SCEPTICISM IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT

ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES

INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

152

SCEPTICISM IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT

EDITED BY
RICHARD H. POPKIN
EZEQUIEL DE OLASOt
AND GIORGIO TONELLIt

Founding Directors:
P. Dibon t (Paris) and R.H. Popkin (Washington University, St. Louis & UCLA),
Sarah Hutton (The University of Hertfordshire , United Kingdom), Richard Popkin (Washing-
ton University, St Louis & University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
Editorial Board: J.E Battail (Paris); E Duchesneau (Montreal); J. Force (Lexington);
A. Gabbey (New York); T. Gregory (Rome); C. Laursen (Riverside); J.D. North (Gronin-
gen); M.J. Petry (Rotterdam) ; J. Popkin (Lexington); Th. Verbeek (Utrecht)
Advisory Editorial Board: J. Aubin (Paris); B. Copenhaven (Los Angeles); A. Crombie
(Oxford); H. Gadamer (Heidelberg) ; H. Gouhier (Paris); K. Hanada (Hokkaido University);
W. Kirsop (Melbourne); P.O. Kristeller (Columbia University); E. Labrousse (Paris); A.
Lossky (Los Angeles); J. Malarczyk (Lublin); J. Orcibal (Paris); W. ROd (Miinchen); G.
Rousseau (Los Angeles); H. Rowen (Rutgers University, N.J.); J.P. Schobinger (ZUrich); J.
Tans (Groningen)
 SCEPTICISM IN THE
ENLIGHTENMENT

Edited by

RICHARD H. POPKIN
Washington University, St Louis and University of California Los Angeles,
USA

EZEQUIEL DE OLASO (DECEASED)

San Andreas University, Buenos Aires, Argentina

GIORGIO TONELLI (DECEASED)

State University of New York, USA

Springer-Science+Business Media , B.V

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-90-481-4877-6 ISBN 978-94-015-8953-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8953-6

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved

1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1997.
Sof'tcover reprint of the hardcover Ist edition 1997
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
 DEDICATION
Dedicated to the memories of Giorgio Tonelli, 1928-1979
and Ezequiel de 0laso, 1932-1996
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements viii
Introduction ix
1. Scepticism in the Enlightenment
Richard H Popkin
2. Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter Part of the Eighteenth
Century
Richard H Popkin 17
3. The "Weakness" of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment
Giorgio Tonelli 35
4. Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment
Giorgio Tonelli 51
5. Kant and the Ancient Sceptics
Giorgio Tonelli 69
6. Leibniz and.Scepticism
Ezequiel de Olaso 99
7. The Two Scepticisms of the Savoyard Vicar
Ezequiel de Olaso 131
8. Scepticism, Old and New
Ezequiel de Olaso 147
9. New Views on the Role of Scepticism in the Enlightenment
Richard H Popkin 157
10. Berkeley in the History of Scepticism
Richard H Popkin 173
Index of Names 187
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank two of my research assistants, Kimberley Garmoe and

Russell Ives Court of UCLA for their help in preparing this text for
publication. I also wish to thank the Foundation for Intellectual History in
London for financing the translation of Giorgio Tonelli's article on Kant and
the ancient sceptics.
 RICHARD H. POPKIN

INTRODUCTION

This volume contains a discussion between three scholars in the history of

philosophy, myself, the late Giorgio Tonelli and the late Ezequiel Olaso. What
started the discussion was a brash paper I gave on "Scepticism in the Enlight-
enment" at the first international congress on the Enlightenment, held in
Geneva in the summer of 1963. Soon thereafter two brilliant younger scholars,
Giorgio Tonelli and Ezequiel de Olaso, started publishing studies leading from
what I had said, and showing areas that I had not probed, and offering
interpretations that went much further than what I had originally presented.
Tonelli, in one of the essays published here, said , "The only survey of
Enlightenment scepticism we have is a well known article by R.H. Popkin ,
which provides a broad frame of reference, but which neglects many details".
Olaso called my study a pioneering one, "the first all-embracing survey of
[scepticism] of the period". But both of these scholars pointed out right away
that there was much more to said on the subject than what I had presented.
"Scepticism" is a loose term that has been used to apply to any kind of
doubts , and particularly, doubts about certain aspects of the Judeo-Christian
religion. It also applies to a rigorous epistemological doubt about the
possibility of attaining knowledge that cannot be questioned. It is this latter
sense that we were concerned with, the legacy of the Greek sceptical traditions
of the Pyrrhonists and the Academics during the eighteenth century. We had
many discussions in person and in writing on this subject. For a decade I
continued my or iginal view, that eighteenth century scepticism was primarily
and almost exclusively the view of David Hume and those he influenced .
However, over time I was overwhelmed by the strength of the arguments and
new materials and interpretations that Tonelli and Olaso offered, showing a
much richer canvas of epistemological sceptical discussions than I had
considered.
In 1992 I was invited to present a plenary session paper at the meeting of the
American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies in Seattle. I there gave a talk
on "New Views on the Role of Scepticism in the Enlightenment" in which I
embraced much of what Tonelli and Olaso had written, and carried the story
on to the last philosophes, Condorcet and Brissot.

ix
R.B. Popkinet al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, ix-xiii.
1997 Kluwer AcademicPublishers.
x Richard H Popkin

The papers gathered here together, of which eight have appeared previously,
[Tonelli's paper on "Kant and the ancient sceptics" appeared in German, and
here appears in English translation for the first time] and two are published for
the first time, have a unifying theme of following out a new way of looking at
the kind of philosophical scepticism that developed during the eighteenth
century, a way that I believe is most illuminating in understanding the course
of philosophy at the time and thereafter. The discussion between myself and my
two cohorts in this enterprise, began immediately on my presentation in
Geneva in 1963. Giorgio Tonelli was present at the occasion and began a
research project on eighteenth century scepticism. He first published a lengthy
review of my History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes of 1960 in,
Filosofia XV, 2, 1964 (also appearing separately under the title Un libro sullo
scetticismo da Erasmo a Descartes, Torino 1964) dealing in great detail with the
special methodological problems of this theme, and thereafter publishing a
series of ground breaking articles which were intended to lead to a volume on
the history of scepticism in the eighteenth century, unfortunately not completed
because of Tonelli's untimely death in 1979.
Ezequiel de Olaso, whom I first met in 1965 when he was finishing his
doctoral studies at Bryn Mawr College with Jose Ferrater Mora , was working
out Leibniz's place in this new outlook on eighteenth century scepticism. He
published many important studies on the matter, including the one in this
volume. He also undertook to analyze Jean-Jacques Rousseau's place in our
story of scepticism in the Enlightenment, and in one of the unpublished papers
he sought to delineate some of the differences between ancient and modern
scepticism.
My two collaborators in this venture both sadly died in the bloom of their
scholarly achievements. I hope that this volume will make their most original
work on this subject better known, and better used in further studies by
scholars.
Before getting to the contents of this volume let me first given some
biographical facts about the authors. I was born in New York in 1923, and
did most of my university studies at Columbia University, plus one year of
graduate study at Yale. I earned my Ph.D. in 1950. I have taught in many
American universities, including the University of Connecticut, the State
University of Iowa, the Claremont Colleges, the University of California, San
Diego, Washington University, S1. Louis, and UCLA. I am now professor
emeritus from Washington University in S1. Louis and adjunct professor of
History and Philosophy at UCLA. I have been publishing about matters
concerning the history of scepticism since 1950. My book, which greatly
influenced both Tonelli and Olaso, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to
Descartes was first published in 1960. A revised edition covering from Erasmus
to Spinoza appeared in 1979, and I hope to complete a final version of the
volume covering the subject from Savonarola to Bayle's article on Savonarola
in the next couple of years. Oxford University has contracted to publish this
volume.
Giorgio Tonelli was born in 1928 in Italy. He did his undergraduate and
 Introduction xi

graduate studies at the University of Pisa, where he received his doctorate in

1947. He supplemented his studies at the Sorbonne, Basel, Naples and many
German institutions. He became professor of German literature at Pisa, and
later moved to the United States in 1969 where he became a professor of the
history of philosophy at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He
published extensively on Kant and on the background of his philosophy, on the
German intellectual world of the eighteenth century, and on the philosophical
views of many of the philosophes. He sometimes published in French, German,
Italian or English. He was also a great initiator of projects to further the study
of the history of philosophy. He founded the journal, now called, International
Studies in Philosophy: he founded the important series Studien und Materialen
zur Geschichte der Philosophie. He was very active in committees and confer-
ences in America and Europe on topics in the history of philosophy and the
history of the Enlightenment. He played a most significant role in opening up
new topics and outlooks in the history of ideas, and he encouraged many
budding scholars in America and Europe .
Ezequiel de Olaso was born in Argentina in 1932, and first studied at the
University of Buenos Aires where he wrote a thesis on methodic and critical
doubt in Spinoza and Leibniz. He then did his doctoral studies with Ferrater
Mora at Byrn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where he wrote on Leibniz and
Greek Scepticism.
He discovered a small manuscript by Leibniz's on the arguments in Sextus
Empiricus's writings [which is analyzed in detail in his paper on Leibniz in this
volume). At the time he tried to get me to collaborate with him in editing the
manuscript. I at the time was the chairman of a new philosophy department at
the University of California, San Diego and was frantically trying to do too
many things at once. When a photocopy of the manuscript arrived , I was
unable to decipher a word, and realized I would have to drop everything else, if
I was to work on it. So, I left it to Ezequiel, who has found many many
fascinating nuggets in it.
Olaso returned to Argenina, and was one of many intellectuals who suffered
under thejunta. For a decade or more he was in a kind of limbo, when he could
not teach officially at the university. He and several of his friends and students
organized an independent center for the study of the history of philosophy.
They each brought their personal libraries to a house that one of the group
owned. They exchanged books and ideas, wrote papers , gave unofficial classes,
and kept intellectual life alive during the most trying circumstances. He did
teach outside the country at the University of Puerto Rico and the Center for
Philosophical Studies at Campinas, Brazil. Finally with the collapse of the
junta Ezequiel was able to resume his post at the University of Buenos Aires,
and to travel. He came to see me in 1982, and we were actively involved
together in many ventures thereafter. He edited the Revista Latinoamericana de
Filosofia, and was director of Centro de Investigaciones Filosoficas in Argen-
tina . He did much to bring together scholars from all over Latin America, and
to get them interested in newer topics in the history of philosophy. In 1988 he
organized an international conference in Argentina on Thomas Hobbes, and he
xii Richard H Popkin

and I organized an interamerican dialogue on scepticism which took place at

the University of California at Riverside in 1991. In 1989 he became professor
at the Universidad de San Andres in Buenos Aires, the post he held until his
death last year. He was perhaps the leading figure in the history of philosophy
in Latin America, and encourged many young scholars to go into the field.
It was my great good fortune to have known both Giorgio Tonelli and
Ezequiel de Olaso, and to have been able to profit from their friendship, their
erudition and from our many intellectual exchanges over the years . They, and
my late dear friend Charles B. Schmitt, were the most important scholars and
innovators in the historical studies of the development of modern scepticism.
As the surviving member of the group it is my privilege to carryon their legacy,
and hopefully to pass it on to future generations. I very much miss them all,
and rely almost continually on their works, their ideas, and my memories of
our many many discussions.
I have made slight modifications in the articles presented here in light of
recent publications. I have tried to make the presentations of the three authors
somewhat uniform. The abundant footnotes will give the reader many ways of
continuing his or her interest in the subject of scepticism in the Enlightenment.
The articles have not been presented in chronological order, but rather in
thematic succession.

Richard H Popkin
Pacific Palisades, California
April 1997
 Introduction xiii

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS

I. Richard H. Popkin, "Scepticism in the Enlightenment", first published in Studies in Voltaireand

the Eighteenth Century, XXVI , 1963, and subsequently published in R.H . Popkin, The High
Road to Pyrrhonism, Indianapolis, Hackett, 1993.
2. Richard H. Popkin, "Skepticism and Anti-Skepticism in the Latter Part of the Eighteenth
Century", first published in Paul Fritz and Richard Morton, eds., Women in the 18th Century and
other essays , Publications of the MacMaster University Association for Studies in the 18th
Century, Vol. 5, 1976, and subsequently published in R .H. Popkin, The High Road to
Pyrrhonism, Indianapolis, Hackett, 1993.
3. Giorgio Tonelli, "Th e 'Weakness' of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment", first published in
Diderot Studies, vol. 14, 1971.
4. Giorgio Tonelli, "Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment", first
publ ished in Studia Leibnitiana. vol. 55.1973.
5. Giorgio Tonelli, " Kant and the Ancient Skeptics", translated by John C. Laursen, published
orig inally as "Kant und die ant iken Skeptiker" , Studien zu Kants philosophischer Entwicklung,
hrsg.v. H . Heimsoeth, Hildesheim : Olms, 1967, pp . 93-123.
6. Ezequiel de Olaso, "Leibniz and Scepticism", first published in Scepticismfrom the Renaissance
to the Enlightenment, eds R.H. Popkin and Charles B. Schmitt, Wolfenbilttler Forschungen, Band
35, Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1987.
7. Ezequiel de Olaso, "The Two Scepticisms of the Savoyard Vicar", first published in R.A. Watson
and lE. Force , The Sceptical Mode ofModern Philosophy,The Hague: Nijhoff, 1988, pp. 43-59.
8. Ezequiel de Olaso, "Scepticism Old and New", not previously published .
9. R ichard H. Popkin, "New Views on the Role of Scepticism in the Enlightenment", first
published in Modern Language Quarterly, September 1992, pp. 279-297.
10. Richard H. Popkin, "Berkeley in the History of Scepticism ", not previously published.
 R.H. POPKIN

1. SCEPTICISM IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT

It may seem very presumptuous to pretend to deal with so vast a subject in a

brief paper. However, as I shall try to indicate, if the subject is limited to the
traditional philosophical meaning of the term , there was, perhaps surprisingly,
very little scepticism in the Enlightenment, and what there was represented
either a carry-over of the earlier Montaignian or Baylean tradition, or an
anticipation of an irrationalist fideistic scepticism that was to flourish with
Kierkegaard, or an anticipation of an epistemological scepticism that was to
flourish among the early critics of Kant. And , what scepticism there was in the
Enlightenment seems to have been located mainly within the person of one
man - David Hume .
This claim may seem quite strange at first sight. It seems even stranger in the
light of the enormous amount of sceptical writing published at the beginning of
the eighteenth century, the enormous concern about the sceptical menace
haunting European thought indicated by the polemical literature and the theses
being defended in German universities. It may seem still stranger in view of the
desire of various writers to prove that their opponents were really sceptics at
heart, and in view of the revival of the earlier motif of Protestants writing on
"Le Pyrrhonisme de I'eglise romaine ", and Catholics answering that Protes-
tantism is the road to complete scepticism. I
However, during the middle of the eighteenth century, Hume was one of the
very, very few who called himself a sceptic or pyrrhonist, and who was
considered such by others. He was, perhaps, the only major figure on the
intellectual scene of the period who felt that he was still concerned with the
fundamental sceptical issues raised by the seventeenth century pyrrhonists, and
especially by Bayle, and who felt that these were the living issues that had to be
faced. The many historical sketches of scepticism written during the age of
reason (and there are far more then than in previous or subsequent times) trace
the history of the so-called 'nouveau pyrrhonisme' from the revival of
scepticism in the renaissance through its heroic doubters - Montaigne,
Sanchez, Charron, La Mothe le Vayer, Gassendi , to its last recorded figures,
Pierre Bayle and bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet. 2 Somebody, like bishop Berkeley,
is suspected of being a sceptique malgre lui.' But the histories, though they
often give dire accounts of the malevolent influence of scepticism in the

R.B. Popk in et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment. 1-16.

1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers . .
2 R. H. Popkin

eighteenth century, do not name names, or discuss philosophical views that

attempt to develop the traditional pyrrhonian attitude, that regarding all
questions dealing with non-evident items, there is insufficient evidence to
justify any conclusion whatsoever. Hume, from his first appearance in the
republic of letters, is accused, and is most pleased with the implications of the
accusation, of either renewing or carrying on the pyrrhonism of Pierre Bayle."
Finally, by the end of the century, when someone finally writes the first book
with the good pedantic title Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus, scepticism
has been re-established as a continuous living movement, flourishing in the
person of David Hume, until that happy moment when Hume 's doubts awoke
the sage of Konigsberg from his dogmatic slumbers. Carl Friedrich Staiidlin ,
who published this two-volume epic in 1794, indicates the change in the
sceptical tradition in several ways. First, on the title page, instead of a picture
of Sextus Empiricus, or Pyrrho of Elis, or Montaigne or Bayle, are the portraits
of the two chief actors in his story, David Hume and Immanuel Kant.
Secondly, part v, the penultimate section, is entitled 'Von La Mothe le Vayer
bis David Hume'. Staiidlin proclaims that it is in this period that the last great
and complete sceptics appear, preparing the way for a fundamental philoso-
phical reconsideration of the sceptical crisis. He also claims, and rightly so,
that the part of his story from Hume onwards is new. He traces the history of
scepticism in the seventeenth century up to Bayle and Huet, indicates the
impact of some of this on Locke, Berkeley, and the English deists, and then
launches on to new ground, the next crucial chapter in the history of
pyrrhonism, Hume 's views and their impact, leading to the final stage of the
story, the last part on 'Von Hume bis Kant,.5
The change reflected in the historical accounts will be the subject of this
paper. In tracing the active and agitated writings about scepticism in the first
part of the century, to the almost total disappearance of concern with
scepticism except for Hume, to the vision of scepticism as the crucial tradition
that leads from Bayle and Huet to Hume to the triumph of Kant (and to the re-
emergence of various kinds of sceptical concerns again), I hope to illuminate
an aspect of the Enlightenment, and perhaps indicate why philosophy has
tended to ignore the Enlightenment except for Hume and Kant. By following
the fortunes of scepticism from 1700 to 1800, I believe much light can be
thrown on the nature of the intellectual concerns of the time, and on the
ultimate failure of the leading Enlightenment thinkers to appreciate the basic
sceptical crisis left them by Bayle, and enlarged by Hume in his unwillingness
or inability to accept Bayle's resolution. It may also show the failure of these
thinkers to appreciate the need for as revolutionary a way of dealing with this
crisis as Kant was to propose.
The eighteenth century began with scepticism in the center of the intellectual
stage. In 1702 Bayle published the second edition of his Critical and Historical
Dictionary, greatly enlarged, and containing his most forceful statement of his
views in the clarification on pyrrhonism, written at the behest of the consistory
of his church, the French Reformed church of Rotterdam. In this essay Bayle
indicated why no intellectual theory on any subject whatsoever could withstand
 Scepticism in the Enlightenment 3

the attacks of the pyrrhonian sceptics. A rational examination of any theory

would lead to perplexities, contradictions and absurdities . This should lead one
to abandon reason as a guide, and tum to faith - faith that is above reason,
against reason, and without reason .

They [the pyrrhonists] have a kind of weapon that they call the diallel, which
they wield at the first instant it is needed. After this is done, it is impossible
to withstand them on any subject whatsoever. It is a labyrinth in which the
thread of Ariadne cannot be of any help. They lose themselves in their own
subtleties, and they are overjoyed at this, since this serves to show more
clearly the universality of their hypothesis that all is uncertain, not even
excepting the arguments which attack uncertainty....

Theologians should not be ashamed to admit that they cannot enter a

contest with such antagonists, and that they do not want to expose the
Gospel truths to such an attack. The small boat of Jesus Christ is not made
for sailing on this stormy sea, but for taking shelter from this tempest in the
haven of Faith.

Later on in this essay, Bayle asserted , 'One must necessarily choose between
philosophy and the Gospel. If you do not want to believe anything but what is
evident and in conformity with the common notions, choose philosophy, and
leave Chr istianity. If you are willing to believe the incomprehensible Mysteries
of religion, choose Christianity and leave philosophy. For to have together self-
evidence and incomprehensibility is something that cannot be'. His officialview
is finally stated, 'Let us say also that the highest degree of faith is that which on
divine testimony embraces the truths which are the most opposed to reason'.
'This view has been set forth in a ridiculous light, coming from the pen of a
master [the free-thinker, St. Evremond]. 'The Devil take me if I believed
anything ', the Marechal d'Hocquincourt is made to say, 'But since that time I
could bear to be crucified for religion. It is not that I see more reason in it than
I did before; on the contrary, I see less than ever. But I know not what to say to
you, for I would submit to be crucified without knowing why or wherefore. So
much the better, my Lord, replied the Father, twanging it very devoutly
through the nose, so much the better; these are not human impulses, but are
inspired by heaven. Away with reason ; this is the true religion, away with
reason. What an extraordinary grace, my Lord , has heaven bestowed upon
you!"
Bayle's most forceful statement of the dubiousness of all rational theories,
and this as the prelude to completely blind faith , was followed in the next few
years by a series of polemical defenses of this view by 'the master of them that
doubt'. Over the next decades, Bayle's extreme scepticism was to be attacked by
all sorts of major and minor philosophers and theologians, while his avowed
fideism was to be ignored or ridiculed. Other new philosophies, like that of the
brilliant young George Berkeley, were to be interpreted and attacked as part of
Bayle's legacy.
4 R.B. Popkin

While Bayle, though he died in 1706, remained one of the major figures in
the intellectual world, another complete pyrrhonist - fideist turned up post-
humously to reinforce the concern with sceptical issues. The work of the
renowned scholar, Bishop Pierre Daniel Huet, who died in 1721, Le Traite de
lafoibless de l'esprit humain, was published over and over again in the 1720's, in
French, Latin, English, German and Italian." This opus caused a tremendous
stir, since Huet had used all the doubts of Sextus Empiricus, and of the
Montaigne tradition, to attack ancient and new philosophies as the prepara-
tion for the faith . The work was discussed and attacked all over the republic of
letters, and various Catholic authorities tried to maintain that it was a forgery,
produced to embarrass the church and to ruin the reputation of the most
erudite bishop of the age of Louis xiv,"
While Bayle and Huet remained living sceptical forces, there was a renewed
interest in publishing the original classic of pyrrhonism, the writings of Sextus
Empiricus. The first scholarly edition since 1621 was put out by the great
philologist J.A. Fabricius in 1718. Fabricius examined all of the manuscripts he
could find, gathered together all of the scholarly data on the subject (and
indicated that his countryman G.W. Leibniz had promised to write a commen-
tary and refutation of Sextus.") A few years later, in 1725, the Swiss
mathematician, Claude Huart, published the first complete French translation
of Sextus's Pyrrhoniaeum hypotyposes, with notes indicating that there should
be no conflict between complete scepticism and Christian faith, and that many
learned men from Montaigne, Charron and Gassendi, to Bayle and Huet, had
said the same thing. 10 These editions of Sextus, Bayle and Huet, plus the vast
number of articles in the journals of the time indicate that there must have been
a very great interest in and concern with pyrrhonism, and with its new variant,
Christian scepticism or fideism.
The negative side of the story shows this even more. From the very beginning
of the century, there are learned discussions by German professors about the
origins, causes and answers to scepticism. They debated whether Job and
Solomon were sceptics, and which one was the founder of the movement. One
such philosopher learnedly proclaimed in 1706 that the devil really started it
all, since he made our first parents doubt of the word of God himself. II
Various works indicated that pyrrhonists were everywhere, and were causing
all sorts of mayhem. The preface to the French translation of one of the earl of
Shaftesbury's works in 1710 explained that England was full of pyrrhonists.V
The Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay, who was to become Fenelon's
secretary and the teacher of Bonnie Prince Charlie, claimed that he was
initially led astray by a travelling pyrrhonist in Scotland .P The full expose of
the pyrrhonian menace was set forth, after years of work , by the Swiss
philosopher, Jean Pierre de Crousaz, in his Examen du pyrrhonisme. Crousaz
knew Claude Huart, the translator of Sextus, and discussed the problem of
pyrrhonism with him. Huart, according to Crousaz, was a complete pyrrho-
nist, but on his death-bed saw the light and was convinced of the dangers of the
view, and regretted having published his translation. Crousaz was apparently
impressed both by this personal tragedy, and by the moral, religious, and social
 Scepticism in the Enlightenment 5

damage that he found everywhere from the deleterious views of Sextus, Bayle
and Huet.l" In various notes in the Bibliotheque germanique, from 1724
onward, mainly by Crousaz himself, it is reported that he is working on this
major opus, and that the work is most necessary because so many people are
being ruined by pyrrhonian doubt, especially as expressed in Bayle's writings. IS
Finally in 1733, the Examen du pyrrhonisme appeared, in folio, intended to be a
matching volume for those who owned Bayle's Dictionary, so that the antidote
could be next to the poison. Crousaz portrayed pyrrhonism as a universal
menace, undermining confidence in everything, and leading to such cata-
strophes as the South Sea island Bubble. With endless prolixity, Crousaz
launched his massive attack on every form of scepticism that appears in the
writings of Sextus , Bayle and Huet, with asides against bishop Berkeley.l"
This enormous tome represented, perhaps, the high point in concern with
the sceptical bacillus infecting the European intellectual world. What Crousaz
lacked in argumentation, he certainly made up for in bulk. Jean Le Clerc,
fifteen years earlier, had written a very detailed analysis and critique of Sextus
in reviewing Fabricius's edition. 17 Crousaz, though famous for his logic texts,
was unable to organize his critique by points, problems, arguments or anything
else; as the reviewers pointed out, and was unable to calm his suspicions about
the insidious effects of scepticism to try to see if the disorders of the world were
really due to Sextus, Bayle and Huet. Two other indefatigable anti-pyrrhonists
tried to salvage the meat of Crousaz's efforts , by reorganizing the opus, and
leaving out some of the McCarthyisms and innuendoes. J.H.S. Formey of the
Berlin Academy and Baron Haller did the best they could. Formey re-did the
work (and there is a touching letter of 1740 from Crousaz to Formey thanking
him for his efforts)! ", retitled it Le triomphe de l'evidence. Haller translated it
into German and added a preliminary discourse. Reorganized, cut, retitled, in
either French or German, the reviewers still found the work too diffuse and
imprecise to destroy the sceptical menace. 19 In view of the difficulty in locating
copies of either the Formey or Haller edition, the work did not seem to be as
popular as the bulky Crousaz original (which Mathieu Marais complained was
grossly overpriced at 24 or 25 livres. 'If it was in favor of pyrrhonism, this
would not be too dear. But against pyrrhonism, it is excessive'r'''
The great Crousaz crusade was ridiculed and rebutted in the 'Apologle de
monsieur Bayle, ou Lettre d'un sceptique sur l'examen du pyrrhonisme; pour
server de reponse au livre de m. de Crousaz sur le pyrrhonisme,' which
appeared in the 1739 edition of the Nouvelles lettres de Bayle. It was here
suggested that Crousaz was, perhaps, a pyrrhonist in disguise, really helping
the sceptics while pretending to attack them. Otherwise, why would his
arguments be so bad? And, the writer insists, pyrrhonism does lead to true
faith and not to irreligion. 'A pyrrhonist, a sceptic is truly in the state that the
Gospel prescribes for the faithful in matters of religion. He believes without
understanding, and even without seeking to understand.' This, the author
insists, really was Bayle's message, and not the melange of irreligion, immor-
ality, and doubt that Crousaz attributed to him. The effect of this confused
attack by Crousaz, it is claimed, is to make the sceptics surer that Bayle can't be
6 R.B. Popkin

refuted, and to make the dogmatists suspicious that they have no real defense
against Baylean scepticism. Hence, rather than saving the world from the ever-
increasing danger of pyrrhonism, Crousaz, in his own misguided way, has
really strengthened scepticism.i'
At the very moment when this claim was being made, the interest and
concern with scepticism was dying down almost completely, and a new
sceptical classic, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, was falling still-born
from the presses .F The last English edition of Bayle's Dictionary was just about
completed, soon to be replaced by the Encyclopedia Britannica. Huet was
turning into an historical curiosity rather than a serious philosopher, and
Sextus into a scholarly source. Young Hume was still living in a pyrrhonian
world, as other avant-garde thinkers around him were shifting their interests
and concerns to more positive, scientific ones. Hume was immersed in both
worlds, that of Bayle, and that of the Scottish naturalists who were applying the
Newtonian method to the moral subjects. His Treatise was an attempt to
introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects in the
tradition, he claimed, of Locke, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Bishop Butler and
Francis Hutcheson, an attempt to solve all intellectual problems by finding the
Newtonian laws of human nature-a science ofman. 23 But it was also a struggle
with Bayle, and with the problem of the bas is of true and/or reliable beliefs.
We don't know the order of the composition of the work. It was written in
France from 1734-1737, after Hume's personal crisepyrrhonienne. In finished
form, it starts off most optimistically and 'scientifically'. After presenting his
law of the association of ideas that will explain so much , part ii presents a
struggle with Bayle's article 'Zeno of Elea', and the paradoxes of space and
time. Hume still is enthusiastic. He can answer the problems Bayle has posed.
Part iii develops a science of human reasoning in terms of the psychology of
belief. And then , though there are many clues of sceptical foreboding before,
the amazing part iv turns up on 'T he Sceptical and other systems of
philosophy, 'in which it is shown that the very principles of human nature that
keep us going as 'rational' beings, should lead us to complete doubt about all of
our reasonings and all of our sense experience. If we were consistent in our
mental behaviour, we should be in doubt about everything. Various Baylean
gambits are used to generate a scepticism with regard to reason, and a
scepticism with regard to the senses. The only thing that saves us from total
pyrrhonism is not blind faith, but nature. 'Philosophy would render us entirely
pyrrhonian were not nature too strong for it.'24 'This happy, therefore, that
nature breaks the force of all sceptical arguments in time, and keeps them from
having any considerable influence on the understanding. Were we to trust
entirely to their self-destruction, that can never take place , "till they have first
subverted all conviction, and have totally destroy'd human reason" , (Treatise,
i.iv. i).
The more we philosophize and analyze, the more we reveal the insoluble
sceptical difficulties that undermine the validity and reliability of all human
conclusions on any subject whatsoever. Sextus, Bayle, and Huet had all pointed
this out, with the utmost calm and serenity, and then had explained how we go
 Scepticism in the Enlightenment 7

on living, in spite of our inability to overcome doubts on every front. We live

according to nature, 'we are influenced by education and society, and , as the
nouveaux pyrrhoniens insisted, we live by the grace of god. Hume followed them
in pointing to the crucial importance of the miraculous, benevolent interven-
tion of nature at the moments when scepticism was about to erode all belief and
conviction. Nature keeps us from caring, and from being able to pursue
questions further into the abysses of doubt. Nature diverts us, turns us back to
normal concerns and interests, and makes us temporarily forget the sceptical
problems . But, this solution is never really satisfactory for Hume. Since he
lacked Bayle's or Huet 's faith, he could never find serenity or peace in the face
of the ever-recurring ultimate doubts about everything, including the merits
and validity of the sciences.

"The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in

human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am
ready to reject all belief and reasoning,and can look upon no opinion even as
more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what
causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose
favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround
me? and on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I
am confounded with all of these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the
most deplorable condition imaginable, inviron 'd with the deepest darkness,
and utterly depriv'd of the use of every member and faculty." (Treatise , I.iv-7)

When he finds that the sceptical crisis is carrying him into 'philosophical
melancholy and delirium' to which there is no rational or scientific cure, it is
nature alone that saves him, not by providing any answers, but by diverting the
attention and the concern of the questioner (ibid.). For Hume, since religious
faith cannot provide the resolution, life becomes an alternation of sceptical
despair resulting from 'enlightened confidence' that we can find answers
through science, and the natural relief occasioned by animal faith , custom,
habit and instinct. For Hume, throughout all of his philosophical writings, the
sceptical crisis is never resolved, only temporarily abated by nature. We are
condemned to a schizophrenic existence, alternating between realizing that we
cannot find truth or certainty anywhere, and living dogmatically as if we had.
Hume reinforced Bayle's sceptical attack, enlarged on his and others psycho-
logical-biological explanation of how we do in fact acquire and retain beliefs,
and faced , in utter dismay, the havoc produced by the pyrrhonian challenge. He
could state the official answer of Bayle and Huet, as he did at the close of the
Dialogues concerning natural religion, that 'to be a philosophical sceptic is, in a
man ofletters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing
Christian'r"
But, since he apparently could not make that first and most essential step, he
was faced with the terrifying realization of the uncertainty, the meaninglessness
and the emptiness of his world, and the terrors could only leave him when
nature kindly and miraculously took him out of the philosophical closet and
8 R.H Popkin

sent him into the diversions of the ordinary world. The new scientific data
about man, to which Hume contributed so much, would , he saw, provide no
hope of eliminating the problem, and of dispelling the nightmare of man
without faith .
Hume's picture at the conclusion of Book i of the Treatise of his desperate
loneliness and sceptical despair was shared by neither his intellectual friends in
Great Britain or France. The Treatise fell still-born from the presses , in part, I
believe, because no one could see why he was so sceptical, and why he was so
upset. Early reviewers could see that Hume was in the pyrrhonian tradition and
that he was not willing to accept his own sceptical conclusions. As one wrote "I
take it as well that his Paradoxes only favour pyrrhonism, and lead only to
consequences that the Author seems to disavow'v" What was troubling Hume
did not seem to affect his early readers. His friend Lord Kames, could make
little out of the Treatise, except for its psychological parts. When Hume's
reputation began to grow in the 1750's, and when he became the darling of the
French intellectual world, the problem was more evident. His admirers were
struck by the 'scientific' contribution of his History ofEngland and the Political
Discourses, but were left cold , unmoved and uninterested by his scepticism, and
his worries about the effects of a body of sceptical reasoning "that ... admit of
no answer, and produce no conviction'V" They saw that Hume was the
successor of Bayle in this respect, but they were not impressed by the
destructive efforts of either of them.
Professor Laurence Bongie, a couple of years ago, published a study, 'Hume,
" Philosophie" and philosopher in eighteenth century France', showing this
reaction amongst the leading thinkers of the French Enlightenment. Hume was
admired beyond belief by Grimm, Helvetius, Voltaire, Holbach among others.
His work in the moral sciences, and his critiques of religion were considered so
great that he was the only British writer admitted to their club on the Rue
Royale. The zenith of his fame and fortunes was during his tenure as secretary
to the British embassy in Paris , when he was invited to the salons, feted and
admired everywhere. But, his admirers could not find any value in his
epistemological writings, in his sceptical questioning. Prof. Bongie shows that
they read the Enquiry concerning human understanding, and found it diffuse and
uninteresting until they got to the essays, 'Of miracles', and 'Of providence and
a future state'. The Dialogues concerning natural religion dismayed some ,
because Hume was still raising doubts about the truth of atheism. The whole
complex of sceptical problems and untenable theories, the ever-enlarging
sceptical crisis , did not seem to make any sense, or to be of any importance to
the philosophes. Hume, the sceptic, was a man completely alone in the gay,
social whirl of the Paris salons. 28
The attitude of the philosophes to Bayle and to scepticism in general indicates
still further the gulf that existed between the one major living sceptic, and the
'enlightened' world around him. Voltaire had the greatest admiration for Bayle
'the greatest master of the art of reasoning that ever wrote', but Bayle 'has only
taught to doubt' and 'he combats himself.
 Scepticism in the Enlightenment 9

What do I learn from Bayle, to doubt alone?

Bayle, great and wise, all systems overthrows ,
Then - his own tenets labors to oppose.
Like the blind slave to Delila's commands,
Crushed by the pile demolished by his hands. 29

What Voltaire calls a 'pyrrhonisme outre,30 he found worthless, a scepticism

that opposed and destroyed everything, including itself. A scepticism that does
not admit probable, practical and commonsense standards is 'outre' and mad.
In his Traite de metaphysique (M.xXii.206-208) Voltaire analyzed the argu-
ments in Sextus Empiricus about whether we could ascertain if the external
world exists. The sceptical arguments are not answered logically, or disproven ,
but are shown to lead to conclusions that sane, reasonable men do not accept.
The epistemological force of the sceptical challenge is basically ignored rather
than refuted. Voltaire could not see any living issue in the question , and could
see that sane, reasonable men can deal with problems without getting engaged
in any form of a sceptical crisis. Bayle may have destroyed all theories , but had
he actually destroyed our ability to reason successfully about problems? The
Lockean-Newtonian method of experimental reasoning was usually more
appealing to Voltaire and the other philosophes than the pyrrhonisme outre
that would result from taking Sextus, Bayle or Hume seriously in terms of the
arguments they set forth. (However, the conclusion of Micromegas may suggest
that Voltaire, in his worldly-wisdom, did not actually suffer from the un-
warranted optimism of his contemporaries in the merits of the possible
achievements of the age of reason.)
Diderot is, perhaps, a more interesting example of the great gulf that existed
between the philosophes and the pyrrhonists, ancient and modern. Diderot
recognized the merits of scepticism as a preparation for serious study, and as
an irrefutable series of arguments . But he could not see it as having any merits
as a substitute for positive resolutions of questions. His lengthiest statement of
his view is in the article on 'Pyrrhonism' in the Encyclopedie. Prof. Torrey has
shown that this was intended to be one of Diderot's main contributions,
containing his tribute to Bayle, and that the essay was severely censored at the
time" The essay contains a long exposition of the history of scepticism ancient
and modern, mainly taken from Brucker's History of Philosophy. Bayle is the
last author named, and it is said of him, Bayle had few equals in the art of
reasoning, perhaps no superior'.32 After discussing Bayle, Diderot summed up
the sceptical problem . He was willing to grant the pyrrhonian contention that
'there is nothing, properly speaking, of which man has a perfect absolute ,
complete knowledge, not even the most evident axioms' (p.613b). But Diderot
was not willing to follow the pyrrhonist to his catastrophic conclusion that all
is in doubt, including the most evident principles. 'There is then a kind of
sobriety in the use of reason to which one has to subject oneself, or else one has
to resolve to float in uncertainty' (pp.613b-614a) .
To avoid the latter unfortunate state, Diderot announced that he would not
listen any longer to those who deny the existence of bodies, the rules of logic,
lOR. H Popkin

the evidence of the senses, the distinction between the true and the false,
between good and evil, pleasure and pain, vice and virtue, etc. 'I will turn my
back on those who seek to draw me away from a simple question in order to set
me forth in dissertations on the nature of matter, on that of the understanding,
substance, thought, and other subject which have neither limits nor bounds'
(p.6l4a).
After refusing to take the sceptical questions seriously, though admitting that
they cannot be resolved, Diderot offered some final comments that seem to be a
rejection of Hume's schizophrenic pyrrhonism. A man cannot hold one view in
the closet, and another in society. What he has to believe in practice, he cannot
really doubt in theory. It would be a waste of time trying to argue with someone
who says he doubts there is an external world, or a self, since no one really
believes such things. Why bother with his arguments, if he cannot seriously
believe the conclusions? ' Let us occupy ourselves with something more
important' (p.6l4a). The strength of the sceptical arguments and their irrefut-
ability did not seem to bother Diderot, since the reasonable man had his basic
beliefs anyway, and had important matters to deal with in terms of these
beliefs, no matter how many questions the pyrrhonists, ancient and modern,
could raise about them. The philosophical delirium that troubled Hume,
caused by the fact that by nature we were believers, and by reason complete
doubters, did not disturb Diderot at all, since he was only concerned with our
actual beliefs, and was not affected by the manifold sceptical reasons for
doubting them.
Condillac made, perhaps, the most forceful exposition of this rejection of
pyrrhonism as a living issue in his Cours d'etude pour l'instruction du pr ince de
Parma. Here he discussed pyrrhonism, both ancient and modern, and
considered that the view, even in the Greek world, was an 'exces', leading to
absurdities. Considering the falsity of many ancient beliefs, Pyrrho might have
been more reasonable in doubting everything than in believing some of the
nonsense current in his times. But, what would have been more reasonable
would have been to look for better methods of knowing, once it was realized
that the then current ones were faulty." When he turned to modern scepticism,
Condillac first pointed out that the movement began again in the renaissance
as a kind of religious irrationalism, debunking reason in favor of faith . The
only modern sceptic who is discussed is Bayle, 'le plus savant et le plus
ingenieux sophiste qui ait jamais ete', His pyrrhonism may be understandable
if one supposed that there is no better method for seeking knowledge than that
of previous philosophy. 'But this scepticism falls of its own weight, if a good
method is pointed out for directing the mind, and if the demonstrated
discoveries are made clear. Now, what will appear astonishing is that the
century in which Bayle taught Pyrrhonism is precisely the century of the
greatest discoveries' (xx.iv. 190-191).
Then Condillac turns from Bayle to the 'vrais philosophes', the men of
genius who have discovered the truth. The section immediately following the
dismissal of Bayle is entitled , 'Beginning of the true philosophy, on astronomy
under Copernicus, Ticho- Brahe, Kepler and Galileo ' (xx.v. 191ff.). The scien-
 Scepticism in the Enlightenment 11

tific method, culminating in the achievements of Locke and Newton, had

disposed of any excuse for doubting, and had opened the way to the discovery
of true knowledge. This optimism, echoed and proclaimed by Holbach, La
Mettrie , Condorcet, Alembert and others, left no room for taking pyrrhonism
seriously. The road had been opened to discovering true knowledge. What was
to be done was to discover, within the limits Locke had prescribed, and with the
method Newton had used, what man could know about himself and nature,
and to employ this knowledge to reform society, liberate man , and tame the
future. In such an atmosphere, the lines

The wise in every age conclude,

What Pyrrho taught, and Hume renewed,
That Dogmatists are fools."

had no meaning or relevance. The Condillacs and Condorcets were not going
to allow themselves to be side-tracked by questions about the ultimate validity
and certainty of their methods or their results. Action, not speculation, came
first, and the futile and fruitless quibbles of the sceptics were not to interfere .
While Hume, the man, flourished in the French Enlightenment, and Hume ,
the living embodiment of the pyrrhonian tradition and of its fundamental
challenge to human intellectual security and peace of mind, was ignored, a
glimmering of interest in the sceptical problems he posed appeared in two
other centers of the Enlightenment, Scotland and Berlin. The Scottish
philosopher, Thomas Reid, had been genuinely moved and shaken by Hume's
scepticism as posed in the Treatise, and saw that the pat answers of various
theologians missed the whole point. Reid, perhaps the first of his century, saw
that Hume , and Berkeley before him, indicated that all of modern thought led
to disastrous consequences concerning the possibility of man's attaining any
certain knowledge about the world around him. The resolution was to be found
not in ignoring Hume and Berkeley's challenge, or in scoffing at them, but in a
fundamental reconsideration of the whole structure of modern thought. Reid's
answer, which he worked on for many years, appeared in 1764.35 Hume was
not much impressed, as his letter to Reid indicates. He felt Reid had really seen
the problem, but had not found a solution, other than the one Hume himself
presented, that nature prevents us from being living sceptics, though we can
never resolve the sceptical problems. Hume's sole criticism of Reid was to point
out that there was a Scotticism in one of the chapters." Reid, in reply, said that
Hume's Treatise had led him to call in question the 'principles commonly
received amonly Philosophers'. If these principles are solid, then, Reid said,
there is no escape from Hume's sceptical finale to the history of philosophy. So,
his new theory, commonsense realism, was intended to save the entire
intellectual world from its pyrrhonian outcome that Hume had revealed.37
The Scottish realists, following on Reid, Richard Price, James Beattie, and
others , thought that they hadfinally found the answer to scepticism. Misguided
though I think they, and their more recent English followers may be, they saw
that Hume had posed a problem, and had unleashed a sceptical crisis that had
12 R.B. Popkin

to be resolved before man's intellectual endeavours could continue. Hume

could dismiss them, in 1775, with 'a short Advertisement' which 'is a compleat
Answer to Dr. Reid and to that bigotted silly Fellow, Beattie'r'" (Hume's
answer was to disown the Treatise as a juvenile work, and insist that they take
his later works as the battleground.)
From Berlin, from the Prussian Academy of Frederick the great, a more
significant concern with and interest in pyrrhonism and Hume's pyrrhonism
developed, starting in the 1750's, veteran anti-pyrrhonists, like the secretary of
the Prussian Academy, l .H.S. Formey, realized that Hume had posed problems
that had to be dealt with. Formey, and his cohorts, Sulzer and Merian,
translated Hume's philosophical works into French and German, and tried to
find answers to his sceptical arguments. Although Formey, in his Histoire
abregee de la philosophie of 1760, had only carried the history of scepticism up
to Huet and Bayle, whom he blamed for having spread the pyrrhonian poison
throughout the eighteenth century, it is Hume who started to become the villain
of the piece in Formey's view during the 1750's.39 In 1756-1757 he published a
very lengthy five part review of Sulzer's translation Of 1755 of Hume's
Enquiry.4o (I have not yet been able to locate a copy of Sulzer's edition). In this
review, Formey begins by claiming 'Mr. Hume is the English philosopher of the
century'. He cites Sulzer as maintaining that every dogmatist ought to have a
pyrrhonist at his side to keep questioning him, and that Germany has more
need of this than any other country, since it has fewer doubters. Also, Sulzer
pointed out that the German professors should model their style and exposition
after Hume, if they want to be understood. Having pointed out the merits of
Hume 's challenge and his style, Formey (in his review, and in his French
translation of the Enquiry, and Sulzer, and Merian felt that they had to come to
grips with the pyrrhonism that reigned therein, because they saw it as a or the
major threat to man's intellectual world."! While they were trying to find a way
of dealing with Hume and pyrrhionism in general, in order to save the
intellectual world, one of their cohorts, Louis de Beausobre, offered an insipid
defense of scepticism in 1755, Le Pyrrhonisme raisonable. Beausobre tried to
show that pyrrhonism could do no harm, and could be of much help in light of
the arrogance and dogmatism of the age. Pyrrhonism has had many great
defenders like Montaigne, La Mothe Le Vayer, Huet and Bayle (Hume is not
mentioned), who, everyone thinks, can easily be refuted today. Beausobre
gently tried to undermine this unjustified confidence, while his colleagues tried
to justify it, without much notable success.f
Other signs of the realization in Germany that pyrrhonism was a live issue,
challenging the optimistic assumptions of the age of reason , and challenging all
of man's hopes of finding any true and certain knowledge were the sceptical
philosophical aphorisms of Ernest Platner, and the publication in 1756 by
Eschenbach of the arguments by Sextus Empiricus, Berkeley and Arthur
Collier, questioning the existence of a material world.43 The climax of the
German Enlightenment concern with pyrrhonism, especially with that of
Hume, came, of course , when Immanuel Kant awoke from his dogmatic
slumbers. In the preface to the first edition of the Critique ofpure reason, in
 Scepticism in the Enlightenment 13

1781, when Kant surveyed the whole problem to which he was addressing
himself, he pointed out that the dogmatic builders of metaphysical edifices had
sporadically been attacked by the sceptics, who were like nomadic tribes, never
settling anywhere. 'But their number was, very happily, small; and thus they
could not entirely put a stop to the exertions of those who persisted in raising
new edifices.' In recent times the hope had dawned all these disputes could be
settled by Locke's physiology of the understanding. But, this too was
challenged, and the very possibility of any knowledge put in question, by the
probing of Hume.t"
Kant shared Reid and Formey 's appreciation of the seriousness of Hume's
fundamental question, but he realized that a much more revolutionary
programme was needed to deal with it. Kant's Copernican revolution in
philosophy purported to reveal a compromise between an unvanquishable
scepticism about the possibility of any metaphysical knowledge about the
nature of reality, and a universal and necessary certainty (constituting genuine
knowledge) about the conditions of all possible experiences. Kant could see his
theory as the outgrowth and culmination of the history of scepticism, resulting
from seeing the full implications of what Hume had said. Kant could see that
Hume's bombshell had destroyed the hope of finding universal and necessary
knowledge by the experimental philosophy, the physiology of the understand-
ing of Locke and Newton, that had so impressed the philosophes. Hence, the
need for a complete and total reconsideration of the epistemological problem,
'How is knowledge possible?' Kant, and his disciple, Staiidlin, could see that
the central issue of eighteenth century thought, was how to deal with the
sceptical challenge, not how to ignore it. And , in putting scepticism back in the
centre of the stage, so that Kant 's achievement could appear as the final act of a
great dramatic struggle between scepticism and dogmatism, Kant actually
initiated the first act of a new period in the history of scepticism. Almost
immediately he was challenged on three sides, by three kinds of sceptical
critics, each posing an aspect of what had been part of the previous pyrrhonian
tradition. Solomon Maimon raised a Humean challenge against Kant's
structure of the a priori conditions of all experience. Schulze (signing himself
aensidemus) tried to show that the Kantian system led to a good old sceptical
denial of the possibility of any knowledge. And, that strange figure, J.G.
Hamann, reveled in the sceptical debacle he found in Hume and Kant, since,
for him, it provided the 'rationale' for an acceptance of faith without reason.
This survey of scepticism in the Enlightenment suggests, at least to me, that
the Enlightenment was pretty much a hiatus in the continuous development of
scepticism. The century opened with a tremendous amount of sceptical activity,
interest in sceptical themes, and controversies about scepticism. As far as
people in the mid-eighteenth century could see, the history of scepticism had
drawn to a close with Bayle and Huet. The new ways of knowing had
eliminated the need for doubt, and had opened up brilliant vistas of the
epistemological conquests to come. Bayle's total unraveling of the warp and
woof of man's intellectual world was at best an amusing commentary on what
life used to be like before the age of reason. Bayle and Huet's appeal to faith
14 R.B. Popkin

instead of reason was set aside in favour of a ferocious attack on the history
and nature of this faith. In this milieu, young Hume seemed to be an
anachronism, still worrying about Bayle's sceptical problems, instead of
spending all of his time usefully developing his science of man. Young Hume
worried, and practically panicked when he saw into the void that remained
when the fideistic element of the new pyrrhonism was removed. Though one of
the best practitioners of the experimental philosophy, he could find no ultimate
solace or answers in it, and could only waver between despair and diversion, as
reason or nature held sway. The French Enlightenment could adulate Hurne,
but only for his scientific work. They could neither appreciate nor share his
scepticism and his dismay. Their confidence was too strong to see any message
in the pyrrhonian tradition past, or living in their hero, Iebon David. Hume was
almost alone as the living representative of sceptical probing and the search for
some foundation or justification of man's intellectual world. The serenity of
Bayle and Huet was not his, since the Judeo-Christian tradition provided no
haven for him in this quest.
Though Hume may have lived most of his life in gay diversion, rather than in
agonizing searching , each time he wrote on the central issues of philosophy, the
same bottomless pits opened before him. Gradually he infected others with
concern - Reid in Scotland, Formey, Sulzer and Merian in Berlin. They saw
that Hume had exposed the raw nerve of modern thought, and all the
overconfident claims of Condillacs and Condorcets were not going to hide
this, or produce a remedy. When the sage of Konigsberg came to grips with this
problem, Hume 's one-man movement was soon seen as much more important
in man's intellectual journey through history, than that of anyone else of his
time. The scepticism that lived through the Enlightenment, in the person of
Hume , was to pose the challenge that we are still seeking to resolve - how can
we live with ultimate intellectual doubts about everything, and with an inability
to recapture the innocent faith of the pre-Enlightenment age?

NOTES

1. The French Reformed pastor, David Renaud Boullier, and Father Hubert Hayer refought this
battle ; cf. Boullier's Le Pyrrhonisme de l'eglise romaine, ou lettres du P.H.B.D.R.A.P. a mr.?" ,
avec les reponses (Amsterdam 1757); and Hayer's La Regie de foi vengee des calomnies des
Protestants; et specialement de celles de m. Boullier, ministre calviniste d'Utrecht (Paris 1761).
2. Besides some of the works to be discussed in this paper, see, for example, the abbe C.l Boncerf,
Le Vrai philosopher ou l'usage de la philosoph ie, relativement Ii la societe civile, Ii la verite et Ii la
vertu, avec l'histoire, l'expos ition exacts et la refutation du pyrrhonisme ancien et moderns (paris
1762); Jacob Brucke r, Historta critica philosophiae (2nd ed., Leipzig 1767), sections on
scepticism in vols. i and iv; lH.S. Formey, Histoire ahregee de la ph ilosophie (Amsterdam
1760); L. M. Kahle 's introduction to La Mothe Le Vayer's Cinq dialogues fa its Ii l'imitation des
anciens, nouvelle edition augmentee d'une refutation de la philosophie sceptique, ou preservatif
contre Ie pyrrhonisme (Berlin 1744); Lodovico Antonio Muratori, Delle forze del/'intendimento
umano , 0 sia il pirronismo confutato, opposto allibro del preteso monsignor Huet (Venezia 1745);
and the abbe Bon Francois Rivire Pelvert, Exposition succincte et comparaison de la doctrine des
anciens et des nouveaux philosophes (paris 1787), i.
3. See Harry M. Bracken, The Early reception ofBerkeley's immaterialism, 1710-1733 (The Hague
1959), where several critics who interpreted Berkeley this way are discussed.
 Scepticism in the Enlightenment 15

4. See, for example, the review of Hume's Treatise in the Blbliotheque raisonne des ouvrages des
savans de l'Europe (1740), xxiv-324-355; (I 74 I), xxvi-411-427, esp. PP-328 and 353-355; and
M. Maty's review of Hume's Political discourses in the Journal britannique (1752), vii.243-267
and 387-411, esp. pp. 243-244, where Maty said that Hume's metaphysical and moral essays
were worthy of the pen of Pierre Bayle.
5. Carl Fridrich Staiidlin, Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus (Leipzig 1794).
6. Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique. The quotations are from my forthcoming new
translation of Selections from Bayle's Dictionary, 'Third Clarification', Indianapolis. Hackett
Publishing. 1991.
7. A list of editions is given by Muratori, op. cit, p.xxxv. The German translation is dated
Frankfurt-am-Mayn, 1724; and there were actually two English translations, one by Edward
Combe, The Weakness of human understanding (London 1725), second edition with appendix
(London 1725), and the other without indication of translator, entitled A Philosophical treat ise
concerning the weakness ofhuman understanding (London 1725); 2nd edition (London 1729).
8. See Memoires de Trevoux, (juin 1725), p. 989, where the authenticity of the work is denied. The
abbe Olivet defended the authenticity aga inst the claims made in the Memoires de Trevoux in his
Apologie (Paris 1726 and 1727). Each part of the Apologie was answered anonymously in the
same years. Olivet claimed that at least four manuscripts existed while Huet was alive. Jean Le
Clerc, in his review of the Traite, Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne (1722), xviii, p. 465, said that
he had seen a manuscript in Huet's handwriting, and that one cannot really doubt the work is by
him . The R . P. Baltus defended the orthodoxy of Huet's Christian scepticism, and claimed this
was the view of many of the church Fathers. See his 'Sentiment du R . P. Baltus jesuite, sur Ie
Traite de la foiblesse de I 'esprit humain', Cont inuation des Memoires de litterature et d 'histoire
(paris 1726), ii.I.i69-262.
9. Sextus Empiricus, Opera graece et latine (Leipzig 1718). See list of promised edition in
introduction for mention of the possibility of a commentary and refutation by Leibniz.
10. Sextus Empiricus , Les Hipotiposes ou institutions pirronienn es de Sextus Empiricus en trois livres
(traduit par Claude Huart) ([Amsterdam?] 1725). See preface, esp. pp . [3], [22].
II . Q.D.B.V. de scepticorum praecipuis hypothesibus, secundum constitutionem Fridericianum, Prae-
side Georgio Paschio (Kiloni [nod.]), p. 4. There are many dissertations on various aspects of
pyrrhonism, dating from the mid 17th century, onward until late in the 18th century, from
German, Dutch and other universities.
12. Cf. translator's preface to Shaftesbury's Essa i sur l'usage de la rail/erie et de 1 'enjoument dans les
con versat ions qui roulent sur les matieres les plus importantes (La Haye 1710), pp . iii.iv.
13. Cf. the manuscript autobiography of the Chevalier Ramsay at the Bibliotheque Mejanes, Aix-
en-Provence.
14. The discussion of Huart's case appears in Jean Pierre de Crousaz, La Logique ou systeme de
reflexions (4e ed ., Geneve 1741), V.II.129ff.
15. See Bibliotheque germanique (1724), vii.222; (1729), xviii.99-104; ( 1730), xx.114-144. Crousaz's
opus is reviewed in the Bibliotheque germanique (1733), xxvii-I4-36 and (1734), xxviii. 105-126.
16. Crousaz, Examen du Pyrrhonisme ancien &: modern (La Haye 1733). On the 3rd page of the
preface, Crousaz claims that the pyrrhonism of Bayle has led to corruption of the heart,
incredulity, and irreligion, and 'Qui pourroit meconnoitre les effets de l'Irreligion dans le Projet
& l'Oeconomie de ce qu'on a appelle Actions de Miss icipi, ensuite Direction du Sud , & tout
recemment dans celle de la Charitable Corporation?' Berkeley is attacked on p. 97.
17. Jean Le Clerc, review of the Fabricius edition of Sextus Empiricus, Bibliotheque ancienne et
moderne (1720), xiv. 1-113.
18. Letter of Crousaz to J.H.S . Formey, Lausanne, I June 1740, which is published at the end of the
German version of Formey's abridgement, entitled Prufung der Sekte die an allem zweifelt
(Gottingen 1751).
19. See, for example, the long review of Formey's Le Triomphe de l'evidence in the Bibliotheque des
sciences et des beau x arts (1757), vii.l60--185 and 472-491, esp. p. 161. Formey reviewed the
work in the Nouvelle bibliotheque germanique (1757), xx.87-93, and said on p.88 that his
pyrrhonian friend Louis de Beausobre (who will be discussed later) was the one who insisted
on the publication of the abridgement and revision that Formey had done years earlier.
16 R. H Popkin

20. Mathieu Marais, Journal et Memo ires, ed. par M. De Lescure (paris 1868), iv.451.
21. 'Apologie de mons ieur Bayle, ou lettre d'un sceptique sur I'Examen du pyrrhonisme; pour servir
de reponse au livre de M. de Crouzas sur Ie pyrrhonisme' in Nouvelles lettres de Mr. P. Bayle (La
Haye 1739), pp. xxv-Ixxxii. The quotation is on p. lviii. Barbier attributes the 'Apologie' to a M.
de Mon ier, ancien procureur general de la chambre des comptes de Provence.
22. David Hume, 'My own Life', published in The Letters of David Hume ; ed. by J.Y.T. Greig
(Oxford 1932), i.2, where he says, 'Never literary Attempt was more unfortunate than my
Treatise of human Nature. It fell dead-born from the Press; without reach ing such distinctions
as even to excite a Murmur among the Zealots '. E.C. Mossner , in his Life of David Hume
(Austin, Texas 1954), pp. 116-132 , shows that Hume had overstated the lack of interest or
response.
23. Hume, A Treatise ofhuman nature, ed. Selby-Bigge (Oxford 1951), title page and introduction.
24. Hume , An Abstract ofa treatise ofhuman nature (Cambridge 1938), P. 24.
25. Hume , Dialogues concerning natural religion, ed. by Norman Kemp Smith (London 1947), p.
228.
26. Review of Hume's Treatise in the Bibliotheque raisonnie des ouvrages des savans de l'Europe
(1740), xxiv.328. See also the review in the Nouvelle bibliotheque (1740), Vi.291-316, vii.44-63.
27. Hume , Enquiry concerning human understanding, ed. Selby-Bigge (Oxford 1951), p. 155n, where
Hume makes this remark about Berkeley's arguments in calling them actually sceptical ones.
28. Laurence Bongie, 'Hume,"Philosophe"and Philosopher in Eighteenth-Century France', French
Studies (1961), XV.213-227.
29. Voltaire , The Lisbon Earthquake.
30. Th is term appears at the beginning of Voltaire's Le Pyrrhonisme de l'histoire (M .xxvii.235). See
also the note explaining Voltaire's view of scepticism in his Steele de Louis XIV (M.xiv.76).
31. Douglas H. Gordon and Norman L. Torrey, The Censoring of Diderot's Encyclopedie, (New
York 1947)PP-47ff., 74-78.
32. Denis Diderot, 'Pyrrhonienne ou sceptique philosophic', Encyclopedie xiii.613b.
33. Condillac, Cours d'etudes pour l'instruction du prince de Parme, iii.xxii, in Oeuvres philosophiques
de Condillac, ed. Georges Le Roy, (Paris 1948),ii.73-76.
34. Original version of a poem by Thomas Blacklock, as it appeared in Hume 's letter of 20 April
1756 to John Clephane, in Letters, i.231.
35. Thomas Reid, Inquiry into the human mind on the principles ofcommon sense.
36. Hume 's letter to Reid , 25 February 1763, in Letters, i.375-376
37. See Reid's reply of 18 March 1763, quoted in Letters, i.376n.
38. Hume , letter to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, in Letters , ii.301.
39. J.H .S. Formey, Histoire abregee de la philosophie (Amsterdam 1760), pp. 243-248 on 'De la
Secte des Sceptiques modernes'.
40. J.H.S . Formey, review of Philosophische Versuche iiber die Menschliche Erkenntniss, etc., in
Nouvelle bibliotheque germanique (1756), xix.78-109, 311-332; (1757), xx.57-86, 268-298;
(1757), xxi.65-81.
41. Formey's translation of Hume is entitled Essais philosophiques sur l'entendement humain
(Amsterdam 1758). J.B. Merian translated Hume 's Natural history of religion, in 1759, at the
request of Maupertuis, who couldn 't read English. Formey, Merian and Sulzer offered criticisms
of Hume in their translations, as well as in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy.
42. Louis de Beausobre, Le Pyrrhonisme raisonnable (Berlin 1755). There is another work with a
similar title which is attributed by Barbier to M.d'Autrey. This work is called Le Pyrrhonien
raisonnable, ou methode nouvelle proposie aux incredules (La Haye 1765). It contends that a
reasonable pyrrhonism, that is doubting what is 'really' dubitable, and accepting what is
plausible , leads to a defense of Catholic Christianity.
43. Platner's aphorisms appeared in Leipzig 1776-1782. J.C. Eschenbach's Sammlung der vornehm-
sten Schriftsteller die die wirklichke it ihres eignem Kiirpersund der ganzen Kiirperweltldugnen was
published in Rostock in 1756.
44. Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. Adickes (Berlin 1889), 'Vorrede zur ersten
Auflage vom Jahre 1781, p. 6.
 R.H .POPKIN

2. SCEPTICISM AND ANTI-SCEPTICISM IN THE LATTER

PART OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In the twenty-five years that I have been examining the course of modern
scepticism, I have rarely ventured beyond Hume. In this paper I shall offer
some tentative views about the development of scepticism and anti-scepticism
in the latter part of the eighteenth century. In these decades the conflict
between two views seems to have been crucial for the future course of Western
thought. The way in which the conflict unfolded revealed the end of the Grand
Illusion that had dominated European man from ancient Greece until the
Enlightenment, that human rational activity could comprehend the cosmos .
In an early study on "Scepticism in the Enlightenment" 1 I contended that
philosophical scepticism , that is, the questioning of whether there can be
adequate or sufficient evidence to support knowledge claims about areas of
human concern, pretty much died out during the Enlightenment. The sort of
questioning posed by the sceptical tradition, primarily French, in the seven-
teenth century, seems to have ended with Pierre Bayle and Bishop Pierre-
Daniel Huet, along with its attendant avowal of fideism. The optimism of the
Enlightenment, with its conviction that human reason, properly freed and
illuminated, could find and was finding the truth, made scepticism part of the
dark pre-Newtonian, pre-Lockean age. Histories of scepticism, as a now
defunct movement, could be written , diagnosing why such a strange aberration
had flourished in by-gone ages." This is not to deny that some occasional,
mediocre versions of past glories of doubting did reappear on the scene in
France and Germany.' But for all practical or serious purposes, scepticism as a
living or vital movement was dead by the middle of the eighteenth century, save
in the person and thoughts of David Hume . Hume, raised in the glories of the
Newtonian epoch, and privately nurtured on the doubts of Pierre Bayle, sensed
a deeper and more modern sceptical crisis than his predecessors had perceived.
In his youth he had ventured on "a new scene of thought" and collapsed into a
nervous breakdown." He went to France in 1734, a youth of twenty-three ,
armed with his folio volumes of Bayle's Dictionary and Oeuvres diverses, to
compose his Treatise of Human Nature, a Newtonian attempt to introduce the
method of experimental reasoning into moral subjects.f The schizophrenic
result, of an optimistic psychologism that would explain all of man's intellec-

17
R.B. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 17-34.
1997 Kluwer AcademicPublishers.
18 R. H. Popkin

tual endeavors and a desperate scepticism about whether anything could be

explained, ended in the utter dismay of the author in the conclusion of the first
book. He could only alternate between being a positive Newtonian social
scientist and a complete sceptic, undermining everything, including his own
scientific achievements. He could find no peace in a fideistic solution, but could
only rely on Nature. "Philosophy would render us completely Pyrrhonian, were
not Nature too strong for it", he wrote in his own review of his efforts." When
Hume came to sum up his achievement, he seemed to recognize the hope-
lessness of modern man , shorn of Divine Guidance and help, to find any
answers. He was fully aware of his ability to doubt everything, and of his
inability to justify any of his beliefs. "Nature by an absolute and uncontrolable
necessity has required as judge as to breathe and feel.,,7 But Nature has not
provided us with any justifications for the beliefs we have to accept, and reason
undermines whatever evidence we think we have for the beliefs. We are torn
between an inescapble and an irrefutable scepticism and a natural forced
dogmatism. We can rest our cause only in an animal rather than a supernatural
faith. Hume's dilemma at the end of Book I of the Treatise seems that of
modern man , questing for knowledge and truth about the world , but cut off
from it by the force of scepticism, having to believe, but unable to justify what
he believes.
Hume alone of his time seems to have recognized that Enlightenment man
was man without hope of assurance and man without the ability to achieve the
solace of complete doubt. He had to believe, but his beliefs were unfounded, as
Hume's brilliant analyses had shown. Hume managed to go through life in
fairly good cheer, mainly by avoiding philosophizing on man's state. Most of
his he spent in other public or literary pursuit, but each time he returned to
philosophy, he saw and portrayed the abyss. When he was accused of being an
arrant sceptic, Hume replied in the recently discovered Letter from a Gentle-
man :

As to the Scepticism with which the Author is charged, I must observe that
the Doctrines of Pyrrhonians or Scepticks have been regarded in all Ages as
Principles of mere Curiosity, or a Kind of Jeux d'Esprit, without any
Influence on a Man's steady Principles of Conduct of Life. In Reality, a
Philosopherm who affects to doubt of the Maxims of common Reason, and
even of his own Senses , declares sufficiently that he is not in earnest, and
that he intends not to advance any Opinion which he would recommend as
Standards of Judgment amd Action. All he means by these Scruples is to
abate the Pride of mere human Reasoners, by showing them, that even with
regard to Principles, which seem the clearest, and which they are necessi-
tated from the strongest Instincts of Nature to embrace, they are not able to
attain full Consistence and absolute Certainty. Modesty then , and Humility,
with regard to the Operations of our natural Faculties, is the Result of
Scepticism; not an universal Doubt, which it is impossible for any Man to
support, and which the first and most trivial Accident in Life must
immediately disconcert and destroy. 8
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 19

At the end of his life, in perhaps his last philosophical statement, in a

footnote he added to the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion in 1776, he
described his and man 's situation as follows:

'It seems evident, that the dispute between the sceptics and dogmatists is
entirely verbal, or at least regards only the degrees of doubt and assurance,
which we ought to indulge with regard to all reasoning: And such disputes
are commonly at the bottom, verbal, and admit not of any precise
determination. No philosophical dogmatist denies, that there are difficulties
both with regard to the senses and to all science; and that these difficulties
are in a regular, logical method, absolutely insolveable. No sceptic denies,
that we lie under an absolute necessity, notwithstanding these difficulties, of
thinking, and believing, and reasoning with regard to all kind of subjects,
and even of frequently assenting with confidence and security. The only
difference, then, between these sects, if they merit that name, is, that the
sceptic, from habit, caprice, or inclination, insists most on the difficulties;
the dogmatist, for like reasons, on the necessity."

Hume's recognition of the human situation hardly impressed his contempor-

aries. As Hume said sadly of his work, "Never literary Attempt was more
unfortunate than my Treatise of human Nature. It fell dead-born from the
Press; without reaching such distinctions as even to excite a Murmer among
the Zealots". 10 In the mid-eighteenth century, Hume was the only living sceptic ;
on the one hand an anachronism, and on the other, the man who was most
aware of the new predicament created by the Enlightenment-that there was no
faith left to guide men. He was at first ignored by his countrymen. However, his
effect on the three major Enlightenment cultures in France, England, and
Germany was to set the pattern and the path for much of modern thought.
Scepticism in the second half of the eighteenth century was, I believe, mainly
Hume's views and their influence. Anti-scepticism was primarily the growing
realization of Hume's accomplishment and the reaction to it. In choosing to
discuss France, England, and Germany in this order, I think I am reflecting
both the order in which the reactions occurred and the increasing importance
of these reactions.
Hume's first signs of success appeared in France in the 1750s when his
Political Discourses, Moral Essays, and History ofEngland appeared in French.
He quickly became the darling of the French Enlightenment, the monumental
example of how Newtonian social science and social criticism could be applied
to the ancien regime and religious orthodoxy. This Humeaphoria continued
into the 1760s when Hume served as a diplomat in Paris , and became a central
figure in the salons and in the club of the Enlightenment leaders. But, as
Laurence Bongie has shown, Hume was admired not for his epistemological
scepticism but for his social criticism . II Turgot diagnosed the case first, and
saw that Hume was not one of the illuininatiwho saw science as the new truth,
and science as the way to the infinite perfectibility of mankind.V D'Holbach
discovered to his dismay that Hume was not an atheist. 13 Diderot wrote him off
20 R.B. Popkin

as an anti-scientific sceptic.i" As Hume was being deserted by the Enlight-

enment Establishment the right wing discovered him. Various abbe's found that
the essay " Of Miracles" was a defense of the faith against Enlightenment
atheism. I S The History ofEngland became the model against the revolutionists,
in terms of Hume's picture of the pitfalls and disasters of the English
Revolution of Cromwell's time . Louis XVI became a Humean and read
Hume's account of Charles I just before his own execution.l" By the time of
the Revolution, Hume had become anathema to the radicals, his scepticism a
stumbling-block to their assurance that they had found the way to the
Millennium. His legacy had passed to the reactionaries. DeMaistre and Bonald
found in his scepticism a road to their own conservativism and orthodoxy.
DeMaistre, in fact , wrote a work called Reflections on the French Revolution
made up entirely of quotes from Hume, who had died just at the outbreak of the
earlier American Revolution.l" The theory of orthodoxy of DeMaistre and
Bonald (and later of Lamennais) builds out of aspects of Humean scepticism,
insisting on the inability of individual reason to find a way to truth, and
therefore of the infallible pronouncement of the Church and the Pope.
Lamennais, in his rebellion against the Church, may have seen the full
implications of this fideism, based on pure scepticism (as he cried out from jail
in his Paroles d'un croyant) and seen that it must be the faith of the believers
alone that can survive. Hume became the prophet of the Counter-Revolution
and the Counter-Enlightenment in France. 18 And this may account for his lack
of influence in French thought thereafter and for the lack of sceptical thought
in the culture that had spawned modern scepticism until well into the twentieth
century.
The sole sign I have found of a left-wing Hume in French (but not in France)
in the late eighteenth century, is the preface to the translation of the Dialogues.
The title page says the work was published in Edinburgh in 1780, but T.E.
Jessop seems to believe that it is more likely from Amsterdam. 19 The author of
the preface is unknown. He spoke of Hume's almost unique ability to present
the force and precision of ideas, and then said "David Hume is one of the
greatest geniuses of the eighteenth century".20 The Dialogues are presented as
showing the necessity to turn to revelation because of the limits and
uncertainty of human knowledge. But this is then made out to be not
traditional orthodoxy as Bonald, DeMaistre, and Hamann saw it, but what
religion ought to be, in opposition to the superstitious, intolerant, actual
religion. (It is not indicated what this is, but from the critical remarks it
certainly is not Catholicism.r" The author asserted, in contrast to the Enlight-
enment atheists, who could see the Dialogues only as wishy-washy agnosticism,
that " One ought to regard this work , as small as it is, as the most complete
theology and metaphysics that has yet appeared",22 a view definitely not shared
by the dogmatic atheists or religious bigots in France. It would be interesting to
find out who this French-speaking admirer of the sceptical anti-institutional-
religion Hume was, and whether he was a unique case. He said that he had
received a copy of the Dialogues several months before publication in English
from one of Hume's friends, so he may have been in contact with someone such
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 21

as Adam Smith. The prevailing attitude to Hume in France is shown by the fact
that except for his History of England, his other works did not come out in
France or in French for about 100 years after the Revolution , although they
had been extremely popular earlier in the century. His Treatise of Human
Nature did not, in fact, appear in French until the 1940s.23 Hence concern with
Hume and his scepticism left the mainstream of French thought as the
Enlightenment came to realize that he did not shed conservatism and reaction
for progress and the new dogmatism of science.
In the British Isles, Hume's impact had a very different history. His views at
first were not as ignored as the author claimed, but whatever positive interest
there was seemed to come mainly from French Protestant refugees such as
Demaizeaux and Maty, familiar with Bayle's scepticism, and from Scottish
intellectuals such as Kames.i" Criticism started in the 1740s mainly from
ministers charging Hume with irreligion, scepticism, and with denying the
existence of causal connections in the world. In the early 1750s serious
arguments against Hume 's theory of knowledge began to be propounded, and
it is about this period that one can begin to speak of the development in
England of an anti-scepticism resulting from Hume 's efforts.
Henry Home, Lord Kames, Hume's relative and friend, is probably the first
serious critic. Kames, and the critics who were to follow up to Thomas Reid
and his commonsense school, seem to have been just continuing a traditional
English way of dealing with the sceptical crisis. Throughout the seventeenth
century, the great Anglican divines William Chillingworth, Archbishop John
Tillotson , Bishop John Wilkins (the founder of the Royal Society of England),
and Bishop Edward Stillingfleet had propounded a commonsensical answer to
the scepticism being raised against them by their Catholic opponents, and to
the scepticism they saw coming out of the Cartesian revolution in philosophy.
They had all admitted that in a fundamental sense, the sceptical challenge to
human knowledge could not be refuted; that it could not be established that
any human knowledge claims might not be false, or that human beings
possessed any infallible knowledge. However, in spite of this, the Anglican
theologians insisted, people are not in fact in doubt about everything, and they
do seem to possess adequate principles and information for the affairs of life,
sufficiently adequate for the development of sciences, the defense of religion,
and the erection of legal standards. If one examines why "reasonable" men are
not in complete doubt , one can find the bases of a kind of philosophy, but not
one that would satisfy a Descartes, a Spinoza, a Leibniz, or a Malebranche, in
that it did not claim to be based upon self-evident first principles, and it did not
claim to answer the fundamental sceptical problems. But it would be a
philosophy that represented the beliefs people live by. The Anglican divines
were not driven by the need for consistency or ultimate certainty, but would
settle for plausibility and as much certainty as the case admits of. They found in
the examination of commonsense beliefs about the character of the world
sufficient guides for the solutions of human problems. While passionate seekers
such as Pascal were driven to fideism and myticism in order to satisfy their
craving for complete certainty, the Anglicans developed a tepid middle ground
22 R.B. Popkin

between scepticism and dogmatism, and tried to hold on to their latitudinarian

version of Christianity on the basis of commonsense evidence and scientific
findings, and to show that their reasonable man would not be tempted into
Catholic infallibility, dogmatic deism, or Spinozistic atheism.P
Perhaps the very best of these thinkers was Bishop Stillingfieet, who in fifty
years of his intellectual activity challenged the emergence of irreligious
scepticism, Catholic dogmatism, the new rationalist metaphysical systems,
and the empiricism of John Locke, all in terms of his commonsense views. In
his debate with Locke, he saw what Reid was later to report, that the "way of
ideas" was the high road to Pyrrhonism-complete scepticism.j" As Locke
pointed out to Stillingfteet, the Bishop really was not making any counter-
claims as to how one could gain true knowledge of reality. Their difference was
that Locke insisted that though we had no evidence in the matter, we had to
believe there were substances in the world, and the Bishop insisted that this was
not just a psychological fact about us, but a basic feature of our thought, a
principle we had to start from.27 The difference turns out to be, as we will see
with Hume and Reid, primarily one of emphasis, and not of philosophical
evidence or argument.
While the French world was struggling throughout the seventeenth century
with the sceptical crisis engendered by the Reformation and the Renaissance,
the English world was taking the matter rather calmly. They were in fact
accepting a kind of semi-scepticism and stating it as if it were an answer to
scepticism. They were conceding without a fight the basic epistemological issues,
and insisting on the merits of what were found to be basic beliefs of mankind,
regardless of their lack of philosophical support. The depths of the sceptical
challenge were ignored, and the Anglican divines and their scientific friends
placidly and contentedly lived through the century hoping to hang onto man's
commonsense beliefs and the core of his religious ones in the face of the colossal
upheavals going on around them. Their reasonable religion, which they thought
was being buttressed and confirmed by modern science, the voyages of
discovery, ancient learning , etc., seems to have provided a sufficient shield.
In this context, I think Hume 's views were, and were intended to be, the
decimation of ihis kind of optimism. Hume's earliest philosophical writing, the
essay "Of Miracles", started off as a comment on a claim of Archbishop
Tillotson, but seems to me to be a refutation, by reductio ad absurdum, of the
theory propounded in Stillingfteet's major work, the Origines Sacrae. 28 Using
the empirical and commonsense standards that Stillingfteet had set forth as the
bases of reasonable religion, Hume showed it would take a miracle for the
reasonable man to believe in Judeo-Christianity, a miracle that would subvert
all understanding and make one believe something contrary to all custom and
experience.P As Hume developed his scepticism, he showed that the "reason-
able" beliefs not only rest on no foundation other than human psychology, i.e.,
original instincts of human nature, but that they provide no knowledge of what
the world may be like, and even worse that they provide no consistent
believable picture of the world. We believe what we have to, when we have to,
but it gives us no intelligible information about reality.
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 23

