinion, Leibniz’s work on the problem of evil is thought to begin and end with the claim that this is the best of all possible worlds, as if this were all that Leibniz needed to defend the justice of God. In many places, however, Leibniz is concerned to remove from God the actual agency for the evils in the world. By examining Leibniz’s uses of the concept of divine permission, one might find a Leibniz for whom the best-possible-world (...) thesis answers only some of the difficulties regarding God’s relationship to the evils in the world. Leibniz introduces permission early in his career, in the manuscript dialogue, Confessio philosophi, written in the early 1670s. Two and a half decades later, Pierre Bayle offered a critique of traditional uses of permission in his Dictionnaire historique et critique. Though he certainly had not read Leibniz’s manuscript, the arguments against the use of permission in the Dictionnaire offer a useful foil for understanding the role permission plays in Leibniz’s early thought. Bayle’s objections will be discussed first. Once these are explained, they will be used to argue that Leibniz’s doctrine of permission, as presented in the Confessio philosophi, adds nothing to the best-possible-world thesis. As the reasons for this are explained, it will become obvious that this is not the case for the mature Leibniz of the Essais de Théodicée. Thus, there is a Leibniz for whom the best-possible-world thesis answers only some of the theological problems posed by evil, but that is not the Leibniz of the early Confessio philosophi. (shrink)

Durante siglos, se consideró un deber del buen cristiano obligar, a todos los hombres a entrar en el seno de la Iglesia, puesto que de ello dependía su salvación eterna. Esta doctrina presupone que existe una nítida diferencia entre verdad religiosa y error. Para Bayle, sin embargo, la creencia religiosa solo puede aspirar a convertirse en una verdad putativa, sustentada en la convicción subjetiva del fiel, concepción que le permite desdibujar el propio concepto de herejía y criticar las persecuciones religiosas (...) de su tiempo. (shrink)

Pierre Bayle Pierre Bayle was a seventeenth-century French skeptical philosopher and historian. He is best known for his encyclopedic work The Historical and Critical Dictionary, a work which was widely influential on eighteenth-century figures such as Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson. Bayle is traditionally described as a skeptic, though … Continue reading Bayle, Pierre →.

Les textes reunis dans ce volume visent a combler une importante lacune : l'absence d'etude d'ampleur consacree specifiquement aux relations entre Pierre Bayle et Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, permettant d'evaluer l'influence qu'ils ont exercee l'un sur l'autre, par leurs ecrits et leurs echanges, directs et indirects.Le but est de confronter ces deux philosophes majeurs du XVIIe siecle, en cherchant a depasser l'opposition reductrice entre scepticisme d'un cote et rationalisme dogmatique de l'autre. L'etude de leurs rapports montre les differentes etapes et la (...) fecondite de leurs echanges : d'abord autour de la critique de la physique de Descartes, ensuite a propos du « systeme de l'harmonie preetablie » defendu par Leibniz mais critique par Bayle dans son Dictionnaire historique et critique, enfin au sujet du rapport entre foi et raison, du probleme du mal et de la justification de Dieu. (shrink)

Causality and Mind presents seventeen of Nicholas Jolley's essays on early modern philosophy, which focus on two main themes. One theme is the continuing debate over the nature of causality in the period from Descartes to Hume. Jolley shows that, despite his revolutionary stance, Descartes did no serious re-thinking about causality; it was left to his unorthodox disciple Malebranche to argue that there is no place for natural causality in the new mechanistic picture of the physical world. Several essays explore (...) critical reactions to Malebranche's occasionalism in the writings of Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume, and show how in their different ways Leibniz and Hume respond to Malebranche by re-instating the traditional view that science is the search for causes. A second theme of the volume is the set of issues posed by Descartes' innovations in the philosophy of mind. It is argued that Malebranche is once again a pivotal figure. In opposition to Descartes Malebranche insists that ideas, the objects of thought, are not psychological but abstract entities; he thus opposes Descartes' 'dustbin theory of the mind'. Malebranche also challenges Descartes' assumption that intentionality is a mark of the mental and his commitment to the superiority of self-knowledge over knowledge of body. Other essays discuss the debate over innate ideas, Locke's polemics against Descartes' theory of mind, and the issue of Leibniz's phenomenalism. A major aim of the volume is to show that philosophers in the period are systematic critics of their contemporaries and predecessors. (shrink)

Bayle's conception of reason is notoriously difficult to unravel, as are its consequences for the rationality of religious belief. The secondary literature has generally coalesced around two interpretations of Bayle's conception of reason. The “superskeptical” interpretation holds that reason is the source of its own undoing, not to be trusted; religious belief turns out to be irrational on this conception of reason, but this is hardly cause for alarm. The jusqu'au bout (to the very end) interpretation holds that reason is (...) to be followed wherever it leads, and if one follows closely, reason requires the rejection of religious belief. On both models, religious belief turns out to be irrational. In this piece, I summarize and examine these two interpretations, and using José Maia Neto's exposition of Bayle as an Academic skeptic, I propose a third that I call “common sense” skepticism. On this reading, reason does indeed use logic to form and sort beliefs – including some religious beliefs – but only holds to those beliefs fallibilistically. There may be a category of religious beliefs, however, that can only be recommended by faith; these would be religious beliefs that lack rational evidence, or exhibit rational contradictions. On this view, while some religious beliefs may turn out to be rational, there will likely be a set of core religious beliefs that come out to be irrational. I end by highlighting a suggestion by Bayle that reason itself may recommend revelation as a guide to belief, conferring a kind of intermediate rationality even on apparently irrational religious beliefs. (shrink)

Pierre Bayle is perhaps most well-known for arguing in his Dictionary (1697) that the problem of evil cannot be solved by reason alone. This skepticism about theodicy is usually credited to a religious crisis suffered by Bayle in 1685 following the unjust imprisonment and death of his brother, the death of his father, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But in this paper I argue that Bayle was skeptical about theodicy a decade earlier than these events, from at (...) least the time of his Sedan philosophy course (1675–77). I then argue that both the Various Thoughts on the Comet (1683) and Philosophical Commentary on Luke 4:23 (1686–88), which are usually read as treatments of superstition and toleration respectively, are works that also closely engage the problem of evil and demonstratethe skepticism of Bayle toward theodicy. (shrink)

Pierre Bayle is perhaps most well-known for arguing in his Dictionary (1697) that the problem of evil cannot be solved by reason alone. This skepticism about theodicy is usually credited to a religious crisis suffered by Bayle in 1685 following the unjust imprisonment and death of his brother, the death of his father, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But in this paper I argue that Bayle was skeptical about theodicy a decade earlier than these events, from at (...) least the time of his Sedan philosophy course (1675–77). I then argue that both the Various Thoughts on the Comet (1683) and Philosophical Commentary on Luke 4:23 (1686–88), which are usually read as treatments of superstition and toleration respectively, are works that also closely engage the problem of evil and demonstratethe skepticism of Bayle toward theodicy. (shrink)

It should be hardly surprising to discover that eighteenth-century European perspectives of other cultures were shaped to a large extent by concerns internal to European political life. Objective or unprejudiced accounts of non-European cultures are rarely found among travellers, missionaries, and philosophers of the time. While the insights of Enlightenment political thinkers on the non-European world may shed little light on the cultures being commented upon, they are useful for assessing the nature of the Enlightenment's engagement with cultural traditions external (...) to Europe. In particular, Enlightenment conceptions of China were extremely varied and reflective of the debates between Enlightenment thinkers, especially on the proper relation between religion and politics. I shall argue that Montesquieu's account of Confucianism in The Spirit of the Laws (De l’esprit des lois, first published in 1748) was in part influenced by his critique of Bayle's position on the role of religion in society as expounded in his Various Thoughts on the Comet (Pensées diverses sur la comète, published in 1682). While Montesquieu's account and assessment of Chinese thought and culture are “Eurocentric,” his evaluation of Confucianism nevertheless arises from a considered philosophical position on religion and politics. (shrink)

