Pierre Bayle, Complete Works
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With the support of the Rhône-Alpes and Midi-Pyrénées regions
Recent efforts reveal Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) not only to have been a lucid and wry witness of the evolution of the “new philosophy” in France, but also a dynamic actor in the development of critical rationalism and the crisis of rationalist theology at the turn of the seventeenth century. He was an expert on the history of philosophy, bringing ancient philosophers into dialogue with modern ones with unequalled energy and erudition and striving to demonstrate that the most coherent “Christian philosophy” in his eyes, that of Malebranche, was left exposed to intractable objections.
He was also a trailblazing journalist who addressed the Republic of Letters—a prefiguration of today’s Europe—as well as being the theorist of a modern conception of tolerance, which led to the conception of civil tolerance (which we would call secularism) to develop throughout Europe.
CONTENT
This corpus covers all of Bayle’s literary and philosophical works: Nouvelles de la république des lettres, Critique de Maimbourg, Pensées diverses and its Continuation, Commentaire philosophique and other controversial works, Réponse aux questions d’un provincial and all the polemical works from the great battle with Jurieu, as well as all the minor texts, including some excerpts from Henri Basnage de Beauval’s periodical that can be attributed with certainty to Bayle, and the famous Avis aux réfugiés whose attribution to Bayle has been controversial for three centuries (the editorial team demonstrates that this attribution is solid and reliable).
Œuvres complètes
La Haye, P. Husson et al., 1727-1731, d’après le reprint de G. Olms, Hildesheim, 5 vol.
Theses philosophicae quas, favente Deo, publicae diputationi subjiciet, sub praesidio Petri Baelii […] Philippus Muysson (« Theses de elementis »), Roterodami, A. Acher, 1689.
Theses philosophicae quas, favente Deo, publice tueri conabitur sub praesidio Petri Baelli […] Antonius de Massanes (« Theses de fluiditate et firmitate »), Roterodami, A. Acher, 1690.
Extraits du périodique d’Henri Basnage de Beauval, Histoire des ouvrages des savants, attribuables à Bayle, avril-juin 1693.
Editorial team
Co-editors: Antony McKenna, Institut Claude Longeon, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Étienne, UMR 5037, et Gianluca Mori, Groupe National de Recherche sur la philosophie moderne, de la Renaissance aux Lumières, Université du Piémont Oriental, Vercelli.
Lorenzo Bianchi (Naples, L’Orientale), Hubert Bost (EPHE, Paris), Hans Bots (Nimègue), Wiep van Bunge (Rotterdam), Jean-Michel Gros (Poitiers), Jonathan Israel (Princeton), Pierre-François Moreau (ENS, Lyon), Gianni Paganini (Vercelli), Marie-Cristina Pitassi (Genève).
Research team network: Institut Claude Longeon (Saint-Etienne, UMR 5037), dir. A. McKenna, centre pilote du projet ; Institut d’Histoire de la pensée classique (UMR 5037 : Lyon-Saint-Étienne-Clermont-Ferrand), dir. P.-F. Moreau ; Tradizione rinascimentale, libertinismo, Illuminismo (Napoli – L’Orientale), dir. L. Bianchi ; Laboratoire d’étude sur les Monothéismes (LEM : UMR 8584), Paris ; Instituut Pierre Bayle (Nimègue), dir. H. Bots et Chr. Berkvens-Stevelinck ; Erasmus Center for Early Modern Studies (Rotterdam), dir. W. van Bunge ; Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton ; Groupe National de Recherche sur la philosophie moderne, de la Renaissance aux Lumières (Université du Piémont Oriental, Vercelli), dir. G. Paganini ; Institut d’Histoire de la Réformation (Genève), dir. M.-C. Pitassi.