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Pierre Bayle

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Pierre BayleFirst published Fri Feb 7, 2003; substantive revision Mon Nov 11, 2013

Pierre Bayle (16471706) was a Huguenot, i.e., a French Protestant, whospent almost the whole of his productive life as a refugee in Holland. Hislife was devoted entirely to scholarship, and his erudition was second tonone in his, or perhaps any, period. Although much of what he wrote wasembedded in technical religious issues, for a century he was one the mostwidely read philosophers. In particular, his Dictionnaire historique etcritique was among the most popular works of the eighteenth century. Thecontent of this huge and strange, yet fascinating work is difficult todescribe: history, literary criticism, theology, obscenity, in addition tophilosophical treatments of toleration, the problem of evil, epistemologicalquestions, and much more. His influence on the Enlightenment was,whether intended or not, largely subversive. Said Voltaire: the greatestmaster of the art of reasoning that ever wrote, Bayle, great and wise, allsystems overthrows.

1. Bayle's life, work and circumstances2. The Bayle enigma3. Bayle's skepticism4. Bayle on toleration5. The problem of evil6. Bayle's influenceBibliography

A. Primary literatureB. Primary literature in translationC. Secondary literature

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1. Bayle's life, work and circumstancesMore than for most philosophers, the circumstances of Bayle's lifedetermined the shape, content and thrust of his work. Curiously, accountsnowadays of the lives of historical philosophers, usually written byphilosophers for philosophers, often begin with this sort of statement, eventhough most philosophers otherwise write as if circumstances wereirrelevant. In the case of Bayle, however, the importance of circumstancesis undeniable, to the point that ignoring them inevitably leads to distortionand misinterpretation.

An emblematic event in the life of Bayle was the Revocation of the Edictof Nantes in 1685, which from his point of view was an instance ofgrotesque intolerance based on moral and logical absurdity. The greaterpart of his life's work can be understood as Bayle's attempt to lay bare theabsurdity represented by this event. Nor was the significance of the eventmerely symbolic for Bayle, since he himself was a victim of theintolerance to an extreme degree.

The Revocation (as it came simply to be called, so momentous was it)must be understood in the context of the general reformation ofChristianity in the sixteenth century. Perceived ecclesiastical abuses, bothmoral and doctrinal, had led many to believe that such radical overhaul ofRoman Catholicism was required that, in the end, separation from Romewas often the result. The separation of the Protestants, as they were called,was generally based on political power, either of a majority or simply ofthose in a position to exercise it. In France, however, the situation wasmore complicated, because the Protestants, or Huguenots, were nevermore than about a twentieth of the population. Even so, they had influencebeyond their numbers, and they took sides in a protracted political strugglethat emerged as the civil Wars of Religion, one of the grisliest chapters in

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French history. After most of a century of death and upheaval, the Frenchwere ready for a settlement, which came about when the succession of thecrown passed to the Protestant Henry of Navarre, but on condition of hisabjuration of Protestantism, i.e., conversion to Catholicism. Paris is wortha Mass, quipped the new Henry IV, who was then uniquely in a positionto terminate the Wars of Religion, which he did with the Edict of Nantes(1598). This royal decree recognized the rights of Protestants in at leastcertain domains, but in terms that were far from fully favorable toProtestant interests (for example, only Catholics were to be admitted to theuniversities). Moreover, Henry's successors gradually chipped away atProtestant guarantees in a policy of persecution aimed, as they saw it, atuniting the French state (un roi, une loi, une foione king, one law, onefaith). Finally, Louis XIV, the Sun King, abolished the Edict altogether,even though it had been issued in perpetuity, on the ground that it was nolonger needed since there were no longer any Protestants.

Amidst this mess, Pierre Bayle was born in 1647, the son of a Protestantminister in Le Carla (now Le Carla-Bayle), a small town in the foothills ofthe Pyrenees. Typically, the family was financially impoverished, andPierre, after primary school, could be only home-schooled until he was 21.Then, when his older brother had at last graduated from the only place thefamily could afford at the Protestant school at Puylaurens, he left home forwhat soon became the crossroads of his life. For within three months hehad moved on to the Jesuit school in Toulouse, where he abjured hisProtestantism. His conversion was short-lived however, for he aftergraduating with a master's degree he returned to the Protestant fold.Commentators differ on the significance of this episode. The interpretationin terms of venal self-interest seems mistaken, however. While Bayle'sabjuration made him eligible for a Jesuit scholarship, his re-conversionreturned him to a state that was far worse, for in the eyes of the authoritieshe was now not just a heretic, but a relapsed heretic, liable to the severestof penalties. He therefore fled France for the Calvinist stronghold of

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Geneva. He went with the renewed blessing of his family and theknowledge, given that both his changes of religion were sincere, thaterrors of conscience could occur in good faith.

A menial job of tutoring kept body and soul together in Geneva, but alsokept him from the scholarly life Bayle craved. He eventually slipped backinto France for a position at the Protestant Academy at Sedan, where heremained until its suppression by the government in 1681. Eventually, hewas given a position at the Ecole Illustre in Rotterdam, a school for thecommunity of Huguenot refugees there, whose numbers increaseddramatically after the Revocation. Despite still-onerous teachingcommitments, Bayle began his serious publishing career with worksdefending the French Reform from Catholic persecution and criticisms onmany topics, but particularly on the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christin the sacrament of the Eucharist, which the Huguenots denied. Worksfrom this period include: Penses diverses (1682), the Critique gnrale(1682), Nouvelles lettres (1685) and La France toute catholique (1686).The philosophical basis for his argument against Catholic persecutionappeared the following year in the Commentaire philosophique, a classicin the literature on toleration.

Bayle's position on toleration was found inimical to the Protestant causeby his erstwhile friend and colleague from Sedan, Pierre Jurieu, whom hehad helped bring to the safety of Holland. Jurieu, the Theologian ofRotterdam, soon became the bitterest enemy of Bayle, the Philosopherof Rotterdam, and the two engaged in long and caustic polemic that wasneither positive nor productive in any sense. These were difficult times forBayle. His father and both brothers died within two years, one of the latterwhile languishing in a French jail because of Bayle's publications. He hadalso assumed editorship of one of the first of the learned journals,Nouvelles de la Rpublique des Lettres, the rigors of which contributed tohis plight and the resulting breakdown he suffered in 1687.

