Bayle, Pierre (pyĕr bāl), 1647–1706, French philosopher. Born a Huguenot, he converted to Roman Catholicism and then returned to Protestantism. To avoid French intolerance of Protestants, he moved in 1681 to Rotterdam, where he lived for most of the rest of his life. Trained as a philosopher and with a strong background in theology, Bayle supported Calvinism but was also an advocate of religious toleration, contending that morality was independent of religion. Bayle was renowned for his trenchant skeptical attacks against leading religious, metaphysical, and scientific theories of his day. He held that attempts to construct rational explanations of the world were bound to lead to absurd conclusions. His chief work was Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697), a compendium of biographies with comprehensive and detailed criticisms by Bayle. His views had a profound influence on the French and German Enlightenment Enlightenment, term applied to the mainstream of thought of 18th-century Europe and America.

Background and Basic Tenets

The scientific and intellectual developments of the 17th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. , especially on the authors of the Encyclopédie and on the English deists.

Bibliography

See C. Brush, Montaigne and Bayle (1966) and E. Labrousse, Bayle (1983).

Bayle, Pierre

(born Nov. 18, 1647, Carla-le-Comte, France—died Dec. 28, 1706, Rotterdam, Neth.) French philosopher. Educated at a Jesuit school, he converted to Roman Catholicism but later reverted to his original Calvinist faith. His religious views led to his losing professorships first at Sedan and later at Rotterdam. He was convinced that philosophical reasoning led to universal skepticism, but that nature compelled mankind to adopt beliefs on the basis of blind faith. The bulk of his Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697) consists of quotations, anecdotes, commentaries, and erudite annotations that cleverly undo whatever orthodox Christian beliefs the articles express; and it was condemned by religious authorities. Bayle's oblique method of subversive criticism was later adopted by the contributors to the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot.