Rereading Bayle

Abstract

In the first decades of the twenty-first century there has been a notable surge of scholarly interest in the problems of intellectual history, the issues of the Scientific Revolution in both Natural sciences and Humanities which still stay ahead of the curve. Such renowned researchers as P. Dear, S. Shapin, D. Wootton, and others are contributing to the study of changes in the minds of European intellectuals including their methods and their philosophical comprehension of the world. The monograph by Mara van der Lugt dedicated to the works of an eminent philosopher and writer of the early Enlightenment Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) is a major contribution to the vast Baylean studies which amount to hundreds of papers. The heritage of Bayle is put into political, religious, intellectual, and methodological contexts, including the complicated system of links and relations within the European Republic of Letters. The researcher suggests “a new way of reading Bayle”, which enables to raise and analyze a wide range of problems relating to Bayle’s “Historical and Critical Dictionary”. Another interesting methodological approach is the use of the figure of Bayle’s friend-antagonist Pierre Jurieu (1637–1713) as a sort of a semantic pivot, which simplifies the process of structuring and analyzing the enormous textual material. But, however solid and grounded the monograph is, it requires a number of critical comments given in the present review.