Hume's undermining of the English solution to scepticism led to a "new"

anti-scepticism, a reassertion that we must believe various things about our
situation. This, however, coupled with an inability to cope with Hume's
sceptical challenge, revealed the bankruptcy of this kind of response to
scepticism. Kames first asserted that a sane man could not believe what Hume
appeared to be saying. He told this to Hume when they went over the text of the
Treatise together.l" He said this in his Essays on the Principles of Morality and
Natural Religion (1751) as an answer to both Berkeley and Hume. He offered as
an answer to Hume's analysis of causality the contention "that nothing can
happen without a cause, is a principle embraced by all men, the illiterate and
ignorant as well as the learned. Nothing that happens is conceived as
happening of itself, but as an effect produced by some other thing. However,
ignorant of the cause, we notwithstanding conclude , that every event must have
a cause. We should perhaps be at a loss to deduce this principle, from any
premises , by a chain of reasoning; but feeling affords conviction, where reason
leaves us in the dark."
Hume would have agreed with all of this, but saw it as man's tragic situation,
not some kind of commonsense solution. Kames with his naturalistic outlook
might have felt secure if belief in causality was natural. But the question still
remained as to whether it gave us any true knowledge of reality.
The most extensive early criticism of Hume was by John Leland, in the
second edition of his A View of the Principal Deistical Writers of the Last and
Present Century (1755).32 This work, which was reprinted well into the nine-
teenth century, and which was translated into German right away, has hardly
been studied.V Leland was very impressed by Hume 's anti-Christianity and his
subtlety and metaphysical genius. "But it is obvious to every judicious reader,
that he had in many instances carried scepticism to an unreasonable height.,,34
As a prime example of this, Leland took up Hume's analysis of causality. He
outlined Hume's case, pointed out the far-reaching sceptical implications of
Hume 's theory, and then , like the bulk of Hume 's critics, just insisted that one
could not accept the Humean sceptical conclusion, though no evidence or
argument was offered against it. "You will scarce expect, that I should enter
upon a laborious confutation of so whimsical a scheme, though proposed to the
world with great pomp and represented by the author himself as of vast
importance'v" All Leland did was to make some general observations to the
effect that one cannot believe Hume's view, and that Hume's negative
arguments do not rule out the possibility that unbeknownst to us there are real
causal connections in the world. 36 (This view was earlier propounded by
Hume's patron, the Chevalier Ramsay, who may be Hume's source for the
causal argument. Ramsay had shown that we could not discover causal
relations by rational or empirical means, but insisted that this did not mean
that they were not there. He also claimed that we could learn about them
through mystical contact with God.)37
Edmund Burke, in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin ofour Ideas of
the Sublime and Beautiful, briefly raised another form of anti-scepticism,
namely that if we entertained the sceptical possibilities, no knowledge would
24 R. H. Popkin

be possible . "If we suffer ourselves to images of things, this sceptical proceeding

will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that
sceptical reasoning itself, which has persuaded us to entertain a doubt
concerning the agreement of our perceptions/'I"
Four ingredients appear in the early criticisms of Hume, which seem to me to
comprise the main features of anti-scepticism in the late eighteenth century.
These are to point out the irreligious consequences of Hume's views, the
sceptical implications of them , the incredibility of these implications, and the
natural human need to believe various things . These claims might have had
more force before Hume, but after Hume they hardly constituted an answer to
his sceptical arguments and analyses. The critics also assumed , or acted as if,
Hume himself, or the myth ical "sceptic", believed the sceptical conclusions, and
hence could be disposed of by pointing out the sorts of mad behavior that
would ensue.
The particular form of anti-scepticism that dominated Scottish and British
thought in the latter part of the eighteenth century was that stemming from the
commonsense philosophy of Thomas Reid. Reid's version was more elegant
than that of the earlier critics and less vituperative than that of most of the
religious zealots and bigots. It builds on the traditional English way of dealing
with scepticism, and more immediately, as David Fate Norton has shown, on
Lord Kames' adaptation of the moral-sense theory into a commonsense
theory. 39
Reid reported that it was the appearance of Hume 's Treatise in 1739 that led
him to re-examine the bases of all of modern philosophy. "The ingenious
author ... hath built a system of scepticism which leaves no ground to believe
anyone thing rather than its contrary. His reason ing appeared to me to be just;
there was, therefore a necessity to call in question the principles upon which it
was founded, or to adm it the conclusion.T'" Reid worked on finding an answer
for twenty-five years, and finally in 1764 produced his Inquiry into the Human
M ind. In this he elaborately showed that Hume's sceptical results were the
logical conclusions of modern philosophy based upon the assumptions intro-
duced by Descartes and Locke. Once one had decided to try to know the world
by " the way of ideas", one was doomed to Humean scepticism about the
possibility of knowing anything at all. But, Reid also contended, no one,
including Hume himself could in fact be that sceptical.

It seems to be a peculiar strain of humor in this author, to set out in his

introduction by promising, with a grave face, no less than a complete system
of the sciences, upon a foundation entirely new - to wit, that of human
nature-when the intention of the whole work is to show, that there is neither
human nature nor science in the world. It may perhaps be unreasonable to
complain of this conduct in an author who neither believes his own
existence nor that of his reader; and therefore could not mean to disappoint
him , or to laugh at his credulity. Yet I cannot imagine that the author of the
'treatise of Human Nature' is so sceptical as to plead this apology. He
believed, against his principles, that he should be read, and that he should
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 25

retain his personal identity, till he reaped honor and reputation justly due to
his metaphysical acumen. Indeed, he ingeniously acknowledges, that it was
only in solitude and retirement that he could yield any assent to his own
philosophy; society, like daylight dispelled the darkness and fogs of scepti-
cism, and made him yield to the dominion of common sense. Nor did I ever
hear him charged with doing anything, even in solitude, that argued such a
degree of scepticism as his principles maintain. Surely if his friends
apprehended this, they would have the charity never to leave him alone."

The stories about Pyrrho of Elis, Reid, like Hume before him, regarded as
fantastic. Nobody could be that dubious and yet remain sane. There is nothing
he could do that would not belie his alleged complete scepticism. And if he did
not act, he would either go mad, or be destroyed by the course of natural
events.V
The incredibility of scepticism as a way of life Reid then took as a
"justification" for his own commonsense realism. The examination of what
sane, reasonable, commonsense people did in fact believe, and could not be led
to disbelieve by any amount of argumentation or evidence, then came to
constitute an anti-sceptical philosophy that people could live by, whose truth
ultimately rested on a conviction of God's veracity.
Hume was definitely unimpressed at first, as his letter to Reid of 1763 shows.
Reid had sent Hume the manuscript. After studying it, Hume came to the
conclusion that Reid had really perceived the problem, but had found no other
solution than the one that Hume had already presented, namely that Nature
prevents us from being actual living sceptics, even though we are unable to
resolve the sceptical difficulties. Besides a minor disagreement over a technical
point, Hume's only criticism was that there was a Scotticism in the book. 4 3
Reid, in reply, tried to explain to Hume that Hume's system was solid and
destroyed modern philosophy. Because of this, Reid had questioned the very
assumptions of modern philosophy, and offered an answer to its sceptical
debacle.v' But Hume seems to have seen that it was not really an answer, but
just another way of saying what Hume had already asserted, only with
adifferent emphasis. Perhaps Hume had noticed what Thomas Brown (who
started as a Reidian and ended up a Humean) later saw.

Sir J. Mackintosh relates that he once observed to Dr. Thomas Brown that
he thought that Reid and Hume differed more in words than opinions;
Brown answered, "Yes Reid bawled out we must believe in an outward
world; but added, in a whisper, we can give no reason for such a notion; and
whispers, I own we cannot get rid of it." 45

Reid's anti-scepticism blossomed into a school of philosophy that was to

continue in the British Isles and America for another century. The tone of
Reid's disciples got to be more abusive against Hume, and came to stress the
irreligious aspects of Hume's scepticism, especially after the Dialogues appered
in 1779. One of the most notorious of the anti-sceptics, James Beattie, in his An
26 R.B. Popkin

Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and

Scepticism, emphasized that

Mr. Hume, more subtle, and less reserved, than any of his predecessors, hath
gone still greater lengths in the demolition of common sense; and reared in
its place a most tremendous fabric of doctrine; upon which, if it were not for
the flimsiness of its materials, engines might easily be erected, sufficient to
overturn all belief, science, religious, virtue, and society, from the very
foundation.t''

Beattie scoffed at Hume, ridiculed what would happen if one psychologically

adhered to the doubts of Hume's scepticism, pointed out what good and true
people believe, but he never came to grips with Hume's epistemological
arguments."
As anti-Humeanism became a national industry in Scotland, Hume became
annoyed at the abuse and misguided attention, and wrote an "Advertisement"
in 1775, "a compleat Answer to Dr. Reid and to that bigot-ted silly Fellow,
Beattie". His response was not to argue the case, but to disown the battlefield,
Hume's Treatise, as a juvenile work, and to insist they take his later works as
the ones to fight about. 48
Joseph Priestley, in his An Examination ofDr. Reid's Inquiry into the Human
Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Dr. Beattie 's Essay on the Nature and
Immutability of Truth and Dr. Oswald's Appeal to Common Sense in Behalf of
Religion (1774), seems to have diagnosed the case quite well. Reid and his
followers claimed to be saving the world from scepticism by rejecting the
principles of modern philosophy.
This solid foundation , however, had lately been attempted to be overturned
by a set of pretended philosophers, of whom the most conspicuous and
assuming Is Dr. Reid, professor of moral philosophy in the university of
Glasgow, who, in order to combat Bishop Berkeley, and the scepticism of Mr.
Hume, has himself introduced almost universal scepticism and confusion;
denying all the connections which had before been supposed to subsist between
the several phenomena, powers , and operations of the mind, and substituting
such a number of independent, arbitrary, instinctive principles, that the very
enumeration of them is really tiresome.t''
The new commonsense school Priestley saw as themselves just sceptics, but
even worse than the ancient ones: "The ancients professed neither to understand
or believe anything, whereas these moderns believe everything, though they
profess to understanding nothing. And the former, I think, are the more
consistent of the two".50
Priestley observed that Reid and his followers could not give any explanation
or justification of our knowledge, but could only insist that we believed we had
some. They accepted Hume's arguments, could not answer them, and then tried
to ignore them. What in fact they had accomplished was to accept a thorough-
going scepticism. Priestley proposed instead sticking by good old Locke and
Hartley, insisting that what Kant called "the physiology of the understanding"
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 27

gave an account of what we know and what the world is like, even though we
may not be able to justify this account. 51 Priestley's psychologism, like
Hartley's before him , tried to turn truth into scientific findings, without
realizing or caring about the sceptical difficulties in justifying such information
as revealing the true nature of things. (There is an interesting somewhat
sceptical work written against Priestley and the Scottish commonsense realists,
An Essay on the Nature and Existence ofa Material World [London, 1781]. The
work is anonymous, and is attributed to someone named Russell by the British
Museum . It indicates some sceptical opposition existed to the prevailing anti-
Humean trends.)52
The anti-Humean literature in England from 1750 to 1800 needs thorough
investigation . In my own work so far I have studied only samples of it. It
appears to me, from these soundings, to have failed fundamentally to come to
grips with the basic challenge raised by Hume. In readapting the standard
English response to the modern sceptical crisis, it tried to rest on a weak middle
ground, not answering the sceptics, but insisting on the importance of what
people have to believe. Post-Hume this position was even weaker than pre-
Hume, in that Hume had undermined the irrationality of the situation in which
our only way of making any sense or order out of our world resulted from
unjustifiable and inexplicable qualities of human nature that could not be
reconciled into any consistent pattern. Our beliefs could be sustained only by
an animal faith , if one no longer was willing or able to make the religious leap
into faith to resolve the sceptical crisis.
In the post-Humean era, to appeal to our need to believe and our will to
believe no longer constituted a genuine answer to scepticism, since Hume had
absorbed these into modern scepticism. To get beyond Hume would require
some basis for guaranteeing or justifying our knowledge that showed that we
could somehow know the nature of reality. The British answer, in failing to
come to grips with the basic epistemological issues, has left British philosophy
adrift ever since, vascillating between reporting what we have to believe, how
we speak, etc., and making a virtue of Humeanism in the form of positivism.
Occasionally, and only occasionally, as in the case of the later Bertrand Russell,
in his Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits,53 does the force of scepticism
come to the fore, only to retreat into scientism, psychologism, and naturalism.
Those, including myself, who find most Anglo-American philosophy trivial,
find it so, I believe, because of its failure from the seventeenth century onwards
to recognize the problem involved in the sceptical crisis, its farreaching
implications for modern man, and the situation left after Hume's analysis.
The anti-scepticism that pervaded England and Scotland in the late eighteenth
century represented a refusal to face up to the implications of Hume's work,
and a refusal to deal with it. The reasonable man, like the ordinary man
described by Hume, would be saved from the horrors of the sceptical crisis by
stupidity and inattention, and would get through life with his beliefs. Hume, so
sensitive to the abyss he had revealed, would have to struggle alternating
between sceptical despair and being a normal man believing what came
naturally.
28 R .H Popkin

If the English and Scottish reaction to Hume was tepid, uninspiring, and
unsatisfactory, the monumental reaction to ultimate scepticism occurred in
Germany, and has affected metaphysics ever since. In the middle of the
eighteenth century there were many signs that scepticism was being taken very
seriously. From the 1660s onward there was a stream of German dissertations
dealing with the refutation of scepticism. My favorite, of 1706, treated of the
problem of whether Job or Solomon was the founder of scepticism, and
concluded that it was the devil, since he made our first parents doubt the word
of God himself.54 From the time Hume appeared on the European scene, it was
the leaders of the Prussian Academy who translated and commented upon his
views. Formey and Merian, who did the French translation, and Sulzer, who
did the German, have not been studied. They recognized the tremendous
importance of Hume 's arguments, and tried to rebut him. Along with their
work, translations of portions of Sextus Empiricus appeared, as well as the
aphorisms of a genuine total sceptic, Platner (who later translated Hume's
Dialogues).55 The insipid English answers to Hume were also translated into
German.i" In this atmosphere, it is not surprising that Kant became aware of
what was afoot. The climax of the German Enlightenment came, of course,
when Kant was awakened from his dogmatic slumbers by realizing what Hume
had accomplished. As Kant pointed out in his original preface, the sceptics had
previously been a small and ineffectual group ; Locke had seemed to put an end
to all disputes until Hume came on the scene and really raised the problem of
whether it was possible to have any knowledge. 57
Like Reid and the leaders of the Prussian Academy, Kant realized that Hume
had raised a fundamental problem. Unlike them, he was aware that the
problem could not be dealt with by evasions, but only by a revolutionary new
program. Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy had the effect of
simultaneously raising Hume's points to a transcendental status, while pur-
porting to offer a way of dealing with them. Kant claimed to find a compromise
between an unvanquishable scepticism about the possibility of any knowledge
of the nature of reality and a universal and necessary certainty (constituting
genuine knowledge) about the conditions of all possible experiences. Kant
could see that Hume had eliminated any hope of finding universal and
necessary knowledge by the experimental method of philosophizing that had
so impressed the philosophes. Kant transformed the issue by asking not "Is
knowledge possible"? but "How is knowledge possible"? In this way, one did
not have to argue with the sceptics, but instead one had only to explain the way
in which we actually overcame scepticism. And , in Kant's rendition, we
overcame it by conceding that it was unconquerable with regard to knowledge
of external or internal reality, but could be conquered in terms of our knowl-
edge of the form and conditions of experience. 58 The Kantian system, it seems
to me, embedded scepticism at such a fundamental level that it made
philosophy in its traditional sense impossible. It purported to get beyond
scepticism to become, in fact, an anti-scepticism, opening the way to a genuine
appreciation of the character and evaluation of what knowledge was possible.
One of Kant's disciples, Carl Friedrich Staiidlin, wrote a work in 1794 with the
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 29

title History and Spirit of scepticism. It traced the history of scepticism from
Pyrrho onward. On the title page were portraits of the two main characters,
Hume and Kant. The second volume deals with them. Kant was portrayed as
the thinker who had finally emerged triumphant in the life and death struggle
between scepticism and dogmatism by finding a new way to accept the
unanswerable arguments of the sceptics about the knowledge of reality without
denying the existence of genuine knowledge about human experience. 59
Kant, in raising the sceptical arguments to a transcendental level, made them
central to all future metaphysics. His own claims to have gotten beyond
scepticism spawned new forms of scepticism and in turn radical new means to
escape the sceptical crisis. The intellectual battles fought in the last two decades
of the eighteenth century in Germany over the status and import of Kant's
critical philosophy have shaped the course of metaphysical theories ever since.
Kant was assaulted from all sides. What interests us here is those attacks
relating to the sceptical struggles. On the right wing was the criticism of his
friend, the religious fanatic J.G. Hamann. Hamann was immersed in Hume,
read English, translated portions of the Dialogues, and found in Hume "the
greatest voice of orthodoxy'V" Hume had seen that belief-faith was at the root
of any human comprehension of the world. Hamann pressed Kant to see the
fideistic core of any view of the world. Kant's second preface to the first
Critique, where he claimed he had eliminated knowledge to make room for
faith in the practical sphere, may have been an attempt to conciliate Hamann."
Hamann, as a result of confronting Hume's scepticism, rejected the Enlight-
enment, lock , stock, and barrel, and opted for faith, pure Biblical faith. He saw
Kant as weak-kneed in his reaction to Hume, refusing to follow the implica-
tions of total scepticism. Hamann translated the first and last of Hume's
Dialogues to try to bring Kant to his senses or to his faith. 62 Hamann's
irrationalist fideistic response was to open the road to Kierkegaard and then
to modern neo-orthodoxy. Hume had closed the door on reason, and thereby
made it possible to appreciate the need to return to pure faith . It was in fact
Hamann's Humeanism that converted Kierkegaard.f'
If irrationalism-fideism was one kind of sceptical response to Kant, another
was the stark drawing of the sceptical implications of Kantian thought, as was
done by G.E. Schulze-Aenisedemus. Schulze chose the name "Aenisedemus" to
indicate what he was trying to show, namely that Kantian philosophy, whatever
its assertions to the contrary, could not justify any knowledge-claims whatso-
ever. Schulze-Aenisedemus insisted that Kant's introduction of the "thing-in-
itself' was illegitimate and that all his elegant system dealt only with the world
of appearance. If Kant were consistent, Schulze-Aenesidemus insisted, he
would be reduced to the ancient sceptical position/"
While Hamann tried to drag Kant off to religion , and Schulze-Aenesidemus
to complete doubt, the most interesting development, at least to me, appeared
in the writings of the strange Jewish philosopher, Solomon Maimon, the man
whom Kant considered his most worthy opponent, and the only one who had
really understood him. Maimon had come from his Talmudic studies in
Lithuania into Enlightenment Germany. A friend of Kant's Jewish friends
30 R.H Popkin

Moses Mendelssohn, Marcus Herz, and Lazarus Ben David, Maimon showed
them his criticisms of Kant's Critique. Herz sent these to Kant, who wrote,
"But a glance at the manuscript soon enabled me to recognize its merits and to
see not only that none of my opponents had understood me and the main
problem so well, but that very few could claim so much penetration and sublety
of mind in profound inquiries of this sort as Herr Maimon".6s In his brief
philosophical career ending in 1800, Maimon tried to show the weaknesses of
Kant's attempt to overcome scepticism, and the opening of a new road beyond
scepticism that was to usher in the next metaphysical era with Fichte's
subjective idealism, set forth in his Vocation ofMan (1800).66 On the one hand
Maimon argued that Kant could not establish the relevance of the categories to
experience except a posteriori, and hence that no synthetic a priori knowledge
about experience was possible. On the other hand , he argued against Hume
and Schuize that there had to be an a priori structure; otherwise, nothing at all
made any sense. Logic and mathematics indicated this was not the case. His
position between Hume and Kant would amount to what later emerged as
logical positivism, except for his indication that the creative power of the mind,
its reflection of the power of infinite mind, opened a different door via intuition
and feeling to an understanding of experience. This turn to non-rational factors
as those constitutive of our knowledge began a road to romanticism, or
metaphysical idealism. Johann Gottlieb Fichte developed this new avenue.
Both Fichte and the young Hegel saw scepticism as the beginning moment of
philosophizing. The recognition of the limits imposed on human rational
efforts of previous philosophy then made one aware of the possibilities actually
open to man . For Fichte, one overcame scepticism only by a deliberate act of
the will.67 One's ego, through its own actions, creates the knowledge of reality
as well as reality itself. It is no longer necessary to try to bridge the gulf
between subject and object. One's own creative efforts provide the basis and
structure of both.
The German reaction to Hume's scepticism was more fundamental than the
one that occurred in France or England. In the person of Kant, the Germans
saw that traditional philosophy had reached a total impasse. It was not a
question of developing another, now hopeless, anti-scepticism, but rather a
post-scepticism. The Grand Illusion, developed from Greek days onward, that
human reason and science could gain knowledge of necessary essential features
of reality, had been ended. All that could be done was either to accept the
situation and describe the characteristics of what people "know" as Kant and
Husser! did, or to develop different avenues to knowledge as Hegel did. The
march of reason developed to the sceptical impasse. The creative power of the
mind, its immersion with universal reason , could carry it beyond by processes
beyond pure reason. Whether these have in fact revealed reality, or just more of
the human predicament, I do not know. Heidegger's rendition would seem to
indicate the utter hopelessness of these means to penetrate the Mystery of
Being.
Hume's scepticism produced, I believe, a monumental crisis for Western
philosophical thought. The reactions to it in France , England and Germany
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 31

indicate the range of philosophical attempts to deal with it. The anti-scepti-
cisms of the latter part of the eighteenth century have shaped and formed the
course of thought ever since. We are now living in full realization of the
consequences of this period in intellectual history. The serious study of it may
reveal both the roots of our problems, and the possibilities for any further
constructive discourse between us and our world.

Reprinted by kind permission of the publishers from Paul Fritz and Richard
Morton, eds., Woman in the 18th Century and Other Essays. Publications of
the McMaster University Association for 18th-Century Studies, vol. 4 (Tor-
onto: Samuel, Stevens, Hakkert & Co., 1976), pp.319-43.

NOTES

1. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 26 (1963): 1321-45 .

2. Cf. Abbe Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Cours d'etudes pour l'instruction du Prince de Parme, in
Oeuvres philosophiques de Condillac, ed. Georges Le Roy, 3 vols. (paris: Presses universitaires de
France, 1947-48), 3: xxii; J. H. S. Formey, Histoire abregee de la philosophie (Amsterdam, 1760),
pp. 243-48; and Jacob Brucker, Historia critica philosophiae, 2nd (Leipzig, 1767), sections on
scepticism in vols. 1 and 4.
3. Some of these are discussed in my article cited in n.I. See also the detailed treatment of minor
sceptical writers in Pierre Retat, Le Dictionnaire de Bayle et la lutte philosophique au XVllle siecle
(Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 1971); Giorgio Tonelli, "Kant und die antiken sceptiker", in Studien zu
Kants philosophischer Entwicklung (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968), pp. 32-123; and Tonelli's
study on some of the little known French sceptics of the period, "Pierre-Jacques Changeux and
Scepticism in the French Enlightenment", Studia Leibnitiana 6, no. 1(1974): 106-26.
4. See Hume's letter of March or April 1734 in The Letters ofDavid Hume , ed. 1. y. T. Greig, 2 vols.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press , 1932), 1:12-18 . The letter is listed as to Dr. George Cheyne.
However, Ernest C. Mossner, in his The Life ofDavid Hume (Austin : University of Texas Press,
1954), p.84, indicates that it is to Dr. John Artbuthnot. On Hume's nervous breakdown, see
Mossner, chap . 6, " Disease of the Learned", and chap. 7, "Recovery through Catharsis".
5. On Hume's use of Bayle, see R. H. Popkin, "Bayle and Hume", Transactions of the XIIIth
International Congress of Philosophy, 10 vols. (Mexico City, 1963),9:317-27, and reprinted in
R.H. Popkin, The High Road to Pyrrhonism, Indianaoplis:Hackett, 1993. The title of Hume's
first book is A Treatise ofHuman Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method
ofReason ing into Moral Subjects.
6. An Abstract ofa Treatise ofHuman Nature, reprinted with an intro. by 1.M. Keynes and P. Sraffa
(Cambridge: At the University Press), p. 24.
7. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1888), I, IV, p. 183. See also R .H.
Popkin, "Hume and Jurieu: Possible Calvinist Origins of Hume 's Theory of Belief', R ivista
Critica di Storia della Filosofia fasc. 4 (1967), pp. 400-417, and reprinted in High Road to
Pyrrhonism.
8. Letter from a Gentleman to his friend in Edinburgh, ed. Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price
(1745; facsimile ed., Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univers ity Press, 1967.)
9. Ed. Norman Kemp Smith (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1947), XII, p. 219n.
10. "My Own Life", in The Letters ofDavid Hume, 1:2.
II. "Hume, 'Philosophe' and Philosopher in Eighteenth Century France", French Studies 15
(1961):213-27.
12. Turgot to Hume , 25 March 1767 and 3 July 1768, in 1.H. Burton, ed., Letters ofEm inent Persons
addressed to David Hume (Edinburgh, 1849), pp. 150-52, 163. See also Hume to Turgot, 16 June
1768, The Letters of David Hume, 2:180. Turgot's dispute with Hume is discussed in Laurence
32 R . H. Popkin

Bongie, David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp.
47-52.
13. Sec Mossner, Life ofHume , pp. 483-86.
14. See Denis Diderot's article "Pyrrhonienne ou sceptique philosophe", in Encyclopedie, ou
Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers, par une societe' de gens de lettres, 17
vols. (Paris, 1751-65), 13: 608a--614a. The section from pp. 613b--14a seems to be a rejection of
Hume's scepticism on these grounds.
15. Bongie, David Hume, pp. 34-39.
16. Ibid. , esp. chap. 4.
17. On De Maistre's and Bonald's use of Hume's ideas, see the references to them in Bongie, David
Hume , esp. pp. 159--62. The last chapter of De Maistre's Considerations sur la France (London,
1797) is entitled "Fragment d'une histoire de 1a revolution francaise par David Hume",
18. Sec the discussions of scepticism in Hughes Felicite Robert de Lamennais in his Paroles d'un
croyant (paris, 1834), and Essai sur l'indifference en matiere de religion, 4 vo1s. (paris, 1817-23).
Retat, in Le Dictionnaire de Bayle shows that the same happened with Bayle's ideas. See
especially pp. 445-448.
19. "Avertissement du traducteur", Dialogues sur la religion naturelle: Ouvrage posthume de David
Hume, Ecuyer (Edinburgh, 1780), pp. 43-46. T.E. Jessop lists this edition as, "despite the
imprint, probably printed and pub!. in France or Holland". See A Bibliography ofDavid Hume
and ofScott ish Philosophy (New York: Russell & Russell, 1966), p. 41.
20. Dialogues sur la religion naturelle, p. 3.
21. Catholicism is attacked on p.6: " Il pourra meme arriver que la sainte Inquisition , plus habile a
bruler qu'a raissoner, s'avise de regarder toute cette production comme un persiffage impie.
Mais quel bon ouvrage la superstition n'a-t-elle pas devoue aux flammes", Then the Inquisitors
of Lisbon and Rome are criticized for their hypocri sy.
22. Ibid., p. 5.
23. Hume , Traite de la nature humaine, trans. Andre Leroy (Paris: Aubier, 1946). A translation of
bk . I done by Chas . Renouvier and F. Pillon appeared in Paris in 1878.
24. See the review of Hume's Treatise by Desmaizeaux in the Biblotheque raisonnee des ouvrages des
savans de l'Europe 24 (1740): 324-55, and 26 (1741): 411-27. See also the review of Hume's
Political Discourses by Mat y in Journal britannique 7 (1752):243--67, 387-411. Henry Home,
Lord Kames, discussed Hume 's views, mainly critically, in his Essays on the Principles of
Morality and Natural Religion (Edinburgh, 1751).
25. On this Anglican tradition sec Henry Van Leeuwen, The Problem of Certainty in English
Thought , 1630-1690, International Archives of the History of Ideas, no. 3 (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1963); Van Leeuwen's introduction to John Wilkins , Of the Principles and
Duties of Natural Religion (1683; facsimile ed., New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1969); R.H.
Popkin, "T he Philosophy of Bishop Stillingfieet", Journal of the History of Philosophy 9
(1971)303-19; and Robert T. Carroll, The Common-Sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop
Edward Stillingfleet, 1635-1699, International Archives of the History of Ideas, no. 77 (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975).
26. See Edward Stillingfieet, A Discourse in Vindication ofthe Doctrine ofthe Trinity (London, 1696),
last chap.; The Bishop of Worcester's Answer to Mr. Locke's Letter (London, 1697); and The
Bishop of Worcester's Answer to Mr. Locke's Second Letter (London, 1698). In Stillingfieet's
answer to Locke's first letter, he declared that "in an age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are so
much exposed by the Promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity, it is a thing of dangerous
consequence to Start such new methods of Certainty as are apt to leave men 's minds more
doubtful than before " (Answer to Mr. Locke 's Letter , pp. 38-39 ).
27. Sec John Locke's three answers, A Letter to the Rt . Re v. Edward, Lord Bishop of Worcester
(1697); Mr. Locke's Reply to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his
Letter (1697); and Mr. Locke's Reply to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Answer
to his Second Letter (1699). These three works comprise vo!. 4 of the 1801 edition of Locke's
Works.
28. Stillingfiect, in his Origines Sacrae (London, 1662), contended that there was sufficient, if not
complete, evidence that God exists and that scripture is his Word and provides the most
 Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in the Latter 18th Century 33

plausible picture of what the world is like. A reasonable man, according to Stillingfieet, would
find it more likely that the biblical view is true than that it is false.
29. Hurne, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1902), X, II pp. 130-31. After giving his own rendition of the content of the
Pentateuch, Hurne offered Stillingfleet's criterion for accepting it as true : "I desire anyone to lay
his hand upon his heart , and after a serious consideration declare, whether he thinks that the
falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and
miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however, necessary to make it be received,
according to the measures of probability above established". Hurne then concluded that because
a reasonable man could not believe Christianity on this standard, "that the Christian Religion
not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any
reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And
whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person,
which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe
what is most contrary to custom and experience".
30. See Kames's report to Boswell about going over the Treatise with Hurne right after it came out,
cited in Mossner , Life of Hume, p. 118. The copy Hurne gave to Lord Kames is apparently the
one in the Gomperz Collection at the University of Southern Californ ia.
31. Essays on the Principles ofMorality and Natural Religion, p. 156.
32. 2 vols. (London, 1755). The second vol. contains "Observations on Mr. Hume's Philosophical
Essays", as well as an answer to Bolingbroke. I have used the third edition of 1757.
33. There was an edition, apparently the sixth, in London in 1838. The work came out in German in
1755, a translation of the second edition with the criticism of Hume (covering 187 pages),
entitled Abriss der vornehmisten Deistischen Schriften, die in dem vorigen und gegenwiirtigen
Jahrhunderte in England bekannt geworden sind. Es werden in demselben Hrn. Humes philoso-
phische Versuchegepruft. . . (Hannover, 1755).
34. View ofthe Principal Deistical Writers, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1757), 1:258.
35. Ibid., p. 262.
36. Ibid., pp. 261--62.
37. Andrew Michael Ramsay, Voyages de Cyrus (Paris, 1807), bk. 6, pp. 229-35 .
38. Ed. J.T. Boulton (London: Routledge and Paul, 1958), p. 13.
39. "From Moral Sense to Common Sense: An Essay on the Development of Scottish Common
Sense Philosophy, 1700-1761" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Diego, 1966). See also
Norton, "Hume's Common Sense Morality ", Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (December,
1975) 523-43 .
40. Thomas Reid, An Inqu iry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, in
Philosophical Works, ed. with notes and supplementary dissertations by Sir William Hamilton,
and with an intro. by Harry M. Bracken, 2 vols. (Hildesheim : George Olms, 1967),1 :95.
41. Ibid., p. 102.
42. Ibid.
43. Hurne to Reid, 25 February 1763, Letters ofDavid Hume , 1 375-76 .
44. Reid to Hurne, 18 March 1763, Letters ofDavid Hume , I376n-77n.
45. Cited in George Henry Lewes, The History ofl'hilosophyfrom Thales to Comte, 2 vols. (London,
1867),2:383.
46. (Edinburgh, 1770), p. 200.
47. "Beattie's criticisms have not been given serious study. He does raise many interesting points ,
and, as I have pointed Out elsewhere, Beattie sharply and forcefully attacked Hurne's racist
views ("The Philosophical Bases of Modern Racism," in Craig Walton and John P. Anton, eds.,
Philosophy and the Civilizing Arts: Essays in Honor of Herbert W. Schneider on His Eightieth
Birthday [Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1974], pp. 160-65, and reprinted in High Road
to Pyrrhonism).
48. The "Advertisement" appears in all editions of Hurne's Essays and Treatises after 1775. It is
described in Hume's letter to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, Letters ofDavid Hume, 2:301.
49. (London, 1774), pp. 5-6 .
50. Ibid., p. xxi.
34 R.H Popkin