Classic theories of religious toleration from the 17th century regularly made exceptions for various categories of people such as Catholics and atheists who need not be tolerated. From a contemporary perspective these may be understood as blind spots because at least some of us would argue that these exceptions were not necessary. This essay explores the toleration theories of John Milton, Benedict de Spinoza, Denis Veiras, John Locke and Pierre Bayle in order to assess whether they actually called for such (...) exceptions and whether those exceptions were justifed or were in fact blind spots. It concludes with some reflections on what our own blind spots may be, and whether we can see around them. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in Pyrrhonism among both philosophers and historians of philosophy. This skeptical tradition is complex and multifaceted, since the Pyrrhonian arguments have been put into the service of different enterprises or been approached in relation to interests which are quite distinct. The diversity of conceptions and uses of Pyrrhonism accounts for the diversity of the challenges it is deemed to pose and of the attempts to meet them. The present volume brings together twelve (...) essays by leading specialists which explore the history and philosophical significance of this form of skepticism: they discuss some thorny questions concerning ancient Pyrrhonism, explore its influence on certain modern thinkers, and examine it in relation to contemporary analytic philosophy. The essays combine historical and exegetical analysis with an assessment of the philosophical merits of the Pyrrhonian outlook, with the aim of understanding it both in its historical context and in connection with contemporary concerns. This volume, the first entirely devoted to a detailed study of the Pyrrhonian tradition, is intended to open up new exegetical and philosophical perspectives on Pyrrhonism and to motivate further examination of certain difficult issues. It will be a valuable resource for scholars of ancient philosophy, historians of modern philosophy, and epistemologists, as well as for graduate students interested in skepticism. (shrink)

Resumo : Os escritos de John Locke e Pierre Bayle sobre a tolerância contribuíram decisivamente para a formaçáo do discurso filosófico sobre aquele conceito, que será amplamente divulgado no século XVIII. A doutrina de Locke afirma que o indivíduo tem certos direitos, que estáo intrinsecamente relacionados com a sua liberdade e devem ser respeitados pelo Estado. Bayle também foi um defensor da tolerância, exaltando a liberdade de consciência do indivíduo. No entanto há divergências entre estes dois pensadores: Locke propõe limites (...) à tolerância, enquanto Bayle é tido como um tolerante exagerado. A proposta é investigar os principais argumentos utilizados nas suas respectivas defesas da tolerância, e a partir daí analisar algumas divergências entre os dois autores, especialmente as diferentes medidas da tolerância adotadas por cada um deles. Palavras-chave : Igualdade; Liberdade; Poder político; Tolerância. (shrink)

Héritier de l'humanisme de la Renaissance et précurseur du siècle des Lumières, Pierre Bayle est un des penseurs les plus originaux de l'âge classique. Protestant exilé aux Pays-Bas, il est devenu un apôtre de la liberté de conscience, et son activité de philosophe, de journaliste et de savant ainsi que sa vaste correspondance lui ont donné un rôle-clé dans l'évolution de la culture européenne. Conjuguant les approches historique, littéraire et philosophique, les auteurs de ce volume réexaminent la vie et le (...) discours de Bayle, les thèmes de son oeuvre et les modalités de leur diffusion. En mettant l'accent sur les informations fournies par la correspondance et sur le rôle de Bayle dans les débats éthiques et métaphysiques de l'époque, ils étudient: l'activité épistolaire, élément historique déterminant mais aussi métaphore d'un penseur toujours en mouvement; la réflexion philosophique et politique sur la tolérance, la liberté, la justice, la vertu - enjeux actuels, notamment dans le domaine de la laïcité; les tensions irréductibles présentes dans le discours baylien sur la raison et la foi, qui refuse toute simplification. Une riche bibliographie qui répertorie plus de 950 titres parus entre 1900 et 2010 complète ce volume, et donne un aperçu de ces champs de recherche en pleine évolution. La pensée de Bayle a rayonné sur l'Europe classique en contribuant à sa 'crise de conscience'; nous en redécouvrons l'étonnante modernité. (shrink)

