Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D’HISTOIRE DES IDÉES

INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

210 SCEPTICISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: ENLIGHTENMENT, LUMIÈRES, AUFKLÄRUNG

Edited by

Sébastien Charles • Plínio J. Smith

Board of Directors: Founding Editors: Paul Dibon†, Richard H. Popkin† Director: Sarah Hutton, University of Aberystwyth, UK Associate Directors: J.E. Force, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA; J.C. Laursen, University of California, Riverside, USA Editorial Board: M.J.B. Allen, Los Angeles; J.-R. Armogathe, Paris; S. Clucas, London; G. Giglioni, London; P. Harrison, Oxford; J. Henry, Edinburgh; M. Mulsow, Erfurt; G. Paganini, Vercelli; J. Popkin, Lexington; J. Robertson, Cambridge; G.A.J. Rogers, Keele; J.F. Sebastian, Bilbao; A. Sutcliffe, London; A. Thomson, Paris; Th. Verbeek, Utrecht

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Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment,

Lumières, Aufklärung Editors Sébastien Charles Plínio J. Smith Université de Sherbrooke Departamento de Filoso ﬁ a Sherbrooke Universidade Federal de São Paulo Québec, Canada Guarulhos, Brazil

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The Age of Enlightenment has often been portrayed as a dogmatic period on account of the veritable worship of reason and progress that characterized eighteenth century thinkers. Even today the philosophes are considered to have been completely dominated in their thinking by an optimism that leads to dogmatism and ultimately rationalism. On this view scepticism is no more than an epiphenomenon that offers some nuance to dogmatic assertions, but which has nothing positive to propose in response. How, on such a view, are we to reconcile the rationalist trium- phalism attributed to Enlightenment thinkers with the corrosive critique of reason allegedly developed by the sceptics? Therein must lie contradiction, and the conjunction of scepticism and Enlightenment in the title of this volume might well seem surprising in as much as it con fl icts with the image of the eighteenth century to which we continue to hold. One indication of this state of affairs can be found in Richard Popkin’s judgment concerning scepticism in the Enlightenment. According to Popkin, scepticism had no major in fl uence on the philosophical debates of the eighteenth century.1 At bottom, Popkin portrays scepticism—at least in his earliest articles on the topic—as reducible to three great philosophical currents, namely, the survival of Montainian and Baylean Pyrrhonism, an irrationalist fi deism that would remerge a century later in Kierkegaard, and an epistemological scepticism characteristic of the earliest opponents of Kant’s critical philosophy in the heart of the Berlin Academy. However, for Popkin, these currents did not achieve a wider scope for which reason we might well speak of a ‘subterranean scepticism’ whose infl uence on the intellectual scene of the Enlightenment was meager, if not non-existent. Scepticism, then, would be reducible to the emblematic fi gure of Hume—a reduction that could be justi fi ed only if his scepticism had been fully appreciated. However, as is well known, Hume’s reputation among the philosophes was based more on his work as a

1 Cf. Richard Popkin, “Scepticism in the Enlightenment”, 1963, reprinted in Richard Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment , Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1997, pp. 1–16, and “Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter Part of the Eighteenth century”, 1976, reprinted in Richard Popkin et al., op. cit. , pp. 17–34.

v vi Preface historian than as a philosopher. If scepticism was present, it was limited to France at the dawn of eighteenth century, during which time appeared the writings of Pierre Bayle, the Latin and then French translations of Sextus Empiricus’ Hypotyposes , and the posthumous Traité de la faiblesse de l’entendement humain of Pierre-Daniel Huet. Because none of these works exerted signifi cant infl uence over future generations, Popkin concluded that scepticism could not have been one of the major features of a century marked by the progress of knowledge and technical inno- vation—an evolution whose quintessential expression can be found in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. The numerous studies of modern scepticism that have subsequently appeared, including those of recent years, have largely followed in Popkin’s footsteps in emphasizing the importance of scepticism for the seventeenth century while dismissing its infl uence on the following century2 (with the exception of the fi rst half of the eighteenth century).3 Authors have chosen to focus on sceptical anteced- ents in the Renaissance rather than the continuation of scepticism into the following century.4 The republication of Popkin’s foundational work is a clear proof of this tendency, in so far as he ends his study of modern scepticism with Bayle.5 As a general rule, if eighteenth century scepticism is studied at all, it is in its British and German manifestations. Hume continues to appear as the sole Enlightenment sceptic, and Berkeley and Kant as the rare thinkers who were able to make use of scepticism the better to refute it.6 Thus, it is no surprise that commentators have followed