51. David Hartley presented this position in his Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty and His
Expectations, 2 vols. (London , 1749), vol.I , chap. 3, "Of Propositions and the Nature of
Assent".
52. I have been unable to find out any more about this work than what is recorded in the British
National Library (British Museum) catalog . Coleridge is the only one I know of who mentions
having read it.
53. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948.
54. Q.D. B. V. de Scepticorum Praecipuis Hypothesibus, secundum constitutionem Fridericianuin,
Praeside Georgio Paschie (Kiloni , 1706), p. 4.
55. For information on this, see R.H. Popkin, "Scepticism in the Enlightenment", and Giorg io
Tonelli, "Kant und die antiken sceptiker ", Platner's translation, Gesprache jiber naturliche
Religion von David Hume (Leipzig, 1781), appears with a lengthy essay by Platner, "Ein
Gesprach iiber Atheismus", pp. 255-396, dealing with Hume, Sextus, Pyrrhonism, fideism,
and atheism.
56. Leland as well as major and minor Scottish opponents of Hume was quickly translated into
German.
57. Immanuel Kant , Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. Erich Adickes (Berlin, 1889), "Vorrede zur
ersten Auflage vom Jahre 1781", p. 6.
58. Kritik, "Einleitung" and "Der Transendentalen Elementarlehre".
59. Carl Friedrich Statidlin, Geschichte und Geist des scepticismus (Leipzig, 1794).
60. Hamann, commenting on the conclusion of Hume's essay "Of Miracles", said, "So ist diess
allemal Orthodoxie, und ein Zeugniss der Wahrheit in dem Munde cines Feindes und Verfolgers
derselben". See Johann G. Hamann, Schriften, ed. F. Roth , S vols. (Berlin, 1821-43), 1:406.
61. Kritik, "Vorrede zur zweiten Auflage", B. xxx: "Ich musste das Wissen aufheben, um zum
Glauben Platz zu bekommen".
62. See Philip Merlan, "Hamann et les Dialogues de Hume", Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale 59
(1954): 285-89 , and "Hume and Hamann", Personalist 32 (1951):111-18. See also R.H. Popkin,
"Kierkegaard and scepticism", in Kierkegaard: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Josiah
Thompson (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1972), pp. 361-72.
63. See Walter Lowrie, Kierkegaard, (London : Oxford University Press, 1935), pp. 165-67.
64. Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Aenesidemus oder iiber die Fundam ente der von dem Herrn Re inhold in
lena gelieferten Elementarphilosophie. Nebst emen Vertheidigung des scepticismus gegen der
Vernunftkritik (n.p., 1792).
65. Cited in Samuel Atlas, From Critical to Speculative Idealism : The Philosophy ofSolomon Maimon
(The Hague : Martinus Nijhoff, 1964), p. 5. On Maimon 's career, see his autobiography,
Solomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte (Munich: G. Muller, 1911). On his scepticism, see Atlas,
From Critical to Speculative Idealism, chap. 13.
66. On Maimon's relation to Fichte, see Atlas, From Critical to Speculative Idealism, pp. 316-24 .
67. Cf. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Die Bestimmung des Menschen (Berlin, 1800) and Grundlage der
gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Leipzig, 1794), Pt. 1.
 G. TONELLI

3. THE "WEAKNESS" OF REASON IN THE AGE OF

ENLIGHTENMENT*

The Enlightenment has been generally represented by historians of philosophy

(E. Cassirer, P. Hazard, etc.) as the era in which human reason , revolting
against the fetters of tradition and authority, daringly imposed its rule on all
fields of knowledge, opening up to "scientific" research subjects previously
obscured by "prejudice", and optimistically trying to penetrate by intellectual
means all the secrets of nature , both spiritual and material. In the direction of
an indefinite "progress". The Kantian motto "Sapere aude" thus became the
symbol of that age.
While this overall view of the Enlightenment may certainly be justified from
some particular point of views, as almost all vague and sweeping statements
are, the aim if this inquiry is to show the reverse of the medal: The Enlight-
enment was indeed the Age of Reason but one of the main tasks assigned to
reason in that age was to set its own boundaries, carefully establishing the field
of possible human knowledge versus things considered above the limits of
human understanding.
The traditional conception of the Enlightenment has already been ques-
tioned : for instance, generically by Funke, partially and in a special field by
Vyverberg.' Very significant here is above all R.H. Popkin's approach to the
question of eighteenth-century scepticismr' in fact, scepticism was one of the
main issues at stake in that time, and Hume was by no means an isolated case.
But, although I am personally inclined to assume an even greater prevalence of
eighteenth-century scepticism than Professor Popkin does.' scepticism cannot
be considered as a general (and 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. Contrary to this, stressing the boundaries of human understanding can
be considered (with few, although important exceptions) as a general, and also
(within certain limits) as a typical eighteenth-century attitude.
Let me state briefly the basic, obvious difference between the sceptical and
the limiting position, even though this might involve some oversimplifications.
Scepticism questions the possibility that human reason could reach any
absolute truth with demonstrative certainty (and, in some cases, with moral

35
R .B. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 35-50.
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
36 G. Tonelli

certainty too: "historical" pyrrhonism); for scepticism, the main point is the
quality of knowledge, the kind of certainty possible for man.
The limiting position, on the contrast, is concerned with the extent of
rational knowledge (of whatever kind).
Both positions, of course, may be complementary. For an absolute Sceptic
the problem oflimits does not even exist, but a moderate Sceptic, assuming the
possibility of probable knowledge, is generally interested in establishing the
limits of this knowledge. But many thinkers, while sponsoring a limiting
attitude, are by no means sceptics; they may consider demonstrative certainty
to be possible within the limits of human understanding (or rather, in fact, they
may set two different boundaries of knowledge the one for certain, the other for
probable knowledge); thus, they may consider absolute truth (or, at least,
necessary and universal knowledge) to be partially within the reach of man.
Before discussing the central problem of this paper, some other introductory
considerations are needed.
I have been mentioning the "Enlightenment" without any further qualifica-
tion; in fact, this term has generally been used as an overall label for
eighteenth-century philosophy, or at least for that part of it which is considered
to be more typical of that age. Now, if the "Enlightenment" is intended to mean
something more than the simple chronological notion of "eighteenth-century
philosophy", even disregarding both "reactionary" or somehow diverging
trends (like the so-called "pre-romantic" attitudes), and the sometimes im-
portant differences between eighteenth-century philosophical schools within a
given nation, it must be kept in mind that there are at least two basically
different Enlightenments: the one dominant first in England and Holland, and
later in France, Italy and Spain; the other dominant in Germany and
Scandinavia. Although both Enlightenments may have some, or even many,
traits in common, it seems to me that their differences are so prevalent and so
fundamental, that it is hardly possible to speak, even very vaguely, of one
Enlightenment. Some of these differences will be pointed out below.
Another difficulty is the problem of dating. disregarding the question of
periods within the Enlightenment, when does the Enlightenment begin? In
Britain, with Newton and Locke, or with Shaftesbury, Berkeley and the later
Newtonians? In France, with Bayle and Fontenelle, or with Voltaire, Diderot,
Condillac and Maupertuis? In Germany, with Leibniz and Christian Thoma-
sius, or with the pupils of Thomasius and with Wolff: In other words, is what
could be (and has been) called "pre-Enlightenment" a part of the Enlight-
enment, or not? Not to mention the question of the end of the Enlightenment,
which may be even more controversial.
I do not dare to propose a general solution to this problem; actually I do not
even know whether this may be considered as a real problem; in fact I think
that a solution may be possible only if this is considered as a "nominal"
problem, i.e. as a problem of focus: the "Enlightenment", after all, does not
exist except in the historian's mind, and in accordance with a certain historical
purpose. One must be aware of the relativity of methodological notions
employed, in order not only to avoid confusion and apparent contradictions,
 The "Weakness" of Reason in the Age ofEnlightenment 37

but also to resist the lure of mythical meta-historical entities .

So that I shall simply state that I find it more expedient in this presentation
to exclude from what I am considering as the "Enlightenment" the so-called
"pre-Enlightenment". The reason for this will be clarified in connection with
the next point.
One of the significant differences between the Anglo-French and the German
Enlightenment concern their approach to the past.
British and French philosophers of this era have (generally speaking) a
manifest feeling that the great revolution in philosophy had been accomplished
by some representative thinkers of what they consider as the preceding century.
This of the past is naturally a selective one: it concerns, first of all, the famous
(and, in fact, quite heterogeneous) triumvirate of novatores: Bacon, Newton,
Locke. They are considered as having put science forever on the right track
whereas the task of the present is: (a) to extend and to perfect their discoveries
by following and improving their method; (b) to make the new science
accessible to the public, while in the preceding century it had been restricted
to a limited circle.
The Enlightenment philosophers came, of course under the influence of
other leading thinkers : Descartes' historical merits were not questioned, but
his philosophy was not believed to correspond to current standards and needs.
The very real influence of Cartesianism in eighteenth-century French thought,
recently stressed," can be referred only partially to Descartes himself, and in
fact depends mainly on later Cartesianism, and particularly on Malebranche.P
Most statements about Descartes' own thought during this period were merely
naceve misrepresentations of his philosophy. This went so far that frequently
Descartes was considered as the father of occasionalism. Leibniz might be
praised, especially in France, but generally with a good deal of reserve.
This perspective of the past results from the most significant documents of
the time, such as Hume's History of England, Condillac's Traite des Systemes,
D'Alembert's Discours preliminaire, and it is confirmed by a number of other
statement, To be sure, this does not exclude the actual influence of other
thinkers, among them Bayle (much read but infrequently praised), and Spinoza
(openly condemned, but tremendously influential). What interests me most at
the moment is a consideration of the self-conscious and manifest attitude of the
Anglo-French Enlightenment towards the past. And this , as seen above
suggests a first conclusion-the Enlightenment philosophers considered them-
selves as the epigones of those whom we called pre-Enlightenment thinkers
(Newton, Locke, Leibniz), plus Bacon.
This means: (a) our usual present perspective. Considering the Enlight-
enment as a highly original and creative period having an individuality of its
own (an individuality so strong that some heralds of that era in the preceding
century are sometimes classified as pre-Enlightenment thinkers) , is simply the
reverse of what the Enlightenment philosophers thought of themselves: they
certainly are strongly aware of belonging to a new era of civilization, by the
principal, almost exclusive merit for this spiritual revolution was attributed by
them to thinkers of previous generations, This is one of the main differences
38 G. Tonelli

between the eighteenth-century French notion of "siecle des lumieres" and

what we call the "Enlightenment".
A notion much closer to what we call the "Enlightenment" arose neither in
Britain nor in France, but in Germany, and towards the end of the period. But
this we shall see later. (b) Bacon, Newton, Locke were praised as the founders
of the new science as the vindicators of the rights of Reason, and of its duties
(duties towards its own limits in general and towards experience in particular).
The famous triumvirate was identified, after all, with Reason itself - therefore
its disciples could state in perfect good faith that they were following Reason,
and not prejudice or authority. And this involves, first of all, an attitude of
intellectual humility both towards the established principles of the new science,
and towards its founders; in fact, the "proud Reason" of the Enlightenment
was, or at least intended to be, a rather conservative reason, as seen from this
vantage-point; Reason's self-confidence became, paradoxically, a limit of
reason. But a more important conclusion follows: as soon as we do not take
at face failure the Enlightenment's Reason, i.e. as soon as we consider it not as
an absolute and final rule of the mind, but historically as the transient
expression of a particular era, or as the bearing of a certain philosophical
tradition, we come to realize that, in fact, Enlightenment intellectuals, while
pretending to substitute the rule of Reason for tradition and authority, were
simply substituting for other traditions and authorities some traditions and
some authorities which they considered as the true ones: a procedure very
frequent indeed in the history of thought. "Proud Reason", again, discloses
itself in its intentions as a rather obsequious reason. To what extent it actually
was obsequious, this is a further and much wider problem.
This salient character of the Anglo-French Enlightenment is perceptible, of
course, only from our visual angle, i.e. considering the Enlightenment versus
pre-Enlightenment. The German Enlightenment, seen from the same angle,
reveals as one of its main features a basic contrast to the Anglo-French thinkers
of that era . Leibniz and, to a lesser degree, Christian Thomasius, certainly were
the patrons of German philosophy for a large portion of the eighteenth
century. Nevertheless, Leibnizian philosophy became really influential in
Germany only about 1720, and through the vehicle of Christian Wolff's system;
and Wolff's personality was dominant and self-assertive.
An attempt to assess the connection between Leibniz' and Wolff's thought
would take us too far; besides, this problem, as yet, has been only partially
clarified. However Wolff's attitude toward Leibniz was one of respectful but
proud independence. Wolff, while acknowledging the merits of the great
thinkers of the past, and of Leibniz in particular, considered himself not only
as their equal, but as the real and final reformer of philosophy, and as such he
was considered by many of his disciples.
This reputation neither remained unquestioned nor lasted too long. Shortly
after Wolff's death (1754) both local reaction and the new trends imported
from England and France combined in attacking his philosophy, which soon
came to be considered as an obsolete and pedantic school of thought, while
interest in the original Leibnizian philosophy was moderately revived. Wolff's
 The "Weakness" of Reason in the Age ofEnlightenment 39

figure shrank to that of a second or third class philosopher, and even today has
been but partially vindicated.
If many of Wolff's basic positions are Leibnizian origin, it must be
recognized that Wolff's philosophy is at the same time a very personal
reinterpretation of Leibniz' thought, and a daring attempt towards a recon-
struction of the whole body of philosophy on a new plan. Wolff's claim to be the
reformer of ontology was certainly justified-and in fact his thought in this field
was the conscious or unconscious, direct of indirect foundation of German
philosophy up to romantic idealism. Besides, Wolff ranks among the greatest
systematic minds of all times; certainly both in ontology and in methodology
his originality and importance cannot be questioned.
Therefore, Wolff's self-esteem was not unjustified; nevertheless, his attitude
cannot be considered as an example of intellectual modesty. And it is
significant in this connection to note that Wolff himself probably was the
eighteenth-century philosopher comparatively less ready to stress the limits of
human understanding: "Nullos cognitionis rationum decernimus limites", "We
do not see any limit to the [human] knowledge of reasons", he wrote at the very
beginning of his Logic." A closer consideration of Wolff's system reveals that
actually this thinker was aware of many factual limitations to the human power
of inquiry; still, his attitude rather answers in its main lines the statement I
have just quoted.
A similar, although humbler, attitude of intellectual independence was
shared by Wolff's opponents of Pietist extraction, i.e. by the disciples of
Christian Thomasius. In spite of his high reputation, Thomasius actually never
had , strictly speaking, a school: his first disciples (Budde, Joach, Lange, and
Rudiger) developed in the main in a largely independent way. Only Riidiger's
thought was able to survive the impact of Wolffian philosophy, because of its
higher intellectual sophistication. But it could survive only by undergoing
many basic reforms in order to compete successfully with Wolffianism; and
this was the achievement of Ad. Fr. Hoffmann, and especially of Crusius, who
became in the 1740's Wolff's main antagonist within the German philosophic
tradition. In fact, Hoffmann's and Crusius' reform of Pietist philosophy was
accomplished as a reaction to Wolff - a reaction, however, largely depending
on Wolff's system as a constant term of polemical reference. Therefore, it is not
astonishing if both Hoffmann and Crusius nurtured pretensions of intellectual
independence; they correctly looked upon the Thomasian roots of their
doctrines as a remote and obsolete background. And, of course, they were not
ready to acknowledge Wolff's stimulating influence, because they considered
counteracting Wolffianism to be the task of their lives - a task which, in fact,
had met with undeniable success.
Still, they were not unaware of the ambiguity of their situation. This
reasonably prevented them from claiming complete originality and a first rank
position within philosophy. Their independent attitude was matched with
discretion: they refrained from boasting about their own achievement as they
refrained from boasting about the capabilities of human reason in general. In
fact they were, within the German philosophic tradition of the first half of the
40 G. Tonelli

eighteenth-century among the principal assertors of the limits of human

understanding, thus at the same time, conforming to the spirit of Thomasian
philosophy, and polemically opposing Wolff's intellectual pretensions. It must
be noted, however, that the German Thomasian and Neo-Thomasian stress on
the weakness of Reason arose from a fundamentally different motivation than
similar Anglo-French attitudes. In England and in France Reason was
establishing its own boundaries; in Germany, the boundaries of Reason were
basically established by religious consideration (preserving the function of
Grace and Revelation).
Nevertheless, these positions were converging, despite their different motiva-
tions. Shortly thereafter German philosophy suddenly became receptive to the
new foreign trends, and adjusted the local "limiting" attitude to the Anglo -
French one. Kant's criticism was the main result of this process, Kant's
precritical period having been under the influence both of the Anglo-French
Enlightenment and of Crusius.
In fact, British and French philosophy had been streaming into the German-
speaking countries counteracting what I have called the "German" tradition
within German philosophy. Disregarding minor, though important foreign
influences, the chief center of diffusion of the western Enlightenment in
Germany was the Berlin Academy, reformed, after his accession to the throne
in 1740, by Frederick II, the " roi philosophe" who was imbued with French
culture and held German literature and thought in contempt as barbarous.
Voltaire's appearance at the Potsdam court had been meteoric, but in 1745
Maupertuis was appointed president of the Berlin Academy, and he made sure
of nominating a safe majority of "enlightened" academicians, in the French
sense of "Enlightenment" (Merian, Beguelin, Premontval, Beausobre, etc). It
should be kept in mind, among other things, that Maupertuis and his friends
took special care to stress the limits of human understanding, This Berlin circle
openly counteracted Wolffianism, and did not refrain, for this purpose, from an
heterogeneous alliance with Crusius' school.
In this and other ways, the British and French Enlightenment was spreading
in Germany, where its supporters were people like Mendelssohn, Meiners,
Irving, Tetens, Eberhard, or the so-called "popular philosophers", and Kant
himself, during a certain phase of his pre-critical period. Their spirit became
comparatively dominant between 1760 and 1780, i.e. until Kant's critical
philosophy swept away most of the former trends and opened the path to new
developments. Criticism was self-consciously imposed by Kant as one of the
greatest revolutions in philosophy; but the self-consciousness of its role arose,
contrarily to Wolff, from the capital importance and from the new formulation
it gave to the problem of limits. And this was indeed the center of Kant's
speculative philosophy, intending to counteract both dogmatism and scepti-
cism, and working a revival, on a new level, of the German metaphysical and
logical tradition. This reform served basically to fulfill the requirements and to
solve the problems imposed by British and French Enlightenment philosophy.
Before turning to more special questions, a last fact of the general
importance should be recalled: a consciousness of the Enlightenment, some-
 The "Weakness" ofReason in the Age ofEnlightenment 41

how similar to our modern historical consciousness of it, arose in Germany

only after 1780. Previously, eighteenth-century philosophers, split into oppos-
ing schools, had not yet acquired a sense of belonging to a global era which
possessed a peculiar physiognomy of its own, and showing some general
features prevalent in the more particular positions: they considered themselves
either as Wolffians, or as Pietists, etc., and only this was significant in their eyes.
It was later that menacing forces alerted the different philosophical schools,
awakening in them a general feeling of solidarity. Outside Prussia the Sturm
und Drang mentality had been in the making, with its typical "enthusiastic"
attitude matched to a politically subversive spirit: and this was a serious threat
to the apostles of rationalism. On the other hand, German governments,
worried by the new trends, threatened a general restriction of that comparative
freedom of thought which eighteenth-century philosophers had possessed for
several decades. Besides, in certain circles, mainly within some secret societies
such as the Rosicrucians, a wave of reactionary orthodoxy coloured with
mysticism was arising; and this was a very real danger too, as was shown by
later political developments in Prussia after Frederick the Great's death.
Thus the Enlightenment philosophers discovered, in spite of their differ-
ences, that they had a common patrimony to defend; this patrimony they called
Aufklarung, Enlightenment, as the cult of reason and of freedom of thought.
And this they considered to be the main character of their era, which they
identified with Frederick's reign, as opposed to former despotism and obscur-
antism.
Paradoxically, the consciousness of the Enlightenment arose as the Enlight-
enment was almost over; and one of its main supporters was Kant himself, a
mind so bewildering to the enlightenment philosophers; in fact, the question as
to whether Kant's criticism may be considered as the climax of the Enlight-
enment, or as its defeat, is too broad to be discussed in this context, but must be
mentioned at least as an open and momentous problem .
This examination of the Enlightenment philosophers' attitude towards the
past allows a first general insight into their approach to the problem of limits.
It is now time to consider the more particular features of this problem itself,
and some of the special questions it concerns . As these are almost numberless ,
I shall confine myself to the most significant ones within the field of speculative
philosophy only.
I shall mainly consider the following subjects: (1) the knowledge of objects
absolutely transcending human experience ; (2) the possibility of knowing
things as they are themselves; (3) the metaphysical problem of substance; (4)
the physical problem of the inner texture of bodies and of their properties; (5)
the knowledge of causes; (6) the use of hypotheses and the possibility of a
"system" of philosophy; (7) the notion if infinity.
One of the most general Enlightenment positions concerns the importance
of experience. Practically all the eighteenth-century philosophers stated that
reason not supported by experience is powerless, and bound to degenerate into
philosophical romances - as well as that experience without reason is blind,
and bound to degenerate into empirical prejudices. But this does not mean that
42 G. Tonelli

the Enlightenment philosophers conceived reason and experience as antag-

onistic factors; disregarding the more particular problem of the difference
between "higher" and " lower" cognitive power, i.e. between intellect and
sensibility, experience was seen both as a limit of reason (but as a self-imposed
limit), and as reason's indispensable instrument (but , as such, the methodology
of reason was dictated by reason). In fact , "things beyond experience" and
"things above reason" were in many cases identical.
But , if the Enlightenment philosophers did stress the necessity of matching
reason to experience, this was not because they saw any basic difficulty in it,
but because of their polemical attitude towards some trends of the past;
concerning the debauches of reason alone, they referred in England to
Cartesianism and Cambridge Platonism; in France, to Cartesianism; in
Germany, to Cartesianism and Aristotelianism; and concerning the blindness
of experience, the general term of reference was alchemy and the school of
medicine related to it, iatrochemistry.
However, things absolutely transcending experience were ruled out of the
field or rational knowledge; this ma inly affected angeology, demonology, and
the state of human souls after death. The soul's immortality was in general
asserted as founded on a moral argument (although this was in some cases just
lip service paid to the Christian religion) ; but further speculations of the
question were avoided. God's existence and attributes in themselves were, of
course, considered as beyond experience. Nevertheless, eighteenth- century
philosophers (with the exception, to be sure, of the atheists) thought that these
could be established, but on the basis of experience and analogically. The
Enlightenment marks the decay of the a priori argument for God's existence:
God is cognizable only insofar as he is a necessary foundation for the factually
existing world. Wolff himself declared that his version of the so-called
ontological argument, expounded in Part II of his Natural Theology, was not
purely a priori. This aversion to transcendent subjects was generally extended
to the question of miracles: eighteenth-century philosophers took care in many
cases to establish that miracles were possible, but they refrained from
speculating about them .
Somewhat different , although related, is the approach to ontology. In Britain
and in France this science was considered as devoted to abstract, empty
speculation, or as a quarrel of words concerning arbitrary terms unconnected
with real things. The human mind cannot penetrate the ultimate structure of
being. Therefore ontology was generally neglected, with some insignificant
exceptions (as well as logic, although not so thoroughly). The only 'meta-
physics' accepted, for instance, by Condillac, Diderot and d'Alembert was,
following Locke 's example, the study of the operations of the human mind
The German Enlightenment sponsored, at its very beginning, the same
position, Christian Thomasius' earlier disciples, following their master's
example, abased ontology to a kind of dictionary of conventional terms,
Wolff's approach, and that of later Thomasians like Crusius, was completely
different: ontology was to them the basic philosophical science, and it was
considered as deriving its materials from experience, but founding its validity
 The "Weakness" of Reason in the Age ofEnlightenment 43

on the principles of reason; it was not dealing with words, but with the most
general truths,. This ontological background, together with a highly developed
science of logic, was bound to condition all further developments of German
philosophy - and this is another main difference between the Anglo-French
and the German Enlightenment.
The problem of several things beyond experience is also at the foundation of
several other questions deserving more particular consideration. First of all,
there is the question as to whether it is possible to know things "as they are in
the themselves"- mostly referred to objects of the outside world. This is a
problem which had been raised and negatively answered in the eighteenth
century by Geulinex , Burthogge, Simon Foucher and Bayle.
Many British and French Enlightenment philosophers shared this opinion. It
was generally connected with the reduction of the so-called "primary" qualities
to the "secondary" (colour, smell, etc.), and accordingly they held that any
quality, in as far it is perceived, is just a modification of the mind , and does not
represent a real character of things as they are in themselves. Hume states that
provided that the outside world exists - a fact which cannot be proved - we are
not able to penetrate the essence of things; and Bolingbroke's position was very
similar."
The Swiss-French philosopher Crousaz, while attacking scepticism , felt
compelled to grant: "What things are in themselves (Ce que Ie choses sont en
elles-memesi , and absolutely speaking, is not revealed by any perception; let us
suspend our judgment on this subject't'' This theme was largely developed by
Condillac: "We do not see bodies as they are in themselves"." Maupertuis,
d'Alembert and Bonnet!" supported the same view.
In Germany, Wolff assumed a basically different position , deriving from
Leibniz. If it is true that our sensible representation of the outside world is
purely phenomenal, the inferential procedure of reason makes it possible for us
to grasp , beyond perception, the metaphysical essence of matter consisting in
simple, unextended substances , Crusius' position was even closer to traditional
realism.
Nevertheless, Maupertuis succeeded in imposing his view of the problem in
some quarters of German philosophy: for instance, one of his followers,
Merian, supported his view. II
In several cases, this feeling of "learned ignorance" extended, as for Hume
and for some others , to the possibility of proving by rational demonstration the
existence of an outside world, which was asserted on the basis either of an
"interior felling" or even of simple conjecture.
The critique of the notion of substance had a special relevance, and not only
for philosophers opposed to ontology; in fact, it was an ancient locus communis
of anti-Aristotelian metaphysics in general.
The argument, as old as Petrus Ramus, at least, and repeated in the
seventeenth century by Descartes , Henry More, Locke. Burthogge and others ,
runs as follows: man can only perceive the forms and attributes of things, but
not their subject; abstracting from forms and attributes, the idea of a
metaphysical subject is completely empty, and corresponds to a mysterious
44 G. Tonelli

entity, if it be not simply fictitious. The Enlightenment philosophers made

frequent use of this argument, sometimes in an improved version; it was
supported by Berkeley and Hume in Britain, by La Mettrie, Maupertuis,
Diderot, Condillac, d'Alembert, and Bonnet in France ; in Germany it had a
certain success with the early Thomasian school, and with a rather important
eclectic, Hollman, who certainly did not refuse ontology in general. Wolff and
Crusius did not accept it; by Kant did in 1769, at the very beginning of his
critical period.
Critiques of the notion of substance centered sometimes on the related
notion of matter as the mysterious support of the properties of bodies. But a
wider critique of the notion of body was brought about within the fields of
chemistry and physics. This approach was based on two converging motiva-
tions. First, Cartesian physics and chemistry had been elaborating extremely
complicated corpuscular hypotheses in order to explain the structure and
properties of bodies. As these hypotheses proved to be inconsistent, insufficient
to explain the phenomena, and incapable of experimental verification, it was
objected that there is no use in conjecturing about things beyond experience:
the "elements" of bodies are not within a microscope's reach, and it is therefore
completely useless to make conjectures about them. One should be satisfied
with perceptible properties: their ultimate physical foundation cannot be
penetrated. This was notoriously Boyle's claim as a "sceptical chemist". I shall
call this the corpuscular objection .
A second motivation arose from Newtonianism, a school of thought of
capital importance, as we shall see, for the "limiting" attitude. Attraction,
almost universally accepted in Britain and in Holland, and slowly spreading on
the continent, was a property of bodies which proved not to be susceptible of a
satisfactory mechanical explanation. The unity of the Cartesian notion of body,
pretending to deduce all physical properties from figure, size, impenetrability
and motion of particles, was basically compromised; and , if a new and
incongruent property like attraction (and like the power of cohesion) were to
be attributed to bodies, how many now unknown properties would be
ascertained through the further progress of science? The study of electricity
and magnetism was promising new and surprising discoveries. The possibility
of establishing once and for all the nature of matter appeared to be inconsistent
with the very not ion of the progress of knowledge, This I shall call the
Newtonian objection.
Both motivations, either separately or combined, contributed to the creation
of a crisis in the classical (Cartesian) notion of body, and to stressing the limits
of human inquiry. These limits appeared not to be, in this field at least, inherent
in human reason, but dependent on the actual situation of science, and in
particular of experimental devices: the possibility of further progress, displa-
cing, if not eliminating, these limits, was not denied.
The "corpuscular objection" was transferred from science to speculative
philosophy, notoriously by Locke, and also, for instance , by Le Clerc, a pre-
Enlightenment figure prone to the "limiting" attitude. 12
In Germany, Christian Thomasius'? and his school fostered a similar
 The "Weakness" of Reason in the Age ofEnlightenment 45

position. Wolff himself, very cautious in physical matters, was in the same
liner'" in fact, he thought that in metaphysics it was possible to establish the
general structure of substance, whilst in his opinion the connection between the
metaphysical and physical level was far from clear. In other words, we can infer
a knowledge of the intimate structure of bodies in every possible world but in
most cases we cannot claim to be able to explain the connection between this
basic structure and actual particular phenomena in the existing world. This
position was later resumed by Lambert ," and was also shared by Wolff's main
antagonist, Crusius. In Germany, the "corpuscular objection" proved to be
prevalent: in fact , the penetration of Newtonianism was slow, and hindered by
a number of local factors. In Britain, Holland and France, on the contrary, the
"corpuscular objection" was combined with, or superseded by, the Newtonian
one. Both were supported by the grea t Dutch physician chemist Boerhaave.l"
The second was sponsored by Pemberton an authority within British
Newtonianism.l" and found acceptance in France by Nollet, Maupertuis, and
d'Alembert. l"
I can only hint here at the difficult question of the critiques of the notion of
causality, refraining from discussing some of the more radical and typical (as
well as better known) approaches such as that of Hume and considering only
one more general feature of the problem.
The seventeenth-century scientists Boyle, Wallis, Roberval, Mariotte and
others had strongly recommended avoiding any inquiry into the first causes of
natural events, which they considered too remote and too mysterious to be
knowable man. The same view had been supported in philosophy by Locke.
Newtonianism, had a decisive influence on the spreading of this approach:
Newton himself had finally and at least officially condemned any attempt
toward an inquiry into the cause of attraction, recommending the pursuit of
the study of manifest correlations of experimental data only. The Cartesian
group simultaneously accuse Newtonianism of sponsoring in attraction an
"occult quality" and claimed, as a better alternative, the perfect intelligibility of
its own impulsionist explanation of natural events. On the Newtonian side, the
reaction was radical: it was contended that impuls ion is, in its first cause, not
less mysterious than attraction. What is, in fact, that particular something
called "power" or "force, "which is transferred from a moving body into a body
moved? Are not inquiries into the first cause of motion, both by attraction and
by impulsion, doomed to sterility, as trespassing the limits of both experience
and reason?
This radical view was supported in England by Berkeley, Hume and
Bolingbroke, In Holland by Niewentijt, in France by Condillac, Maupertuis,
and d'Alembert.
In Germany, Wolff did not share these perplexities: his approach to causality,
in accordance with his version of Leibniz' pre-established harmony, was still
rather traditional. But Thomasius and his disciples, including Crusius, were
contending, for religious much more than for scientific reasons, that the first
causes of the things cannot be grasped by the human mind: they lie within the
unfathomable depths of God's omnipotence. Once more, Pietist religious
46 G. Tonelli

preoccupations would combine with the new science's approach in Kant's

critical solution of the problem.
Newtonianism played a third important role in the discussion about limits,
as a further generalization of its approach to the question of the first causes,
and this concerns the question of hypotheses.
The methodological debates on the subject had been very momentous during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially within the field of astron-
omy. Newton's personal position is highly complicated and somewhat contra-
dictory, as shown by some recent studies. I shall confine myself to the influence
of this position on eighteenth-century thought, where Newton's statements on
the subject were taken at face value, and their meaning essentially simplified.
The supporters of Newton's alleged view claimed that every conjecture
exceeding the immediate data of experience should be avoided, as a super-
fluous and misleading dream. British Newtonians, like Cotes, Desaguliers,
Pemberton, and Rowning sponsored this view, as did Musschenbroek in
Holland, and La Mettrie and d'Holbach in France.
But the approach of the majority of influential thinkers and scientists was
more moderate. While condemning (against Cartesianism) an uncritical and
excessive use of conjecture, they realized that the exclusion of all inferential and
generalizing procedures from science was doomed to bring about complete
sterility. A very wide and generally balanced discussion of the question took
place, for instance, in German logic.
Hypotheses are related to another major problem , that of systems. The term
"system" had several meanings in the eighteenth century which must be
distinguished tentatively from one another, although this distinction may in
many cases be rather fluid. The term "hypotheses" in itself is somewhat
ambiguous: it may refer to a very particular conjectural explanation of facts
as well as to a general principle lying at the foundation of the whole body of a
given science. In this second meaning, "hypotheses" is identified with one of the
meanings of "system". In fact, a system is considered to be, among other
things, (a) an ordered whole of knowledge, depending on a unitary foundation,
and deduced from this foundation. But this body of knowledge may not only
correspond to a certain science, but also (b) to the entire body of the sciences,
depending on a unitary foundation. However such a system is only in
exceptional cases called an "hypotheses". At the same time, the term "system"
may be used to signify (c) a particular theory correctly founded on facts, and
proved by experience. In this case it is not a synonym for hypotheses , because it
is something more; it is a verified hypotheses. The same term may be referred
(d) to a certain order of facts or of beings, i.e. primarily to a certain order of
things, and not of knowledge about things. It is necessary to keep these
distinctions in mind in order not to be misled in interpreting the multifarious
eighteenth-century statements about "systems".
Now, disregarding seventeenth-century attitudes toward systems (which, by
the way, are in many cases a prelude to those of the eighteenth-century), it may
be said in general that the Anglo-French Enlightenment was definitely opposed
to systems, if system be taken to mean the entire body of the sciences. The
 The "Weakness" of Reason in the Age ofEnlightenment 47

possibility of deducing a priori the whole of knowledge from some few

interrelated principles was basically questioned as result both of the empiristic
approach, and of the distrust in the capability of human reason to include in a
single view all orders of facts. Experience being considered the only legitimate
foundation of knowledge, and knowledge arising from experience by a gradual
and fragmentary process of generalization, the essayistic style was generally
preferred to the older, deductive approach. Theory should be close to facts: and
facts, in their disparate orders, give birth to disparate theories, which should
not be reduced to a common denominator through hasty generalizations. The
empiristic approach, besides, only allowed the establishment of inductive
general rules. Distrusting allegedly universal principles implied, of course,
distrusting a priori deductions. Thus, the renouncing of a unitary order of
reason was considered, in the Age of Reason, as the first dictate or reason
itself.
In this spirit we are able to understand what Hume states about systems. He
advocates his own (probable) system as a particular theory found on facts, but
he condemns "Chimerical systems" as ambitious and imaginary attempts
toward a general and dogmatic explanation of things'": an approach recurring,
within the closer Newtonian circle, in Maclaurin's methodology /" In fact, this
spirit practically dominated philosophic production both in Britain and
France; but in France it was more frequently theorized than it Britain, as an
obvious reaction against the Cartesian mind. Voltaire presented Newton as an
enemy of systems, and denounced Descartes as the patron of a chimerical a
priori approach to science; systems, as corresponding to general principles,
should be admitted only in the few cases where these principles are clearly
demonstrated by facts; and it is almost impossible to deduce universal laws
from collections of'facts.t' Condillac defines a system as the body of a science
in so far as this is deduced from a single first principle ; but this principle must
be found on experience. Therefore , Newton's system is good, those of other
philosophers are just "chimerical hypotheses v.F D'Alembert opposed a true
"systematic spirit, "which attempts a gradual reduction of facts to a few
principles found on experience, to a contemptible "spirit of system" based on
vague general hypotheses.P Therefore d'Holbach could at the same time
condemn imaginary systems." and call his main work a "System of Nature".
In Germany, things were different: the meaning of "system" as the whole of
knowledge was generally distinguished from that of " system" of "hypotheses":
and German philosophers still considered the organization of knowledge into a
whole both as a possible task and as an essential requirement, in spite of all
differences between the looser structure of the Thomasian, and the closer,
almost monolithic structure of the Wolffian systematic ideal. The essayistic
style became fashionable only at the time of the so-called "popular philoso-
phers" such as Mendelssohn, Meiners , Tetens, etc. Kant, in his pre-critical
period, shared this view; but he was soon converted to a very new kind of
systematical spirit, which would henceforth inform his critical philosophy.
This very incomplete review of eighteenth-century "limiting" attitudes needs
at least a final complement, as an example of a limitation which arises as do the
48 G. Tonelli

preceding examples not from the boundaries imposed upon reason by the rule
of experience but from the intrinsic weakness of reason itself in its conceptual
capability. This concerns the notion of infinity. Infinity from this point of view
does not directly imply the notion of existence, and therefore is somewhat
independent of the rule of experience.
Infinity is of two basically different kinds: the qualitative infinity of God's
attributes, and the quantitative infinity of creation. The existence of the first
kind of infinity cannot be considered as a particular question , because it is
implied in God's existence; the second kind is considered as not actually, but
only potentially existent. An exception must be made of some thinks, mainly of
Spinozistic extraction, like Raphson or Terrasson, who considered the world as
actually infinite.
But the main point is whether this infinity, either existent in God or potential
in the world, can be conceived by human reason. It is almost superfluous to
recall that this is one of the many problems inherited by the Enlightenment
from the several thousand-year-old tradition of western philosophy. In the Age
of Reason, a negative attitude prevails in the assertion of an intrinsic weakness
of reason . Man as finite being, can have only a negative or imperfect notion of
infinity, although this notion is both essential and useful in many fields, from
theology to mathematics, and although its truth must be asserted even if it
cannot be grasped directly. In Britain, Raphson, Clarke, Collier, Berkeley,
Hume, and Maclaurin agreed on this point; in France, Crousaz, Buffon,
d'Alembert, Robinet. In Germany, Wolff, the apostle of the power of reason ,
tried to impose a solution of compromise but was contradicted by Crusius,
Reimarus, Lambert, and Kant.
Among the different aspects of the problem of limits I have been surveying,
hardly one may be found where eighteenth-century thought had not been
heralded in some aspects at least by thinkers of the proceeding century. This
happens, of course, in all ages and for all problems. In some cases, as for the
critique of the notions of substance and of that of infinity, eighteenth-century
philosophers were, in the main , repeating old arguments. But on the whole, the
Anglo-French Enlightenment gave to these attitudes an importance and a
diffusion previously unknown: opposition to ontology, and partially to logic,
agnosticism in respect of transcendent subjects in general, claimed ignorance
of the inner texture and properties of bodies and of the first causes. Opposition
to hypotheses and to general systems not founded on experience are, both in
their extention and in their stress, a basic novelty in modern philosophy. For
this, seventeenth-century philosophy was much more an Age of Reason than
was the Enlightenment; and this "reason" was unmasked by the Enlightenment
as a specious and obnoxious pretension of the human mind. The Enlight-
enment's reason sometimes merely paid lip service to Revelation ; however this
outer limit of reason was replaced by an inner and more effective one, which
could also be reconciled with Revelation, with the advantage, perhaps, of a
clearer "separation of powers".
The German Enlightenment was, as it were, more "traditionalist", especially
in Wolff's case: only a few of the limiting attitudes were accepted by Wolff. On
 The "Weakness" of Reason in the Age ofEnlightenment 49

the other hand , the school of Thomasius and Crusius represented, for very
special reasons, a kind of via media, and was the catalyzer of a creative
synthesis between the Anglo-French and the German approach. In this way,
positions which could appear "Traditional" as sponsored by Wolff became the
foundation of future German philosophy ; "traditionalism" and "modernism"
in the history of thought are nothing but relative terms.
Ifwe may still speak of "traditionalism" then, the Enlightenment was on the
whole much less revolutionary that it has sometimes been represented; this has
already become clear concerning its political theory, but should also be
extended to other aspects of the century's thought.
The Anglo-French Enlightenment, with its intellectual modesty and respect
for its heralds in the preceding century, shows one side of this attitude, an
attitude matched in the practice of a very real quest for discovery, but exalted,
at the same time, by an equal respect for science. Philosophy, certainly, is no
longer the servant of theology, but it partially becomes the servant of science.
And this is shown, among other things, by the basic impact of Newtonianism
on the problem of limits, an impact which has not been as yet sufficiently
clarified. In fact, it is a commonplace in our day to talk about Newton's role in
the development of philosophy, but as soon as this role is clearly defined, an
escape is found in some vague and frequently erroneous statement.
The German Enlightenment, less humble in its intentions, showed its
modesty by facts: it refrained from relegating to the scrap-heap many basic
attitudes of eighteenth-century thought, and reshaped them into formulas
pregnant with future developments.
In contrast to romantic philosophy's frenzy for originality at any cost, the
Enlightenment philosophy was not haun ted by a quest for novelty for novelty's
sake. In fact it gave full regard to its predecessors while simultaneously opening
up numerous new directions for science to follow in the ensuing centuries.