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Bayle's life, and the subsequent course of intellectual history, weredramatically altered by the publication of his Dictionnaire historique etcritique, which began appearing in 1696. Certainly, Bayle's materialsituation was improved, not to mention that of his publisher, since thework was soon on its way to becoming the philosophical best-seller of theeighteenth century. Bayle was at last able to give up teaching. But whataccounts for the success of this strange work? It is not a dictionary in theusual sense; rather it is a hodge-podge encyclopedia of intellectualcuriosities, serious argument on a variety of topics, salacious stories,exacting textual scholarship, and much more that drew a readership hardlyless diverse than its contents. To be sure, its entries are alphabeticallyarranged, but perhaps ninety-five percent of the work is to be found in thefootnotes, called remarks, that often bear little relation to the main text.Readers obviously dipped here and there into this massive work of oversix million words, and had a wonderful time.

Not everyone was happy with the work, however. Unhappy wereauthorities in France, of course, where the proscribed work nonethelessshowed up, and the reactionary Jurieu, who mobilized the Consistory ofthe Walloon Church in Rotterdam against Bayle, who was thenconstrained to publish Eclaircissements or Clarifications of histreatment of atheism, Manicheism, skepticism and obscenity. In additionto work for further editions of the Dictionnaire, Bayle's last years werespent in continued theological debate, now primarily with the Rationalisttheologians Le Clerc, Jaquelot, and Bernard. Bayle, whose health hadnever been robust, died on 28 December 1706, probably of a heart attackprecipitated by tuberculosis. He was putting the final touches to hisEntretiens de Maxime et de Thmiste, the work which motivated Leibnizto write the only book he would ever publish, the Theodicy.

2. The Bayle enigma


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There is a general problem in the interpretation of Bayle that has beenacknowledged (and even insisted upon both by critics and admirers) in theliterature from his own time to the present. It is a problem not just ofdeciding whether Bayle succeeded in what he was trying to do, whichwould be difficult enough given the charged topics that he often dealtwith, but even and especially in deciding the nature of what he was tryingto do. One might not go so far as to claim that meaning is author'sintention (the so-called intentional fallacy), but it is hard to deny thatauthor's intention is at least relevant to meaning. And what Bayle'sintentions were has been a matter of debate from the beginning.

According to just the twentieth-century interpretations, Bayle might havebeen a positivist, an atheist, a deist, a skeptic, a fideist, a Socinian, aliberal Calvinist, a conservative Calvinist, a libertine, a JudaizingChristian, a Judeo-Christian, or even a secret Jew, a Manichean, anexistentialist. To be sure, not all of these exclude the rest; for example,skepticism has often been associated with fideism. But atheism, forexample, is certainly incompatible with deism and the other forms oftheism. Moreover, there is at least some plausibility to all of theseinterpretations.

Perhaps one way of sorting out his cacophony is in terms of the distinctionthat Bayle himself drew between two kinds of philosophers: the lawyers,who represent their case in the best light possible and their opponents' inthe worst, and the reporters, who tell it as it is, with respect to all views.Bayle might be a reporter, equitably relating all views, even those that aremutually inconsistent, especially in the Dictionnaire, which is the work onwhich the panoply of interpretations is largely based. When justifyinghimself to the Walloon Church over the obscenities alleged to be foundthere, he claimed not to be producing obscenities but only to be relating,as a good historian must, what others had produced. Even so, some of theviews that he clearly purports to relate as a reporter are his own, both in

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the Dictionnaire and especially in the whole rest of his work, which dealsalmost exclusively with religious topics. And here there is a specialproblem of interpretation.

A case can be made that the logic of Bayle's various positions ontoleration, evil, truth, substance and accident, lead ineluctably to atheism;yet Bayle constantly asserts his belief in the tenets of the Calvinist faith inwhich he was raised, and for which, not incidentally, he made suchsacrifice. We are thus faced with an inconsistent triad: Bayle's clearlyarticulated and acknowledged principles entail atheism; Bayle does notaccept atheism; Bayle is neither stupid nor dishonest. He sees theincompatibility of the first two claims, but nonetheless makes them (thatis, Bayle neither nods nor winks).

From his own time to the present, it has been the third claim that hasdrawn closest scrutiny. Given the stressful period of the Revocation and itsaftermath, the possibility of a nodding (or even crazed) Bayle has someplausibility. But it is a winking Bayle who came to be the Arsenal of theEnlightenment. Those looking to discredit religion and theism generallyhad only to focus on what is most obvious, consistent and rationallycogent in his work. If there are also claims there of Christian orthodoxy,they were taken as so much hand-waving dissimulation in an effort to slipthe real message past censorious authorities. Whatever his intentions, thisimpulse toward modern atheism was Bayle's greatest single influence.

This interpretation was another of the topics on which Bayle had to defendhimself before the Walloon Consistory. His defense in theEclaircissement, and in fact throughout his work, was an appeal to afideism that seems to have made incompatibility with reason a conditionfor an article of faith. Certainly, Bayle asserts that the value of faith isdirectly proportional with its repugnancy to reason. In this, Bayle was onlypursuing a line to be found in Scripture, especially St. Paul, whom Bayle


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cites repeatedly and at length on the rational foolishness of faith in stillanother Eclaircissement, on Manicheanism and the problem of evil.Arguably, his is the only conception of faith that avoids the heresy ofPelagianism, according to which people are able to save themselves,independently of divine grace. For if we can reason ourselves to the truth(or even the probability, or plausibility) of what is believed on faith, andsuch belief is a sufficient condition for salvation, then, contrary toCalvinist doctrine, faith is not necessary. Of course, even this defense isopen to the winking Bayle interpretation.

One way to express the issue, at least, is with respect to Bayle's reaction tothe horrors of the Revocation. The fact is that after the death of hisimprisoned brother, Bayle hardly ever again referred to divine providence.This silence is remarkable for one whose Calvinism dictated belief in strictpredestination based on the sufficiency and necessity of grace. What oughtto have been a consolation was ignored. Why? It might be that for him theRevocation came to represent the hypocrisy, not just of RomanCatholicism, but of Christianity and all religionhypocrisy being the veryfailing condemned by the Gospel more than sins of the flesh or any othersin. The issue is epistemologically underdetermined by its very nature, forBayle's behavior was compatible with both atheistic dissimulation andsincere fideism. This issue is also morally idle given Bayle's own view ontoleration of dissenting belief, expressed by the scriptural injunction, judgenot. Only God has the privileged access necessary to judge conscience.