2 José Raimundo Maia Neto and Richard Popkin (eds.), Scepticism in Renaissance and Post-Renaissance Thought. New Interpretations , New York, Humanity Books, 2004. 3 Richard Popkin and Charles B. Schmitt (eds.), Scepticism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment , Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1987; Gianni Paganini, Scepsi Moderna. Interpretazioni dello scetticismo da Charron a Hume , Cosenza, Edizioni Busento, 1991 ; Richard Popkin and Arjo Vanderjagt (eds.), Scepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Leiden, Brill, 1993; Julián Marades Millet and Nicolas Sánchez Durá (eds.), Mirar con cuidado. Filosofía y escepticismo , Valencia, Artes Grá ﬁ cas Soler, 1994 ; Lother Kreimendahl, (ed.), Aufklärung und Skepsis. Studien zur Philosophie und Geistesgeschichte des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Festschrift G. Gawlick), Stuttgart, Fromman-Holzboog, 1995; Richard Glauser, Berkeley et les philosophes du XVIIe siècle : perception et scepticisme, Sprimont, Mardaga, 1999; Frédéric Brahami, Le travail du scepticisme : Montaigne, Bayle, Hume, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2001; Gianni Paganini (ed.), The Return of Scepticism from Hobbes and Descartes to Bayle , Dordrecht, Kluwer, 2003; Gianni Paganini, Skepsis. Le débat des modernes sur le scepticisme , Paris, Vrin, 2008. 4 Pierre-François Moreau (dir.), Le scepticisme au XVIe et au XVII e siècle , Paris, Albin Michel, 2001. 5 Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003. The same holds true for Sylvia Giocanti, Penser l’irrésolution : Montaigne, Pascal, La Mothe le Vayer, trois itinéraires sceptiques , Paris, Honoré Champion, 2001. 6 Richard Popkin, The High Road to Pyrrhonism , Indianapolis, Hackett, 1980; Richard Watson and James E. Force (eds.), The Sceptical Mode in Modern Philosophy. Essays in Honor of Richard H. Popkin, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1988. A noteworthy exception is Sébastien Charles, Berkeley au siècle des Lumières. Immatérialisme et scepticisme au XVIII e siècle, Paris, Vrin, 2003, although it is primarily concerned with an extreme form of scepticism, namely solipsism. With regard to Kant in particular, see Michael Forster, Kant and Scepticism, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2008; Paul Guyer, Knowledge, Reason, and Taste : Kant’s Response to Hume , Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2008 ; Plínio J. Smith, “La Critique de la raison pure face aux scepticismes car- tésien, baylien et humien”, Dialogue , 47, 3–4, 2008, pp. 463–500. Preface vii

Norman Kemp Smith in characterizing Hume’s philosophy as ‘naturalist’ rather than sceptical, relegating the scepticism that informs it to a secondary and subordinate role.7 The assumption of a hiatus in the history of scepticism seems little by little to have gained ground as can be seen by the fact that three relatively recent anthologies of sceptical writings from antiquity to modern times pass over the eighteenth century — with the exception, of course, of Berkeley, Hume and Kant.8 Thus, there is every reason to believe that Popkin’s reading of scepticism in the Enlightenment has carried the day in the face of minimal opposition. 9 Indeed, is it not still fashionable to picture the Age of Enlightenment as a period that, in contrast to the uncertainties inspired by scepticism, made a cult of progress in both the scienti fi c and moral spheres, and of con fi dence in the perfectibility of human faculties and reason in the course of history? Even today this conception remains vibrant and enjoys its share of adherents.10 For these latter, the whole of the eighteenth century, from Voltaire to Condorcet, sought to understand human experience in light of the triumphant advance of reason, which slowly gathers strength while pushing back ignorance and prejudice, fanaticism and superstition. On this reading, Enlightenment thinkers envisioned a kind of eschatology of reason, which sees in the past and present the promise of a better future and considers the human saga as an on-going process predicated on the continuous and unlimited perfectibility of both man and knowledge. However, on closer inspection, such a conception seems untenable, not only after careful study of the impact of scepticism on numerous intellectual domains in the period, but also as a result of a better understanding of the character of the Enlightenment. Whether, following Jean Deprun, we lay stress on the “pensée de l’inquiétude” 11 or, with Bertrand Binoche, we maintain that the very idea of indefi nite progress was born of a “liquidation des Lumières,”12 at every turn Enlightenment thought appears as a fractured and at times extraordinary landscape formed by uncertainties whose complexity we are only now beginning to appreciate. As Giorgio Tonelli has rightly observed: “the Enlightenment was indeed the Age of Reason but one of the main tasks assigned to reason in that age was to set its own boundaries.” 13

7 Norman Kemp-Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume , London, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1947; Barry Stroud, Hume , London, Routledge, 1977. 8 Richard Popkin (ed.), Scepticism in the History of Philosophy. A Pan-American Dialogue , Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1996; Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Pyrrhonian Scepticism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004 ; Mario De Caro and Emidio Spinelli, Scetticismo. Una vicenda ﬁ loso ﬁ ca , Roma, Carocci, 2007. 9 However, this is not without exception, as can be seen from the entry “Scepticism” by Gianni Paganini in Alan C. Kors (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, vol. IV, pp. 78–86. 10 Cf. Pierre-André Taguieff, Le sens du progrès , Paris, Flammarion, 2004. 11 Jean Deprun, La philosophie de l’inquiétude au XVIII e siècle , Paris, Vrin, 1979. 12 Bertrand Binoche, Les trois sources des philosophies de l’histoire (1764–1798) , Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1994. 13 Giorgio Tonelli, “The ‘Weakness’ of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment” in Richard Popkin et al. (dir.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment , Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1997, p. 35. viii Preface

In fact, it was the groundbreaking work of Ezéquiel de Olaso on Hume and Rousseau, of Keith Baker on Condorcet and of Giorgio Tonelli on several minor ﬁ gures of the Enlightenment, such as Changeux, that has shed light on the importance of scepticism in the eighteenth century.14 On the one hand, these scholars have emphasized the fact that certain philosophers, such as Leibniz, Rousseau and Condorcet took scepticism very seriously and that their philosophical positions cannot be understood without careful study of their relation to scepticism. On the other hand, these same scholars have called attention to a number of ‘minor’ thinkers, such as David-Renaud Boullier and Pierre-Jacques Changeux, who were strongly inﬂ uenced by scepticism. At the same time, Humean scepticism has been restored to its rightful place by specialists of Scottish philosophy.15 Thus, as Tonelli correctly observes, “scepticism was one of the main issues at stake in that time, and Hume was by no means an isolated case.”16 Likewise, Tonelli has also noted the numerous points of contact between the respective positions of Enlightenment and sceptical thinkers. In this way Tonelli presents us with a more detailed and adequate picture of the Enlightenment and its relation to scepticism, without going so far as to deny the role of dogmatism in the eighteenth century, especially in England and Germany. On Tonelli’s view, “scepticism cannot be considered as a general (much less as a typical) eighteenth century attitude; the anti-sceptical trend was, of course, of capital importance too, climaxing in England with the Common Sense School, and in Germany in Kant.” 17 While dogmatism is present in the Enlightenment, it must be understood above all as a response to scepticism, given that the majority of philosophers from the period were obliged to take up a position for or against it. Thus, given the growing number of works devoted to the scepticism of Enlightenment thinkers, historians of philosophy have become increasingly aware of the role played by scepticism in the eighteenth century, even in those places once thought to be most given to dogmatism, especially Germany. For this reason it has become commonplace to speak of “post-Kantian scepticism” and to see German

