La probabilité académicienne, doctrine formulée par Carnéade, a joué un rôle capital dans l'épistémologie moderne. 1) Le pyrrhonisme dans L'Apologie de Raymond Sebond de Montaigne est surtout une réaction au probabilisme néo-académicien que se sont approprtés des apologistes huguenots ; 2) Charron et La Mothe le Vayer ne tiennent pas le probable pour la vérité parce que la probabilité est la limite anthropologique de la connaissance humaine, mais ils reconnaissent la difficulté de maintenir la suspension du jugement face au probable (...) ; 3) ce débat autour du probabilisme académicien est central dans le projet philosophique de Descartes. Academic probability, a doctrine elaborated by Carneades, played a central role in modern epistemology. 1) The pyrrhonism exhibited in Montaigne's Apology for Raymond Sebond is mainly a reaction to the neo-academic probabilism appropriated by Calvinist apologists; 2) Charron and La Mothe Le Vayer argue against taking the probable as if it were true because human cognition can attain only probable presentations but they acknowledge the difficulty of withholding assent; 3) This debate about academic probability is crucial to Descartes's philosophical project. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Filosofia ellenistica e cultura moderna: Epicureismo, stoicismo e scetticismo da Bayle a Hegel by Giovanni BonacinaJosé R. Maia NetoGiovanni Bonacina. Filosofia ellenistica e cultura moderna: Epicureismo, stoicismo e scetticismo da Bayle a Hegel. Firenze: Casa Editrice Le Lettere, 1996. Pp. 358. Paper, L 52,000.The Hellenistic schools played a major role in the rise of modern philosophy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Stoicism was influential in the development (...) of a secular ethics emancipated from theology, Epicureanism in the mechanical and corpuscular views of the new science, and Skepticism in the predominant role that epistemology assumed in modern philosophy. Bonacina shows that this influence continued to be considerable during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He examines the treatment of these three Hellenistic philosophies by a large number of (mostly German) historians of philosophy and by the main philosophers of the period. Among the historians, Bonacina detects a progressive drive towards historical objectivity. However, the religious interest in the assessment of the ancient schools is still noticeable until the early eighteenth century when it begins to be increasingly replaced by contemporary philosophical sympathies and affiliations. This interest is even stronger among the main philosophers of the period, who use the Hellenistic philosophies as weapons in the intellectual battles in which they were engaged. A brief summary of the main aspects of this use, first of Stoicism and Epicureanism, and then of Skepticism, by some of the major philosophers examined by Bonacina will illustrate this central point of the book.Bayle continues Gassendi’s project of rehabilitating Epicurus. But his effort is not to make Epicureanism compatible with Christianity. He uses Epicurus’ philosophy to enhance his opposition to rational theology and Epicurus’ alleged virtuous life to corroborate his view that forced conversions cannot be justified by the need to make atheists or heretics good citizens. According to Bayle, Stoics—unlike Skeptics and Epicureans and like Catholic monks—are intolerant dogmatists, holding views incompatible with the true religion. A few years later, in the context of the French Enlightenment, the assessment of Stoicism and Epicureanism is still determined by antireligious controversy, but now revelation itself becomes the main target. Diderot, d’Holbach and La Mettrie all hold that a Stoic ethics which despises the passions is incompatible with human nature (just like Christian morals and contrary to Epicurean morals). Voltaire’s evaluation of Stoicism and Epicureanism strikes both his contemporary materialists and Christianity. Stoic deism is for Voltaire the alternative both to materialism and to revealed religion. Bonacina also shows that the Stoic/Epicurean opposition in ethics is an important weapon among the British moralists. While Shaftesbury finds in Stoicism [End Page 324] support for his view of innate moral feelings, Mandeville opposes him, attacking Stoicism and defending Epicureanism. Moving to the German context, Bonacina shows that Kant is often sympathetic towards Epicurus, in particular when the ancient philosopher is contrasted with modern ones. Epicurus’s materialism may have had only a phenomenal status and is more internally consistent than a modern materialism such as Locke’s, who accepts the existence of a nonmaterial God and soul. As to Stoic ethics, Kant claims that it is partially true—to the extent that virtue is not conditioned—and partially false, for the