NOTES

This paper is based on more than ten years of research on the subject. I have already published
provisory results on some sections of this field in the following studies: " La question des bornes de
I'entendement humain au XVlIIe siecle et la genese du criticisme kantien, particulierement par
rapport au probleme de I'infini", R evue de Metaphysique et de Morale (1959); "Critiques of the
Notion of Substance Prior to Kant ", Tijschrift voor Philosoph ie, XXIII (1961); "Die Anfange von
Kants Kritik der Kausalbeziehungen und ihre Boraussetzungen im 18. Jahrhundert", Kant-Studien,
LBII (1966); "Hypothesis (1600-1770)", Historisches Wiirterbuch der Philosophie (Basel-Stuttgart,
forthcoming).

This paper intends (1) to summarize the results of these, (2) to anticipate those concerning other
sections of the field, (3.and to draw some general conclusions.

Precise references are given in the notes only for sections not covered by the above-mentioned
publications.

I. See G. Funke's Introduction "Das sokratische lahrhundert" to his anthology Die Aufkliirung
(Stuttgart: 1963); H. Vyverbert Historical Pessimism in the French Enlightenment (Cambridge ,
Mass., 1958).
50 G. Tonelli

2. R.H. Popkin, "Scepticisim in the Enlightenment", in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth
Century, XXVI , 1962.
3. See my study on "Kant und die antiken Skeptiker", in Studien zu Kants philosophischer
Entwicklung, hrsg. V.H. Heimsoeth (Hildesheim: 1967).
4. Aram Vartanian, Diderot and Descartes (princeton, N.l, 1953).
5. There are only 5 reprints of different works of Descartes in the eighteenth century, no one later
than 1724; Malebranche's Recherche de la verite alone had 10 editions between 1700 and 1800,
including a Latin and a German translation. See: W. Risse, Bibliographialogica, I (Hildesheim :
1965).
6. Chr. Wolff, Philosophiarationalis sive logica (Francof. Et Lipsiae: 1728), Disc. Prel., 5.
7. David Hume, Enquiries, ed. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: 1902) pp. 152-155. H. St. Jochn Vise. Of
Bolingbroke, Works, III (London: 1754), p. 382.
8. lP. de Crousaz, Examen du Pyrrhonisme ancien et moderne (La Haye: 1733), p.58b.
9. Condillac, Oevures, IV (paris : 1803), pp. 383-385, 395.
10. Maupertuis, Oeuvres (Lyon: 1768) I, p. 278-283. D'Alembert Oeuvres (Paris: 1821), I, p. 185 f.
Ch. Bonnet, Essai analytique sur lesfacultes de l'Ame (Copenhague, 1760), Pref., p. xiv f.
11. Histoire de l'Acadamie Royale de Sciences et Belles Lettres, MDCCLIV (Berlin: 1756), p. 381.
12. Jo. Clericus , Operum philosophicorum. . . (Amstelodamii : 1722), IV, p. 206.
13. Chr. Thomasius, Introduction ad philosophiam aulicam (Lipsiae: 1688), p. 142.
14. Chr . Wolff, Anmerkung der die verniinfftigen Gedancken von Gott . . . (Frankfurt am Main: 1724),
p.317.
15. lH. Lambert, Neues Organon (Leipzig: 1764), II, p. 246.
16. H. Boerhaave , Opera Omnia medica (Venetiis: 1751), p. 477f.
17. H. Pemberton, A View ofSir Isaac Newton's Philosophy (London: 1728) p. 477f.
18. lA. Nollet , Lecons de physique experementale, I (Amsterdam: 1745), p.2. Maupertuis, op. cit. I,
pp. 94-98 . D'Alembert , Discours preliminaire de l'Encyclopedie, ed. Ducros (paris) : 1930, p. 48.
19. David Hume, A treatise ofHuman Nature, Ed. Selby-Bigge(Oxford: 1888),pp.xvii, 63, 217, 272.
20. C. Maclaurin, An Account ofSir Isaac Newton's PhilosophicalDiscoveries(London: 1748) p. 18.
21. Voltaire, Oeuvrescompletes, ed. BedoUiereand Avenel, V (Paris: 1888), pp. 681, 685, 750 f.
22. Condillac, Oeuvres,cit., IV, pp. 1,345,353,370-373.
23. D'Alembert, op. cit., pp. 24, 40, 66, 120.
24. P.H. Th . d'Holbach, Systeme de la Nature (Paris:1821) I, p. 1, 13.
 a .TONELLI

4. PIERRE-JACQUES CHANGEUX AND SCEPTICISM IN

THE FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT*

In the year 1767 Pierre-Jacques Changeux published a work entitled Traite des
Extremes, ou des elements de la science de la realite (Amsterdam, 2 vol.), In the
"Avertissement" the author states that his work had been undertaken at first as
an article commissioned by the Encyclopedic, but that it had expanded so much
that it had not been finished in time (I, p. V). In fact, the volume of the
Encyclopedie with the letter R had been published in 1765, and included an
article "Realite" which was completely insignificant, which had nothing to do
with Changeux's ideas.
A summary of Changeux's books by Vallet was published in the Encyclopedic
d'Yverdon.' under the heading of "Extremes: (vol. XVIII, 1772). At the end of
the article more about Changeux's work was promised in an article "Realite",
but this article never was published (it should have appeared in vol. XXXVI,
1774). We do not know the reason for this omission, but it is quite possible that
the dangerous character of Changeux's work had been noticed in the mean-
while, and that timid de Felice had preferred to suppress that article.
Vallet's article was reproduced in the Supplement of Diderot's Encyclopedie
(Paris-Amsterdam 1776-77), and incorporated in the later editions of the
Encyclopedic; but the new article "Realite", still promised in Vallet's article
did not appear.
Changeux's book does not seem to have aroused much interest. As far as I
know, it was reviewed only in the Journal de Trevoux (Mars 1767, p. 440-453).
The review gives a fair account of the book, realizing its sceptical attitude
without stressing it, and concludes: "In general, this work, which at first sight
may seem very abstract, contains some learned researche [sic], some illuminat-
ing details, some sound maxims, on whose behalf we shall for gibe the author
some daring considerations, which could be misused" (p. 453). It seems that the
Jesuits retained that cautious sympathy for fideistic scepticism they had
manifested since the 20'S. 2 But it also seems that the blessing of the Jesuits did
not help Changeux to gain a larger reputation. In fact his work was hardly
noticed , and Changeux is completely ignored by 20th century biographical and
reference works; I never found him mentioned in any historical handbook or
monograph, general or specialized. From the article about him in Firmin

51
R.B. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 51-68 .
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
52 G. Tonelli

Didot's Nouvelle biographie generale (vol. IX , Paris 1855) we learn that he was
born in Orleans on January 26, 1740, that he died on October 3, 1800, that he
studied at La Fleche, that his Traite was praised by D'Alembert, Condorcet,
Condillac and Buffon (unfortunately, no precise reference is given), and that he
also published works on grammar (1773), on physics (1778), on the barometer
and on meteorology (1781, 1783), and contributed articles to the Observations
sur la physique' edited by the Abbe Rozier (from 1771 to 1779).4
In my opinion, Changeux's main work deserves some attention for two
reasons. The first, and the most peculiar, is his notion of the "Extremes"; the
second is the fact that he is a rather typical (and comparatively late)
representative of that major sceptical trend in French 18th Century philosophy
whose importance has been hitherto almost entirely ignored.
Changeux's most peculiar thesis is that everything man is, or man can know,
lies in the middle of two extremes, which are an infinity of magnitude and an
infinity of smallness. All things, or their qualities are extremes, in as far as they
are extended or diminished as much as the imagination allows it II, 1). The
extremes are nothing but words expressing relationships (1. Vi). In the present
constitution of man, the extremes meet each other, without merging: and
reality lies in the middle (I, vi, 8). The extremes are not only terms connected
with relationships: they are relative to the different minds thinking them. They
also correspond to infinity as applied to all kinds of knowledge - but infinity is
conceived differently by the different men (I, vi, viii). The extremes do not
contradict each other (I, 3-4): in fact, the universe subsists through an
opposition of contraries (I, 9). The middle point (milieu) is the highest degree
of reality (I, 14), although this middle point is not the same for all men (I, 17);
there are infinite middle points which are only apparent (I, 18). XXX
This doctrine is certainly a revival and a systematization of some famous
passages of Pascal:

So, there are some properties all things have in common, whose knowledge
opens the mind to the greatest marvels of nature.

The basic one concerns the two infinites which can be found in all [things],
the one of greatness, the other of smallness.(...)

This means, in brief, that whatever motions, spaces, and times may be, there
is always a greater one, and a smaller one: so that they stand between
nothingness and infinity, being always infinitely far from both extremes. 5

If one considers himself in this way, he shall be scared by himself, and,

considering himself as supported in the mass nature gave him, between both
abysms, that of infinity and that of nothingness, he shall tremble at the sight
of these marvels ...

What is, after all, man in nature? A nothingness if compared with infinity. A
whole if compared with nothingness, a middle point between nothing and
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 53

all. Infinitely far from the comprehension of the extremes, the end of things
and their beginning are for him irretrievably concealed in an impenetrable
secret, being equally incapable of seeing the nothingness wherefrom he
comes, and the infinity which swallows him. What is he going to do, but to
perceive some appearance of the middle point of things, in an eternal dispair
of knowing their beginning and their end? . . .

The one [extreme] depends on the other, and they touch each other, and they
meet by dint of moving apart from each other, and they meet in God, and in
God only...

Limited in all ways, this state being the middle point between two extremes
can be found in all our powers . . .6

The similarities between the two authors are striking; but, anticipating what
we shall see later about Changeux, their positions also reveal some basic
discrepancies. The doctrine of the extremes is for both of them strictly related
to their scepticism; but Pascal's scepticism arises from a theologian and
metaphysical foundation as a crisis of rationalism, while Changeux's scepti-
cism clearly derives from the French sceptical tradition of his time, largely
inspired by the old Gassendist trend and by Locke, and motivated by a
methodological and psychological background of empiristic origin. This is also
the reason why Changeux 's principle of the extremes, within the general frame
of his scepticism, will be used in a constructive way, while for Pascal it is
basically a principle intended to humiliate human reason without yielding any
positive cognitive compensation.
Unfortunately, Pascal's influence on 18th Century French thought has been
hitherto explored only very superficially," so that it is difficultfully to appraise the
significance of Changeux's "Pascalism". But I can list some documents of the
survival of the theme ofthe two infinities: L. Racine hints at in 1742,8 and Diderot
expands in 1745 into a paraphrasis of Pascal's text on the subject in a note to his
translation of Shaftesbury's Essay on Virtue and Merit .9 Less extensive, but
perhaps more important for Changeux (who frequently quotes Buffon showing
great consideration for him), is a passage in Buffon's Histoire naturelle:

... a perfectly hard body is nothing but an imaginary being [Etre de raison],
as a perfectly elastic body, again, is nothing but another imaginary being;
none of them exist in reality, because noting absolute or extreme exists in it
[reality] and because the word and the idea of [something] perfect is nothing
but the absolute or the extreme of the thing. 10

There is no clear indication that Buffon had Pascal's doctrine in mind on this
occasion, but this passage may have evoked in Changeux the memory of the
famous pages of the 18th Century Jansenist. As we shall see, Buffon belonged
to the sceptical trend in a way which has little or nothing to do with that of
Pascal, but which is very close to Changeux's position.
54 G. Tonelli

Among the many curious developments the principle of the extremes under-
goes in Changeux's work, I will relate only a rather peculiar one:

The idea of being, in connection with us, is nothing but a quality inseparable
from individuals: in nature we only can conceive the particulars; and, if we
study the idea of being [as extended] to the infinite, separating it from each
thing which we know to exist in this or in that way, we approach it to the
opposite idea of nothingness (I, 160).

This is, of course, the example of a case where the extremes meet each other;
and this is also the point were the vague flavour of Hegelian dialectic suggested
by Changeux's work reaches its climax. This similarity may be rather surpris-
ing, but we must resist the temptation of considering it anything more than a
simple coincidence. In fact, Changeux's point is certainly just a development of
an old and very widespread locus communis, the anti-Aristotelian criticism of
the notion of substance. (I mean by "Aristotelian" the scholastic version of
Aristotelianism): if we abstract from all accidents, what is left in that notion
amounts to nothing; this criticism was easy to extend, and in fact already had
been extended on some occasions, to the notions of being and of "materia
prima".11
I will consider now the second basic aspect of Changeux's work, i.e. its
scepticism, whose importance can be assessed only in connection with the
general development of this school of thought in the l Sth Century France. The
only survey of Enlightenment scepticism we have is a well known article by
R.H. Popkin.V which provides a broad frame of reference, but which neglects
many details . Using some research recently produced by other scholars, and
adding some elements of my own, I will try to draw a very summary picture of
18th Century French scepticism prior to Changeux. It will appear that
scepticism was much more largely diffused in France in that time than it has
been hitherto realized: so much, that it is probably justified to consider it as the
methodological trend by far dominating in that area. In comparison, German
contemporary scepticism was an extremely limited phenomenon.P as for
British scepticism, although it was represented by high ranking personalities
such as Hume and Bolingbroke, it does not seem to have mastered many other
adepts. 14
French ISth Century scepticism must be studied according to criteria of its
own. First, it must be taken into account that the French did not enjoy the
freedom of opinion to the same extent as their British contemporaries; there-
fore, the first preoccupation of a sceptic will be to declare that he writes in
order to refute scepticism. Besides, on many occasions, this preoccupation is
genuine, if the author in question means to refute pyrrhonian scepticism in
order to establish a constructive empirical relativism: a position which we must
historically consider as a form of scepticism, but which is not necessarily a self-
conscious kind of it. Furthermore, the typical French sceptic will carefully
make clear that there is no valid argument for proving e.g. the existence of the
outside world, or the spirituality of the soul, but sometimes he will finally
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 55

declare his belief in that existence or that spirituality, on the foundation that he
feels a repulsion against denying them, or that it is practically impossible for
him to disbelieve them. Now, it must be kept in mind that, although Buffier was
considered as their forerunner by the Scottish common-sense school, he hardly
had any followers in France; in French philosophy, an appeal to a kind of
interior sense for the truth in order to save the traditional convictions in
extremis, is usually nothing but a transparent tactical device; the belief may be
genuine in some cases, but then it is quite consciously just a belief and nothing
else. This is equally true if the beliefs in question are accepted as a practically
useful escape from abstract and idle problems the human mind cannot solve
anyhow, in order to concentrate on those problems it can solve, and which are
important for the conduct of life. Now, if the problems declared abstract and
idle, and settled with a practical belief and a theoretical ignoramus, are those
basic in traditional metaphysics, and if the rational solution man can find for
the other, practically useful problems is either purely mental (e.g. the truth of
mathematics as a kind of tautology) or purely empirical (probabilistic), I do not
see how a position of this kind could not be described as sceptic. IS
It is true that French scepticism around the middle of the century was much
more inclined to the academic than to the pyrrhonian doubt, i.e. more towards
constructive empir icism than towards metaphysical destructiveness: in other
words, Gassendi, in the long run had prevailed upon Bayle. But it must be
noticed that Gassendi did not prevail in person , but through his major follower
in methodology, Locke; this fact brought about another distortion in the
historical perspective, because the Frenchmen's allegiance to Locke was
interpreted by French Enlightenment experts according to the reading of this
author offered by most of the British 18th Century Lockeans, and these
preferred to restrain or to entirely ignore the basic scepticism of their patron.
But as Locke, in my opinion, was in fact an academic sceptic, French 18th
Century Lockeanism, being in most of the cases a kind of scepticism, seems to
me to be much more genuine than the British. If Hume as a sceptic did not
arouse much interest in France.l'' this may well have happened because the
"philosophes" were very well acquainted in advance with many basic traits of
Hume 's scepticism, which had been developed within the local tradition, e.g. by
Maupertuis.
As for the causes of this particular success of academic scepticism in France,
I have no hypothesis to offer: a more careful study of this phenomenon as a
whole is needed before we can try to propose some explanation for it. One
could of course remark that scepticism was much more deeply rooted in
France, from the Renaissance on, than in the other nations: but this amounts
to begging the question.
Usual basic characters of the academic brand of French scepticism are the
following: (1) we cannot know things as they are in themselves- all we can know
are our own ideas, and they do not represent the real essence of their objects; (2)
therefore, we do not know what matter and spirit are in themselves; (3)
furthermore, there is no proof for the real existence of bodies, and (4) of other
finite spirits; (5) but , if matter exists, then it cannot be proven that matter cannot
56 G. Tonelli

think, i.e. that the soul is spiritual (and, afortiori, that it is immortal); (6) finally,
several sceptics do not consider any proof for God's existence as absolutely
conclusive. In a few cases, (7) even the certainty of mathematics is questioned.
Two high ranking sceptics exert a profound influence on French thought at
the beginning of the 18th Century: Bayle and Fontenelle. I will not insist on the
ambiguity of the position of the first, who is considered by his contemporaries,
and by today's historians as well, sometimes as the fideistic sceptic he
pretended to be, and sometimes as the sceptical freethinker he was accused of
being. Anyhow, his scepticism is basically different from that of Fontenelle: it is
a kind of destructive pyrrhonism of metaphysical and historical extraction,
more useful to stir the waters and to stimulate his contemporaries and the
posterity to question many received tenets, than to make many proselytes
among the practically-minded "philosophes". Fontenelle's empirical relativism
was certainly much less aggressive, but much more apt to be accepted as a
basic attitude: it conveniently united the doubt of the scientist to the doubt of
the humanist, in a time when the most of the scientists were humanists, and the
most of the humanists tried hard to be scientists as well; and this doubt became
for Fontenelle a constructive critical spirit directed to submit reality to the
needs of man, and indifferent to transcendence.
A third great name should be added, that of Poiret, although his influence
was certainly not as great (in France at least) as that of Bayle and of Fontenelle.
His position is not ambiguous: his metaphysical pyrrhonism was not only
fideistic, but definitely mystical. He died in 1719, and during his last years he
still produced works of devotion.
The significance of a certain trend for a cultural area is of course different if
this trend is only sponsored by a few great personalities, or if it is sponsored by
them, and by a number of minor thinkers as well: the presence of proselytes
shows that the trend in question is not the product of some isolated superior
minds struggling against their time, but that it is deeply rooted in the spirit of
that age.
Pierre Brunet (active from 1686 to 1709) tempered his bent for immaterial-
ism and egoism with a position of vague general scepticism.!" Maubec (1709)
expounds an empiristic psycophysiology leading to a kind of sceptical
relativism.l'' In 1714, N. Berger published his French translation (Traite de
l'incertitude des connaissances humaines, Paris 1714) of the rather insipid work
(first published in 1700) of a British fideistic sceptic, Th. Baker. Also in 1714,
Gaultier produced a treatise combining a basic scepticism with an inclination
towards Spinozism.l" Dubos introduced in 1719 a very peculiar kind of
aesthetica1 irrationalism verging on scepticism.i"
In 1723 another major work by a fideistic pyrrhonian appeared: the
posthumous Traite de la foiblesse de /'esprit humain, by P.-D. Huet, who had
died in 1721.2 1 This book had many editions, and aroused several controver-
sies:22 Baltus wrote in its defense in 1726.23 Perhaps in the same year, or a short
time thereafter, an anonymous author composed another pyrrhonian treatise.i"
At this point, fideists Pyrrhonism seemed to be for a while a living issue in the
French-speaking area : Claude Huart published in 1725 his French translation
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 57

of Sextus, with notes indicating that he sponsored that view.25 The Memoires de
Trevoux had cautiously supported the same line since 1723.26 F. Cartaud de la
Villate,27 in his Pensees critiques sur les mathematiques (Paris, 1733), attacked
the certainty of mathematics: this is a clear symptom of extreme Pyrrhonism;
but Cartaud, who deserves to be better studied, was probably a freethinker,
Legendre de Saint Aubain has been considered as a sceptic." but I cannot see
in him anything else than a half-sceptic with a clear fideistic bias; besides, his
personality shows several archaic traits, and is certainly not very exciting.F' A
second anonymous author of a manuscript of 1738 is a pyrrhonist inclining
towards Spinozism.l" and a third is a fideistic defender of Bayle in 1739. 31 In
the same year, B. de Muralt published his Lettres fanatiques, documents of an
eclectical and quite raving mysticism: all science is despised, and revelation is
the real source of truth; but this revelation is not only the traditional, it is also a
kind of internal inspiration; nevertheless, some heathens can be led by the voice
of their conscience towards virtue, and towards a partial truth. It is clear that
Muralt shows a rather strong sceptical component in his thought. 32
But the empiristic scepticism of the deists and of the free-thinkers was
gaining momentum by then. In 1727 two works of importance for this trend
appear, the one by Quesnay, the other by D'Argens." The first is clearly an
adept of academic scepticism; the second pretends to be a fideistic sceptic, but
he is certainly not a fideist , and he is a sceptic only partially ; one suspects that
scepticism for him may be a cover for atheism and materialism.
Voltaire seems to have gone through a sceptical period in 1739, with
Micromegasi'" the same seems to have occurred in 1768, with L 'homme aux
quarante ecus.35 But probably Voltaire's frequent changes of attitudes are
mostly not the effect of successive issues, but of variations in his polemical
tactics; in other words, scepticism could simply have been adopted by him on
some occasions almost only for the sake of arguing.
If the attribution of the essay De la certitude des connaissances humaines
(1741) to Boureau Deslandes is correct.i" this is another document of
scepticism which leaves one wondering whether this is a genuine attitude, or,
partially at least, a cover for materialism, as Boureau Deslandes inclined to
it. 37 At this po int, the series of the unbelievers is interrupted by the mild
fideistic scepticism of Louis Racine (1742).38 But Themiseul De Saint
Hyacinthe, with his Recherches philosophiques (1743), is another momentous,
brilliant and humorous example of libertine scepticism. 39
The case of Vauvenargues (1746, 1747) is rather peculiar: from the point of
view of rational knowledge he was certainly a sceptic,"? but, on the other hand,
he relied on "instinct" and "feeling" for reaching some basic truths. Never-
theless , these powers have little or nothing to do with the English "common
sense" (in fact, they seem to be rather related to the Pascalian "coeur").
Because they only can act immediately, and they cannot be used as the
foundation of a body of rational knowledge: in other words, Vauvenargues'
remedy for scepticism is a form of irrationalism. 41
Condillac opens with his three first works (1746, 1749, 1754) the era of the
great relativistic empiricists: his position is clearly that of an academic
58 G. Tonelli

sceptic.V Ifhe asserts the unity of the soul, and its difference from the body,43
he also states that we do not know what the soul and the bodies are in
themselves, and that we cannot prove the real existence of matter. 44 Only later,
in 1755, he offered a proof for God's existence as a first cause,45 but I doubt
whether he really considered it as conclusive. Obviously, in his Cours d'etude
(1755), he took a more conservative stand;" but this is certainly due to the
pedagogical nature of that work . Diderot was clearly a sceptic in 1746 (Pensees
philosophiques); whether and how this scepticism persisted in his later evolution
is a subject of debate." Maupertuis (1748, 1750, 1752) is much more explicit:
our ignorance of conclusively demonstrated truths is total, if we except
mathematics; his proof for God's existence is only probabilistic.t" His friend
de Tressan seems to have approved of his views.49
Buffon (1749) deserves particular attention, because he was very highly
considered by Changeux. He states that the things we perceive in connection
with us, in themselves are nothing: they begin to exist for us only when we learn
their relationships with us and with each other and their properties.50 All
knowledge derives from the senses; all we know about things without us are the
effects of these things on our senses; but we entirely ignore the nature of the
causes (i.e. things as they are in themselves) of these effects.51 If we had
different sensory organs, we would know properties of matter different from
those we know. 52 Truth in mathematics depends on mere tautology, in physics
on the constant uniformity of phenomena: in fact, our ideas of the outside
world can be considered as real relations, in as far as these relations are
constant in connection with us.53 We cannot doubt our own existence, in as
far as we think; but the immateriality of our soul is asserted only hypotheti-
cally. On the other hand, there is no way to prove conclusively that matter
really exists.54
Sceptical empiric ism was becoming more and more fashionable; even La
Mettrie adopted it at a certain time (1751) , perhaps as an extenuating
circums tance for his basic materialism.55 And Formey, a former Wolffian,
declared in the article "Definition" of the Encyclopedic that definitions can only
be nominal, and that we cannot know the essences of substances, or the reality
of things. 56 For Bonnet (1755, 1760), the essence of both the soul and the body
cannot be penetrated; there is no way to prove the existence of the outs ide
world, and of other finite spirits; motion in bodies, freedom in the soul are
incomprehensible, as well as the nature of ideas in as far as they are
modifications of the soul (i.e, the metaphysical nature of ideas).57 In the
meanwhile (1755) De Beausobre had produced a rather insipid apology for
fideistic pyrrhonism.P
Maupertuis, in his capacity as president of the Academy of Berlin, exerted a
very considerable influence in favour of scepticism, In as far as our theme is
concerned, we already saw that Formey, secretaire perpetuel of the Academy,
had made some concessions. Two Swiss members of the Academy appointed by
Maupertuis, followed his course more enthusiastically: Begulin , in 1757,
attacked the validity of the principle of sufficient reason in general , and this
implies that the existence of the outside world cannot be demonstratedr'" and
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 59

Merian, in 1765, declared that metaphysical knowledge in general is only

probable; perhaps, in the future, ontology shall be as certain as geometry, but
at present it is not; besides, the metaphysical principles of mathematics and
physics are obscure.P"
D'Alembert (1759, 1767) developed a quite peculiar brand of scepticism
connected with a particular form of empiricism very close to rationalism; I will
not dwell on it on this occasion, as I devoted a special study to it. 6 1 Some
anonymous contributors to the Encyclopedie supported in 1765 a kind of
sceptical empiricism.f" In the same year D' Autrey tried to revive once more
fideistic scepticism.Y
Now, we will examine in a detailed way the sceptical aspect of Changeux'
Traite des Extremes. In his opinion, there are two kinds of reality: the first is
external to us (absolute), is independent from our way of sensing, and
corresponds to the essence of things; this reality is totally unknown to us (I,
20): we cannot know through our senses what things are in themselves (I, 5,
68): the second, internal, or intrinsic kind of reality, corresponds to our
knowledge of things, which is a middle between two extremes, having no
absolute reality (I, 21-22). External reality is the cause of internal reality (I ,
26): but we cannot know the first causes of things (I, 4): all we can say is that
external reality is not similar to the internal: we know our sensations only (I,
27-28). We do not even know whether there are as many external realities as we
perceive, or whether besides us there is only one God; in connection with this
hypothesis Changeux refers to Berkeley (I, 23-24). All "systems" asserting the
absolute existence of only one substance (such as Plato's "spiritualism" or
Spinoza's "materialism"), or of more substances, are purely hypothetical; all we
can say about them is, that those which are less dangerous for Religion are
better than others (I, 220-222).
The (internal) reality of things is hypothetical, i.e. it is founded on the present
constitution of man; if we had different organs, what we consider as the
extremes would be different (I, 29). Essential truth (vs. hypothetical), i.e. truth
as it is for God, is unknown to us (I, 30-31); hypothetical truth is universal, in
as far as , our constitution and the universe being what they are, all men must
represent the same particular ideas , and, if they combine them in the correct
way, can avoid error (I, 32). On the other hand, the extremes may be different
for different men, because they have different notions of infinity, but the middle
point - (internal) reality - is the same for all; so far, science is realizable (I, VI-
VIII).
This true middle point is the highest degree of existence (I, VII-VIII, 14-17).
In fact there is an infinite number of apparent middle points, which prevent
man from enjoying the highest degree of reality, corresponding to the true
middle point. But, obviously, the task of the Science of Reality is to establish
th is true middle point in connection with the different couples of extremes (I,
14, 18).
This, of course, poses a basic problem. If the extremes are different for
different men and, I may add, for the different states of the same man, who can
have different experiences and degrees of knowledge, how can different men
60 G. Tonelli

have in fact the true middle point in common (although they are mostly not
aware of it)? Changeux' solution of this problem seems to me to be the
following: he refers to the doctrine of "a philosopher" who held that the
un iverse is an immense circle whose center is everywhere, and whose
circumference is nowhere (curious 18th Century revival of a doctrine of
Cusanus, which in our time is well known); and adds that, in connection with
us, the universe is a very narrow circle, of which we occupy the center (I, 10), as
a spider stays in the center of its web (1,74). Now, it is evident (1) that all things
we sense, and we know by ideas, must be located between the extremes;
everything which lies without this sphere, does not exist for us. (2) the center
of th is sphere is that [point] where the greatest degree of existence of these
things shall make itself sensed or perceived (I, 14). Returning to the image of
the circle, "we can compare the highest degree of reality to the center of an
almost infinite number of concentrical circles, which does not change, and is
always the same, although the circles may be larger or smaller; the more and
the less of the length of the rays of these circles is the measure of the extremes,
which are more or less extended for each man in particular" (I, 17-18).
Moreover, different circles subsist for the same man at the same time: "we put
the objects at different distances form us; we connect them by concentrical
circles, upon which we make them appear, and we occupy the center: (I, 74).
Now, what Changeux means is probably this: potentially, all men have the
same ideas and can order them in the correct way, because of the uniformity of
human nature and of the universe (Changeux assumes this proposition, which I
call the principle of uniformity, without feeling the need to prove it - a
proposition he hardly could prove, as it clearly is referred to human nature,
and to the universe, as they are in themselves; so that, according to Changeux,
we cannot know them). But in fact different men perceive different portions
(have different views) of the universe, so that those ideas they represent out of
the potential common stock are not the same, and this is true also for the
extremes. Now, if we apply to this the image of the "circle" (or, with some
change , that of the "sphere"), we may put things in the following way: on the
circumferences of the concentrical circles are located all couples of extremes,
which are the extremities of each diameter of the circles (on the image of the
diameter see I, 18); the circles are concentrical circles, because of the principle
of uniformity; each man is aware only of some extremes, i.e. of some points of
some circumferences; however, these extremes define a certain number of
diameters of the concentrical circles, and the point where the diameters cross
each other is identical to the true center of the circle, so that, in fact , all men
have this true center in common, although they are mostly not aware of it,
because they can err in establishing the middle point between each couple of
extremes, locating it, on the diameter between the two extremes, in a point
other than the center of the circle.
Changeux, in fact, writes that "there are as many orders of infinites, as there
are men reasoning"; but reality is the same for all men , "because reality
occupies the middle point between the extremes , or between the two kinds of
infinity characterizing the extremes, whatever be the order of this infinity" (I,
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 61

0711-VIII).
Thus, it seems that the extremes are conceived as invariants (with the help of
the notion of infinity); so that, even if the ideas we start with do not correspond
to reality, i.e. are not the exact middle point (51 the diameter) between their
extremes, we call first reach (on the circumferences) both extremes of each of
them, and then , starting back ; from the extremes, establish the true middle
point. And this is what makes a Science of Reality possible.P"
But there is a further difficulty: our author states that what is infinite for a
child may not be infinite for an adult; that what is infinite for the ignorant may
not be infinite for the learned, etc.; still, all of these (couples of) infinites have
their middle point in common. Moreover, each reader will conceive differently
of the particular extremes expounded by Changeux in his treatise , but they will
all agree on the reality of their middle point (1, VI-VIII). The ignorant will be
(in practice) in possession of the same general ideas, such as motion, space etc.,
as the learned the difference between them is that the learned knows how these
ideas originated (I, 86-87) , so that he has a correct awareness of them, and it
not distracted by apparent middle points.
All this suggests that the character of invariance attributed to each couple of
extremes transcends the particular awareness of the extremes in question; the
extremes may appear to different men in a different way, cut all these
appearances lead in practice to the same result (middle point). This difference
in appearances is expressed by the image of the concentrical circles: what
appears to be infinite to a child, appears to be finite to an adult, etc.; Changeux
means , in my opinion, that a child in this case locates his infinity on the
circumference of a smaller circle (or series of concentrical circles) than the
adult does; so that the adult still consider as finite the child's infinite, and will
locate his own extremes on the circumference of a larger circle. Then, the
invariance of the extremes consists in tile fact that while each Man proceeds in
both directions towards the extremes of an idea as far as he can go as an
individual, this happens in such a way that these extremes always reach the
extremities of a diameter of the circumference of sound circle, which has as a
center the Real middle point (and not the apparent one, i.e. the initial idea); and
this is a further consequence of the principle of the uniformity of human
nature. Now, the scientific study of the extremes as made by Changeux, will
bring about among the readers a convergence of their awareness of the real
middle point, without necessarily bringing about a convergence of their
awareness of the extremes.
I tried here to establish a certain consistency among some potentially
conflicting elements of Changeux' thought, but my interpretation is (only
hypothetical; in fact , these considerations are not systematically expounded
by our author, so that I must warn the reader that they are partially based on
inference and on conjecture.
But it is clear that Changeux, while holding his theories on a foundation he
identifies with empiricism (i.e. claiming that experience is the only foundation
for truth), strives to overcome the boundaries of traditional empiricism, as his
"principle of reality" allows him to establish truths lying beyond the empiri-
62 G. Tonelli

cists' perspectives (I, 55). This does not mean that we can know things as they
are in themselves: in fact, human science consists "in referring all ideas to some
fixed points , and in giving them an order and an arrangement founded on
nature, and on the way they are subordinated to each other". These "fixed
points" are the most general ideas, viz. the "immutable", "eternal truths" (I,
69-70) . In other words, all knowledge we can obtain only concerns the human
mind, and the way it represents the world. But about the world, as it is
represented by man, the Science of Reality seems to produce more knowledge
than some other empiristical methods. In fact, in the field of Metaphysics (a
science which does not study things in themselves, but the most abstract of our
ideas: I, 157), for one, Changeux is convinced to be able to settle many
questions other empiricists could not solve satisfactorily, or renounced to
consider at all. Notions such as being and nothingness, eternity and the instant,
past and future, time, life (in the sense of consciousness protracted in time),
infinite magnitude anti-smallness (both physical and mathematical), space, the
infinite divisibility of matter (I, l60f., 163, 164, 167, 175f., 187f., 197f., 205f.),
are supposed to find a solution to their difficulties.
In so doing, Changeux is certainly more radical (at least explicitly) than, say,
Locke or Condillac in renouncing all pretensions to establish any truth
reaching beyond the merely phenomenal world (e.g. God's existence); but
within this phenomenal, purely mental world, his method allows him to settle
more questions than, e.g. Locke could with the help of the function of
"intuition". Changeux, in fact, develops a kind of phenomenal rationalism, as
a complement to his empiricism , which claims greater achievements than the
rational component of "intuition" in Locke's method could yield. But I will
reconsider this point at the end of this paper.
The task of the Science of Reality consists in studying the general principles
of the different sciences; now, these principles are the opposite extreme to
simple, individual sensations ; but , as the extremes meet each other, the general
principles , or the most general ideas, are nothing but the expression of the
simplest facts, or of the simplest sensations (I, 64, 66-67). We can discern here
a clear echo of D'Alembert's basic doctrine, assert ing that the true principles of
each science are "simple and recognized facts", and not the "axioms".6s
Mathematics has the advantage over the other sciences of being founded on
clear perceptions; all its propositions are perfectly tautological (identical); but
they are not more evident than those of -the other sciences (I, 33); in fact they
do not concern absolute reality (I, 34) as they are founded on suppositions, i.e.
they are abstractions elaborated for us; for this conception of mathematics
Changeux correctly refers to Buffon's authority (I, 35). Beside metaphysical
and mathematical truths, there are physical, moral and theological truths (I,
34). Physical truths are founded on facts, i.e. on observation. Moral truths are
partially similar to mathematically and partially to physical truths.66 Theologi-
cal truths are revealed (I, 37-38). Human truth is valid for all men, but it is
always "contingent" or "hypothetical", i.e. dependent on the nature of men;
absolute truth belongs to a perfect being only (1,31-32). Truth, in conclusion is
nothing but a combination of ideas, viz. a relationship between ideas, and is
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 63

founded on evidence; while reality concerns what exists in connection with us,
and is founded on certainty (I, 39-10, 45). Only abstract ideas can be evident
(1,41); evidence has nothing to do with reality: e.g. the idea of the colour red is
evident, but it is nothing real (I, 43) We find in Changeux, as in many French
Enlightenment philosophers, the Lockean mental notion of truth as a mere
relationship between ideas.
According to Changeux, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes did not provide any
valid criterion for certainty. Locke, on the contrary, realized the limits of the
human mind: for him, certainty depends on our way of sensing. The
Pyrrhonians were wrong in that they trusted probability (I, 46-51, 128). Only
the Eclectics and the Empiricists reached a position acceptable by everybody
(I, 55). Basically, we can establish that knowing is nothing but sensing, and that
sensations never deceive us: error originates from reasoning (I, 57, 66).
The ideas of space, time and matter are abstract, and have nothing to do with
(external) reality (I, 64, 65,162,167,168,200,203), as all general ideas are only
expressions of the particular ideas from which they were abstracted, and do not
correspond to the essence of things. Even the idea of the Ego is something we
know only in connection with ourselves, i.e. we do not know what it is in itself
(what the soul is) (I, 68).
All sciences are nothing but collections of facts; therefore they are hypothe-
tical; a science of the essences of things does not exist (I, 73); from this point of
view, Ontology is completely useless (I, 77). In as far as Ontology studies the
cognitive principles, it is of some use, but the principle of contradiction is
sterile (I, 79); the principle of sufficient reason establishes that everything has a
cause, but it does not help to discover what the particular causes are; axioms
are of little use, because in our reasoning we are not helped by the principles,
but by correct and determinate ideas (I, 79-84). However, the axioms of the
Cartesians are more useful than the principles of contradiction and of sufficient
reason these axioms are: (I) all what is contained into the clear and distinct
idea of a thing can be asserted of that thing; (2) each perfection is dependent on
a being; etc. (I, 81-82). Here we find, again, a clear (and more specific)
influence of Locke, in his attack against the utility of the principles.f" but
Changeux found perhaps a nearer source of inspiration in D'Alembert. 68
'If man were capable of perfect science, this would consist of mere sensations
only, without any useless abstract idea: but this would be identical to complete
ignorance (I, 117-118); the most perfect reason is identical to the blindest
instinct; (I, 119) perfect esprit would be the same thing as perfect brutalite. This
is, of course, another application of the method of the extremes; and it is
justified in that perfect learning, would introduce so many distinctions into
abstract ideas, that they would be reduced to a collection of single ideas, and
this would meet total brutality, because the brute only has single ideas which he
cannot combine with each other. Besides, learning consists in the awareness
that all our knowledge is merely negative, and that it does not concern (external
or absolute) reality so that it meets complete ignorance (I, 122-24; see also 86-
87). Changeux also warns, in the spirit of his age, against the dangers of
"systems" (I, 131). As we can see, Changeux proposes a position of radical
64 G. Tonelli

nominalism which, representing two extremes (perfect learning and ignorance),

does not otherwise affect his way of thinking, which of course is developed in
the middle point of the. extremes. This radical nominalism probably derives
from Condillac's polemic against abstractions.f"
As other examples of Changeux' method of the extremes, I will mention his
definition of time, as an abstraction of our mind from the succession of our
ideas (I, 162, 167), in between the two extremes of the instant, and of eternity,
which we cannot conceive (I, 168) . In physics, a nice example of how extremes
meet is the following: in nature, variety and unity meet each other in the same
way as, in geometry, by infinitely increasing the variety, i.e. the number of sides,
of a polygon, we obtain a circle, which is the simplest plane figure (I, 243).
Other extremes are, e.g. generation and corruption (I, 309 f.), motion and rest
(I, 426), in physiology, pleasure and pain (I, 525). The method of the extremes,
however, does not seem to have led its author to any sensational particular
results.
It is clear that Changeux' position is that of a radical sceptical empiricist.
Among other things , God's existence, belonging to theology is founded on
Revelation; and this is a way of saying that it cannot be proved rationally (I,
216). All knowledge, inclusive of the mathematical, is relative to man and to his
constitution. From this point of view Changeux' philosophy is certainly not
very original; I pointed out above the less obvious precedents of his doctrines,
the others are well known.
Nevertheless, Changeux shows a rather interesting preoccupation for the
universal validity of human knowledge within the field of "internal" reality ; a
validity which he found (a) on the uniformity of (I) human nature and (2) of
"external" reality: two assumptions which he seems to take for granted; and (b),
on the method of the extremes as invariants matting it possible to establish a
universal central point of highest (internal) reality. The use of the term "reality"
is characteristic in itself: Changeux generalizes it, as "internal" reality, as a
denomination for a world which does not correspond to things as they are in
themselves he could have used for this the expression, current in his time
among Leibnitziansi" at least, of "phenomenal" world, but which applies to
this world only in as far as it is not pure "appearance". This meaning of the
term is not without precedents," but it never was used so constantly and
conspicuously before Changeux; it will become, in a similar sense, a central
term in Kant's Critical philosophy.
In fact Changeux, while drawing the most radical conclusions from tradi-
tional academic skepticism, is striving towards overcoming it by establishing a
realm of phenomenal metaphysical truth of universal validity. This, again, is
not quite original, because it is a development on a different and weaker
direction of one of D'Alembert's major points in his Elements de philosophie
(I 759, additions 1767).72 However, a significant speculative effort in this
direction would have amounted to reaching a position analogous to Kant's
later attempt to overcome traditional skepticism by establishing a universal and
necessary foundation for some elements of human knowledge .P Obviously,
Changeux could not be expected successfully to go so far, but his conscious
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 65

preoccupation with this point, albeit leading to abortive results, is one of the
symptoms of a germinal reaction against skepticism, trying to proceed a new
plan , i.e. without reestablishing traditional dogmatism. of D'Alembert had
proceeded in the same direction, I have no evidence that he was fully aware of
it. In fact, disregarding the unwarranted assumptions underlying Changeux'
system, the method of the "extremes" is open to easy criticism, and as we have
seen, is not thoroughly established by its authors in an explicit and conscious
way at least.
The limits of this, method, too, are not clearly defined; obviously, mere
particular knowledge is empirical not only in as far as it proceeds from the
senses, but also in that it can reach probabilistic generality but not universal
validity for man . Only, I did not find Changeux explaining at which level this
kind of knowledge begins. It is not quite clear whether the laws of motion are
empirical or not; Changeux expounds Maupertuis principle of the least action
(which was considered by Maupertuis himself, and by other scientists of that
time, as the foundation of the laws of motion) , and he describes it as a
"geometrical truth" (p. 256-261) ; which suggests that he considers that law
to be absolutely necessary i.e. above empirical generality. In fact, D'Alembert
held the laws of motion for absolutely necessary, but Maupertuis, while
basically inclining towards the same position, had finally rejected it. If
Changeux was of the same opinion as D'Alembert, then the laws of nature
whose necessity cannot be proven belong to a level lower (more particular) than
that of the laws of motion but it is not clear where this level can be established,
as Changeux applies the method of the extremes, i.e. his meta-empirical
procedure, to notions such as generation and corruption (I, 309ff.), solidity
and liquidity (I, 316ff.), physical pleasure and pair S (I, 3S9-390), so that there
seem to be other principles of nature, belonging to physics, biology, physiology,
which are capable of an absolute foundation. Changeux certainly opens many
more problems than he is capable of solving.

NOTES
This research was made poss ible by a 1.S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and by a grant
from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York . I wish to express my gratitude
to both institutions, and to my colleague, Prof. Anthony Preus, who read the manuscript and made
some valuable suggestions.

1. B. De Felice, Encyclopedic, ou Dict ionnaire universal raisonne des connaisances humaines, 42 viL,
Yverdon 177lJ-1775
2. R. Desautels, Les Memoires de rrevoux et le mouvement des idees aux XV/IIe steele (J 701-1734),
Rome 1956, pp . 173-186
3. Actually, the Biographie calls this journal Journal de Physique; but in the Abbe Rozier's time it
was still entitled Observations sur la physique. The title was changed in 1794. See E. Hatin,
Bibliograph ie historique et critique de la presse perodique francaise, Paris 1866 (Rp. Hildesheim
1965) pp . 36-37.
4. Other information is contained in Ch . Brainne, 1. Debar-Bouiller, Ch .-F. LaPierre, Les hommes
illustres de l'Orleans, 2 voL, Orleans 1852, 1. P. 308.
5. B. Pascal, Pensees et opuscules, ed. Brunschvieg, Paris 1912, p. 174. These passages were still
unpublished in 1768, but not those referred to in Note 6.
66 G. Tonelli

6. Op. Cit., pp. 350-353.

7. See 1. TH.Van Konijnenburg, Courant pascalien et courant anti-pascalien de 1670 Ii 1734 [in fact,
until 1746], thesis Leided, Bruxelles 1932; B. Arnoudru, Des "pascalins" aux "Pascalisames". La
vie posthume des Pensees, Paris 1936; D. Finch, La critique philosophique de Pascal au XVIlle
steele, University of Pennsylvania thesis, Philadelphia 1940; J. Ehrad, Pascal au steele des
lumieres, in: Pascal present, Clermont-Ferrand 1962; M. Krause, Das Pascal-Bild in der
franziisischen Literatur, Hamburg 1955. M. Vamos' monograph: Pascal's pensees and the
Enlightenment: the roots ofa misunderstanding, in: Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century,
XCVII , 1971, lays the philological foundation for the study of this problem in as far as the
Pensees are concerned.
8. L. Racine. Poesies, Paris 1823, p. 34 (La Religion, Ch. II): "Je ne suis a la fois que neant et
grandeur."
9. Amoudru,op. cit., p. 72. We also could consider a passage ofVauvenargues: see F. Vial, Luc de
Ciapier, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Paris 1838, (Rp . Geneve 1970), p. 78.
10. G-L. Leclerc de Buffon, Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. Pivetau, Paris 1954 p. 41 (Hist . Nat., vol.
XIII, 1765, "Seconde Vue!").
11. See G. Tonelli, "Critiques to the Notion of Substance Prior to Kant," in: Tijdschrift voor
Philosoph ie, XXIII, 1961.
12. R. H. Popkin, Scepticism in the Enlightenment, in: Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth
Century, XXVI, 1963, pp. 1321 If.
13. See my essay, "Kant und die antiken Skeptiker, in : Studien zu Kant's philosophischer
Entwicklung, hrsg. v, H . Heimsoeth , Hildesheim 1967, p.l09 (and footnotes referred to in it).
14. I must remark for the sake of objectivity that my search of the British philosophy of that time
was not as extensive by far as that of French and German philosophy, and so this side of the
picture is not yet quite clear in my mind , But I suspect that a further inquiry would not
significantly change the present perspective.
15. This is implicitly a discussion of some of the criteria used by Prof. Popkin in his examination of
French scepticism, op. cit., pp. 1337-1339.
16. Op. cit., p. 1335.
17. L. Robinson, "Un solipsiste au XVlIe siecle, in: L ' Annee philosophique, XXIV, 1913, p. 29.
18. H. Kirkinen, Les origines de fa conception moderne de l'homme-machine, Helinski, 1960, pp. 360-
361. Kirkinen finds in Maubec a " raison generale" or "bon sens" warranting certain
fundamental truths. But, in fact, Maubec , in his Principes physiques de la raison et des passions
des hommes, Paris 1709, states that we always judge according to our "prejudices", defined by
him as our habitual ways of judging, which may be either true or false (pp. 108-109), and which
derive from the senses, the passions, instruction and example (p. 107). All knowledge comes
through the senses. There are some "necessary, inevitable prejudices" which are "the truths
which are clear and evident by themselves, such as the first principles of mathematics"; but they
arise empirically for the simple reason that it just happens "qu'elles sont l'effet d'une impression
claire & distincte & tofijours uniforme " (pp. 109-110); ". .. ainsi il est visible qu'il est certaines
choses sur lesquelles tous les hommes doivent raisonner a peu pres de la meme maniere" (p.
121). The point is the a peu pres. This is a " raison generale & commune a tous les hommes" or
"sens commun" (ibid.). But the certainty of this knowledge is founded only "sur la vive
impression qu'elles font dans notre esprit , & sur Ie peu d'apparence qu'il y a que Cieu a voulu
nous tromper dans les choses qu'il nous fait appercevoir d'une maniere sie vive et si sensible";
since this foundation of reasonable knowledge is very weak, the most reliable source of truth is
Revelation (pp. 198f.). Our reasoning is nothing but a "melange monstrueux de verite & d'ereur,
d'evidence et d'incertitude, de clarte et de confusion" (p. 122). However, Maubec plans to
expound in a future work the criterion for the truth of reasonable knowledge, through an
examina tion of the origin of our prejudices and of their connections (pp. 201-202) . As this work
was not produced, we do not know whether Maubec could have found a way out of his
relativism, after all; but from what we read there is no indication that he could. Kirkinen
connects Maubec with Regis and Locke, but the connection with each is very loose: Maubec is
an extreme empiricist , or a forerunner of sensism. For him there is no such thing as an intuition
revealing some basic truths mined by our experience, our psycophysical const itution, and our
 Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment 67

education, as was held by Harvey, Helvetius, etc. One could propose a connection, perhaps,
with Hobbes, whose influence in this field has not been studied adequately.
19.1.S. Spink , French Free-T'Hought from Gassendi to Voltaire. London , 1960, pp. 220-221. I could
not see personally Gaultier's work.
20. R. Mercier, La rehabilitation de la nature humaine ( 1700- 1750), Paris, 1960, pp. 205-207 .
21. See L. Tolmer, P.-D. Huet ( 1630-1721), Bayeux, 1949.
22. Popkin , op. cit., p. 1326.
23.1.-F. Baltus, Sentiment. . .sur Ie Traite de lafaiblesse. . ., in: P.-N. Desmolets , Continuation des
Memoires de littetature et d'histoire, T. II , Ie P., Paris, 1926.
24. Spink, op. cit., p. 307.
25. Popkin , op. cit. , p. 1327.
26. See n. 2 above.
27. W. Krauss , Cartaud de la Vii/ate , Berlin 1960.
28. Mercier, op. cit., pp. 185-186.
29. Gi-C, Legendre de Saint Aubain-sur-Loire , Traite de l'opinion (1733], Paris 1735. This is an
enormous and very tedious work of more than 3000 pages in 6 volumes, showing some erudition
but very little originality. Saint Aubain believes in magic (vol. II, p. 384), and discusses the
cabbala, oracles, omens, dreams, etc. He declares that pyrrhonism is dangerous and non-
sensical, but that a prudent doubt is salutary: he intends "to humiliate the human mind " (vol. I,
p. 2) in order to prepare it to receive "the light of faith", which cannot be submitted to reason ;
there are, however, some primary truths , founded on interior conviction, which cannot be
questioned . The pyrrhonian who denies this cannot be enlightened by Revelation, because he
has no criterion for distinguishing Revelation from imposture (vol. I, pp. 464-465) . In spite of
his praise of doubt, Saint Aubain seems to be rationally assured of a substantial stock of truths.
He produces a (rather trivial) proof for God 's existence as first cause of his own existence (vol.
II, pp. 215-216, 219), and knows, too, that the soul of animals is an intermediate substance
between matter and spirit (vol. II, p. 263). I am not ready, then, to consider Saint Aubain a
sceptic; in my opinion , he belongs rather to the "weakness of reason" trend. See G. Tonelli, The
Weakness of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment, in: Diderot Studies, XIV, 1971.
30. Spink, op. cit., pp. 309f.
31. Popkin , op. cit. , p. 1330.
32. Mercier, op. cit., pp. 433f.
33. F. Quesnay, Essai physique sur l ' econam ie animale (1737), Paris 1747. Another important
document of Quesnay 's scepticism is his article "Evidence" in the Encyclopedic (1756). See also
J.B. Ie Boyer d'Argens, La philosophie du bon sens (1737), Dresde 1754. I will discuss the
scepticism of Quesnay and d'Argens in a monograph on Maupertuis which is now in
preparation. See also E. Johnston, Le Marquis d'Argens, Paris 1928 (Rp . Geneve 1971).
34. F.M. Arouet de Voltaire, Micromegas, ed. Wade, Princeton, 1950. See Wade's Introduction and
notes, and pp. 141f.
35. F.M. Arouet de Voltaire, Romans et contes , ed. H. Benac, Paris 1958, p. 315.
36. This is not the opinion of R. Geissler, Boureau-Deslandes, Ein Materialist der Friihaufkldrung,
Berlin 1967.
37. I will discuss this work more extensively in my monograph on Maupertuis.
38. See his poem La Religion (1742), uiPoesies , Paris 1823.
39. See above, n. 36.
40. See, for example, L. de Clapier de Vauvenargues, Oeu vres completes , ed. Bonnier, Paris 1968, vol
I, pp. 251-252. (Reflexions sur divers sujets, 1. Sur Ie Pyrrhonisme).
41. Vial, op. eit., pp. 74--108.
42. E. Bonnot de Condillac, Oeuvres completes, Paris 1803 suiv., I, pp. 2-3 , 18, 110-112; III , pp.
373,385-386; IV,pp.222, 383-384 , 392- 393.
43. Condillac, op. cit., I, pp, 20-25 .
44. See references given in n. 42.
45. Condillac, op. cit ., pp. 125-146.
68 G. Tonelli

46. Popkin, op. cit., p. 1338, and also the different sections of Condillac's Introduction to the Cours,
to the Art de penser, and to the Art de raisonner, where he discusses the problems of God, the
soul, and the body.
47. See J. Schwartz, Diderot and Montaigne, Geneve 1966, pp. 60-85 ; Popkin, op. cit., p. 1336.
48. See n. 33. Maupertuis' basic works in this respect are: Reflexions sur l'origine des langues (1748),
Essai de Cosmologie (1750), and Lettres (1752). See P.-L. Moreau de Maupertuis Oeuvres, 4 vol.,
Lyon 1768.
49. A. Le Sueur, Maupertuis et ses correspondants, Paris 1897, pp. 355-356 and n.
50. G.L. Leclerc de Buffon, Oeuvres completes, Paris 1845, vol. I, p. 5.
51. Buffon, op. cit., I, p. 12; III pp. 115,119, 131,221 ,222.
52. Buffon, op. cit., III, p. 126.
53. Buffon, op. cit., I, pp. 11-12; III, pp. 115-116.
54. Buffon, op. cit., III, pp. 221, 222, 224.
55. 1. Offray de la Mettrie, Oeuvres, Berlin 11774 (Rp. Hildesheim 1970). pp. 30-31 .
56. Encyclopedie, vol IV, 1753, pp. 746-747.
57. Ch. Bonnet, Essai de Psychologie, Londres 1755, pp. 96, 105, 106, 118-122, 386; Essai
analytique sur les facultes de lame, Copenhague 1760, pp. XIV-XVI, 14,45,79,93,95,168,
467 . However, thought definitely seems to be different from matter: pp. XVIII-XX.
58. Popkin, op. cit ., p. 1342.
59. N. Beguelinm, Memoire sur les premiers principes de la metaphysique, I, in: Histoire de l'
Academie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres {de Berlin], MDCCLV, 1757, in particular, p.
419.
60. 1.B. Merian, Discours sur la Metaphysique, in: Histoire etc., MDCCLXV, 1767, pp. 459-461 . The
Discours also had been published separately in 1765.
61. See G . Tonelli, "D'Alemberts Scepticism", to be published in The Review of Metaphysics.
62. Encyclopedie, vol. XIII, 1765, art. "Propriete"; Vol XV, 1765 art. "Sensations", p. 35, "Sentiment
intime",
63. Popkin, op. cit., p. 1342, n. 42.
64. I, pp. 45-46: "NOllS avons dit que ce n'est qu'en decouvrant quelle est notre constitution
presente, notre maniere de sentir, que nous pourrons juger de la realite dans nos sensations, &
par une consequence necessaire, de la certitude dans nos idees et dans nos raisonnements, & que
I'on ne peut autrement fixer cette maniere de sentir, qu 'en reconnaissant les deux Extremes entre
lesquels se trouve,"
65. 1. le Rond D ' Alembert, Oeuvres, vol. II , Paris 1805, pp . 29-30 (Rp. as Elements de Philosoph ie,
ed. Schwab, Hildesheim 1965).
66. See Buffon, op. cit., p. 12. For Locke, moral ideas had the same character as mathematical ideas:
1. Locke, An Essay concerning Human understanding, ed. Campbell Fraser, New York 1959, vol.
II , pp . 156-157, 208-209, 232-233 . This doctrine had not been accepted by the French
Lockeans.
67. Locke, op. cit., vol. II , pp. 275ff.
68. Condillac, op. cit ., vol. I, pp. 49-53.
69. Condillac, op. cit ., vol. I, pp. 49-53.
70. Changeux has some knowledge of Leibniz, probably from the French Leibnitians, but this
knowledge must be very superficial, considering that he constantly mispells "Leibniz" as
"Leikniz".
71. See, e.g. G. Berkeley, The Works, ed. Fraser, Oxford 1901, Vol. I, pp. 276-277, 424.
72. See above, n. 61.
73. See G. Tonelli , "Kant und die antiken Skeptiker," op. cit., pp. IIO.
 G.TONELLI

KANT AND THE ANCIENT SCEPTICS

1.

The historical problematic of the sceptical tradition since the Renaissance has
been raised again recently in a splendid book by Richard Popkin . 1 The author
traces the relationships between the revival of ancient scepticism and the new
sceptical attitudes from Erasmus to Descartes, and promises a future continua-
tion of his work that will reach down to Kierkegaard. Our investigation here is
intended as a contribution to the penultimate steps of that continuation. We
shall not be raising the general problem of Kant's relationship to scepticism: a
decision about this far-reaching question will first be possible when its
presuppositions (namely, the progress of the sceptical tradition up to Kant)
have been clarified. We will therefore mainly limit ourselves to one part of the
problem : Kant's relationship with the ancient sceptics, with special attention to
terminological questions.
It goes without saying that one should not believe that this part of the
problem can be considered wholly in isolation. One reason for this is that in all
likelihood Kant's knowledge of ancient scepticism was not based on a first-
hand study of the ancient Greek texts ," but rather on the received image of the
Greek sceptics, ma inly as it was to be found in the modern sceptics, their
opponents, and the historians of philosophy of the times. It will therefore be
necessary to allude to some aspects of the history of modern scepticism;
especially to Pierre Bayle and his followers in the eighteenth century.
An evaluation of the attitude of Kant toward the ancient sceptics naturally
also presupposes an assessment of his relationship with scepticism in general,
and especially to the scepticism of his times. But in respect to this question, as
in the case of the previous one, we will limit ourselves to generally accepted
features and certain special indications and particulars, in order not to go too
far out of the range of our problem .

2.

The traditional characterizations of the sceptics are certainly important for our
theme. Gassendi wrote: "Ipsi a Pyrrhone Pyrrhonei dicuntur; & cum dictum

69
R.B. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 69-98.
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
70 G. Tonelli

iam sit appellari eos quoque ab assensus cohibitione Epheticos, & a consider-
atione, discussioneque Scepticos , constat fuisse quoque Zeteticos vocatos, a
facta undequaque Veritatis inquisitione, itemque Aporeticos a dubitationibus
variis, quas obiicere Dogmaticis solent"? These characterizations can also be
found in Stanley, Bayle, Crousaz, Brucker, Baumgarten, and many others."
We observe in this a term that arouses our special interest: Zetetici. Kant
wrote in his Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem Winter-
halbjahre von 1765-1766 [Report on the Plan of his Lectures in the Winter
Semester of 1765-66J: "The proper method of investigation of worldly wisdom
is the zetetical method, as some of the ancients called it (from S11.1:1 v), that is,
the investigative method, which becomes dogmatic, that is, decisive, only where
already skillful reason has been applied to different matters" (Academy ed. II,
307). And this is bound up with the teaching that one should learn not
philosophy, but how to philosophize: philosophy is not grounded so firmly as
the historical and mathematical sciences, and a completely certain philosophy
is not yet available. It is only possible to teach youth how one can bu ild up a
ph ilosophy oneself.
This corresponds to the intentions that Kant expressed in his work on
Distinctness (1763): it would be necessary to determine the simple basic
concepts through an analytical process before one could build up a systematic
(and synthetic) philosophy. Kant now maintained that he had already made
substantial progress in this direction (II, 308). Writings like Negative Quantities
and Objects in Space doubtless belong to this research program, which finally
would lead to the revolution of the year 1769. Thus one can understand why
Kant associated the two terms "zetetic" and "critical" somewhat later (1772):
"The idea of metaphysics: is it a critique or a doctrine : is its procedure zetetic
or dogmatic"? (XVII, 558, Refl. N. 4455); and why he divided the proposed
work into a "genetic" and a "zetetic" part. The latter contained, among other
things, an "antithesis" and a "sceptical" part (XVII, 560, Refl. N. 4450). The
"critical" attitude appeared to him after 1769 as the true form of the earlier
"zetetic" procedure, and can thus also in a revised sense be called "zetetic", The
Logik Blomberg (1771) transmitted a Kantian definition of the Zetetic: "The
Zetetic is not one who has a maxim of rejecting each and every thing, nor to
decide each and every thing positively and without distinction, nor to maintain
it blindly, but rather one who reflects on his knowledge [denen Erkenntnissen],
and tests it". 5

3
The term "Zetesis" can only have come out of the sceptical vocabulary." In the
eighteenth century it was only drawn from there, and was even so very
uncommon." In the seventeenth century it appears almost exclusively in the
philosophical dictionaries," and even then it is only very seldom used.? This
origin is further confirmed when Kant opposes "zetetic" and "dogm atic" in the
above-mentioned place: this antithesis is typical both of the sceptical writings
and of the anti-sceptical literature.
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 71

"Dogmatic" and "dogma" were indeed used in the school philosophy of the
eighteenth century, but without relation to the sceptics , and in a wholly positive
sense. According to this usage, dogmatic knowledge was contrasted to
historical knowledge: the former consisted ofgeneral and rationally established
teachings, and the latter consisted of real and individual truths. All possible
rational knowledge consisted of dogmas; that is, of demonstrated teachings. 10
In this sense, for example, the expression "dogmatic theology" came into
general use in the first half of the eighteenth century (before Budde, in 1723,
very rare) . II In Semler's usage dogmatic theology is a kind of systematic
theology (that is, a theology that collects, combines, and mutually derives the
truths of the Holy Book) , "which has to do with the interpretation and
demonstration of the teachings of the faith; the credenda of the Holy Book ,
the theories that the holy order contains" - as opposed to historical theology,
which is purely a catalog of biblical teachings. 12
One can not indeed maintain that Kant already in 1764 rejected dogmatic
philosophy in the traditional sense. He still had the notion, as he expressed it in
Distinctness (1763), that he himself would one day be able to finally ground a
dogmatic philosophy "in different parts". Even later (1769), when he had given
up this hope, logic, morals, and the general science of nature were "dogmati-
cally pure philosophy" (Reflection No. 3957, XVII, 366), although this was in a
new, critical sense. In the year 1772 he was still of the opinion that one should
proceed dogmatically in morals; 13 and even in the Critique of Pure Reason
Kant wrote that Critique was opposed to dogmatism, but that it should be
"dogmatic, that is, firmly and a priori established on the basis of certain
principles" (B XXXV). Kant thus used the term "dogmatic" with two different
meanings, one positive and one negative, in his Critical period. This double
usage is very clear in Kant's lectures on logic of the early 1770's (Logik
Blomberg, 1771, and Logik Philippi, 1772). The first, positive sense emerges at
the places where Kant opposes dogmatic (general, rational, a priorii knowledge
to historical (a posteriori, concerned with individuals) knowledge.l" " D ogma-
ta" are items of knowledge that can be discovered a priori through pure reason,
as in mathematics; 15 but also items of knowledge that are based on experi-
ence.l" The second, negative sense emerges where "dogmatic" is used in
opposition to "sceptical", "critical", "problematical", and "dialectical". 17 This
negative sense, which derives from the usage of the sceptics, obtained in general
a greater influence .
Thus, we should come to the conclusion that for Kant "zetetic" meant the
same as "sceptical" (in the good sense) (also see below, section 4). If in the
Report of 1765 he avoided the term "sceptical", one should believe that this was
in deference to public opinion, which could take offense at it. I S

4
Thus Kant used the term "sceptical" as a characterization of his metaphysics or
his critical method. Already in 1769 the Critical philosophy was to be "zetetic,
sceptic, problematic" (Reflection No. 3957, XVII , 366). But the term "sceptic"
72 G. Tonelli

had a positive and a negative sense as well, as we have seen above in the Logik
Blomberg. The first , that signifies a careful procedure in which one does not
claim anything until one has considered all the pros and contras and arrived at
perfect certainty, without excluding the possibility that the truth may be
reached, had the most influence and meant the same as "cr itical" and
"problematical't.l" This "true" scepticism was set against the false, which
maintained doubt as a final goal, and thus lapsed into dogmatism.j" In the
Lectures on Philosophical Encyclopedia, from the years 1776-1780,21 Kant
called Critique a "sceptical method", to be "distinguished from the sceptical
philosophy't.P In the Critique of Pure Reason we read: "While the transcen-
dental dialectic does not by any means favor scepticism, it certainly does favor
the sceptical method" (B535). And the "sceptical method" as a pure "suspen-
sion of judgment" is later explained as "very useful to the critical procedure",
as long as it does not lead to scepticism (Logik, IX, 84). It is appropriate to
observe here that Formey characterized the sceptics as "critiques tres mor-
dans".23
As we have seen, Critique was dogmatic, without leading to dogmatism; and
it was also sceptical, without leading to scepticism. Critique is finally a tertium
between dogmatism and scepticism, which takes advantage of the benefits of
both styles of reasoning, and rejects the drawbacks. However, this somewhat
artificial balance can only be demonstrated indirectly by comparing the various
textual references. The relation of the critical method, or of the transcendental
dialectic, to the sceptical method is in fact mostly found (and obtains its
greatest influence) where Critique is opposed, often reciprocally, to dogmatism.
The influence of the sceptical way of thinking on Kant is thus considerable,
and not just terminological. Before investigating the meaning of this fact more
closely, we will draw attention to a few not unimportant particulars.

5
In the year 1770 a very important book for Kant appeared: A.G. Baumgarten's
Phi/osophia generalisf" edited by his student Joh. Chr. Forster. The latter
introduced the work with a " D isser t atio prooemialis de dubitatione et
certitudine", in which he counted four kinds of philosophical doubts: 1. the
Pyrrhonian, 2. the Academic, 3. the Cartesian, and finally, 4. an "ultima
dubitationis ratio", which is "sana et rationalis" (#2).
What Forster wrote about the first of these is of special interest to us:
"Primarium tantummodo locum ex Sexto Empirico adponam, quo recte
appareat sententia Pyrrhonis et scepticorum [he cites the Outlines ofPyrrhon-
ism, 1.4]. Quando <pCXtv6~EVCX et VOOU~EVCX , uti debent, a se invicem distinguun-
tur, ut illa sint, quae sensu percipiuntur, haec vero, quae mente, non vero sensu
cogitari possunt; praecipue quidem 'teX VOOU~EVcx, opposita habuerunt 't01.~
<pCXtV6~EVotC;, tamen vero simul <pCXtV6~EVCX <pCXtvO~EVOtC;, opposuerunt; unde
quoque explicari debent, quae scepticis adeo solemnia sun t: Ilnvrl AOY<P laoc;
CXl>'th(E'tCXt: ouoev opi.~O): ou ~w..AO)V rotiro ti f:xE'i vo ... Plato... et post eum
discipulus Speusippus utique sibi opposita censuerunt <pCXtV6~EVCX et VOOU~EVCX;
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 73

et uti de his certitudinem atque evidentiam obtineri adfirmaverunt, ita hanc

virtutem de illis negaverunt" (#3).
This is one of the extraordinarily rare places in which a writer speaks of
"noumena" in the eighteenth century before Kant. We have only found three
other places in the course of thorough investigations: in places where Jo.
Regius, Carpov, and Brucker report on the same teaching of the sceptics." In
reference to Plato Brucker mentions only the Latin term "intellectualia"
(meaning the same as innate ideas) or VOll'tlX.26 "Noumenon" is also not
mentioned in the philosophical lexicons of the seventeenth century: Goclenius,
for example, opposes <pCllV6~EVCl to 8EffiQO'tUV. 27
Kant's interest in the sceptical method certainly would have made him notice
these expressions in Baumgarten's book (and others; see below). It is true that
he expressly related his term "Noumenon" to Plato." but it is very unlikely that
he had Plato's Greek text in his hands.f" It can probably be assumed that he
first had his attention drawn to the term "Noumena" (instead of intellectualia)
by Forster's note, considering that the place mentioned above refers to a
sceptical use of the term, which is nearer to the Kantian use than to the
Platonic, against which both the sceptics and Kant polemicized (although
obviously on different principles).30

6.
The quotation from Forster also brings out another side of scepticism that was
of great interest to Kant: its antithetical method. Already between 1752 and
1756 Kant gave as the origin of scepticism the "division of opinions" and
alluded to the sceptical procedure of setting up arguments and counter-
arguments.'! In The Only Possible Proof (1763), too , such a procedure was
commended as the best method, and one that can lead to truth (II, 67-8); and
he said the same in a letter to Lambert of February 3, 1766 (X, 63). In the
Logik Blomberg (1771) this method of investigation was praised, and attributed
to Pyrrho, Socrates, and Hume.V
Kant wrote between 1776 and 1778:"Two Metaphysici, of which one proves the
thesis, and the other proves the antithesis, stand in the eyes of a third observer for
a sceptical proof'.33 And one reads in the Lectures on Philosophical Encyclopedia :
"The sceptical method is the method of opposition, by which we seek to find the
truth. When someone for example maintains something, one maintains the
opposite and investigates whether it may perhaps be true".34 Kant called this
method "Dialectic": "... Dialectic was considered necessary by the administrators
and lawyers in ancient times. The sceptics were very useful to them, because they
tried to bring people to uncertainty by maintaining first one thing, and then its
opposite'l" In Kant's Logic the sceptics or Academics were called "subtle,
dialectical philosophers", for whom "philosophy consists in the equivalency of
judgments and teaches us to uncover false appearances... Their teacher Plato had
started them on this, in that many of his teachings were dialogical, so that the
arguments pro and contra were brought out without him deciding between them,
although he was in other respects very dogmatic" (IX , 30-1).
74 G. Tonelli

7
In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant referred to Zeno of Elea as one of the
predecessors of his own dialectic: "Zeno of Elea, a subtle dialectician, was
already severely rebuked by Plato as a mischievous sophist who, in order to
show off his art, tried to prove a proposition through plausible arguments and
then tried to destroy it through arguments just as strong ... To the critics of his
procedure he appeared to have the absurd intention of denying both of two
mutually contradictory propositions. But this accusation does not seem to me
to be justified... If two opposed judgments presuppose an inadmissible
condition, then in spite of their opposition, which does not amount to a
contradicition strictly so-called, both fall to the ground, inasmuch as the
condition, under which alone either of them can be maintained, itself falls"
(B530-l).
According to Zeno, the dialectic had another function : "Zeno of Elea... was
a man of great understanding and acumen. - Until then, dialectic meant the
pure use of the understanding; or it signified the ability to use one's under-
standing with respect to concepts isolated from all sensibility. - For that reason
we find so much praise of it among the ancients; and in this sense it is
praiseworthy. The philosophers that rejected this sense necessarily fell into
subtleties, and then dialectic arose in the sense in which we take it. It became an
art of supporting and opposing every proposition; it became purely an exercise
for sophists, lawyers, and public speakers 'C"

8.
In Kant's OpInIOn, the dialectic of the ancients was "not a science of the
probable, but of illusion [Schein]; and also not a critique of illusion, but if it
had been, it would have been admirable". In Kant's day, this dialectic had
"almost disappeared'V" and had become , as a part of formal logic, very
harmful: " Here we are taught to speak of things about which we know
nothing".38 This "sophistical art" developed when one tried to use formal logic
as an organon. A dialectic was permissible in formal logic next to an analytic
only if it were understood as a "critique of dialectical illusion" (B85-6) . This
would be a dialectic "which possessed signs and rules by which we could
recognize that something was not in accordance with the formal criteria of
truth, even if it appeared to be exactly in accordance with them . The dialectic in
this meaning would thus have a good use as a catharcticon of the under-
standing" (IX, 17).
The analytic and the dialectic of formal logic thus run in parallel to the
transcendental analytic and the transcendental dialectic. The first is a logic of
the truth, the second a logic of illusion (or a critique of dialectical illusion), that
has nothing to do with the empirical, but rather has to do with transcendental
illusions. This logic of illusion is not a teaching about probability; the latter
belongs to the analytical part of logic (B87-8; 349-52).
The following points from the foregoing should be especially underlined: 1.
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 75

Kant regarded the sceptics as dialecticians, indeed of the sophistical kind; 2.