3. Bayle's skepticismBayle has generally been regarded as a skeptic of some sort, but the sorthas seldom been specified with any precision. Three kinds seem relevant.The most influential kind has already been alluded to, namely religiousskepticism, which may be taken to mean that Bayle did not in fact believeall, or perhaps any, of the religious views that he asserted. The evidence

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for attributing such skepticism to Bayle could hardly be stronger. Suchbeliefs are, according to Bayle, contrary to reason. But the evidenceagainst doing so is at least equipollent: Bayle claims, repeatedly andunequivocally, to be a believer. Those who take Bayle to be a religiousskeptic discount this testimony as dissimulation. What the motive for itwould be is unclear. Fear of censorship is implausible; Bayle hardlylacked for courage, and in any case did not have a great deal to fear inrelatively liberal Holland. Moreover, that Bayle should have foreseen theskeptical influence he was to have on the Enlightenment credits him withan unlikely prescience and deviousness, making him, to use one of hisown favorite expressions, a snake in the breastindeed, the wiliest ofthem.

A more tractable and philosophically more interesting form of skepticismattributed to Bayle is Pyrrhonism. This interpretation has the advantage ofreconciling his denigration of reason and profession of faith: the one is apreparation for the other. The principal text for Bayle's Pyrrhonism is theDictionnaire article on Pyrrho, especially remarks B and C. There heargues that the same reasons that led the Cartesians to assert that sensoryqualities such as colors, heat, cold and smells are not in the objects of thesenses, but instead are modifications of the mind, in fact show that allqualities have this status. In fact, says Bayle, even granting that God isveridical, Descartes's proof of the external world itself is flawed. For, asMalebranche argued, in no way can belief in that world be based on theveracity of God, who in any case allows us to be deceived about sensoryqualities, and who might therefore allow us to be deceived about all else inthe world.

In this text Bayle also gives arguments that purport to show that reasonitself is unreliable. Principles of reason that are as evident as could be arerevealed as incompatible with what is known to be true. However, theexamples that Bayle gives indicate the tenuousness of his Pyrrhonism. The


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principle that no human body can be in two places at once, or beinterpenetrated by its own parts, is at odds with the doctrine of the realpresence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Now, this is theCatholic conception of the Eucharist, which Bayle himself rejects. In fact,all of the arguments emerge from a conversation that Bayle placesbetween two Catholic priests, thus, for whatever reason, distancinghimself from them. It has recently been argued in fact, that the reasonBayle distances himself in this way is that he is offering a reductio adabsurdum of Catholic fideism based on philosophical skepticism. That is,Bayle rejects even this ground-clearing role for skepticism as preparationfor faith, since it would be an instance of Pelagianism.

Generally, Bayle's arguments concerning skepticism are highlycontextualized. He offers no in vacuo critique of pure reason. Thearguments usually occur in the Dictionnaire, whose entries offer someminimal constraint on what Bayle says, and they usually occur in religiousdebate of some sort, where the role of faith needs to be ascertained. Nor isthere ever a wholesale rejection of reason, which would be paradoxical,given Bayle's use of argument. In the ancient world, Sextus Empiricusthought of argument as like a purgative that once having done its work isitself flushed away. Although he employs his own version of the medicalmodel (reason is like a corrosive that first cleans a wound but then eatsthrough flesh and bone to the very marrow), Bayle seems to have a verydifferent view. Shifting analogies in response to the liberal ProtestantJacquelot, who had criticized his fideism as renouncing reason altogether,Bayle explained that individual defeats of reason entailed only a retreat toa more defensible position, something that happens all the time inphilosophy. His assessment of reason, even in his most outr statements(reason is like a runner who does not know when the race is over, or likeanother Penelope undoing at night what was done during the day), is on acase-by-case basis, and whatever generalizations he offers are open torevision.

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Bayle seems to espouse something of a holistic web of belief, of theQuine-Ullian sort, at least in the sense that cognitive antinomies areresolved by rejecting the principles causing them, beginning with thosefarthest from the center. Bayle, however, includes religious truths as at thevery center, trumping all others. Another complication is that sometimesthere seems no way to resolve the antinomies, as in the case of thedivisibility of matter. The relevant maxims of reason seem equally central,yet yield an exhaustive and inconsistent triad of views, none of which istrue. Unlike the Pyrrhonists, however, whose aim is to sustain antinomies,Bayle tries to resolve them. If there is the occasional standoff, Bayle'sattitude is one of regret and patience, for he is interested in overcomingdoubt, not generating it. The motivation he gave for the Dictionnaire, afterall, was the correction of errors, confusion and doubt in previous suchworks.

The form of skepticism that seems best to capture this attitude isAcademic skepticism, which is in fact the position he explicitly espouseswhen accused of Pyrrhonism by Jurieu. This skepticism is not the negativedogmatism, as defined by Sextus, that nothing can be known. Rather, it isthe methodological position expressed by Cicero's injunction always topreserve the integrity of one's power of judgment; that is, not to dissipateit in accepting as true what one does not perceive to be true. In this sense,the first of Descartes's rules of method in the Discourse is an Academicprinciple, perhaps the only one: to avoid precipitateness and prejudice andto rely only on one's own ability to discern the truth. Integrity is a matterof honestly preserving the wholeness of one's own judgment.

Part of this outlook would be the reportorial role that Bayle assumes, ofgiving unimpeded voice to all views, even those that compete with hisown. Only a lawyer would argue a single position to the exclusion of allothers. Moreover, if this Academic skepticism were Bayle's outlook, hecould not have espoused it as such, for to do so would be still another form


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of dogmatism. Thus, instead of defining, arguing and recommendingAcademic skepticism in any direct fashion, he would give instances if it,practice it himself and generally seek its promulgation through edification.This might be exactly what he does.