Stoics think of the summum bonum as empirically available whereas it is an ideal of practical reason. Hegel also uses Stoicism and Epicureanism for the vindication of his own philosophy and criticism of established ones. For instance, Stoic ethics is a step in the development of the Mind, but just like Kantian ethics it is empty, deprived of ethicity and therefore in need of being dialectically overcome.Skepticism plays perhaps an even larger role in the philosophical debates of the period. Bayle takes the Skeptic standpoint (in opposition to the dogmatist in general and to the Stoic in particular) as the model for the historian of ideas who must objectively report the views and critically examine them without religious and philosophical preconceptions. Even more than Epicurus, Pyrrho is presented as a foe of rational theology and as indirectly showing the need of appealing to pure faith. Bonacina then examines the role played by Skepticism in the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pierre Bayle dans la République des Lettres: Philosophie, Religion, CritiqueJosé R. Maia NetoAntony McKenna and Gianni Paganini, editors. Pierre Bayle dans la République des Lettres: Philosophie, Religion, Critique. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004. Pp. 589. Cloth, €90.00.Pierre Bayle is an early modern philosopher who has received relatively little attention given the philosophical relevance and historical influence of his work. Fortunately this situation has been rapidly changing in recent years. (...) This volume, edited by Antony McKenna and Gianni Paganini, is a good sample of the volume, quality, scope, and polemical nature of current Bayle scholarship. The book contains twenty-five articles by the main Bayle scholars from France, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States. It also contains an introduction by the editors, who give an overview of current scholarship, summarizing its main trends and achievements, and a useful name index. The articles are organized in five sections, each dealing with some aspect of Bayle's life and thought.The first set of articles, gathered under the heading, "Interlocutors, Friends and Enemies," deals with Bayle's personal relations as a Huguenot exiled in the Netherlands. Luisa Simonutti deals with Bayle's relations to one of the radical Reformed groups in Holland, the Quakers. Although Bayle disagreed with their religious views, he respected and maintained [End Page 476] healthy intellectual exchanges with them. Hans Bots examines Bayle's view of the "republic of letters," of which he was a major architect—a republic whose right to citizenship required the suspension of religious, political, and national partisanship and engagement in free intellectual debate. H. H. M. van Lieshout contests the entrenched view that Bayle lived as a recluse scholar in Rotterdam. Both she and Bots show how Bayle's main work, the Dictionary, exhibits his life committed to the "republic of letters." Finally, Hubert Bost focuses on Bayle's activity as a journalist, crucial in this republic but also revealing the difficulty of the pursued ideal of neutrality.The next three sections of the book deal with Bayle's thoughts on religion and philosophy. Anna Belgrado denies the late Bayle scholar Elizabeth Labrousse's thesis that Bayle's thought is wrought with Protestantism. Bayle's views on the Jews, the Middle Ages, and women are examined, respectively, by Myrian Yardeni, Gregorio Piaia, and Maria-Cristina Pitassi, who concur in concluding that, although not free from the prejudices of his time, Bayle's views are more complex and balanced than those of his contemporaries.Bayle's political views and in particular his view on tolerance receive a good deal of attention in the volume. Stefano Brogi explains Bayle's attack on the "rational theologians" (Le Clerc), at first sight puzzling given their defense of religious tolerance, pointing out Bayle's radical opposition between faith and reason. According to Jean-Michel Gros, it is this radical separation of philosophy from theology that renders Bayle's view of tolerance so modern, unlike Locke's, for instance, which still has a theological ground. Jonathan Israel explains another apparent puzzle: Bayle's defense of absolute monarchism despite his philosophical and religious ideas, which were no less radical than Spinoza's. Bayle, unlike Spinoza, does not support republicanism because of his pessimistic view of human nature. John Christian Laursen shows that the political menace posed by the Millenarians explains Bayle's unusual lack of tolerance towards them.One of the most influential contemporary Bayle scholars, Gianluca Mori, summarizes his view of Bayle as a philosophical atheist, and he is contested in this by Jean-Luc Solère, who argues that for Bayle, materialism does not provide a coherent metaphysical system alternative to the Christian one, so that Bayle's position amounts to a radical skepticism with regard to reason. In his contribution to the volume, Mori argues that Bayle's skepticism is restricted, and is not relevant to the issue of theism versus atheism. He replies to Solère's objections to his interpretation in an appendix to his article. Mori's interpretation relies on the method of reading Bayle's text as containing irreligious views hidden beneath apparently orthodox claims. Thomas Lennon relies on the opposite approach to argue... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 (2002) 551-552 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Limits of Doubt: The Moral and Political Implications of Skepticism Petr Lom. The Limits of Doubt: The Moral and Political Implications of Skepticism. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2001. Pp. xiv + 138. Cloth, $49.50. Paper, $16.95. Since the appearance in 1960 of Richard Popkin's The History of Skepticism from (...) Erasmus to Descartes (later extended to Spinoza and, in a forthcoming edition, to Bayle) skepticism has been acknowledged as a powerful intellectual force in modern philosophy. Lom's The Limits of Doubt corroborates this view by showing the relevance of this ancient tradition in the political and moral thought of a number of major modern philosophers.The major thesis of the book is that skepticism in itself, that is, conceived as the epistemological position of raising doubts about any knowledge claim, has no moral or political implications. According to Lom, the moral and political positions that have been associated with skepticism (either tyranny and other forms of political oppression or toleration and liberalism in general) derive not from skepticism itself but from what he calls "the limits of doubt": beliefs left untouched by skeptical doubt. To establish this thesis Lom examines the moral and political aspects of skepticism in Nietzsche (chapter 1), Sextus Empiricus (chapter 2), Hobbes (chapter 3), Diderot (chapter 4), and Montaigne (chapter 5), showing in each case the (value) beliefs responsible for the different moral and political positions held.Lom's analysis of these thinkers' relation to skepticism is comprehensive, detailed, and engaged with an extended secondary literature. I can here just briefly indicate some results of Lom's investigation. He shows Nietzsche's esteem for the ancient skeptics in whom alone Nietzsche saw a plain exhibition of intellectual integrity or honesty. This integrity implies, according to Lom, a demand for justice often unnoticed by superficial readings of Nietzsche. The illiberal aspects of Nietzsche's political philosophy, related to his doctrine of the will to power, derive, according to Lom, not from Nietzsche's skepticism but from the limits of his doubt, namely, his dogmatic nihilism (belief that there is no value, a position that Lom carefully distinguishes from skepticism). Lom also finds limits in Sextus Empiricus's skepticism. He follows Martha Nussbaum ("Skeptic Purgatives...," Journal of the History of Philosophy 29 [1991], 1-33) in claiming that Sextus's skepticism does not extend to the principle of non-contradiction and to the end of tranquility (ataraxia). The [End Page 551] latter is mainly responsible for what Lom considers the ancient Pyrrhonians' political indifference. This indifference, coupled with the Pyrrhonians' attempt to destroy reason (a polemical interpretation of ancient Pyrrhonism) "may also allow political nightmares to breed in the night" (45). In Hobbes, Lom identifies a kind of methodical doubt whose aim is not that of Descartes's of finding certain truth but to combat the pride of men. This pride leads to different and conflicting views of the summum bonum that disturb the civil order. Its destruction through skepticism facilitates the acceptance of the sovereign's decisions and thus the attainment of peace. Lom notes the similarity of Hobbes's position on doubt with Sextus's (the subordination of the skepsis to the goal of tranquility) and points out a number of interesting and still little explored parallels between Hobbes and Montaigne, whose skeptical and moral views are examined in chapter 5. According to Lom, Montaigne, like Sextus, is little interested in politics and his attack on cruelty and defense of toleration do not issue from his skepticism but from moral values that remain outside the scope of doubt, notably Montaigne's desire for peace. Lom's analysis of Diderot is interesting and original. He places the French philosophe in the tradition of "constructive skepticism" (expression labeled by Popkin to characterize the skepticism of Gassendi and Mersenne about knowledge of essences but opened to a hypothetical science of phenomena). Lom focuses on Diderot's Rameau Nephew, where he... (shrink)