14 Giorgio Tonelli, “The ‘Weakness’ of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment”, 1971, reprinted in Richard Popkin et al. (dir.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment , op. cit., pp. 35–50; “ Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment”, 1974, reprinted in Richard Popkin et al. (dir.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment , pp. 51–68; Keith Baker, Condorcet : From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1975 ; Ezequiel de Olaso, Escepticismo y Ilustración. La crisis pirronica di Hume y Rousseau , Valencia (Venezuela), Olijs, 1981. 15 Robert J. Fogelin, Hume’s Scepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1995. Note in passing that Stroud himself changed his position on this question in his article “Hume’s Scepticism: Natural Instincts and Philosophical Re fl ection”, Philosophical Topics , 19, 1, 1991, pp. 271–291. Also relevant are the works of Plínio J. Smith, O ceticismo de Hume , São Paulo, Loyola, 1995 and Frédéric Brahami, op. cit. 16 Giorgio Tonelli, op. cit ., p. 35. 17 Ibid . Preface ix idealism at least in part as a response to this kind of scepticism.18 On this view, the image of German Idealism as placing blind trust in our speculative powers gives way to a conception of Aufklärung that took seriously sceptical worries concerning the possibility of objective knowledge and our ability to transcend the narrow limits of pure reason. Moreover, this critical rereading of the historiography of the Enlightenment has not been limited to German Idealism. In his fi nal works, Popkin himself revised his earlier position, having come to recognize that the in fl uence of scepticism on the Age of Enlightenment was not only more fundamental than he had previously believed, but even indispensable for understanding the great philosophical debates of the classical age.19 Taking his cue in large part from the works of Tonelli, Olaso and Baker, Popkin came to believe that the rationalism of Enlightenment thinkers was based on a conception of reason as a faculty that sets limits to itself and prudently establishes the sphere of human knowledge by assigning strict boundaries to our understanding. From this arises the methodological use of scepticism in epistemology, which in turn leads to the formulation of sceptical theses concerning the capacity of human reason by acknowledging the impossibility of coming to know the inner nature of the external world or of speculating about fi nal causes. The result is to privilege the hypothetical over the apodictic, and systematization of the known over the spirit of system, 20 from which there necessarily follows a new relation to metaphysics marked by the in fl uence of scepticism.21 It is our belief that this sceptical in fl uence to which Popkin ascribed great importance in his fi nal works—notably in his discussion of Brissot de Warville’s Projet de scepticisme universel , which was written in the same period and from a similar perspective,22 as well as his study (with John Christian Laursen) of the reemergence of Humean scepticism among certain members of the Berlin Academy23 —represents

18 Frederik C. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte , Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1987; George di Giovanni and H. S. Harris, Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-Kantian Idealism , Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 2000; Dieter Henrich, Between Kant and Hegel: Lectures on German Idealism , Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2003; Paul W. Franks, All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Scepticism in German Idealism , Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2005. With regard to Hegel in particular, see Michael N. Forster, Hegel and Scepticism , Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1989. For Fichte, see Daniel Breazeale, “ Fichte on Scepticism”, Journal of the History of Philosophy , 29, 3, 1991, pp. 429–453. 19 Richard Popkin, “News Views on the Role of Scepticism in the Enlightenment”, 1992, reprinted in Richard Popkin et al . (dir.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, op. cit ., pp. 157–172. 20 Of particular help in this context are the historical refl ections in Popkin’s fi nal work (written with Avrum Stroll), Skeptical Philosophy for Everyone, Amherts, Prometheus Books, 2002. 2 1 Sébastien Charles, “Entre roman et histoire : la métaphysique au siècle des Lumières”, in Luc Langlois and Jean-Marc Narbonne (dir.), La métaphysique et son histoire , Paris, Vrin, 2000, pp. 337–345. 22 John Van der Zande and Richard Popkin (eds.), The Skeptical Tradition Around 1800: Skepticism in Philosophy, Science, and Society , Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1998. 23 John C. Laursen and Richard Popkin, “ Hume in the Prussian Academy: Jean Bernard Mérian’s ‘On the Phenomenalism of David Hume’”, Hume Studies , 23, 1997, pp. 153–191. x Preface only one aspect of the historical situation, and leaves aside many key fi gures of Enlightenment scepticism. Moreover, as was already the case with the authors studied by Tonelli, Olaso and Baker, what is principally at issue is a fi n-de-siècle scepticism, which makes use of sceptical arguments for largely epistemological ends. The remaining task is to revaluate the historical infl uence of scepticism, which there is every reason to believe manifested itself earlier and more vigorously than Popkin allowed. To take just one example, Popkin’s invocation of the birth of scepticism at the beginning of the eighteenth century makes no mention of the clandestine literature in which scepticism is greatly in evidence.24 Although current research on clandestine scepticism in the classical age remains a work in progress and has yet to yield a uniform account of the phenomenon, already there is agreement as to the importance of the sceptical movement at the heart of clandestine philosophy. 25 Although no clandestine manuscript seeks to provide an impartial vision of scepticism or to recount the history of the school or the issues pertaining to the movement, scepticism appears in general as the preferred means by which to call prejudice into question and set limits to human knowledge. From this arises its methodological importance at the center of the clandestine milieu. However, the de fi ciencies of current studies of Enlightenment scepticism are not limited to the clandestine literature. What of the relation of the philosophes to scepticism? Studies of Enlightenment thinkers, whether it be Rousseau26 or Diderot,27