If Bayle doubts, he does so on a highly contingent and non-theoreticalbasis. He is prepared to accept what he finds to be evident, but the fact ofthe matter is that he does not find it very often, at least not in philosophy.In history, on the other hand, there is a kind of certainty appropriate to thedomain that is often enough to be found. The Dictionnaire itself cannot beinterpreted except as stupendous testimony to the ability of an individualto overcome passion and prejudice and arrive at historical truthso muchso that Bayle's historical method has been viewed by the literature as aform of Cartesianism, despite the Cartesians' own dismissal of history.Only in one domain, however, is anything like strictly Cartesianinfallibility to be found, and that is morality. There, the individualconscience is inviolate. Even if it errs with respect to the objective moralcharacter of an act, conscience, so long as it acts with integrity, cannotmorally err and is to be respected. Such is the basis for Bayle's view ontoleration.

4. Bayle on tolerationNo philosophical topic occupied Bayle more than toleration. Many of thearticles of his Dictionnaire deal with it, and most of the rest of his otherworks are directed either largely or entirely to the topic, most notably, hisCommentaire philosophique. It is an area in which he clearly had aprofound impact on the Enlightenment. Locke also might have found inBayle, if not a source for his own views, then at least moral support forthem, which he himself might have provided for Bayle. In any case, theirviews are very similar, even to the point of excluding Catholics from theprovisions of toleration (although their theories provide little on behalf of

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this exclusion and much against it).

The toleration in question means religious toleration, although what is saidabout it can be extended to political and other forms of toleration. Thequestion is whether someone whose sincere belief is perceived to be inerror should be forced to change it. Bayle's view is that in this case of theerring conscience, as it was called, constraint, even in the perceivedinterest of the errant individual, is never justified. The relevance of thisissue in the context of Huguenot persecution is obvious.

Bayle's direct arguments on behalf of toleration are not very convincing,however, at least not when taken in isolation. Consider, for example, hisargument that if even the true church had the right to persecute the heretic,then every church would have that right, with the result that a hereticalchurch would be in a position to persecute the true church. Quite apartfrom whether this conclusion is so obviously false as to serve as thereductio as absurdum that Bayle intends, his argument turns on anequivocation. A premise of the argument is that only if the true churchbelieved that it was the true church would it be in a position to persecute,otherwise it would give up its position and join, or at least seek, what itwould take to be the true church. But if this belief justified the true church,then it would justify every church that had it. The equivocation concernsthe sense in which the true church might base its right to persecute.Certainly, only if a church believed itself to be the true church would it bein a position to exercise its putative right to persecute. But this is not tosay that this belief by itself justifies the persecution. Such a view wouldbeg the question against those who, like Jurieu, think that only theobjective fact, in this case of actually being the true church, can everjustify.

Bayle is far more convincing when he generalizes from carefullyarticulated examples, the best of which is that of the wife of Martin



Guerre. Bayle, whose native Le Carla was the next village over from thesite of the actual events, would have known about the case from the localretelling of it, which has been continuous from the fifteenth century to thepresent. The short of the story is that Martin Guerre goes off to war,leaving behind his wife, child and problematic existence, and is replacedeight years later by an impostor who claims all his rights, including thoseof the marriage bed. According to Bayle, because she thinks the man is herhusband, the wife, in ceding him those rights, not only is inculpable of anact that otherwise would be adulterous, but actually performs her duty. Heconcludes, more generally, the erroneous conscience procures for errorthe same rights and privileges that the orthodox conscience procures fortruth.

An instructive curiosity is Bayle's handling of this case from the point ofview of the impostor. Because the wife has an obligation to submit to him,the impostor has a right to treat her as his wife. But it does not follow,according to Bayle, that the impostor would be justified in exercising thatright. The sort of case that he has in mind is the magistrate, and likely thechurch. With respect to their behavior there are two notions of right:immunity from punishment and justice. Whatever their pronouncements,they are to be obeyed; but they might yet be culpable before God. Thisdistinction does not elucidate the case of Martin's Guerre's impostor, whois an authority of neither church nor state. But it does emphasize Bayle'scontention that if the heretic has the duty to act according to conscience,then he has a right to do so; but if he has a right to do so, then everyonehas a duty not to interfere. The individual conscience is autonomous andought to be tolerated.

Even this position is less than straightforward, however, for it may happenthat the individual conscience calls for persecution. Bayle seems not tohave fully considered this case, but his best answer would seem to be thatthe conscientious persecutor should be restrained, but in a way that least

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poses a direct threat of temptation to conscience. That is, the conscience ofeven a persecutor must be respected, such that although it is regarded asmistaken, the individual should not be forced or even bribed to act againstit. Rational persuasion to the contrary would seem to be the sole remedyrecommendable by the alleged skeptic Bayle. What this case shows, inaddition, is that while conscience is necessary for right action, it is notsufficient. It supplies a formal requirement, as it were, with the content ofthe act being determined on other grounds. To be told to act according toconscience is in effect to be told to do what one thinks is right. Butarriving at what one thinks is right is another matter, involving reason, butalso other factors such as grace or education, which for Bayle are notmuch different from a matter of luck.

5. The problem of evilIf a perfectly good and all-powerful God alone created everything in theuniverse, then why do pain, moral wickedness, and so many varieties ofimperfection exist? Philosophers today refer to the family of issues raisedby this question as the problem of evil. There is perhaps no thesis forwhich Bayle is more well-known than the skeptical claim that there is norational solution to the problem of evil. Such skepticism can already befound in Bayle's earliest work, the 167577 Philosophy Course, in whichBayle argues that no available account of God's causal relation to sin andsuffering answers the problem. Bayle again attacks theodicy (i.e. theattempt to answer the problem of evil), especially the Cartesian strand, inhis 1679 Objectiones to Pierre Poiret's Cogitationes Rationales de Deo,Animo, et Malo. And both the 1682 Penses diverses and 168688Commentaire philosophique, though they primarily deal with superstitionand toleration respectively, also positively engage God's causal role in eviland demonstrate the insoluble puzzles it raises.