This dissertation develops an original interpretation of the relationship between reason and religious belief in the work of Pierre Bayle, a seventeenth-century skeptic, that I call “philosophical fideism.” The underdetermined, and often paradoxical, nature of Bayle’s writing makes interpreting him a formidable task; I therefore begin by sketching out the contemporary interpretive landscape of Bayle studies, currently deeply divided over the issue of Bayle’s conception of the reason-faith relationship. I subsequently examine other conceptions of the reason-faith relationship among rationalists and (...) skeptics of the seventeenth century, and argue that Bayle’s position on this issue is deeply influenced by his Cartesian inheritance. I argue that the central, but neglected, factor in understanding Bayle on the reason-faith question is the influence of seventeenth-century Calvinist rationalism, particularly that of Moïse Amyraut. I show how Amyraut’s tripartite distinction of revealed truths provides the framework for a central element of Bayle’s philosophical fideism, and argue that a small group of revealed truths that Bayle calls “the Christian mysteries” form the core of Bayle’s philosophical fideism. I attribute a conception of reason to Bayle that I call “qualified Academic skepticism,” in contrast to the “supersceptical” interpretation of Richard Popkin on the one hand, and the Stratonian interpretation of Gianluca Mori on the other. Finally, I explain the grounds of Bayle's claims about the erring conscience and the justification for religious toleration. Conscience plays a crucial role in Bayle’s philosophical fideism, not only epistemologically, but also morally. The erring conscience supports the interpretation of Christian mysteries as Bayle’s own religious first principles, greatly increasing the significance of Bayle's doctrine of the erring conscience. If the conscience is the source of one’s core beliefs and of their moral force, then reason, though still able to examine critically the claims of conscience, would be impotent to mitigate the moral force of the duties and rights of conscience. One cannot in good conscience, therefore, be intolerant of those who articulate alternative "first principles" since their source is the individual conscience itself. This account thus establishes a ground for religious toleration that is independent of, but compatible with, religious first principles. (shrink)

Skepticism is a central aspect of our intellectual heritage, even if many of us do not recognize it. Only in recent decades has the intellectual archeology been done that enables to see this part of our heritage and its role in how we came to think the way we do. Gianni Paganini's Skepsis . Le debat des modernes sur le scepticisme (2008) is the most important recent work in this archeology, bringing out the role of early modern thinkers from Montaigne (...) to Bayle in the development of the contemporary world view. Some of these thinkers helped us accept and learn to live with skepticism, such as Montaigne and Bayle. Others, such as Campanella and Descartes, thought they could refute skepticism, but their encounters with it accomplished two things: one, bringing skeptical arguments to the attention of the philosophical world, and two, giving skepticism renewed life by their failures to refute it. All of this is great background to understanding what Barack Obama means when he calls himself a skeptic. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the problem of Bayle's skepticism. I show that he is not a wholesale skeptic. Rather, he thinks that reason is plagued by internal conflicts. But its principles, which clash with each other, can be adopted separately from each other. It is often what we have to do when dealing with metaphysical problems. This also entails that reason is not to be rejected as a whole when it happens to be contradicted by faith; only some of (...) its principles have to be denied, and solely in that case. Further, Bayle believes that we possess absolute certainly in our knowledge of ethical principles. I show how this is compatible with his relativism in other domains by putting back his contention in the context of Reformed thought. (shrink)

Given the difficulties of Pierre Bayle’s writing—its occasional nature, its digressive and wandering style, and its sheer size—it is no small task to present him as an author of a coherent metaphysical doctrine. But Todd Ryan does just that in this cogently-argued analysis of Bayle’s encounters with, among others, Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, Leibniz, and Spinoza. We are thus invited, as the subtitle indicates, to “rediscover early modern philosophy” by way of Bayle’s philosophical engagements.The main fault line in Bayle scholarship concerns (...) the sincerity of the philosopher’s religious and philosophical commitments, and scholars have had recourse to biographical and contextual scholarship to solve some of these problems. Ryan sidesteps context, simply approaching Bayle’s texts as coherent arguments and analyzing them philosophically—a fruitful approach generally. That said, he periodically finds himself drawn into the debates about Bayle’s intentions, since he wishes to insist upon a single coherent interpretation of the philosopher as a Cartesian, something that requires one to confront instances where Bayle expresses doubts about Cartesian principles. Ryan’s strategy is to insist that Bayle takes evidence to be “a matter of degree. (shrink)

An exploration of the consequences of various ideas in the thought of John Calvin, and the influence of his ideas on later theologians. The emphasis is on philosophical ideas within Calvin's theology, dealing in turn with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues. Helm provides a fresh perspective on Calvin's theological context and legacy.