24 Gianni Paganini, Miguel Benítez et James Dybikowski (eds.), Scepticisme, clandestinité et libre pensée , Paris, Honoré Champion, 2003. See also Winfried Schröder’s study of the use of scepticism in atheistic critiques (Ursprünge des Atheismus. Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, Frommann-Holzoboog, 1998) and more generally on the “clandestine” milieu in Germany, the works of Martin Mulsow, Moderne aus dem Untergrund. Radikale Frühaufklärung in Deutschland 1680–1720, Hamburg, F. Meiner, 2002. 25 Alan C. Kors, “Scepticism and the Problem of Atheism in Early-Modern France”, in Richard Popkin and Arjo Vanderjagt (dir.), Scepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries , op. cit., pp. 185–215; “ Scepticism and Clandestinity”, in Gianni Paganini, Miguel Benítez and James Dybikowski (eds.), Scepticisme, clandestinité et libre pensée, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2003, pp. 47–65; Miguel Benítez, La face cachée des Lumières , Paris/Oxford, Universitas/Voltaire Foundation, 1996 ; Guido Canziani, “Scepticisme et religion dans le Symbolum sapientiae ”, La Lettre clandestine, 6, 1997, pp. 173–187; Antony McKenna, “Le ver est dans le fruit : le scepticisme au XVIIIe siècle : l’exemple de Delaube”, in Gianni Paganini, Miguel Benítez and James Dybikowski (eds.), Scepticisme, clandestinité et libre pensée , op. cit., pp. 165–177; Gianni Paganini, Les philosophies clandestines, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2005; Sébastien Charles, “ Scepticisme et clandestinité”, Historia philosophica , 5, 2007, pp. 143–158. 2 6 Ezequiel de Olaso, “ Los dos escepticismos del vicario saboyano”, 1980, reprinted in Richard A. Watson and James E. Force (eds.), The Sceptical Mode in Modern Philosophy. Essays in Honor of Richard H. Popkin , Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1988, pp. 43–57; Marc-André Nadeau, “Le scepticisme de Rousseau dans La profession de foi du vicaire savoyard ”, Lumen , 25, 2006, pp. 29–40. 27 Jacques Chouillet, “Le personnage du sceptique dans les premières œuvres de Diderot”, Dix- huitième siècle , 1, 1969, pp. 195–211; Jean-Claude Bourdin, “Matérialisme et scepticisme selon Diderot”, Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie , 26, 1999, pp. 85–97; Gianni Paganini, “Avant La promenade du sceptique : pyrrhonisme et clandestinité de Bayle à Diderot” , in Gianni Paganini, Miguel Benítez and James Dybikowski (eds.), Scepticisme, clandestinité et libre pensée , Paris, Champion, 2003, pp. 17–46. Preface xi remain piecemeal. For both these authors the sceptic plays a key role, either as opponent, in the case of Rousseau (although this requires some qualifi cation in light of the sceptical reading that can be given the “Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard”) or as ally in the case of Diderot (with similar qualifi cations). Still other fi gures have been completely overlooked, and here we cannot but marvel at the little attention that has been paid to the role of scepticism in Voltaire, and this in spite of his having written the Philosophe ignorant .28 The same can be said of other important thinkers, such as Turgot and Condillac, who have been equally ignored. Such examples illustrate the large gaps that continue to exist in contemporary research. To these can be added the numerous fi elds of inquiry in which scepticism gradually took hold: epistemology, in which by the end of the century thinkers had been led to adopt a probabilistic methodology in the sciences; history, which was shaped by the historical Pyrrhonism inherited from Bayle; political theory, which was confronted by the moral relativism on which the sceptics insisted; religion, which was frequently criticized in the name of scepticism; and fi nally, morality with regard to which Beausobre maintained in his Pyrrhonisme du sage that happiness can only be secured by adherence to scepticism. Another largely unexplored area of study is the appearance of scepticism at the end of the eighteenth century in philosophy of history, which attempted to overcome it, by treating it as a necessary stage in the development of spirit. 29 In this context we must read Condorcet in an entirely different manner than Popkin while taking careful note of the historical perspective that Condorcet adopts. In each of these cases, we can readily see how the precise function of Enlightenment scepticism remains for the most part terra incognita and why appreciation of its capital importance for the history of ideas remains to be demonstrated. In taking up this question in particular, the present volume, which is entirely devoted to the scepticism of the Enlightenment in both its historical and geographical dimensions, seeks to provide readers with a revaluation of the alleged decline of scepticism. At the same time it attempts to resituate the pyrrhonian heritage within its larger context and to recapture the fundamental issues at stake. The aim, then, is to construct an alternate conception of Enlightenment philosophy, by means of philosophical modernity itself, whose initial stages can be found herein. In his “Introduction” presented at São Judas Tadeu University in December 2009, Sébastien Charles offers a critical rereading of Popkin’s interpretation of scepticism in the Enlightenment, including his early view, which made of Hume the only important fi gure of eighteenth century scepticism, as well as his fi nal works, which took a totally different tack. According to these late writings, scepticism was a genuine philosophical movement that is indispensable for a proper understanding of the spirit of Enlightenment, at least if conceived as a mitigated scepticism. After criticizing both of these extreme views, Charles calls attention to a number of gaps in Popkin’s interpretation, indicates some as yet unexplored lines of research and,