But the centerpiece of any discussion of Bayle and the problem of evil



must be the Dictionnaire, particularly the articles Manichens andPauliciens of the first edition, and the Eclaircissement sur lesManichens of the second. It is in these texts that Bayle attempts to refuteevery theodicy he had yet encountered, thereby demonstrating theincapacity of reason, especially within the confines of Christian dogma, toexplain the origin of evil in a way that does not make God its sole author.The suggestion that reason leads us ineluctably to the conclusion that Godis morally responsible for all evil was found so scandalous that Bayle wasforced to spend the last decade of his life defending himself againstcharges of atheism and even sedition on account of it. The Rationalisttheologians Jean Le Clerc and Isaac Jaquelot were Bayle's principaladversaries, and their objections to Bayle, as well as their attempts attheodicy, prompted him to expand his skeptical reflections on evil insubsequent books, including the Rponses aux questions d'un provincialand the posthumous Entretiens de Maxime et de Thmiste. These finalworks were the occasional cause of Leibniz's Theodicy, as well as theinspiration for (and source for many of the arguments of) Voltaire'ssatirical novella, Candide, several chapters of Hume's Dialoguesconcerning Natural Religion, and possibly Kant's late essay, On theMiscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy.

Bayle's controversial doctrine on the problem of evil that caused somuch commotion was carefully summarized by Bayle himself in threepoints:

1. The natural light and revelation teach us clearly that there isonly one principle of all things, and that this principle is infinitelyperfect; 2. The way of reconciling the moral and physical evil ofhumanity with all the attributes of this single, infinitely perfectprinciple of all things surpasses our philosophical lights, such thatthe Manichean objections leave us with difficulties that humanreason cannot resolve; 3. Nevertheless, it is necessary to believe

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The first principle was a common supposition in Bayle's day, and soobviously caused no controversy. Nevertheless, Bayle argued on behalf ofthe principle in Manichens, remark D, in passages that render moreprecise the nature of Bayle's skepticism about theodicy. Bayle imagines amonotheist philosopher, Melissus, arguing with a dualist philosopher,Zoroaster, over the origin of evil. The dispute begins with a contest over apriori arguments. In other words, the first question raised is whether oneprinciple of creation or two is most in accord with ideas of pure reason.Melissus wins this particular debate, in Bayle's view, because it is moreagreeable to a priori reason to suppose that there is just one necessary andinfinitely perfect being responsible for the creation of the universe than tosuppose that there are two warring gods, one good and the other evil(which is the view of Bayle's fictionalized Zoroaster). Melissus'monotheism is, in short, simpler and more elegant than Zoroaster'sdualism.

The contentious elements of Bayle's doctrine begin to surface when thedebate then turns to a posteriori reasons; that is, once the question shiftsaway from the beauty of the theory to its ability to account for theobservable phenomena. In this debate Melissus fares worse than hisinterlocutor, since human reason finds the manner in which evil wasintroduced under the empire of a sovereign being, infinitely good,infinitely holy, and infinitely powerful not only inexplicable, but evenincomprehensible; and everything that is opposed to the reasons why thisbeing permitted evil is more agreeable to the natural light and to the ideasof order than these reasons are (Dictionnaire, Pauliciens, rem. E).Simplicity and elegance are now on the side of Zoroaster (and the

firmly that what the natural light and revelation teach us about theunity and infinite perfection of God, just as believe by faith andsubmission to divine authority the mysteries of the Trinity and theIncarnation. (OD III, 992b-993a)



Manichean tradition that followed him, if Bayle's history is correct), forwhom all the good in the world is traceable to a perfectly benevolent deity,while all the evil is the effect of his malevolent enemy. Therefore, whereasa priori reason and Christian Scripture point toward monotheism (Bayle'sfirst principle), a posteriori reason raises perpetual difficulties for thispicture in light of the way the world actually is (Bayle's second principle).

Some of the most notorious remarks in the Dictionnaire are those in whichBayle details how a dualist could refute the traditional Christian accountsof the origin of evil, most of which begin from the story of the Fall ofAdam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Bayle begins his critique by askinghow such a Fall was even metaphysically possible. If Adam and Eve werecreated wholly good, then they should not have had the capacity to sin,since such a capacity is hardly a good quality. But supposing an answer tothis worry could be given, Bayle moves on to demand why God wouldpermit the possibility of sin to reduce to an actual sin, considering theterrible consequences that befell humanity as a result of it. The mostcommon response to this question was that God had given human beingsfree will, the most generous divine gift of all, and the autonomy of whichGod willed to respect in order to make true worship and love of himpossible. Bayle's response again focuses on the metaphysical possibility ofthe explanation: can a creature that derives all its being from God ever actin a manner that is truly free? Even supposing an account of freedomcould be offered to answer this question, Bayle still finds the free-willdefence unsatisfying on account of God's alleged omniscience. Surely Godforesaw the first sin of humankind from all eternity, yet he created humanswith freedom anyway. Is this not comparable, Bayle asks, to supplying acriminal with a knife knowing full-well that he will commit murder withit? If so, the responsibility for the murder falls at least partially on thesupplier of the weapon. But perhaps God allowed humans to fall so that hecould send his Son to redeem them. To this last resort of the Christians-thefelix culpa theodicy-Bayle observes that God in this case would resemble

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a father who allowed his son to break his arm (though he could haveprevented it) just so that he could display his skill at cast-making to theneighbors. Or God would be like a king who permitted a deadly uprisingjust so he could demonstrate his ability to quell it. God would not appearinfinitely perfect on any of these hypotheses.

Such reflections demonstrate the need for Bayle's third principle(assuming that one is interested in upholding Christian monotheism). Theorigin of evil, like the Trinity, is a mystery fraught with endlessdifficulties. On Bayle's view of religious mysteries, which he lays out atthe beginning of his Eclaircissement sur les Manichens, philosophicalobjections to mysteries are nothing troubling, but merely serve to confirmthat God's mind infinitely surpasses human minds. If there were noinsoluble philosophical objections to mysteries, then there would benothing mysterious about the doctrines in question-reason could answerevery difficulty, and could claim equality with God's own mind. For thesereasons Bayle conflated the traditional categories of above reason andagainst reason, claiming that mysteries were necessarily both. Reason isconsequently useless, even pernicious, as a basis for belief in themysteries, and so must be replaced by simple faith (Bayle's thirdprinciple).