Zeno is also a dialectician, but his dialectic is, contrary to the accepted opinion,
not sophistical; 3. the method of Zeno and of the sceptics is dialectic as a
method of contradiction, and is called the "sceptical method"; for Zeno,
however, it leads to truth and not to scepticism and concerns the pure use of
the understanding; for the sceptics it leads to uncertainty and is also applied to
sensible nature; 4. dialectic is for the ancients, as for Kant, a logic of illusion
and not of probability; for Kant, however, it is a critique of illusion and, as a
part of transcendental logic, concerns only the illusions of the pure use of the
understanding (and thus clearly it can not serve as a catharcticon of formal
logic for dialectic). - We will now explore the presuppositions of these opinions
of Kant.

9
It was a wide-spread opinion that Zeno had been the originator of dialectic;
yet, the invention of the term "dialectic" was denied him. We find correspond-
ing places in Gassendi, Bayle, Stanley, Darjes, Brucker, and others." As is well
known, Zeno's teachings were used already as support for scepticism by Sextus
Empiricus, and they were used a great deal by modern sceptics. He was often
pointed out as the first sceptic.t" Feder blamed him curtly for sophistry." But
the most important treatment of him was the article "Zeno" in Bayle's
Dictionary. One reads in Note B: "Cette Dialectique de Zenon semble avoir
a a
ete dest inee brouiller tout, & non pas eclaircir quelque chose. II ne s'en
servoit que pour disputer contre tout venant, & pour reduir les Adversaires au
silence, soit qu'ils soutinssent le blanc, soit qu'ils soutinssent le noir." But in
Note E Bayle endeavoured to vindicate Zeno. He referred to places in Seneca42
where Zeno was accused of scepticism (for example, "Zenon Eleates omnia
negotia de negotio dejecit, ait nihil esse. Circa eadem fere Pyrrhonii versantur,
& Megarici, & Eretrici, & Academici, qui novam induxerunt scientiam, nihil
scire... Tota rerum natura umbra est, aut inanis, aut fallax ..."), and opined
against that view, relying on Justus Lipsius and especially Fonseca, that Zeno
through his famous proofs only wished to refute Plato's teaching concerning
abstract unity, and that he did not arrive at a nihilistic conclusion.P
Brucker repeated these observations and suggestions from Bayle, adding the
opinions of Cudworth, Reimmann, and Morhof, but rejecting, with Bayle,
Seneca's opinion: "summum hoc scepticismi gradum esse". He came to this
conclusion: "suspicio non injusta est, a metaphysica Eleatica eum non
recessisse, nugis tamen & tricis dialecticis rem in se obscuram magis obscur-
asse & reddidisse implicitam.T'"
Darjes repeated a passage from Gassendi in which the antithetical method of
Zeno was especially clear: "Siquidem facta positione, sive quaestione aliqua,
v.c. An unum sit, vel, si mavis, utrum homo sit animal; potest, aut pars
affirmativa Est, aut negativa Non est , assumi: quod modo duae hypotheses,
sive suppositiones fiunt, nimirum, si est, si non est.. .".45
With this all of the presuppositions to Kant's pos ition concerning Zeno
76 G. Tonelli

become clear: he is a dialectician, at least after the fact; his method is similar to
the sceptical method; he was not a sceptic; but his musings were still
pernicious. The only one that Kant did not accept was the last, which was also
the most important. He endeavoured to show that Zeno had anticipated his
(Kant's) dialectic, and thus confirmed the value of Zeno's method. Zeno's
dialectic dealt with the pure understanding, as distinguished from the sceptical
dialectic (we saw above how, according to Brucker and Forster, the sceptics
also "opposed appearances to appearances'rj.'"
It should be emphasized that Kant first developed this understanding of
Zeno relatively late. In the lectures on logic of the early 1770's Socrates was
treated as the predecessor of scepticism.V One encounters there also a careful
vindication of Pyrrho (understood as the true originator of scepticism), who, as
a "good sceptic", never denied the possibility of reaching the truth. 48 (La
Mothe Le Vayer, Gentzkenius, and Boureau Deslandes had also understood
true Pyrrhonism in this way.'") His students were the first to fall into "dogmatic
doubt".50 There was no clear distinction between the Academic and the
Pyrrhonian sceptics. 51

10 .

It is harder to trace the roots of Kant's designation of the sceptics as

"dialecticians". The authors we have mentioned do not use this name.52 Stanley
mentions, in addition to Zeno's dialectic, a Megarian or sophistic, a Platonic,
and an Aristotelian dialectic. 53 Heineccius called the Megarians "dialecti-
cians".54 Brucker characterized the Megarian dialectic in the following words :
"D ialectica... dicta est... quod interrogando ac respondendo sermones libros-
que componeret, quam docendi et philosophandi rationem a Socrate quidem
didicit, ad contentiones vero & litigia philosophica primo applicuit, inde
Dialecticorum nomen.,,55 He maintained, then, that Plato "dialecticam... non
solis sermonis & ratiocinandi limitibus inclusisse, sed cum universalium sive
intelligibilium cognitione summum philosophiae apicem absolvi statueret, arte
dia1ectica animum ad ista universalia & intellig ibilia, quorum ultimum Deus
ipse est, comprehenenda duxisse, ut ita ratiocinando tandem ad contemplatio-
nem entium per se subsistentium perveniat'V" The dialectic of Aristotle would
thus be an "ars conjecturandi't" In the beginning the Stoics had reacted
against the sophistic dialectic but then they had fallen into the same subtle-
ties.58 Epicurus had fought against this same degenerate dialectic through his
canonry.i" The Megarian and sophistic dialectic had been successfully attacked
by Pyrrho.f"
Still, in Kant's lectures on logic from the early 1770's the sceptics were not
classified as dialecticians. Euclides of Megara counted as the originator of
dialectic. The dialecticians were "heroes of dispute" and their logic was an
"organon of talkativeness" that was widespread during the Middle Ages. The
dialectic thus became known as the method for establishing opposed proposi-
tions." The sceptics, in contrast, were considered anti-logicians.V Understood
in this way, the dialectical process could easily be identified by Kant with the
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 77

method of the "bad sceptics". It is also not surprising to encounter a "good"

dialectic that is opposed to dogmatism, and thus implicitly associated with
"good" scepticism, and that is the method for knowing empirical matters that
are not capable of apodictic certainty.'" Kant's later teaching, in which the
sceptics are dialecticians, probably rests on the following beliefs: 1. dialectic
was the art of opposing opinions to opposite opinions ; 2. this was also the
method of the sceptics. The first belief apparently came from a) the common
characterization of Zeno as the father of dialectic , b) the concept of Megarian
dialectic , and c) the concept of later Aristotelian dialectic, as it was cultivated
in Germany in the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. This
dialectic, which opposed the analytic, was a Logica probabilium, also disputa-
trix, that taught how one could decide which of opinions pro and contra was
most probable.f" (Hence for Kant the "historical" dialectic was not the same as
logic in general, in the Platonic-Ramist sense, but rather the art of weighing
opposed opinions.)

II.

The second belief visibly derives from a) the relationship traditionally recog-
nized between Zeno and the sceptics, b) the fact that the method of the sceptics
was taken to be based on opposed propositions. Both of these were splendidly
expressed by a passage in Brucker: "Principium Scepticae, quo nititur, est
praecipue hoc: Omni rationi rationem aequalis ponderis & momenti opponi.
Protagoram primum fuisse, qui hoc dubitandi de omnibus principium in
philosophiam introduxerit, supra multis enarravimus, a quo ad Pyrrhonem
delatum, vanissimae arti fundamentum exhibuit miserrimum: quo ante Prota-
goram Zeno quoque Eleates, & post eum, qui magnis clamoribus Graeciam
replerunt Sophistae & Dialectici usi sunt ".65 The characterization of the
sceptics as "sophists" is also clear here.
Dommerich wrote: "The chief principle of the sceptics is this: One can not
know anything with certainty, since each proof can be opposed by a proof of
equal strength't'" Carpov, Panckoucke, and Merian had said the same. 67
The antithetical character of the sceptical way of thinking was especially
emphasized by Baumgarten in the above-cited work. The second chapter,
Certitudo philosophica, consists of two sections: 1. "Thetica", where the
different kinds of (dogmatic) certainty are reviewed; and 2. "Antithetica", where
the sceptical position is discussed, and indeed because "Habitu aliquid nec
ponendi nee tollendi gaudens est scepticus 'V" Baumgarten portrayed the
history of ancient and modern scepticism in his "Antithetica", and tried to
refute the sceptical arguments against the certainty of knowledge.

12.

For Kant, the dialectic of the sophists and the sceptics was (see above, #6-7) a
"dialectic in the sense that we take it... an art of defending and attacking each
proposition"; however, it had been "almost completely done away with" in
78 G. Tonelli

Kant's day. This dialectic was "not a science of probabilities, but of illusion",
and thus Kant wants to treat it as a critique of illusion.
As we have seen, Kant mentions the dialectic of the moderns in a way which
excludes the possibility that he understands dialectic (and logic in general) in
the Platonic-Ramist tradition. He can only be understanding the Logica
probabilium as that which had experienced a second blossoming in Germany
at the end of the seventeenth century but which in Kant's day was only carried
on by Darjes.f" The question arises, then, why Kant refused to characterize this
dialectic as a science of probability (as also within ancient dialectic he granted
no independent place to the Aristotelian Topics - he identified it expressly with
sophistic dialectic, B 86). The answer is very simple: Kant's concept of
probability was such that it had to come to the conclusion that the Aristotelian
Topics, just like the Logica probabilium of the moderns, has nothing to do with
the probable (in Kant's sense), but rather concerns illusion, and thus it was one
and the same as the sophistic-sceptical dialectic. A passage from Kant's Logik
is revealing in this respect: "A lot has been said about a logic of probability
(logica probabilium). But this is not possible; because if the proportion between
insufficient reasons and sufficient reasons cannot be weighed mathematically,
no rules will help" (IX, 82).70 The traditionallogica probabilium was thus only a
logic of plausibility (verisimilitudo) , as Kant had defined this concept (IX, 81-
82). For objective grounds for holding something to be true are only possible
through mathematics; and in this case, "in respect to the calculus probabilium of
the latter, it contains not probability, but very certain judgments about the
degree of the possibility of certain cases under given similar conditions" (IV,
369). The "teaching of probability" belongs thus to "the analytical part of
logic" (B, 349).
The Logica probabilium of a Darjes was thus for Kant a misunderstood logic
of illusion . This last conclusion makes it possible to evaluate more precisely the
influence of the sceptical tradition on the shaping of the Critique of Pure
Reason.
First, however, we would like to review the historical foundations of the
genesis of the Kantian conception of dialectic as a logic of illusion. 71

13
Already Leibniz had rejected the traditional Logica probabilium as worthless,
and drawn attention to the need for a true science of this matter. 72 This idea
was taken up by Wolff.73 Meanwhile , a mathematical science of probability was
developed from many sides. Important contributions came from Huygens,
Bernoulli, De Moivre, Sauveur, Rizetti, Petty, Pascal, Fermat, Craig, Teyler,
Euler, D'Alembert, Beguelin , Segner, Kastner, Syberth, Carstens, Unger,
Brunneman, Baudisius , Krone, De Cramer, SiiBmilch, and Lichtenberg."
From this arose a concept of probability not in the sense of imperfect (or
moral) certainty, as it had always been for Leibniz and Wolff, but understood
as a perfect mathematical (probabilistic) certainty, that nevertheless is distin-
guished from mathematical Eviden z. This concept was introduced into philo-
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 79

sopohy by s'Gravesande (1737),75 and followed by Fortunatus a Brixia

(1741),76 Hume (1748),77 Boureau Deslandes;" Mendelssohn (1756),79 and
D'Alembert (1759).80 Maupertius and Diderot also treated probability as a
mathematical problem." Against this, Basedow (1764) attempted to unite the
mathematical concept of probability with the traditional concept. 82 In 1764,
Lambert published the most exhaustive treatment of the logic of the mathe-
matics of probability and came to the conclusion "that the foregoing enumer-
ated cases, in so far as they can also be used for the determination of degrees of
probability, provide thus in themselves not only probable, but also true, certain,
and determinate propositions'tP Garve followed in this direction.f" In what
relation did the new concept of probability now stand with the old concept of
the probabile? A very important work by Frommichen (1773) attempted in a
significant way to clear up this question historically and theoretically. His
opinion was that mathematically expressed probability indeed had nothing to
do with logic, and least of all with the Topics and dialectic of the ancients. That
they had become identified was a confusion, originally caused by the false
translation of Ev60l;et by probabilia of Boethius and Pacius . o61;ett are, on the
contrary, "opinions", opiniones,85 that are related to 7tt~etv6v; that is, "what is
easily approved". This approval is derived from, among other things, analogy,
authority, customary opinions, common sense, whatever conforms to the
national taste, and whatever "has a deceptive illusion of truth". Only at the
margins or in single cases does it correspond with the scientific conception of
probability.'" In scholastic philosophy dialectic was purely a doctrine of
ev60l;et; later, only Ramus (for juridical proofs) and Milton had cultivated the
true doctrine of probability.V and to some extent also Thomasius, Rudiger,
Kahle, Reusch, and Verneius" For the first time with Kastner and Garve the
doctrine appeared that probability is the certainty "that pertains to existing
objects"; in contrast to Evidenz, which belongs only to abstract concepts.f"

14
Frommichen distinguished the mathematically understood probable from the
false concept of the probable, which he designated as "resembling the truth" or
as an "illusion of certainty", to which belonged surmises, presuppositions,
conjectures, presumptions, hypotheses, and, most of all, pure opinions. That
which resembles the truth can first become probable insofar as we compare
appearances whose origins we do not perceive with similar appearances whose
origins we do perceive.f'' True probability makes things clear through a
"proof.. . which one draws out of the enlightenment of chance conditions, out
of origins and effects, out of circumstances and the results of a thing, as well as
out of secure datis and signs of truth; which leads one to objects that are not
simultanea, but rather successiva ; and which never permits of perfect Evidenz".
Frommichen also appealed to Feder, Search (A. Tucker), and Ulrich.?' He
distinguished further between a mathematical and a philosophical probability.
The first made things clear on the basis of a large number of similar cases, and
in the latter in contrast one relied on "one fact" (where one confronted
80 G. Tonelli

"individual circumstances"), for example where Cicero tried to prove that Milo
had acted in a situation of necessity above and beyond the law. In the latter, it is
required that one be familiar with all of the special circumstances of a case, and
of all the sources and motives of this kind of case. 92
Although Frommichen reached back into the realm of the old "resembling
the truth" in his "philosophical probability", he still maintained that the old
logica probabilium was mainly only a logic of illusion , in contrast to which the
true doctrine of probability was separated from logic, and in any case no longer
belonged to the realm of the opinabile.
Did Kant know this work by Frommichen? That cannot be demonstrated.
But the path of thought which led Kant to his concept of probability can not
have been very far from Frommichen's. Kant doubtless knew most of the
authors whose doctrines had led Frommichen to his views.
In his first essay on the "Logic of Probabilities", Kant had still used the term
in the traditional sense (I, 32). In his Logik Herder (between 1762 and 1764) the
dialectic was still related to probability.'" In contrast, the doctrine of prob-
ability appears in a transitional phase in the lectures on logic of the early 1770's
(1771-72). The Logica probabilium still belonged to probability, in contrast to
certainty; but the doctrine of probability is already expressed mathematically,
relying upon Bernoulli. This doctrine, however , had still not been system-
atically developed: it "should extend to the experience of all humans, and such
a one is not yet at hand".94 This probability became ever more defined as a
form of knowledge, "where the grounds for holding something to be true are
not sufficient'V" If uncertain knowledge is not mathematically grounded, but
philosophically, then one arrives at a pure "plaus-ibility" [Scheinbarkeit] that is
subjective and always subject to change. In contrast, "whatever is [mathemati-
cally] probable cannot be totally changeable, but stays one and the same ", and
is objective." The philosophical theory of subjective probability (plausibility)
"will never achieve perfection. Philosophical probability allows more of being
felt than employed", for example, concerning the question of the immortality of
the sou l.97
One may thus assume that Kant had basically taken the same path as
Frommichen before the appearance of the latter's work. Frommichen's work
nevertheless may have led Kant to a more exact definition of his doctrine of
probability.

15
Now we come back to the main problem: namely, to the influence of the
sceptical tradition - apart from the above-mentioned particulars - on the
formation of the Critique of Pure Reason. First, one can th ink of the
"suspension of judgment" as a kind of Cartesian doubt about metaphysics
before the introduction of the critical process, or until the perfection of the
critical grounding of metaphysical knowledge. This can easily be allowed.
Second, the dialectical method can be considered, as it is employed in the
transcendental dialectic, namely as a "method of opposition". One must
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 81

observe that for Kant this should be not an "art", but a "critique of illusion",
which does not lead to scepticism (#4_5).98
(In so doing one may disregard the special position which Kant grants to
Zeno. The doctrines of Zeno were at that time a part of the traditional sceptical
battery of arguments. One can only with difficulty speak of the "Zenonian
influence " as separated from the sceptical influence. Kant's engagement with
Zeno was rather a component of his argument with scepticism.) The question is
whether one should maintain that the "method of opposition", which Kant
understood ever more precisely, at its core is derived from scepticism.
Now, this should not be maintained without qualifications. First, actual
doctrinal contradictions were in fact available ad abundantiam in the "dog-
matic" schools, and Kant showed already in his Monadologia Physica that he
was perfectly aware of that. Second, an antithetical method was also employed
by non-sceptical thinkers. Examples include Fromondus.f" the well-known
Collier, and even some Pietistic theologians including Kant's teacher, Fr. A.
Schultz.l?" But the sceptical antithetic must also have played its role, especially
as it had been described and also personally employed by Pierre Bayle; and in
this sense one should speak more exactly about the influence of the ancient
sceptics. This is not only because he would have been aware of the teachings of
Bayle, but also in the sense that Bayle was the only one of the modern sceptics
that made the antithetic method the heart of his way of thinking, and in this
respect represented a true revival of ancient scepticism. Thus, Bayle's indis-
putable influence on Kant should be considered as in this respect an action at a
distance of ancient scepticism.

16.
This influence concerns the thing itself, rather than the term "dialectic" which
Kant applied to it. The sceptics were not called "dialecticians", as we have seen
above . This term came into traditional use only in relation to Zeno or to other
thinkers from outside sceptical circles. Kant took up this term in its "Critical"
sense relatively late: it appears for the first time in his work between 1773 and
1775,101 while the method of opposition was already developed in 1769. Soon,
however (1776-78), the dichotomy "transcendental analytic - transcendental
dialectic" appeared, with the observation: "logic of truth and of illusion". 102
However, the expression "analytic" as a logica veritatis, as much as its
opposition to "dialectic", are of indubitable Aristotelian origins; 103 and, as we
have seen, Kant regarded the logica probabilium of the later Aristotelians as a
logic of illusion.
Now, the reception of the term dialectic by Kant may have been influenced
by the Zenonian tradition. But its use as an antithesis to an analytic had
nothing at all to do with the sceptical tradition. It can only be understood
through its late Aristotelian usage. Although this did not ground the sense,
nevertheless it grounded the central position of this term as the chief point of a
transcendental logic. Now, concerning the sense of this term in Kant, th is was
broadly original, and his express reference to Zeno rests more on a construe-
82 G. Tonelli

tion of Kant than on an influence of the traditional view of Zeno, according to

which Zeno's dialectic was purely a shameful sophistic.

17
A more precise comparison of individual doctrines of Kant's transcendental
dialectic with the teachings of the ancient sceptics (especially as reported by
Bayle) would probably reveal further similarities between them. But in no case,
in our opinion, not even in the teachings about the finiteness or infinity of the
world expressly drawn from Zeno, should one speak with assurance of a
sceptical influence on Kant. These questions were so universally discussed in
the eighteenth century that their origin cannot be precisely established. One
must observe that the influence of the sceptics (in general) should be no means
be limited to the foregoing questions, if for no other reason than because of the
relation between Hume and Kant, which, however, is outside the range of our
problem. We cannot help, however, drawing the general position of Kant with
respect to the main points of scepticism into consideration, since it goes
without saying that his position vis-a-vis the ancient sceptics depends upon it.
Above all, how should Kant's rejection of scepticism as a final resting place be
evaluated? That is, does it correspond truly to Kant's place in the history of
philosophy, or did Kant, in spite of all of his protestations, nevertheless make a
step in the direction of scepticism (or think he had done so)?
Kant has also been interpreted as a sceptic.l'" Did he become, like
Descartes, a "sceptique malgre lui", or does such an opinion partly correspond
to his actual intentions?
In order to provide at least a provisional answer to this question, we must
cast a glance at the destiny of scepticism in the eighteenth century.

18.
The great sceptics of the seventeenth century were still known by name in the
German enlightenment, but except for La Mothe le Vayer, Poiret, Huet, and
Bayle, they were no longer read . lOS Kant himself mentions, for example, Huet
and La Mothe le Vayer,106 but his knowledge of them probably comes from
Brucker's exposition of modern scepticism. Naturally, he knew Bayle in the
original. Bayle's Dictionnaire was known far and wide. In addition to the many
editions of his work in the early eighteenth century, Frederick II and d'Argens
published a selection from the Dictionnaire in 1765, which they described in the
forward as Ie breviaire du bons sens ; and they praised the dialectique admirable
de Bayle. The work should force one to the conviction that en metaphysique la
verite se trouve presque toujours au de-la des limites de notre raison, and thus that
it would be best not to make any decisions about it. 107 Furthermore, Gottsched
had translated the whole Dictionnaire into German (Leipzig 1741-47), furnish-
ing it with footnotes that were supposed to serve as an antidote to the sceptical
poison. lOS
In 1733, Crousaz had published his Examen du Pyrrhonisme ancien &
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 83

.moderne, directed mostly against Bayle. An extract from it, with some
additions, was published by Formey in 1756. 109 In addition, a history and
refutation of scepticism was published by Boncerf in 1762.110
Knowledge of ancient scepticism was spread through these works, as well as
through other contemporary works such as, for example, Dommerich's
Gedanken iiber den Skeptizismus (1767) and the above-cited textbook by
Baumgarten, in addition to the proper histories of philosophy. Even a direct
knowledge of Sextus Empiricus was relatively widespread, III as numerous
dissertations of those times demonstrate. 112 Occasional attacks on the sceptics
from the side of the "dogmatists" were also not infrequent. 113
But scepticism had also gained new weight in the eighteenth century. The
number of "mitigated" sceptics, like the earlier figures of Mersenne and
Gassendi.l!" had noticeably increased. These maintained that it was more or
less impossible to penetrate into the "true being" of things, and emphasized as
an alternative the role of the sciences of experience. On this account, knowl-
edge could not be obtained beyond the limits of human understanding, and
these limits enable us only to know that which is necessary for living. Such
knowledge is of purely empirical origin, and thus it is not metaphysically but
only morally certain. Its teachings are neither necessary nor absolutely
universal, and are valid only as far and as wide as experience confirms them.
Traditional metaphysics is only a silly academic game. The only possible
metaphysics is the study of human abilities insofar as these are actually
effective in voluntary actions and knowledge. I IS Parallel to this was the critique
of "systems": knowledge should not be built beyond the limits of experience
into systems (such as, for example, the vortex theory of the Cartesians, or the
theory of attraction of the Newtonians in natural science), since the first
principles of things remain unattainable for us. We know little or nothing of
things as they are , since we only know them as they are shown to us; that is, in
relation to our own senses. Mathematics alone, since it is grounded on
arbitrary concepts, is absolutely certain. Chief representatives of this line of
thinking were famous philosophers such as Hume, Bolingbroke, Voltaire ,
Condillac, D 'Alembert, Maupertuis, Bonnet. There was no lack of accusations
of scepticism against them, as for example by a late Cartesian like Bouillier.I'"
Kant himself mentioned only Hume and Voltaire as sceptics of his times , and
moreover he criticized them as extreme sceptics in his Logik Blomberg
(1771).117

19
The influence of this way of thinking was so strong that even the opponents of
scepticism had to indicate their agreement. Crousaz and Formey warned
against rash systems .I'" and Dommerich criticized the dogmatists as much as
the sceptics. 119 It should be observed that the philosophes very seldom admitted
to being sceptics (they meant: radical sceptics). This was best expressed by
Hume: he rejected "total scepticism" and praised "mitigated [gemiissigte]
scepticism or academical philosophy".120 The Refutation des Pyrrhoniens of
84 G. Tonelli

Boureau-Deslandes followed the same line,121 as did Deleyre,122 Bonnet,123

and Du Marsais l24 later: the recognition of the limits of human understanding
and of the impossibility of absolute knowledge should not bring about the
denial of the validity of knowledge of the senses, insofar as this achieved a
relative universality. This "mitigated scepticism" also came gradually into
currency in Germany in the 1760's and 1770's. Wolffianism was at an end, and
the kernel of fideistic scepticism and of empiricism that was contained in
pietistic philosophy made easier the spread of English and French ideas that
in addition had already been advocated by the leading personalities of the
Berlin Academy. Basedow's Philalethie (1764) was in this respect a path-
breaking work, which was followed by a deep change in the spirit of German
philosophy.
We cannot here go into the particulars of this well-known revolution. It will
only be pointed out that more and more leading German philosophers
subscribed to empiricism and phenomenalism in the sense of the philosophes,
and that they more or less implicitly adopted the "mitigated scepticism" that
was bound up with them . Indeed some philosophers of the old school became
converted. An example is Formey who, in spite of his rejection of scepticism,
published an Abrege des Sciences a l'usage des enfants from 1764 to 1778 (an
important work despite its eclecticism), in which he tried to bring the old
Wolffianism into harmony with the new ideas, especially Bonnet's.

20.

Hume was not the only one who explicitly described himself as a "mitigated
sceptic". This was also the case with others, although their scepticism
amounted sometimes only to a "preliminary doubt", or served purely as the
limit of the realm of demonstrative certainty. Consider, for example, Joh.
Regius, who published an Oratio pro scepticismo in 1725.125 And Meiners
maintained in 1772 that the opposing opinions of the philosophers display to
us a proof of scepticism, and chose for his own "eclectic philosophy" the "half-
sceptical method". 126
There was also no lack of "radical" sceptics in the eighteenth century
(although the exact line between "mitigated" and "radical" sceptics becomes
harder and harder to draw as time passes). In England Bolingbroke already
stood on the border between mitigated and absolute scepticism . In France
some anonymous writers introduced themselves openly as total Pyrrhonists.
Cartaud de la Villate is also an interesting case: he adopted and strengthened
the sceptical doubts about mathematics. 128
But Germany appears to be the country where the radical scepticism of the
times found its most famous and open proponents. There were two reasons for
this. One was a deeply religious attitude, made possible by the fideistic
scepticism of a Joach. Lange,129 and later, among others.P" a Hamann.P!
Wieland, too, took a similar position, although not publicly.132 The second was
the personal inclination of Frederick 11,133 who supported the scepticism of a
D'Argens'j" and a Beausobre'i" in his circle. As we have seen, a selection of
 Kant and the Ancient Scept ics 85

Bayle's Dictionnaire was published by Frederick II and D'Argens.

(We are ignoring, naturally, the unfounded accusations of scepticism that
were made not only against Kant but also against countless earlier philoso-
phers such as, for example, Locke 136 and Berkeley.P") Skepticism was thus a
rising tide in Kant's day. He was influenced by it, although, as we have seen, he
reacted energetically against it.

21.

What, then , is the state of the case with Kant's "scepticism"? First, one must
distinguish between the pre-Critical and the Critical periods . At the end of the
first, and indeed between 1765 and 1768, the "zetetic" attitude of 1765 and
many places in the Dreams ofa Spirit-Seer signal a certain approximation to
scepticism, with respect to which Hume probably played a certain role,
although not one which can be ascertained any more exactly.138 But Kant
should still not be considered as a follower of mitigated (and even less of
radical) scepticism in this period according to the traditional meaning of this
characterization, just as little as he should be considered an empiricist at that
time. Kant had indeed excluded from the realm of human knowledge many
areas of metaphysics and established that other areas were knowable only
empirically. He had also rejected all abstract and purely a priori grounded
metaphysics through his grounding "in concreto " of philosophy. But through
his proofs "in concreto" he thought he could reach some metaphysical truths of
absolute and not purely of empirically universal validity. His position thus
belonged to the problematic of the limits of human understanding, and not to
the classical problematic of scepticism. His undeniable bent toward scepticism
of this period was thus only selective and partial (in that in connection with
some problems concerning supersensible objects he was a radical sceptic; in
connection with other objects that are knowable purely empirically he was a
mitigated sceptic; and in connection with further problems concerning
metaphysically knowable objects, he was not sceptical at all). That is, his
doubts should be understood as preliminary (Cartesian) doubts. Kant's
position thus should not be considered sceptical in the true sense.

22 .

In the Critical period, Kant's rejection of ancient scepticism and of every

"radical" scepticism stands as a final result. It is true that he sharply defined the
limits of our knowledge, and everything beyond the empirical was excluded.
But significant chief indicators distinguish his position from "mitigated"
scepticism. He was convinced that he had constructed a firmly founded system.
He maintained that men were capable of universal and necessary knowledge
within the realm that was left to them, although this may not correspond to the
most basic being of things.
Apart from all the other recognized differences that separate Kant from
mitigated scepticism, these two above-mentioned chief indicators should be
86 G. Tonelli

sufficient to demonstrate that his expressed personal attitude should not be

considered a palingenesis of the scepticism of his times, and that Kant's
protestations that he fought scepticism by using the sceptical method should
be taken as earnest, and not only with respect to radical but also with respect to
mitigated scepticism. Thus, Kant not only broke a middle way (as Bacon,
Gassendi, Bayle 139 and many others, especially in Kant's time, had tried to
do), but broke a new way between dogmatism and scepticism, in which the old
opposition between the two positions was for the first time set up on a fully new
plane, even if it was not finally transcended.
Also with reference to its sources, Kant's philosophy ought not to be
considered as a development or even a fundamental renovation of the empirical
scepticism of his age. The Critique of Pure Reason owes too many of its basic
concepts to the German scholastic tradition, especially as it had been
developed in the 1760's and 1770's by the students of Crusius, Hollmann, and
Darjes (as we hope to show in another place), for it to be considered simply as a
product of "modern forces". It is rather a creative synthesis of the "old" and the
"new", where "old" and "new" are concepts that are purely relative and subject
to easy reversal.

23
Thus, in general Kant consciously reacted against the dogmatists as much as
against the sceptics (although often he may have felt nearer to the latter): the
balance mentioned above (#4) represents his final position. Ifin the eyes of the
dogmatists Kant counted as a sceptic, he certainly counted in the eyes of the
empirical sceptics of his times as a dogmatist. He cannot be classified in any
previously known way under any previously known type of either scepticism or
dogmatism. His philosophy can thus count as a new kind of the former as much
as of the latter. There remains only to explore his claim to have established a
third way (that is, Criticism). Kant was fully conscious of this. He thought he
had grown beyond the old oppositions between empiricism and rationalism,
and between realism and idealism. It would be a very praiseworthy under-
taking to explore whether or not the theories of transcendence and of synthesis
of later German idealism can rather be traced to consciousness of this general
methodological viewpoint and conduct of Kant in the development of the
positions of modern philosophy that he brought about, than out of a pure
overcoming of his doctrine of the antinomies. This would apply at least in the
sense that Kant himself had already established in other and more general
respects the new formulas which were later used to overcome his position
concerning the antinomies.
The following observations are still to be added. First, that at the same time
as Kant at least one other important attempt at such an intervention was
undertaken by the Scottish philosophers of "common sense" (Reid, Beattie).
Kant's undertaking was thus perfectly in accord with the spirit of the times.
Second, that the spread of Kant's Criticism exerted a fundamental influence on
the destiny of mitigated scepticism, and deeply altered its terminology as much
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 87

as its problematic (it is enough to mention only Platner, Schulze, and Abicht).
Politz could even write that scepticism was closest "on the whole - if at the
same time it interpreted things in another way - to Criticism, of all the modern
systems of philosophy, because the latter also regarded the causal relationship
between the subjective and the objective as indeterminable and unresolvable
. . ".140 We will not go into the question of the validity ofthis observation. Even
if it is well-founded, this post-Kantian development should not influence our
judgment of the motivation, intention , and position of Kant in his own times. It
is indeed undeniable that the post-Kantian development of scepticism no
longer ran on the whole in the old pathways, but must be judged in important
ways by new, post-Kantian measures. But this also applies, taken in a
fundamental way, to post-Kantian dogmatism. Kant's influence so deeply
affected the standpoint of the problematic out of which both a modern
dogmatism and a modern scepticism could arise that it is impossible to trace
these back directly to the older sceptical and dogmatic traditions, since Kant
opened up such an important break in them (in spite of their survival in some
important single cases and pathways). In this sense, and only in this sense, can
Kant belong to the history of scepticism. And indeed this is not because he
should be seen as a sceptic in terms of the prevailing criteria in his times, but
rather because his doctrines became an important foundation for the history of
later scepticism, as they did for later dogmatism. After Kant, both of these
oppose each other in significantly modern form and on another plane, and they
must henceforth be considered according to modern, post-Kantian criteria.