28 Apart from Rodrigo Brandão’s programmatic article (“Voltaire et le scepticisme,” Philosophiques , 35, 1, 2008, pp. 261–274), studies on this question remain relatively rare, whence the interest on Stéphane Pujol’s article in this volume. 29 Bertrand Binoche, La raison sans l’histoire , Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2007. xii Preface despite his disagreement with Popkin, concludes in a rather conciliatory manner, arguing that if methodological scepticism alone was of primary signi fi cance to the period, then the Enlightenment was not, properly speaking, sceptical. In this sense, Hume was perhaps the only genuine Enlightenment sceptic, just as Popkin had maintained in his earliest studies of the issue. This volume is subdivided into fi ve parts. The fi rst, “Early Eighteenth Century Scepticism: From Bayle to Fontenelle,” looks at the gestation of scepticism at the beginning of the eighteenth century, examining important fi gures such as Bayle, Leibniz, François Lamy and Fontenelle, all of whom took an interest in the contro- versies surrounding scepticism that continued to fl ourish at the end of the previous century when Bayle was the pivotal fi gure—and the one who would continue to dominate subsequent debates on scepticism. Plínio J. Smith’s paper focuses on Bayle’s conception of the sceptical method of antinomy as it appears in the Dictionary, arguing that the method was fi rst connected to the idea of a historical critique. As his project grew larger and underwent substantial changes, Bayle applied the method more broadly to include philosophical re fl ections as well. In some of his more metaphysical articles, Bayle treats a number of questions in what was perceived to be a sceptical manner. Smith also contrasts Bayle’s use of this method with the use made by Sextus Empiricus, as a way of underscoring Bayle’s innovations and originality. Likewise, Smith explores the relation between Bayle’s method of antinomy and the history of philosophy, once again by contrasting Bayle’s and Sextus’ competing conceptions of the history of philosophy. Bayle’s scepticism served as a backdrop to all of the various discussions of scepticism in the early eighteenth century, forcing dogmatists to confront it. Syliane Malinowski-Charles, Arnaud Pelletier, and Anton Matytsin’s papers consider different approaches to this goal. For example, Syliane Malinowski-Charles evokes the 1708–1710 correspondence between the Cartesian monk François Lamy and a reader of his work, the young Saint-Laurens, that centered on the possibility and value of knowledge. Inspired by Bayle, Saint-Laurens prodded Lamy on several issues related to knowledge of God, justice and morality, and metaphysics, progres- sively revealing surprising aspects of his thought. Was Saint-Laurens a sceptic, a fi deist, or a free-thinker? By exploring the main arguments exchanged in these recently published letters, the paper ultimately shows the impotence of seventeenth- century rationalism when subjected to sceptical and libertine critiques. According to Arnaud Pelletier, Leibniz is another dogmatist, who was concerned with scepticism as he encountered it in its several forms: Academic negative dogmatism; Simon Foucher’s middle way; the three related fi gures of the misosopher (the libertine), the Baylean fi deist, and a fi ctitious ‘Sceptician’; and eventually Sextus Empiricus’ neo-Pyrrhonism. The discussion leaves no doubt as to Leibniz’s anti-scepticism in his attempt to overcome various sceptical positions, especially in moral and religious dimensions of scepticism, as well as his acceptance of the practical dif fi culties in attempting to resist these scepticisms when they pertain to the limits of reason. Preface xiii