Bayle's most able philosophical critic on these issues during his lifetimewas Jean Le Clerc, who argued that Bayle's doctrine on the problem ofevil was intentionally subversive of religion. The basis of Le Clerc'saccusation of atheism against Bayle was his claim that it is notpyschologically possible to continue to believe some doctrine after one hasconceded that it is met with insoluble difficulties. If this psychology ofbelief were true, then the second principle of Bayle's doctrine woulddestroy belief in monotheism because, by supposition, it would beimpossible to believe in the unity of God after acknowledging theirresistible force of the Manicheans' objections. In response to Le Clerc



Bayle argued in his posthumous Entretiens de Maxime et de Thmiste thatit is not only psychologically possible to believe in a proposition that hasbeen defeated in argument, but also very common. Bayle points to thedebate over the continuum to illustrate his thesis. Those engaged in thedebate over whether lines are infinitely divisible or ultimately reducible topoints of finite size recognize that there are insoluble paradoxes opposedto each point of view. Yet there are adherents of both views all the same,which demonstrates, by historical fact, that it is possible to believe in aproposition (e.g. lines are infinitely divisible) despite recognizingunanswerable difficulties (e.g. Zeno's paradoxes). Far from arecommendation of adopting irrational fideism in response to the problemof evil, Bayle therefore believed he was urging the same rational retreatfrom certain debates that philosophers are commonly forced into whenthey argue about labyrinthine philosophical topics like the continuum.

6. Bayle's influenceBayle undeniably had an enormous influence given the wide readership ofhis work; but the precise nature of that influence, even in individual cases,remains a desideratum of research. Bayle's connections with Locke,Leibniz, Kant and the Enlightenment have already been at least suggested.Here the debt to him of Berkeley and Hume will be looked at.

The literature regards Bayle, not only as an original source for theEnlightenment, but as a conduit of the views and arguments of hisimmediate predecessors in the seventeenth century. A good example ofwhere Bayle's role has not been made precise is his discussion of theprimary-secondary quality distinction. Bayle is supposed to haveconveyed Foucher's arguments against the distinction to Berkeley andHume. The contention is that just as Malebranche produced arguments toshow that secondary qualities exist only in the mind, so his critic Foucherextended those same arguments to show that primary qualities also exist

Pierre Bayle


only in the mind. In fact, however, the arguments that Foucher actuallydeployed were directed less against Malebranche, whom he took simply toassume the distinction, than against Descartes and especially Rohault. Hispoint was not to undo the distinction, but to show that however it wasunderstood, it was incompatible with Cartesian dualism.

It was Bayle himself in the famous note B of the Pyrrho article who tookFoucher to be extending Malebranche's arguments: if the objects of oursenses appear to us coloured, hot, cold, smelling, tho' they are not so, whyshould they not appear extended and figured, at rest, and in motion,though they had no such thing. Although a parallel is established, theargument is obviously not very strong. Now, the most notable mutatismutandis argument employed by Berkeley against the distinction is basedon the relativity of sense perception: the perception of both varies undervarying conditions, so if the variation of secondary qualities is a reason toplace them in the mind, it is also a reason to place the primary in the mind.This argument is not to be found in Foucher or in this article, but it doesappear in note G of the Zeno article, unconnected with Foucher: themodern Philosophers, though they are no Sceptics, have made secondaryqualities no more than perceptions in the mind; why should we not saythe same thing of extension? Bayle again deploys the weak parallelargument above, and then continues: Observe also, that the same bodyappears to us little or great, round or square, according to the place fromwhence we view it: and certainly, a body which seems to us very little,appears very great to fly. A problem for this text as a source for Berkeleyis that this very argument is to be found better presented in Malebranche,who is cited here along with other moderns such as Lamy and Nicole, whoare supposed to be undone by it. Given that Malebranche is cited byBerkeley more often by Berkeley's notebooks than anyone but Locke, itwould seem more likely that Berkeley went straight to Malebranche forhis arguments on the primary-secondary distinction.



A stronger connection between Berkeley and Bayle would be the textitself, and especially note H, of the same Zeno article. By appeal totheoretical parsimony, according to Bayle, the Cartesians may maintainthat no such thing as matter exists; for whether it doth or doth not exist,God could equally communicate to us all the thought we have. Suchdivine communication is, of course, precisely what Berkeley was toadvocate. Moreover, Bayle in note G extends Zeno's argument againstmotion by denying that extension exists. His argument is that extensioncannot be composed of mathematical points or of atoms, nor can it beinfinitely divisible. It remains an open question how this squares withBerkeley's comment in his notebooks, which he repeats there, thatMalebranche's & Bayle's arguments do not seem to prove against Space,but onely Bodies. The only other time Bayle is mentioned in Berkeley'sentire work is in the Theory of Vision Vindicated, where he is mentioned,with Hobbes, Spinoza and Leibniz, as an author whose popularity showshow atheistic principles have taken root.

That Bayle exercised an enormous influence on Hume is beyond doubt.Not long before publishing his Treatise, Hume drew the attention of hisfriend Michael Ramsey to four texts that would facilitate his reading of it.One of them was the more metaphysical Articles of Bailes [sic]Dictionary; such as those [on] Zeno, & Spinoza. Now, it is conceivablethat Hume encountered these texts, and recognized their propaedeuticvalue, only after completing his Treatise; but this bare possibility (theletter was written two years before its publication) is absolutely ruled outin the case of Bayle, if not of the other texts Hume names, by Hume's so-called early memoranda and especially by the use (unacknowledged, aswas typical for the period) that he actually makes of Bayle's work in thetext itself.

Of the philosophical entries in the early memoranda, about half deal withBayle. Even more important are the textual uses of Bayle. Kemp Smith

Pierre Bayle


long ago drew attention to five issues on which, in his view, Bayle had anunquestionable influence on Hume. First, from the article Zeno Humetakes Bayle's tripartite division of the possible ways that space and timemight be constituted: from mathematical points, or from physical points,or as infinitely divisible. But whereas Bayle argued in no uncertain termsthat none of these possibilities was rationally defensible, Hume in effectopts for physical points with his conception of indivisible minimasensibilia (colored points, in the case of space). Although the result is anon-standard account of geometry as an inexact science, Hume thinks thathe thereby preserves reason from otherwise irresolvable antinomies.

Second, Hume is supposed to have been influenced by Bayle's historicalaccount of the types of skepticism and his own use of skeptical argumentin attacking orthodox positions. Bayle's position on skepticism has beendiscussed above. It may not be too misleading to describe Hume'sresolution of skeptical difficulties in terms of taste and sentiment as anaturalistic version of Bayle's supernaturalistic resolution in terms of gracethat was described by the same phrase.

