Book Chapter

The Notions of Erroneous Conscience in Pierre Bayle

  • Jean-Pierre Cavaillé

This essay explores the reciprocal contamination of the notions of error and erring at the beginning of the early modern time in Latin and Romance languages, through the example of the concept of “erroneous conscience”. This concept, for Pierre Bayle and those who followed him at least on this point, allows for the decriminalization of religious beliefs, and even those that challenge religion(s), by recognizing the “rights of the erroneous conscience”. This right is a right to error and to erring/wandering limited to religious convictions and apparently aimed solely at “tolerance” (supporting and excusing erroneous/wandering opinions). However, it did not escape contemporaries that it radically challenged the very idea that a universal truth could be universally known and established in this field.

  • Keywords:
  • Erroneous conscience,
  • pyrrhonism,
  • moral rationalism,
  • atheism,
  • intolerance,
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Jean-Pierre Cavaillé

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales - EHESS, France - ORCID: 0000-0002-0528-5100

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  7. Brahami, Frédéric. 2005. “Le Dieu de Bayle est-il relativiste?,” Dix-septième siècle, 57: 135-44.
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  9. Cantelli, Gianfranco. 1969. Teologia e ateismo. Saggio sul pensiero filosofico e religioso di Pierre Bayle. Firenze: Nuova Italia.
  10. de Finance, Joseph. 1974. “Sens et limites de l’objectivisme moral chez Saint Thomas: A propos du problème de la conscience erronée,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 30 (S. Tomás de Aquino e S. Boaventura: VII Centenário): 107-26.
  11. Furetière, Antoine. 1701. Dictionnaire universel, Seconde édition revue, corrigée et augmentée par Monsieur Basnage de Beauval. La Haye: A. et R. Leers.
  12. Gros, Jean-Michel. 2002. “Bayle: de la tolérance à la liberté de conscience,” in Les fondements philosophiques de la tolérance, ed. Yves-Charles Zarka-Franck Lessay-john Rogers, t. I, Études, 295-311. Paris: PUF.
  13. L’errance au XVIIe siècle 45e Congrès de la North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature, Québec, 4 au 6 juin 2015, ed. Lucie Desjardins-Marie-Christine Pioffet-Roxanne Roy. 2017. Tübingen: Narr.
  14. Labrousse, Élisabeth. 1963 (2e éd. 1985). Pierre Bayle. Vol. 1: Du Pays de Foix à la cité d’Érasme. La Haye: M. Nijhoff.
  15. Labrousse, Élisabeth. 1964. Pierre Bayle. Vol. 2: Hétérodoxie et rigorisme. La Haye: M. Nijhoff. (2e éd., Paris, A. Michel, 1996).
  16. Lieber, Francis. 1859. Encyclopaedia Americana… Boston: Bazin & Ellsworth, vol. 6.
  17. McKenna, Antony. 2012. “Introduction,” in Pierre Bayle et la liberté de conscience, 1-15. Toulouse: Anacharsis.
  18. McKenna, Antony. 2018. “Pierre Bayle, les vérités évidentes et les vérités particulières,” in Libertinage et philosophie à l’époque classique (xvie-xviiie siècle), 15 (Pierre Bayle and the Libertins): 147-66.
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  20. Popkin, Richard H. 1979. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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  22. Turchetti, Mario. 1991. “La liberté de conscience et l’autorité du magistrat au lendemain de la Révocation. Aperçus du débat touchant la théologie morale et la philosophie politique des Réformés: Pierre Bayle, Noël Aubert de Versé, Pierre Jurieu, Jacques
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  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Pages: 105-119
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

The Notions of Erroneous Conscience in Pierre Bayle

Authors

Jean-Pierre Cavaillé

Language

Italian

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0266-4.08

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Errors, False Opinions and Defective Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Authors

Marco Faini, Marco Sgarbi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

145

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0266-4

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0265-7

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979-12-215-0266-4

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979-12-215-0267-1

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Knowledge and its Histories

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