Anton Matytsin focuses on yet another dogmatic reaction to Bayle’s scepticism. According to Matytsin, the learned world of the early eighteenth century underwent a veritable crisis of confi dence with regard to man’s ability to know the external world with any degree of certainty. Those thinkers who attempted to strengthen or construct anew the epistemological foundations of human knowledge saw in Bayle’s scepticism the most dangerous challenge to their project. Matytsin discusses the ways in which two of Bayle’s Huguenot critics, the Swiss logician Jean-Pierre Crousaz and the Amsterdam theologian David-Renaud Boullier, attempted to answer the arch-Pyrrhonist’s sceptical arguments, thereby revealing the dynamics of the interaction between sceptical and rationalist thought in the early Enlightenment. However, not all reactions to scepticism in this period were critical. Luc Peterschmitt turns his attention to the diffi cult question of the natural limits of human reason, which was of particular relevance to the sciences. Peterschmitt explores the notion of “wise Pyrrhonism,” which, according to Fontenelle, should ground any system of physics. However, for Fontenelle, methodological scepticism (i.e., the close review of scientifi c arguments, whether rational or experimental) leads to an in principle scepticism, which calls into question the very possibility of achieving certainty in physics. The example of chemistry, the most obscure part of physics, shows how the diffi culty is to be resolved. According to Fontenelle there are several ways to construct knowledge. What he offers, in the end, is a kind of historical pragmatism that allows us to entertain the possibility of constructing a true physics. In this sense, Fontenelle’s vision of the sciences was not far from the views developed by the Royal Society a few years earlier. The second part, “Enlightenment and Scepticism,” is devoted to the impact of scepticism on British philosophy during the Enlightenment. Scepticism was already a major issue in the works of Bacon and certain members of the Royal Society, especially from a methodological point of view. It was likewise a source of philosophical worries and re fl ections for many other British thinkers. For example, in his paper, Peter Kail considers the “moral sense” theories of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, and their relation to scepticism. Kail begins with Shaftesbury, examining fi rst his general understanding of scepticism and then his reaction to the perceived sceptical thrust of Locke’s theory of morality, which was thought to result from his voluntarism and appeal to diverse moral practices as part of his strategy for overturning nativism. Kail then turns to Hutcheson, and shows how he holds a different conception of moral sense. This difference is largely owing to Hutcheson’s lack of interest in the threat of voluntarism and moral diversity combined with a greater focus on the “self-interest” accounts of Hobbes and Mandeville. Bayle’s scepticism is also present in British thought, particularly in Hume’s philosophy. Gianni Paganini argues for a new source of in fl uence of the French philosopher on Hume over and above the fi ve major areas previously identi fi ed by Norman Kemp Smith. According to Paganini, it is not only the second part of section V (“Of the immateriality of the soul”) of Treatise I, IV that draws heavily on Bayle (specifi cally, the article Spinoza ), but also the fi rst part that owes a debt to him. This part of the fi fth section concerns the dif fi culty of fi nding a “relation” between “perceptions, which are simple, and exist nowhere,” on the one hand, and xiv Preface some “conjunction in place with matter or body, which is extended and divisible” on the other. In this case, the primary source is a chapter in Bayle’s Réponse aux questions d’un provincial (III, xv), where the problem is dealt with in considerable depth. Todd Ryan’s paper also sheds new light on Hume’s relation to Bayle’s scepticism. Initially, he seems to follow in Paganini’s footsteps, emphasizing Hume’s use of Bayle in both the Treatise and the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding . However, it soon becomes clear that his main goal is to draw attention to their differing conceptions of sceptical argumentation. In effect, while Hume may have been sympathetic with Bayle’s insistence on the limitations of human understanding, he did not on the whole consider Bayle’s sceptical arguments to be insoluble. On the contrary, Hume often goes out of his way to reply to the arguments of his illustrious predecessor. To take just one example, Hume rejects the sceptical conclusion of Bayle’s discussion of the composition of the continuum, not simply because he takes himself to have found a satisfactory solution to the problem, but because he claims to have found a fl aw in the very form of Bayle’s argument. Even in cases where Hume appears to share Bayle’s sceptical conclusions, such as the mind dependence of primary qualities, Hume develops his own independent arguments against the dogmatists. As a result, Ryan argues that it is not without reason that Hume judged Berkeley rather than Bayle to be the quintessential sceptical philosopher whose arguments ‘admit of no answer’. After Hume’s criticism of Bayle, Claire Etchegaray seeks to elucidate the relevance of Reid’s critique of scepticism and Hume’s defence of it. As it has often been noted, the claim that natural beliefs are not extinguished by philosophical doubt is not by itself suf fi cient to refute scepticism. Conversely, it is not enough to refute scepticism to point out that the sceptic seeks to undermine reason by reason, because this is a contradiction internal to reason , not a contradiction committed by the sceptic. As a result, one might suspect that it is impossible to know whether or not scepticism is correct. However, Reid’s strategy is not to demonstrate that scepticism is wrong, but only to suggest to the sceptic that he himself acknowledges the evidence he claims to reject. Reid’s argument is at once exhortation and admonition. As for Hume, he develops a sceptical theory of the understanding that is neither idealist nor realist and so is able to account for our feeling of the presence of reality. Etchegaray’s paper shows how Hume can resist Reid’s consistency argument and suggests that Hume and Reid help us understand how one can acknowledge the presence of external objects, despite our inability to know their existence from an epistemological point of view. Epistemology is not the main, let alone the only, concern in the debate surrounding scepticism; there are often theological considerations to be taken into account if we want a complete picture of our topic. As John Christian Laursen reminds us, when William En fi eld translated and abridged Jacob Brucker’s Historia critica Philosophiae in 1791, he distorted for the purposes of Christian apologetics Brucker’s balanced interpretation of the ancient and early modern sceptics. Enfi eld omitted the favourable things Brucker had to say about the sceptics and generally caricatured the sceptics, preferring ad hominem attacks over philosophical analysis. Preface xv