A third connection concerns the metaphysics of substance, mode andidentity. Hume takes from the article Spinoza the objections Baylelodged against Spinoza's hideous hypothesis that there is but a singlesubstance which is God, and applies these objections to the view thathumans possess a soul that is a simple, indivisible and immaterialsubstance. The whole of Hume's argument in three stages and tworebuttals of a reply is lifted from Bayle. Both the unique substance and thesubstantial soul are supposed to be indivisible, yet are really identical tothe extension that is their mode, hence are divisible; both have contraryproperties; etc. The upshot is that just as Spinoza's hypothesis isunintelligible, so is the theologians' supposition concerning the soul.

Fourth, Kemp Smith draws attention to the discussion of animal



intelligence in the article Rorarius. In this instance, the influence ofBayle is less clear. Presumably, he had in mind chapter nine of theEnquiry; but here one finds as the main exercise an application of theargument by analogy with an emphasis on the importance of experience.There is, however, an ultimate appeal to instinct to explain the cognitivebehavior of both men and animals. And here Bayle might have played arole, alluded to immediately above.

Finally, Hume might have been influenced by Bayle's treatment ofreligious questions, especially the argument from design. This is anexceedingly vexed area because of the questionable orthodoxy of Bayle'sviews and the expression of them. Many of the same ambiguities, ofcourse, infect Hume's views on these questions, although his heterodoxyseems far less debatable.

Bibliography[Note: a year-by-year list of everything published on Bayle during thetwentieth century is to be found below in Mori, 1999.]

A. Primary literature

Pierre Bayle, 1679, Harangue de Mr. de Luxembourg ses juges,reprinted in E. Lacoste, Bayle: Nouvelliste et Critique, Brussels, M.Lamertin, 1929.

, 1697 (2nd ed. 1702) Dictionnaire historique et critique, Rotterdam:Leers. [The only two editions of the Dictionary published in Bayle'slifetime.]

, 172731 (2nd ed. 1737) Oeuvres diverses, The Hague: Husson (2nded. Cie. Des Libraires). [The rest of Bayle's work, with supplementary volumes in an

Pierre Bayle


edition appearing since 1964 from Hildesheim: Olms.], 1740, Dictionnaire historique et critique, fifth edition, Amsterdam/

Leyde/ La Haye/ Utrecht. [This is the most authoritative edition of the Dictionary, andtherefore the one cited by Bayle scholars.]

, 1999, Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, edited by ElisabethLabrousse, Antony McKenna, et al., Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. [The authoritative collected correspondence of Bayle withinvaluable annotations. As of 2013, ten of twelve projected volumeshave been published including all known letters to July, 1697.]

, 2012, Bayle CorpusOeuvres compltes, edited by Antony McKennaand Gianluca Mori, Classiques Garnier Numrique. [A digital, searchable copy of the Oeuvres diverses and othersupplemental works by Bayle. ]

B. Primary literature in English translation

Pierre Bayle, 1734 (2nd ed.), The Dictionary Historical and Critical of MrPeter Bayle, trans. P. Desmaizeaux, London: Knapton et al.. [A colorful, but generally reliable and complete translation ofBayle's great work, reprinted in 1984 from New York: GarlandPublishing.]

, 1987, Pierre Bayle's Philosophical Commentary. A ModernTranslation and Critical Interpretation, trans. Amie GodmanTannenbaum, New York: Peter Lang. [The only modern translation of the Commentaire Philosophique,but a problematic one which omits Part III and the Supplement of thatwork.]

, 1991, Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections, trans. RichardH. Popkin, Indianapolis: Hackett. [A useful translation of some of the philosophically most importantmaterial from the Dictionnaire.]



, 2000, Bayle: Political Writings, trans. Sally L. Jenkinson,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [A selection of articles from the Dictionnaire that portrays Bayleas primarily a political thinker.]

, 2000, Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet, trans. RobertBartlett, Albany: State University of New York Press. [The first English translation of the Penses diverses since 1708.Includes a helpful introduction and supplementary notes.]

, 2000, A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel,Luke 14:23, Compel Them to Come In, That My House May BeFull, reprinted and introduced by John Kilcullen and ChandranKukathas, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. [An unabridged edition of the Commentaire Philosophique. Thetext is from the 1708 London edition whose translator is unknown.The English rings comical to modern ears at times.]

, 2013, Pierre Bayle's The Condition of Wholly Catholic France Underthe Reign of Louis the Great (1686), translated and introduced byCharlotte Stanley and John Christian Laursen, History of EuropeanIdeas, 148. [A contemporary English translation of Bayle's most passionatepolitical work, with a very helpful historical Introduction.]

C. Secondary literature

Bost, Hubert, 1994, Pierre Bayle et la Religion, Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France

, 2006, Pierre Bayle, Paris: Fayard. [The most recent full-length biography of Baylethe others byDesmaizeaux and Labroussewritten by one of the most prolificBayle scholars. Awarded the Prix XVIIme sicle.]

Bost, Hubert and Antony McKenna, 2010, Les Eclaircissements dePierre Bayle, Paris: Honor Champion.

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[An edition of the four Clarifications appended to the secondedition of the Dictionnaire, and a collection of interpretative articles.]

Brogi, Stefano, 1998, Teologia senza Verita: Bayle contro i rationaux,Milano: FrancoAngeli. [A survey of Bayle's disputes with the Rationalist theologians JeanLe Clerc, Isaac Jaquelot, and Jacques Bernard, which were carefullyfollowed by G.W. Leibniz as he wrote the Theodicy.]

Brush , Craig, 1966, Montaigne and Bayle: Variations on the theme ofskepticism, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. [A somewhat dated but still useful account.]

Delpla, Isabelle, and Philippe de Robert (eds.), 2003, La RaisonCorrosive: Etudes sur la pense critique de Pierre Bayle, Paris:Honor Champion. [Among others, there is an excellent essay by Jean-Luc Solre,"Bayle et les apories de la raison humaine," 87137, on rational firstprinciples and skepticism.]

