Once again, this preliminary
entry is being posted not for my self-aggrandizement, but exclusively and
commendably for my reader’s edification. Who knows when I will eventually get
to work on it. In the meantime, Monsieur Bayle should not be kept waiting…
***
In the words of the Webster’s Biographical Dictionary, Pierre
Bayle (1647-1706) was a…
“…French
philosopher and critic. Born in Protestant faith; converted to Roman
Catholicism, returned (in 1670) to Protestantism. Professor, Rotterdam (1681);
defender of liberty of thought and religious toleration; removed because of
skeptical beliefs (1693). Compiled (in 1697) Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, in which he analyzed and
criticized accepted historical and philosophical tenets. Regarded as founder of
18th-century rationalism.
In spite of Webster’s respectful title of “founder,”
Bertrand Russell is not too generous to Bayle, giving him just two fairly short
in passim references in his History of Western Philosophy:
“…The
“triumph of faith” was, for the
orthodox, a dangerous device. Bayle, in the late seventeenth century, made
ironical use of it, setting forth at great length all that reason could say
against some orthodox belief, and then concluding “so much the greater is the triumph of faith in nevertheless believing.”
“…It
is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Holland in the seventeenth
century, as the one country where there was freedom of speculation. Hobbes had
to have his books printed there; Locke took refuge there during the five worst
years of reaction in England before 1688; Bayle (!!!) (of the Dictionary)
found it necessary to live there; and Spinoza would hardly have been allowed to
do his work in any other country.”
(I must note that considering
Bayle’s illustrious company in Russell’s passage above, it is rather deplorable
that he, Bayle, would not receive a more comprehensive treatment on the pages
of Russell’s masterpiece.)
Given the paucity of my
respectable sources on Bayle, and the deplorable fact that I have not read any
of his writings at all, here is a sort of sine qua non: the Wikipedia entry on his chef d’oeuvre Le Dictionnaire Historique et Critique.---
The Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (English: Historical
and Critical Dictionary) is a biographical dictionary written by Pierre
Bayle (1647–1706), a Huguenot who lived and published in Holland after fleeing
his native France due to religious persecution. The dictionary was first
published in 1697, and enlarged in the second edition of 1702. An English
translation was first published in 1709. The overwhelming majority of the
entries are devoted to individual people, whether historical or mythical, but
some articles treat religious beliefs and philosophies. Many of the more
controversial ideas in the book were hidden away in the voluminous footnotes,
or slipped into articles on seemingly uncontroversial topics.
The rigor and skeptical approach
used in the Dictionary influenced many thinkers of the Enlightenment,
including Denis Diderot and the other Encyclopedists, David Hume, and George
Berkeley. Bayle delighted in pointing out contradictions between theological
tenets and the supposedly self-evident dictates of reason. Bayle used the
evidence of the irrationality of Christianity to emphasize that the basis of
Christianity is faith in God and divine revelation. But at the same time Bayle
sought to promote religious tolerance, and argued strongly against inflexible
and authoritarian application of religious articles of faith. This led to a
bitter argument with his fellow French Protestant Pierre Jurieu.
To sum it all up, I suspect that
Bayle was a far more important figure than he is generally given credit for,
and in my future explorations of him I would like to learn more about him, as
well as the reason why he has thus fallen through the cracks on the deck of history
of Western philosophy…
No comments:
Post a Comment