En fi eld’s abridgement was read by Joseph Priestley, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Mary Hays, each of whom exploited the history of philosophy for their own ends. In all likelihood they did not realize that they were reading a polemical rewriting of Brucker. A similar misinterpretation also occurs with regard to the philosophes des Lumières , who are the subject of the third part (“Lumières and Scepticism”). Nicolas Correard’s paper underscores the speci fi cities of “reasonable scepticism” as advocated during the French Enlightenment by Boyer d’Argens (La philosophie du bon sens , 1736), Beausobre ( Le pyrrhonisme raisonnable, 1755), and Voltaire ( Le philosophe ignorant, 1767). Despite several notable differences, each of the three inspired the others, giving rise to an infl uential discourse. Their sober use of doubt seems to be characterized by a modest and often probabilistic epistemology (against rationalist systems), by a complete rejection of metaphysical certainty (in opposition to Christian apologetics, but also atheism), and by their shared ambivalence toward the rise of the new science (with complex relationships to empiricism and contemporary scienti fi c discoveries). Stéphane Pujol’s article is devoted specifi cally to Voltaire, in part because researchers have paid little attention to the links between Voltaire and scepticism. Such omissions are all the more remarkable in that Voltaire’s philosophical struggle was connected to his refusal to accept dogmatism. However, should we not understand scepticism as a reply to dogmatism? If so, does not Voltaire have his place in its history? The oversight of which he has been victim doubtless stems from the fact that scholars have willingly identifi ed a particular form of dogmatism, i.e. religious dogmatism, as Voltaire’s preferred target. However, one need only reread his works to see that he does not neglect philosophical dogmatism and that therefore it is essential to revisit the question of Voltairian scepticism from a wider perspective. If linking Boyer d’Argens, Beausobre or Voltaire to scepticism is relatively easy and natural, it is much less so in the case of Rousseau. “I cannot comprehend how it is possible to be a sceptic by system for a man of good faith,” says the Savoyard Vicar at the beginning of the “Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar.” Nevertheless, although Rousseau generally appears opposed to scepticism, at the end of the “Profession of Faith” the Savoyard Vicar acknowledges his own “involuntary scepticism.” Marc-André Nadeau’s study attempts to explain the nature and importance of this notion of “involuntary scepticism” in Rousseau’s thought and to show how from the “La profession de foi du vicaire savoyard ” to the “ Les Rêveries du prome- neur solitaire ” this “involuntary scepticism” gradually evolves into an existential scepticism . The same dif fi culty occurs for the “côterie holbachique” and atheists such as Holbach, Diderot and Naigeon. But the intellectual works of these self-avowed atheists reveal an intriguingly complex relationship between their philosophical materialism and naturalism, on the one hand, and their understanding and use of philosophical scepticism on the other. All three viewed the human mind as a mere activity of the physiological body, without special status in the cosmos, let alone a special ontological status that confers a privileged role in unravelling the ultimate nature of things. Each considered the human quest for natural knowledge to be a xvi Preface kind of behaviour to better coordinate the human drive for survival and to ease unnecessary suffering, and which is to be judged by its success or failure in pursuing those ends. They all believed that most prior philosophy had been an effort to know what could not be known, most often motivated by blind fear or by an effort to manipulate blind fear in others. Their optimism concerning knowledge co-existed uneasily with their sceptical temptations, even if they did not believe that philosophical scepticism was, ultimately, a sustainable perspective. Their reasons for believing so were at once intellectual and psychological as explained by Alan Charles Kors in his paper. With Sébastien Charles’ contribution, which closes this third part, we move from existential scepticism to revolutionary Pyrrhonism in the strange fi gure of Jacques- Pierre Brissot de Warville. Although Warville is perhaps better known to historians of the French Revolution than to philosophers, Richard Popkin has called attention to the importance of this thinker for understanding French Enlightenment scepticism in that Brissot produced a manuscript on universal Pyrrhonism, which offers a highly critical summary of modern sciences and portrays them as incapable of reaching any truth. After discussing this report, Charles attempts to link Brissot’s universal scepticism to his struggle against despotism in order to analyze a new form of scepticism speci fi c to the French Enlightenment. This new form of scepticism, “revolutionary scepticism,” accords a practical value to the theory of human rights though without being able to give it a rational foundation. With the fourth part (“Aufklärung and Scepticism”), we leave France for Germany, where scepticism has been considered primarily in its modern form, as a legacy of Descartes, Bayle, Berkeley and Hume. Plínio J. Smith evokes the relation between scepticism and Enlightenment from Kant’s perspective in his theoretical philosophy and argues that for Kant there are three main sceptical challenges: Cartesian scepticism, Baylean scepticism, and Humean scepticism. This triple scheme of interpretation reveals that Kant had a nuanced understanding of seventeenth- and eighteenth century scepticism and that scepticism had an important role to play in his critical philosophy, most notably in the Antinomies, Transcendental Deduction, Fourth Paralogism and the Refutation of Idealism. This analysis of Kant’s confrontation of scepticism provides some clues to what is called post-Kan- tian scepticism and subsequent reactions to it. According to Ives Raddrizani, the end of the eighteenth century is characterized by an Enlightenment crisis. Kant’s famous defi nition of Enlightenment left undeter- mined the precise character of the adult stage to which the liberation of mankind will lead us. As a result there was an ever widening gulf between those who wish to con fi ne the Aufklärung to a purely negative role and those who think this under- mining is just a preliminary step to building a rational edifi ce. In this debate, Maimon adopts an extremely original position, both defending radical scepticism and attempting to set up just such a rational edi fi ce. The same problem occurs for the young Hegel, as Italo Testa shows. In effect, the question of the meaning of Enlightenment in the young Hegel is closely related to the historical and philosophical moment in which scepticism in its different practical and theoretical forms has become part of his dialectical conception of philosophy. Preface xvii

Thus, Testa’s paper explores Hegel’s early, so-called theological writings in light of what proves to be a genuine form of religious scepticism, understood by Hegel as a further development of the enlightenment critique of society. The dialectical development of this sort of enlightened religious scepticism will eventually lead Hegel to focus on the epistemological and meta-philosophical aspects of scepticism. This question is also taken up by Massimilio Biscuso, who shows that, for Hegel, scepticism constitutes an essential moment, the dialectics, in the construction of any true philosophy. Irony is essential here as “the subjective form of dialectics,” because it draws from each determined proposition the contrary of what the proposition expressed, fostering in the speaker doubt about everything. It is thus important to examine Hegel’s interpretation of the two most famous forms of irony: the Socratic and the Romantic. While Socratic irony, which involves destroying false knowledge, represents, like scepticism, the true start of philosophy, romantic irony merely shows hostility towards the objective, reduces it to nothing, and raises subjective consciousness to supreme principle. From this perspective, we can see Schopenhauer’s philosophy as a continuation of the debate over scepticism. Eduardo Brandão’s paper establishes a number of connections between Schopenhauer, Fichte and Schulze’s scepticism, emphasizing similarities and differences between the three philosophers. Brandão helps us assess the importance of Pyrrhonism for the philosophical scene at the turn of the nineteenth century. After analysing the infl uence of Schulze’s sceptical objections to Kantian criticism on the elaboration of Schopenhauer’s philosophy and the importance of these objections contained in Schulze’s Aenesidemus (also directed against Reinhold) to the fi rst formulations of Fichte’s Doctrine of science, Brandão shows how some similarities and differences between Schopenhauer and Fichte’s thought can be established based on their respective reactions to Schulze’s scepticism. The fi nal part (“Some Echoes of Eighteenth Century Scepticism in the Nineteenth Century”) illustrates how eighteenth century scepticism was perceived by French philosophers of the nineteenth century. In general, most nineteenth-century French philosophers had a view of the Enlightenment as an inherently sceptical period. According to Frédéric Brahami, the reason for this can be found in the trauma provoked by the Reign of Terror. Indeed, later thinkers held modern philosophy responsible for the destruction of old beliefs. To them, it expressed a kind of aggressive nihilism, a negative dogmatism that was much more dangerous than religious fanaticism. This equation of the Enlightenment with scepticism led nineteenth-century French philosophers to develop a new science of society that made it possible to understand how social reality contains its own speci fi c species of rationality. In the same way, Lamennais analyzes the growth of modern indifference , mainly through a critique of Descartes and Rousseau, by characterizing the Enlightenment legacy as sceptical. The new authority he then opposes to scepticism, namely, the human race, reveals how democratic societies tend to absorb Christian morality. As a result, one is led to ask whether the moral legacy of Christianity is enhanced or eroded by democratic uncertainty, which ultimately leads to a dissolution of the social order. In this sense, scepticism forces the new dogmatism of the nineteenth xviii Preface century to address the diffi culties for which scepticism is responsible, and to produce a religious, social and political theory to overcome it. To determine whether this goal was ultimately achieved and scepticism effectively defeated would be the subject of another book… Taken as a whole the articles in this volume are, so far as we know, unique in offering a comprehensive vision of the nature and function of scepticism during the eighteenth century. Of course, the book does not aspire to a complete view of the topic, since it is impossible to deal with all of its various aspects or to analyse all the thinkers involved in the revival of scepticism during the Enlightenment. Still, it will have ful fi lled its purpose if it helps to open up new areas of research. It is also our hope that the present volume will serve as a useful reference for interested scholars as well as a stimulus to further research, especially with regard to its inevi- table omissions. After all, could not zêtêsis , this activity which de fi nes scepticism, serve us as an example and encourage scholars to tirelessly pursue their researches in order to furnish us with a more objective history of philosophy? Acknowledgements