Dibon, Paul, ed., 1959, Pierre Bayle: Le philosophe de Rotterdam,Amsterdam: Elsevier. [The beginning of modern Bayle scholarship, with a number ofstill-important papers]

Hickson, Michael W., 2010, The Message of Bayle's Last Title:Providence and Toleration in the Entretiens de Maxime et deThemiste, Journal of The History of Ideas, 71(4): 54767.

, 2013, Theodicy and Toleration in Bayle's Dictionary, Journal ofthe History of Philosophy, 51(1): 4973. [Two attempts to bring unity to Bayle's philosophical thought byshowing the connections between theodicy and toleration in his laterworks.]

Irwin, Kristen, forthcoming (2014), Which Reason? Bayle on theIntractability of Evil, in New Essays on Leibniz's Theodicy, editedby Larry M. Jorgensen and Samuel Newlands, Oxford: Oxford



University Press. [An essay that provides helpful context for understanding Leibniz'sresponse to Bayle on the problem of evil.]

Kilcullen, John, 1988, Sincerity and Truth, Oxford: Clarendon Press. [A brilliant account of the views on toleration of not only Bayle,but also Arnauld.]

Labrousse, Elisabeth, 1963, Pierre Bayle, Vol. 1: Du pays de Foix la citd'Erasme, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. [A modern biography by the late doyenne of Bayle scholarship.]

, 1964, Pierre Bayle, Vol. 2: Hterodoxie et rigourisme, The Hague:Nijhoff. [A monumental work to be consulted for any serious work onBayle.]

, 1983, Bayle, trans. Denys Potts, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [The best introduction to Bayle: clear, accessible and authoritative.A model of its kind in the Past Masters Series.]

Leduc, Christian, Paul Rateau, and Jean-Luc Solre, forthcoming (2014),Leibniz et Bayle: Confrontation et Dialogue, Studia LeibnitianaSonderheft, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. [A collection of essays (French and English) dedicated entirely toBayle and Leibniz on a wide range of philosophical issues.]

Lennon, Thomas M., 1999, Reading Bayle, Toronto: University ofToronto Press. [An attempt to deal with the Bayle enigma from the perspective ofAcademic skepticism.]

Maia Neto, Jose, 1997, Academic Skepticism in Early ModernPhilosophy, Journal of The History of Ideas, 58(2): 199220.

, 1999, Bayle's Academic Skepticism, in Everything Connects: InConference with Richard H. Popkin. Essays in his Honour, 26376,edited by James E. Force and David S. Katz, Leiden: Brill. [The pioneering paper on Academic skepticism, as distinct from

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Pyrrhonism, in the early modern period; and the paper that applies thedistinction to Bayle.]

McKenna, Antony and Gianni Paganini, 2004, Pierre Bayle dans laRpublique des Lettres: Philosophie, religion, critique, Paris: HonorChampion. [An anthology of articles by leading Bayle scholars whichdemonstrates the diversity of fields covered in Bayle's writings andthe diversity of scholars attracted to this author.]

Mori, Gianluca, 1999, Bayle: philosophe, Paris : Honor Champion. [By far the best argument that the logic of Bayle's thought leads toatheism ; generally of a quality second to none in the literature.]

, 2003, Pierre Bayle on Scepticism and Common Notions, in TheReturn of Scepticism: From Hobbes and Descartes to Bayle, editedby Gianni Paganini, 393414, Dordrecht/Boston/London: KluwerAcademic Publishers. [An important article on the consistency of Bayle's skepticism andhis dogmatic commitment to rational moral first principles.]

, 2007, "Introduction," in Pierre Bayle, Avis aux rfugis; Rponsed'un nouveau converti, edited and introduced by Gianluca Mori, 167, Paris: Honor Champion. [The authorship of the Avis (1690) and that of the Rponse (1689)have been debated; Mori makes the strongest case yet for Bayle's soleauthorship of both works.]

O'Cathesaigh, Sean, 1989, Bayle's Commentaire philosophique, 1686,Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, no. 260. [An important article on Bayle's account of toleration.]

Paganini, Gianni, 1980, Analisi della fede e critica della ragione nellafilosofia di Pierre Bayle Florence: La Nuova Italia. [By a leading Italian historian of early modern philosophy.]

, 2008, Skepsis: Le Dbat des Modernes sur le Scepticisme, Paris: J.Vrin.



[A book awarded the Prix La Bruyre, the last chapter of whichoffers a thorough and rigorous analysis of Bayle's skepticism viz-a-viz Cartesian philosophy.]

Popkin, Richard. H., 1980, The High Road to Pyrrhonism, San Diego:Austin Hill Press. [One article on Bayle (and Hume), and many more at leastreferring to him. Bayle and Hume are mentioned passim far moreoften than any other author.]

, and Vanderjagt, eds., 1993 Scepticism and Irreligion in theSeventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Leiden: E.J. Brill. [Among other good things, this volume contains an importantpaper by Harry M. Bracken on Bayle's skepticism.]

, 2003, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle,Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. [The last edition of this pioneering work concludes with a chapteron Bayle in the context of the early modern revival of Pyrrhonianskepticism.]

Rex, Walter, 1965, Essays on Pierre Bayle and Religious Controversy,The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. [An account of the Calvinism that dominates Bayle's work,especially before 1687.]

Ryan, Todd, 2009, Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: RediscoveringEarly Modern Philosophy, New York: Routledge. [A careful analysis of Bayle's critiques of Locke, Leibniz, andSpinoza, which establishes Bayle's commitment to the metaphysics ofDescartes.]

Whelan, Ruth, 1989, The Anatomy of Superstition: A Study of thehistorical theory and practice of Pierre Bayle, Oxford: VoltaireFoundation. [A thoroughly scholarly and accessible account of Bayle from asimportant a perspective as any: as an historian.]

Pierre Bayle


Academic Tools

Other Internet ResourcesDictionnaire de Bayle (The University of Chicago ARTFL Project) [A searchable copy of the authoritative 1740 edition of Bayle'sDictionary.]Pierre Bayle Home Page, archived at archive.org.

Related EntriesEnlightenment | evil: problem of | fideism | skepticism | toleration

Copyright 2014 by the authors Thomas M. Lennon and Michael Hickson

How to cite this entry.Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEPSociety.Look up this entry topic at the Indiana Philosophy OntologyProject (InPhO).Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers, with linksto its database.



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