This volume contains invited papers and a selection of others chosen for presentation at a conference organized by Plínio J. Smith and Sébastien Charles on “Scepticism and the Enlightenment” held in São Paulo on December 2–4, 2009 and Montréal on April 14–16, 2010 and sponsored by the Universidade São Judas Tadeu and the Université de Sherbrooke. We would like to thank the authorities of these two insti- tutions for their generous support. The conference was also supported by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, the Centre interuniversitaire d’études sur la République des Lettres, the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientí ﬁ co e Tecnológico and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, whom we gratefully acknowledge. Planning and organisation of the conference and preparation of the volume would not have been possible without the indispensable contribution of our colleague Todd Ryan, and the work made by Lauran Ayotte, Virginie Duceppe-Lamarre, Rémi Duranleau, Jeff Hilderley and Jean-Sébastien Laberge, research assistants from the Université de Sherbrooke and Bishop’s University.

Université de Sherbrooke Sébastien Charles Universidade Federal de São Paulo Plínio J. Smith

xix

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Introduction: What Is Enlightenment Scepticism? A Critical Rereading of Richard Popkin ...... 1 Sébastien Charles

Part I Early Eighteenth Century Scepticism: From Bayle to Fontenelle

Bayle and Pyrrhonism: Antinomy, Method, and History ...... 19 Plínio J. Smith Fideism, Scepticism, or Free-Thought? The Dispute Between Lamy and Saint-Laurens over Metaphysical Knowledge ...... 31 Syliane Malinowski-Charles Leibniz’s Anti-scepticism ...... 45 Arnaud Pelletier The Protestant Critics of Bayle at the Dawn of the Enlightenment ...... 63 Anton Matytsin The “Wise Pyrrhonism” of the Académie Royale Des Sciences of Paris: Natural Light and Obscurity of Nature According to Fontenelle ...... 77 Luc Peterschmitt

Part II Enlightenment and Scepticism: From Shaftesbury to En ﬁ eld

Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Moral Scepticisms ...... 95 Peter J. E. Kail Hume and Bayle on Localization and Perception: A New Source for Hume’s Treatise 1.4.5 ...... 109 Gianni Paganini Hume’s Reply to Baylean Scepticism ...... 125 Todd Ryan

xxv xxvi Contents

Can We Know Whether Scepticism Is Right or Wrong? Reid’s Criticism and Hume’s Answer ...... 139 Claire Etchegaray En ﬁ eld’s Brucker and Christian Anti-scepticism in Enlightenment Historiography of Philosophy ...... 155 John Christian Laursen

Part III Lumières and Scepticism: From Boyer d’Argens to Brissot de Warville

Reasonable Scepticism in the French Enlightenment: Some Connections Between Jean-Baptiste Boyer d’Argens, Louis de Beausobre, and Voltaire ...... 173 Nicolas Correard Forms and Aims of Voltairean Scepticism ...... 189 Stéphane Pujol D’un scepticisme involontaire à un scepticisme existentiel. Un parcours philosophique dans l’œuvre de Rousseau ...... 205 Marc-André Nadeau An Uneasy Relationship: Atheism and Scepticism in the Late French Enlightenment ...... 221 Alan Charles Kors From Universal Pyrrhonism to Revolutionary Scepticism: Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville ...... 231 Sébastien Charles

Part IV Aufklarüng and Scepticism: From Kant to Schopenhauer

Kant’s Criticism and the Legacy of Modern Scepticism ...... 247 Plínio J. Smith Maimon, scepticisme et Lumières...... 265 Ives Radrizzani Scepticisme et dialectique des Lumières chez le jeune Hegel...... 281 Italo Testa Hegel on Scepticism and Irony ...... 299 Massimiliano Biscuso Fichte et Schopenhauer face au scepticisme de Schulze ...... 315 Eduardo Brandão Contents xxvii

Part V Some Echoes of Eighteenth Century Scepticism in the Nineteenth Century

Building Without a Foundation. The Equation of Enlightenment with Skepticism in Post-revolutionary French Thought ...... 329 Frédéric Brahami Scepticisme et Lumières selon Lamennais ...... 343 Philip Knee

Bibliography ...... 357

Index Nominum ...... 375