[Translated by John Christian Laursen]

NOTES

I. Richard H . Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, Assen 1960; see the
review by G. Tonelli, Filosofia XV, 2, 1964 (also appearing separately under the title Un libro
sullo scett icismo da Erasm o a Descartes, Tor ino 1964) for a detailed discuss ion of the special
methodological problems of th is theme. Further: M.L. Wiley, The Subtle Kno t. Creative
Scepticism in XVIlth. Century England, London 1952; H .G. Van Leeuwen, The Problem of
Certainty in English Thought 1630-1690, The Hague 1963; R.A. Watson, The Downfall of
Cartesian ism, 1673-1712, The Hague 1966; R.H. Popkin, "Scepticism and Counter-Reforma-
tion in France", Archiv fUr Reformationsgeschichte, LI, 1960; R .H. Popkin, "The High Road to
Pyrrhonism", American Philosophical Quarterly, II , 1965; R.H. Popkin, "The Traditionalism,
Modernism, and Scepticism of Rene Rapin", Filosofia, XV, 1964; and especially R .H . Popkin,
"Scepticism in the Enl ightenment", Studies on Voltaire and the XVIII Century, XXVI, 1963,
where the author simplifies the perspective set forth in his book, taking into account only
"absolute scepticism" and the reactions against it.
2. We have indeed found no grounds for assuming that Kant had even read Sextus Empiricus.
See, in general: A. Samson, Kants k ennis der Grieksche philosoph ie, Alphen a. d. Rijn, 1927
(Utrecht Dissertation).
3. P. Gassendi, Opera omnia , Lugduni 1658 (Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt 1964) I, 24a ; compare 72b .
4. Mart. Schoockius De scepti cismo pars prior, Groningae 1652, p. 28: the sceptical sects were
also called " Setetica, Ephectica , Aporetica",
G. Hornius, Historiae philosophicae libri VII, Lugd . Bat. 1655, p. 210: (the sceptics) "Q uo
uno omia veterum sap ient ium placita, quibuscumque rationibus munita, funditus evertebant:
88 G. Tonelli

qui etiam eorum praecipuus scopus fuit. Unde etiam m<Elt'tllC01, ~TJtTJ'tlK01, & E<pEK'tlOl dicti:
quod semper essent in disquisitione, statuerent vero nihil."
Th. Stanley, Historia philosophiae [1655--60], Lipsiae 1711, II , p. 919 : "Hanc Zeteticam
appellarunt philosophiam, quod semper in inquirenda (hoc enim est ~TJtEiv) veritate
versaretur: Sceptica dicta est (a OKElttElV) quod dispiceret semper , nunquam reperiret:
Ephectica, ab eo, quod sequitur eam investigationem , quod est EdXElV, iudicii suspensio.
Aporetica, quod de omnibus dubitaret, hoc enim est ciltopEiv. Pyrrhonia, a Pyrrhone'
Compare p. 921.
S. Sorbiere, Lettres et Discours, Paris 1660, p. 155: "Cette Institution de la Sceptique se
nomme en autres termes de Zetetique, a cause de son action qui est toute occupee a la
contemplation et a la recherche de la verite." Also "Ephectique, Aporetique."
Ge. Joh. Vossius, De philosophorum sectis [1658], cum continuatione et supplementis Joh.
lac. a Ryssel, Lipsiae 1690, p. 109: "Nempe dicebantur l;Klt'tlKol, quia semper OxElt'tlOV, hoc
est, rem considerant, nee unquam decernunt. Alt0PTJ'tlK01, quia semper ciltopouat, hoc est,
dubitant. ZTJtTJ'tlK01, quia semper ~TJtOU01, quaerunt , nee reperiunt. 'E<pE'tlK01, quia longae
inquisitionis non alius eventus, quam Elt0Xl1, hoc est, judicii suspensio, sive assensionis
retentio ."
P. Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, Amsterdam 1734, Art . "Pyrrhon", A: "On les a
nommez Sceptiques, Zetetiques, Ephectiques, Aporetiques, c'est-a-dire examinateurs, inquisi-
teurs, suspendans, doutans'
G. Paschius, De variis modis Moralia tradendi liber, accedit introductio in rem literarium
moralem veterum..., Kiloni 1707, p. 701: the Pyrrhonians are also called sceptics, aporetics,
ephectics, and "~TJtTJ'tlX01, elm) ltOU ~TJtdv, sive a quaerendo, quia semper quaerebant, nee
unquam inveniebant."
Joach . Lange, Medicina mentis, Berol. 1708, p. 194: the sceptics as zetetics.
Fr. Gentzkenius, Histaria phi/osophiae, Hamburg 1724, p. 67: "Sectatores eius non modo
Pyrrhonii, sed etiam a philosophandi ratione dicti sunt Aporetici, Sceptici, Ephectici, ac
Zetetici."
Ephr. Chambers, Cyclopaedia , London 1727, Art . "Sceptiks": Pyrrhonians, Aporetics,
Ephectics, Zetetics (or investigators).
1. Fr. Buddeus, Compendium historiae philosophicae, Halae 1731, p. 16: "1;'It'l'tlxoiiC;, quod
semper veritatem quaerent, numquam invenirent.. ... (the sceptics).
p.] P. Crousaz, Examen du Pyrrhonisme ancien & moderne , La Haye 1733, p. 58: "La
Philo sophie de Sextus peut porter Ie nom de Zetetique; c'est-a-dire, de Philosophie qui
cherche, comme la Sceptique, considere ce qu'il ya a dire de part & d'autre , on peut I'appeller
Ephectique parce qu'elle enseigne a s'abstenir de decider. Aporectique, parce qu'elle doute &
hesite, Pyrronienne a cause de Pyrrhon.."
1.G. Walch, Phi/osophisches Lexikon [1736], Leipzig 1740, Art. "Scepticismus": .....Es wird
auch genennet institutio ~TJtTJ'tlKl1 von ~TJtdv, weil ehemals die Sceptici allezeit fragten, oder
die Wahrheit zwar suchten, aber niemals funden oder annehmen wolten,'
Jac. Brucker, Historiae critica phi/osophiae, I, Lipsiae 1742, p. 1318: "Eodem sensu dicti
quoque sunt Ephetici, a retinendo assensu, Zetetici, a perpetuis disputationibus, & quaestio-
nibus, Aporetici a dubitatione ubique admissa..."
Joh. Gottl. Heineccius, Operum, Genevae 1784, Vol. I, Historia phi/osophica [1743], p. 27:
the sceptics were also called Aporetici, Acataleptici, Pyrrhonici, Zetetici ("quia veritatem
semper quaerebant, nunquam inveniebant").
Themiseul de St. Hyacinthe (H. Cordonnier), Recherches Phi/osophiques, Londres 1743, p.
97: "Zetetiques, parce qu'ils alfectaient de chercher tofijours la verite, & de ne rien trouver qui
put les assurer d'elle. Aporetiques, parce qu'ils faisaient profession de douter de tout ."
J.H. Zedler, GrofJes vollstiindiges Universal-Lexikon , Halle-Leipzig 1733-50, Vol. XXX,
Art. "Scepticismus": "Ist ein griechisches Wort, welches von m<ElttEOSCll, das ist considerare,
herkommt. Es wird auch genennet institutio, ~TJtTJtlKl1 von ~TJtEiv, weil ehemals die Sceptici
allezeit fragten, oder die Wahrheit zwar suchten, aber niemals funden oder annehmen
wollten,'
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 89

Diderot, D'Alembert, Encyclopedie, Paris 1751-72, Vol. XIV, Art. "Scepticisme": "Zete-
tiques, gens qui cherchent, parce qu'i1s n'alloientjamais au dela de la recherche de la verite."
Got. Ploucquet, Commentationes philosophicae selectiores, Traiect. ad Rh. 1781, Disputatio
de Epoche Pyrrhonis [1758], p. 34: "Dogmaticis philosophis opponuntur Sceptici, qui &
Aporetici & Ephetici & Zetetici appellabantur... Zetetici, quia semper in via investigationis
haerent,"
a
Boncerf, Le vrai philosophe ou /'usage de la philosophie relativement la societe civile, avec
/'Histoire exacte & la Refutation du Pyrrhonisme Ancien et Moderne, Paris 1762, p. 357: "La
philosophie de Sextus peut porter Ie nom de Zetetique, c'est-a-dire, de Philosophie qui
cherche, comme Ie Sceptique considere ce qu 'on peut opposer de part & d'autre..."
A.G. Baumgarten, Philosophia generalis, ed. cum dissertatione prooemiali a Joh . Chr.
Forster, Halae Magd. 1770, #87: "Habitu aliquid nee ponendi nee tollendi gaudens est
scepticus (Zeteticus, Ephecticus, Aporeticus),"
In his Logik Blomberg Kant cited the histories of philosophy of Gentzken and Formey
(Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 28, lines 10-11), but they had no specific influence on his
characterization of scepticism.
5. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 213, lines 23-26. We are thankful to Professor G .
Lehmann for making it possible for us to use this volume before its publication.
6. Kant himself mentions the "Sceptici, Zetetici, Academici" in a Reflection: Kant, Ges.
Schriften, Prussian Academy edition, XVI , 60, No. 1636 (1760-72); also in the Logik Blomberg
(1771), ibid., Vol. XXIV p. 36, lines 7-8, and p. 213, line 19, where "Zetetici" is translated by
"Sucher, Forscher".
7. The term ~T]tT]tll<ol only appears once in reference to Plato's "dialogues de la recherche", in
A. Dacier, Bibliotheque des anciens philosophes, III, Paris 1771 (1699], p. 73.
8. 1. Hoeker, Cia vis Philosophica continens di/ucidas graecorum terminorum explicationes,
Tubingae 1613, sub Zl1tT]I.lCX, Zl1tT]cnc;, cru1;l1tT]cnc;: "Quaestio, quaesitum, interrogatio":
"Quotuplex sit : Quatuor potissimum dantur ~T]tl1I.lCXtCX & Quaesita. Aliud enim 1. est
Demonstrativum , quod ex propriis cui usque scientiae principiis infertur. 2. Aliud est
OICXAKtlKOV Topicum et probabile,... 3. Aliud est 1tlpCXcrtlKOV, Tentativum, quod in eum
Finem instituitur, ut alicuius scientia, quam sibi arrogat, exploretur. 4. Aliud est EPlcrtlKOV,
Quaesitum, litigiosum atfal/ax, quo Sophisticis rationibusfa//itur adversarius."
R . Goclenius, Lexicon philosophicum graecum, Marchioburgi 1615, sub "Zrirnou;": "est
actio animae interna, nempe investigatio, qua quaerimus in theoricis quidem veritatem, in
practicis vero KcxAOV ...; Zl1tT]crlC; igitur est theorica vel Practica; Theorica, vel per se aliquid
invenire conatur, & dicitur... inventio, vel versatur in aliorum inventis & scriptis meditando,
legendo, retexendo, & haec dicitur autorum Analysis. Practica vero indagat, quid agendum sit
a nobis vel aliis..."
Joh. Micraelius, Lexikon philosophicum terminorum philosophis usitatorum, Stetini 1662,
sub "Zl1tT]I.lCX, ~l1tT]cnc;" : "quaestio vel problema propositum." and even then it is only very
seldom used. This origin is further confirmed when Kant opposes "zetetic" and "dogmatic" in
the above-mentioned place: this antithesis is typical both of the sceptical writings and of the
anti-sceptical literature.
9. "Zl1tT]I.lCX" was used, to the best of our knowledge, only by Ge . Meier in his Gnostologia,
Wittebergae 1666, passim. In his Logica Hamburgensis, Hamburg 1957 [1638], L. V, De
Dialectica, Cap. II , De quaestione dialectica , #2 (p. 248), Jo. Jungius wrote "Quaestio,
~l1tT]cnc;, ~l1tT]I.lcx, Itp6PAT]I.lcx, duplex est. Quaedam enim Quaestio ita quaerit, ut responderi
possit Etiam vel Non, vcxl Ti oU. Alia in responsione terminum aliquem, aut termini partem
adijci postulat partibus in Quaestione comprehensis." The first of these was called interrogatio
by the Stoics (#3). The interrogatio dialectica is that "de qua aut in neutram partem sentiunt
homines, aut contradictoria statuunt. Prioris exemplum est, cum quaeritur, Sitne numerus
stel/arum par, an impar. Posterioris, utrum Sol multis partibus terrarum orbe major sit, necne'
(#11 , p. 249).
10. Joh. P. Reusch, Systema logicum, Jenae 1734, #754: "DOGMA Cel. Wolfius tam late sumit, ut
quamlibet propositionem universalem aut, ob defectum cognitionis, particularem de eo, quod
rebus pluribus est commune, per iIIud intelligat. IIIud opponit veritati historicae..."
90 G. Tonelli

F. Chr. Baumeister, Phi/osophia definitiva, hoc est, definitiones phi/osophicae ex systemate

Lib. Bar. a Wolf, Vitembergai 1749 (7th edition), # DCCCCLXXVI: " Dogmatici sunt, qui
veritates universales defendunt, seu qui affirmant et negant in universali ."
G. Fr. Meier, Vemunftlehre , Halle 1752, p. 147: "Einige Wahrheiten... sind dergestalt
geschaffen, daB man ihre Wahrheit aus den innerlichen Kenzeichen der Wahrheit erkennen
kan, und von Rechts wegen erkennen muB, und das wollen wir die dogmatischen Wahrheiten
nennen (z. B. Gott, der Satz vom Grunde, die bestmogliche Welt). - Die historischen
Wahrheiten im Gegentheil werden nur aus den iiuBerlichen Kenzeichen der Wahrheit erkant,
und wir Menschen miissen unzahlig viele historische Wahrheiten annehmen, die wir nicht
anders als aus den iiuBerlichen Kenze ichen erkennen konnen (z. B. daB Romolus Rom
begriindete.)"
S. Chr . Hollmann, Logica , Gottingae 1764 (4th edition) , # 394, distinguished historical
from dogmatical writers : the latter are "qui res ratione sola cognitas tradunt".
A.G. Baumgarten, Acroasis Logica Halle 1761, # 55: "Doctrina (a teach ing) est vel
dogma, vel complexus Dogmatum (general proposition) seu propositionum communium."
D. Beck, Philosophia rationa/is systematice adornata, Salisburgi 1763, II , # 144: "Dogma-
ticus ist der Gelehrte, der allgemeine Wahrheiten als bewiesen darstellt,'
Joh . Chr. Forster, Anfangsgriinde der theoretischen Philosophie, Halle 1772, Vemunftlehre,
# 200: "Die Schriftsteller sind entweder dogmatisch oder historisch".
Naturally, there were also other meanings for dogma and dogmatic: Oxford Dictionary,
sub " Dogma", "Dogmatic", " Dogmatical", "Dogmatically", "Dogmaticalness", "Dogmati-
tian", " Dogmatist", " Dogmatization", Dogmatize", "Dogmatizer": for Hooker (1600), "dog-
mata" are the "very articles of religion themselves"; other examples of articles of belief or
teachings in general. Sub " Dogmatic", as a method: Gale (1678) opposed the "thetic and
dogmatic method" to the "agonistic and polemic" method. As belonging to a teaching : for
Phillips (1706), dogmatical and dogmatic mean "relating to Dogma, instructive". As a priori
and not empirical : Phillips (1696): " Dogmatick Philosophy is that positively assures a th ing,
and is opposed to Sceptic". As founded on authority: Addison (1712): "Those criticks who
write in a positive dogmatick way". As certain: Cudworth (1678); Hobbes (1640): "Th e fault
lieth altogether in the dogmatics, that is to say, those that are imperfectly learned, and with
passion press to have their opinions pass every where for truth". Donne (1631) opposed
"problematical" and "dogmatical". Chambers (1727) : "In common use, a dogmatical
philosopher is such a one as asserts things positively; in opposition to a Sceptic, who doubts
of every thing . A dogmatical physician is he, who, on the principles of school-philosophy,
rejects all medicinal virtues not reducible to manifest qualities (but for Chambers, Cyclopae-
dia. sub " Dogmaticks", philosophers who have brought order into philosophy through
definitions , divisions, and conclusions count as dogmatics) . For Johnson (1751), "dogmati-
cally" means "impatient of contradiction". For Minsheu (1627) and Blount (1656) "dogma-
tism" means the teaching of a new sect or opinion. Pope (1742): "Prompt to impose, and fond
to dogmatize". Sclater (1625): "dogmatized" means "decretally established for catholique
doctrine". For Shelton (1612-20) and Hammond (1660) "dogmatizers" are the leaders of
heretical sects.
See also van Leeuwen, op. cu., p. 57: Wilins (1675), "By Dogmaticalness, I mean , a
readiness to be overconfident of the things we are well inclined to; an aptness to own every
thing for equally true and certain... without a particular inquiry into the grounds and reasons
of things ."
Littre: sub "Dogmatique", as "maintained with certainty" (Fontenelle) ; "asserted with
authority" (La Bruyere; see also sub " Dogmatique"), Sub "Dogmatiser", as "to spread a
religious or philosophical teach ing" (Bossuet, Bourdaloue); but also in a negative sense
(Bossuet, Madame De Sevigne) , Sub "Dogmatiste", the same (Diderot). Sub "Dogme", as an
article of belief (Bossuet, Boileau).
Richelet, art. Dogmatique: "instructif... Ce mot se dit pour magistral, ou pedantesque"; art,
Dogmatiser: "Ce mot se prend en mauvaise part, & signifie enseigner des doctrines contraires
a la religion qui est aprouvee dans un Etat"; art . Dogme: " Precepte; instruction".
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 91

Furetiere, art. Dogmatique: "Instructif; qui est propre a enseigner, ou a expliquer une
opinion, ou une science - Un Philosophe Dogmatique est un Philosophe qui assure
positivement une chose comme vraye. II est oppose au Sceptique, lequel doute de tout... -se
prend aussi pour Magistral, ou pedantesque"; art . Dogmatiser: "Enseigner, instruire. II se
prend d'ordinaire en mauvaise part"; art . Dogme: "Maxime; axiome; principe; ou proposition
qui conserne les sciences... II se dit particulierement des points de la Religion."
Trevoux, art. Dogmatique: "en termes de Philosophie & de Grammaire. .. Instructif, qui
appartient a quelque opinion, ou a quelque principe etabli en matiere de Philosophie ... un
Philosophe dogmatique est celui qui assure positivernent une chose, comme vraie, qui etablit
des dogmes en philosophie . II est oppose du Sceptique, lequel doute de tout ...- On appelle ton
dogma tique, Ie ton magistral et pedantesque"; art . Dogmatiser: "... il se dit mauvaise part,
pour enseigner une doctrine fausse ou dangereuse, particulierement en matiere de Religion";
art . Dogme: "Maxime, axiome, principe, enseignement servant de regie... il se dit particul iere-
ment des points de la religion."
Pierre Bayle, Oeuvres Diverses, La Haye 1731, Vol. IV, p. 536 (Letter to Minutoli , 31-1-
1673): " La plus generale discussion, qu'on ait accoiitume de faire de toutes les Sectes de
Philosophes, est de les distinguer en ceux qui croyent avoir trouve la Verite; ceux qui croyent
qu'elle ne se pouvoit pas trouver ; & ceux qui, ne croyant pas I'avoir trouvee, la cherchaient
pourtant toute leur vie"; namely, the dogmat ics, the academics, and the pyrrhonians. The
division of philosophers into dogmatics and sceptics in the foreword to Chr. Wolff,
Verniinftigen Gedanken von Gott ... Frankfurt and Leipzig 1720, was also not new: Joh. Fr.
Budde, Institutiones phi/osophiae eclecticae [1703], Halae Sax. 1719, I, p. 7, had already
ment ioned th is same division, but at the same time maintained that scepticism was no
philosophy (the same in Budde, Compendium , cited above, p. 15).
Kant himself divided philosophy into dogmatic and sceptical in his lectures after 1760:
Compare E. Feldmann , "Die Geschichte der Philosophie in Kants Vorlesungen", Phi/os .
Jahrbu ch der Giirres-gesellschaft, XLIX, 1936.
II . Joh. Fr. Buddeus, Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae, Lipsiae 1724. Compare E. Hirsch,
Geschichte der neueren evangelischen Theolog ie, II, Gutersloh 1960, pp. 325-6 .
12. S. Jac. Baumgarten, Evangelische Glaubenslehre. Mit Anm. Vorrede u. histor. Einleitung her. von
D.1. S. Semler, Halle 1759, pp. 20-21 ; see "Historical Introduction", pp. 107 and 134.
13. XVII , 553, Reflection No. 4445. And, in Reflection No. 4457 (XVII, 558): "In metaphysica
applicata there is much that is dogmatic." Later, too (1775-78 ), morals are treated as
dogmatic: Reflection No. 5105, XVIII , 89. Kant 's works are cited, ifnot otherwise indicated,
from the Prussian Academy edition (Kant, Gesammelte Schriften... Only where volume XXIV,
which has not yet appeared, is cited, will we repeat Gesammelte S chriften; for other references,
we will give only the volume and page numbers).
14. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 99, lines 12ff.; p. 398, lines 19ff ("... each event is
histor ical: all propositions are dogmatic"); p. 399, lines 5ff. (" Dogmatic propos itions are in
morals , religion, etc. etc. Metaphysics, as the orgnanon of the pure knowledge of reason and
logic as the organon of knowledge in general, should not contain dogmatic truths.")
15. Ibid., p. 206, notes 27-33; compare p. 327, line 12, and p. 399, line 3 (where dogma is defined
as "each general item of knowledge based on reason").
16. Ibid., p. 244,lines 3ff.
17. Ibid., p. 36, lines 35ff.; p. 37, lines 11-12; p. 159, lines 38ff.; p. 206, lines 4ff. ("The Methodus
Dogmatica Philosophiae thus consists in that we arrive at a fully secure certainty in all
judgments, not satisfied with indecision, and leaving nothing undecided..." - "The dogmatic
spirit in philosophy is also the proud language of the ignorant, that wish to decide everything,
and indeed are unable to investigate anyth ing"); p. 207, lines 3-5 ; p. 212, lines 7ff.; p. 398,lines
36ff. Also the term "problematic" as a form of judgment is related to Kant 's position vis-a-vis
scepticism: compare G. Tonelli, "Die Voraussetzungen der kantischen Urteilstafel in der Logik
des XVIII. Jhndts.", in Kritik und Metaphysik. Studien. H. He imsoeth zum achtzigsten
Geburtstag, Berlin 1966, pp. 155-6.
18. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV (Logik Blomberg, 1771), p. 211, lines 4ff. "The name
of a sceptic for the most part has become hateful among us; we think namely of one who does
92 G. Tonelli

not concern himself with anything else but throwing down the most certain and undeniable
truths.."
19. Ibid., p. 159, lines 17ft'.; p. 208, p. 7ft'. ("Skepticism, or the method of sceptical doubt, in which
one mistrusts oneself, and thinks over the grounds for and against the knowledge that one has,
and in this manner strives to come to perfect certainty: this is the catharcticon, the best means
of purification of reason.") ; p. 209, lines 27ft'.; p. 210, lines 27ft'. ("The true scepticism is
however of great utility..."),
20. Ibid. , p. 205, lines 20ft'.; p. 214, lines 1Ift'.; p. 209, lines 3-6, 24-7; p. 215, lines 1ft'.
21. I. Kant, Vorlesungen iiher Philosophische Enzyclopiidie, Berlin 1961, edited by G. Lehmann
[now in the Academy edition of Kant's works, volume 29.1 - translator's note). The evidence
for the dating is in our review of this volume, Filosojia XIII, 3,1962.
22. Kant, Vorlesungen , op. cit., p. 53. Compare Reflection No. 4851 (1776-78), XVIII , 8; and No.
5010 (1776-78), XVIII, 59.
23. lH. Formey, Histoire abregee de la philosoph ie, Amsterdam 1760, p. 107.
24. Baumgarten, Philosophia generalis, op. cit., see note 4.
25. Joh . Regius, Oratio pro scepticismo, Franequerae 1725, repeats (p.14) and comments on (p.17)
a place in Gassendi which deals with <PCXtv0IlEVCX and VOOUIlEVCX in relation to the sceptics.
Jac . Carpov, Idealismus ex concessis explosus, Vinariae 1740, Preface, pp. 5--6; Sextus
Empiricus "scepticam autem facultatem ttlV IiVtlSEtlXijV <pCXtv0IlEvrov rs XCXt vooouevev
XCXS'OlOV lillltOtE rponov, h. e. eam , quae sensibus adparentia, & ea, quae mente & intellectu
percipiuntur, confert inter se, & opponi quolibet modo, vocat".
Brucker op. cit., p. 1332: "Sceptica est facultas quae sensibus apparentia & ea, quae mente
& intellectu percipiuntur, confert inter se atque opponit quolibet modo. Probe in hac
definitione attendendum est, ad distinctionem inter ea, quae sensibus apparent, & ea, quae
mente & intellectu percip iuntur. Etsi enim <PCXIVOIlEVCX <pCXIV0J.lVOl<; quoque opponebant
Sceptici, incert itudinem tamen, nov <pCXIVOJ.lVroV in eo potissimum quaerebant, quod ta
VOOUIlEVex, sive ea, quae mente percipiuntur, & rationatione ex apparentibus concluduntur,
illis contraria sint, adeoque sensuum imagines cum notionibus intellectus non conveniant , sed
aliae videantur,"
The term "Noemata" appears in R. Burthogge , The Philosophical Writings , ed. Landes,
Chicago-London 1921, pp. 13-14 (Organum Vetus & Novurn, 1678): "We generally conceive
Faculties, Good, Evil, and other Not ions (under which the Minde apprehends things) to be
Realities , and to have an Existence of their own without the Minde, and though there were no
Minde to think of them , when indeed they are but Noemata, Conceptions, and all the formal
being any of them have, is onely it. And no wonder if he that takes No emata to be Realities
findes himself confounded by that mistake, in forming his Conceptions about them ."
26. Brucker ,op. cit., p. 673; p. 690: ta VOlltain contrast to ta cxicrSllta .
27. Goclenius, op. cit., sub <PCXIVOIlEVOV.
28. Kant, Vorlesungen, cit., p. 40: "Sie [the ancients) glaubten ein intellektuelles Anschauen. Die
Erkenntnisse, die dadurch erworben wurden, nannten sie Noumena und unterschieden sie von
den Phaenomenis"; and before: "Plato [was the philosopher) der intellektuellen Anschauun-
gen", Compare Reflection No. 1636, XVI, 60 (1760-72) ; No. 1643, XVI, 63 (1764-76) ; No.
4449, XVII , 555 (1772-78); and above all No. 4893, XVIII , 21 (1776-78) .
Compare also Kant, Gesammelte Schriften , Vol. XXIV (Logik Philippi, 1772), p. 327, lines
15ft'.: "Die Dogmatiker unterschieden sich - I. in die, welche aus principiis der Sinnlichkeit
und - 2. in die, welche aus principiis der Vernunft philosophirten. -In die VOOUIlEVOI und
<PCXtv0IlEVOt. Heraclitus machte den Unterschied. Die VOOUIlEVOI behaupteten, die Sinne waren
falsch, sie zeigten nicht wie die Dinge waren, sondern nur wie sie durch die Dinge geriihrt
wiirden . Sie glaubten, daB die Philosophie sich einschranke auf die intelligibilia ... Democritus,
Leukippus, Epicurus vertheidigten das Gegentheil , dass die gantze Philosophie sich auf die
Sensibilia beschranke,"
29. According to M. Wundt, most of Kant's knowledge of Plato came from Brucker : compare
" Die Wiederentdeckung Platons im 18. Jahrhundert", Blatter fUr deutsche Philosoph ie, XV,
1941, pp. 154-5 . But Kant certainly also knew Cudworth's Systema intellectuale in the Latin
translation, with important commentary, by Mosheim (Jena 1733).
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 93

30. Compare I. Kant, Vorlesungen iiber die Metaphysik (ed. Politz), Erfurt 1821 [Darmstadt 1964],
p. 14 (this part of the Metaphysik Politz dates from the years 1790-91).
31. Reflection No. 2660, XVI, 457. Compare No. 2664 (1773-5), XVI, 458.
32. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 209, lines 7ff.: "Der Pyrrhonische, d.i. der
Sceptische Zweifler hingegen sagte: allen, und jeden , oder aufs wenigste den mehresten
unserer urtheile Lasse sich immer ein anderes Urtheil entgegen setzen, und opponieren,
welches accurat das Gegentheil von dem, was in dem ersteren Urtheil enthalten ist, Behauptet;
dieses war also wircklich mehr als eine Art einer sehr schonen und vortreflichen Beobachtung,
als ein verwerflicher Zweifel anzusehen." P. 212, lines 36ff. (Socrates); p. 217, lines 21ff.
(Hume, who nevertheless had taken this method too far). Compare p. 438, lines 21ff. (Logik
Philippi, 1772).
33. Reflection No. 5051, XVIII , 61.
34. Vorlesungen iiber die philos. Enzykl., p. 52.
35. Ibid., p. 56. Compare Reflection No. 1629 (1780-89), XVI , 48; Vorlesungen tiber die
Metaphysik, p. 13.
36. Vorlesungen iiber die Metaphysik, pp. 10-11. Compare the parallel passage at IX, 28.
37. Vorlesungen iiber die philosoph. Enzykl., pp. 56-7 .
38. Ibid., p. 39.
39. Gassendi,op. cit., I, p. 38; Bayle, Dictionnaire, sub "Zeno", B.; Stanley, op. cit., II, p. 882; Jo.
Ge. Walch, Einleitung in die Philosoph ie, Leipzig 1730, p. 8 ("Man giebt den Zenonen Eleaten
vor den Urheber der Dialektik an, welches aber nur von der Zanck-Dialectic zu verstehen");
Zedler, op. cit., Vol. LXI, sub "Zeno von Elea"; J.G. Daries, Via ad Veritatem, Jenae 1732,
Historiae logicae , Ch. I, # II; Brucker, op. cit., pp. 1168-9; Saverien, Histoire des philosophes
anciens, Paris 1771-2, Vol. II, p. 21.
40. Compare Schookius, op. cit., p. 9; Chr. Mattt. Pfaffius, Oratio de egoismo, Tubingae 1722, p. 19
(where Zeno is even rebuked for egoism); P.D. Huet , Traite philosophique de la faiblesse de
l'esprit humain, Amsterdam 1723, p. 103; Buddeus, Compendium, cit., p. 18: "Praelusisse
tamen quodammodo scepticis viamque illis munivisse cred itur Zeno Eleates, eo quod
logicarum cavillationum summus esset artifex."; Zedler, op. cit., Vol. LXI, sub "Zeno von
Elea": .....man kan ihn also vielmehr fur den Erfinder der sophistischen Zankkunst ausgeben,
indem er sich darselben bloss bediente, urn allen zu widersprechen, nicht aber urn die
Wahrheit an das Licht zu bringen: wie dann auch die Sceptici und Pyrrhonici ihre meisten
Waffen von ihm bekommen haben." The dissertation of Joh. Lud. Crellius, De Zenone, Lipsiae
1724 was unfortunately unavailable to us.
41. Joh. Ge. Feder, Logik und Metaphysik, Gottingen and Gotha 1770, second edition [first
edition 1769], p. 315: "Der Eleatische Zeno wird als Erfinder dieser Wissenschaft [die
Dialektik] genennt. Aber die proben, die uns von seiner Dialektik iibrig geblieben sind,
beweisen, daf es eine verachtungswurdige Sophistik gewesen. Unterdessen hat man es
dazumal der Miihe werth geachtet, sich mit diesen Grillen den Kopf zu zerbrechen . Die
Megarische Secte machte sich dadurch einen Namen ..."
42. Seneca, Ad Lucilium, N.88, in fine .
43. P. Fonseca, Commentariorum... in Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, Coloniae 1615 [Hilde-
sheim 1964], I, p. 618.44.
Brucker, op. cit., pp. 1170-1.
45. Darjes, loc. cit. Compare Gassendi , loc. cit.
46. Kant's reference to Plato is probably based on the Latin translation of a spurious Greek
passage from Timon that Bayle repeated sub "Zeno", note B.
47. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 207, lines 19-22; p. 212,Iines 20ff.; p. 330, lines 9ff.
This role was often given to Socrates in the above-cited pre-Kantian literature about
scepticism. Compare, for example, B. Stattler, Philosophia methodo scientiis propria explanata,
Vol. I, Augustae Vind., 1769, p. 7.
48. Kant, op. cit., p. 207, lines 38ff.; p. 213, lines 12ff.; lines 38ff.: "DaB Pyrrho viele Dogmata
geleugnet, und in sie ein gerechtes, und wohl uberlegtes Mistrauen gesezet, Ferner daB er ins
Besondere viele rationale Urtheile verworfen, ist unstrittig, und nicht zu leugnen, daf er aber
alle, und jede Dogmata geleugnet, ist grundfalsch. Derjenige, der gar keine Dogmata
94 G. Tonelli

annimmt, kann gar keine Sittlichkeit lehren... Man gab aber dem Pyrrho auch noch iiberdem
die Schuld, daB er an der Wahrheit aller Empirischen Urtheile gezweifelet , und denen selben
nicht getrauet habe. Dieses aber ist nichts als eine Erdichtung, die gar keinen Grund hat.;"; p.
330, lines 14ff.: "Er lehrte nur, daB man die Satze der Philosophie nicht sogleich annehmen
und entscheiden sondern anfiinglich daran zweifeln solle bis man untriiglich davon iiberzeuget
ist."
49. Gentzkenius, op. cit., p. 68: .....Proinde Fr . Mothaeus Vayerus Pyrrhum ver is sapientibus
annumerare non dubitat, quoniam dogmaticorum vanas & inutiles rixas evitaturus plurima
tantum probabilia esse, reputaverit; sectatores tamen ultra Magistri limites progressos esse,
haud verodissimile videtur,' A.F. Boureau Deslandes, Histoire critique de la philosophie,
Amsterdam 1765, second edition, II, p. 369: "N e croyez pas , dit Sextus , que Ie Pyrrhonisme
supose la destruction de toutes les Sciences , &, pour ainsi dire, un entier renoncement aux
lumieres de son espr it. Quel homme voudrait s'avilir & se degrader jusqu'a ce point?... Le
veritable Pyrrhonien est done celui qui examine les choses avec une attention scrupuleuse; qui
recherche la verite , mais qui la voit toujours fuyante a ses yeux ; qui balance les raisons du pour
& du contre; qui ne decide jamais, cra inte d'etre oblige de retracter Ie soir ce qu'il a cru Ie
matin; qui ne s'arrete point a des fausses lueurs ; qui se defie de ses sens tofijours infideles &
trompeurs; qui a s~u enfin se procurer Ie repos et la tranquillite si necessaires a un homme
d'esprit. J'avoue que Ie Pyrrhonien n'etablit aucun dogme; ma is pour cela , il ne se soustrait
point aux choses du gout & de sentiment.,' On p. 368 he wrote about Pyrrhonism: "Quoi de
plus propre a nous inspirer une juste defiance de nos faibles lumieres ! Quoi de plus capable de
tourner nos regards a la Religion !"
50. Kant,op. cit., p. 208, lines 36ff.; p. 213, lines 35ff.; p. 214, lines I Iff.; p. 330, lines 19ff.
51. Ibid. , p. 215, lines lff.; p. 337, lines 5-7.
52. Indeed, for Schookius, op. cit. , pp . 389ff., the sceptics are the destroyers oflogic, which is what
he called dialectic. Only A .F. Boureau Deslandes, Histoire critique de la philosophie,
Amsterdam 1765, second edition, II, p. 370, mentions dialectic in reference to the sceptics:
"Sextus explique ensuite ce que c'est que les dix Moyens de l'Epoque, je veux dire les dix
arguments sur lesquels s'appuye Ie Pyrrhonisme. Je doute qu'on pu isse deb iter une Dialectique
plus fine & plus imposante,'
53. Stanley, op. cit. , I, pp. 264, 293, 443 .
54. Heineccius, op. cit., p. 17.
55. Brucker, op. cit., p. 610.
56. Ibid., p. 671.
57. Ibid., p. 810.
58. Ibid., p. 905. Compare p. 914.
59. Ibid. , p. 1256.
60. Ibid. , p. 1324.
61. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 336, lines 20ff.; compare p. 387, lines 9ff. (Logik
Philippi , 1772) (That Eucl ides of Megara was the inventor of a degenerate dialectic was also a
widespread opinion : compare, for example, Boureau Deslandes, op. cit., II, p. 151).
62. Ibid., p. 337, lines 5ff.
63. Ibid., p. 206, lines 26-7, 38ff.
64. Compare G. Tonelli, " D er historische Ursprung der kantischen Termini 'Analytik' und
' D ialektik"', Archiv fia Begriffsgeschichte, VII , 1962.
65. Brucker,op. cit., p. 1333. Compare p. 769. On Carneades, compare Crousaz, op. cit., p. 58a.
66. Joh. Chr. Dommerich, Gedanken iiber den Skepticismus, Braunschweig and Hildesheim 1767.
67. Carpov, op. cit., Praef., p. 6: "Dum Scepticum dicit Sextus , Qui rerum argumenta quolibet
modo sibi invicem opponit". Ch. J. Panckoucke, Usage de la raison, ou Riflexions sur la vie et
les sentiments des anciens philosophes, Amsterdam 1753, p. 47: the sceptics "avaient pour
maxime qu'a toute raison, il y a une autre raison d'un egal poids qui lui est opposee", Merian,
"Memoire sur l'apperception de sa propre existence", in Histoire de l'Academ ie Royale des
Sciences et belles Lettres MDCCXUX, Berlin 1751, p. 424, on the sceptics: "Leur pretention
est que nous manquons de criterium pour discerner Ie vray du faux , & qu 'en toute question il y
a (icrocr8evE1Cx) equilibre de ra isons . De la on voit, dans Ie meme cas, tantot demontrer
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 95

a
I'affirmative, tantot la negative, suivant que cela leur vient propos." See also : 1. B. de Boyer
d'Argens, La philosophie du bon sens [1737], Dresde 1754, vol. I, pp . 147ff., 268ff., 323ff.
68. Baumgarten, Philosophia generalis, cited, #87.
69. Compare Tonelli , "Der historische Ursprung", cited above, pp. 133ff.
70. Compare Reflections Nos . 2605 and 2609, XVI , 437-8 (1776-89).
71. See: H . Blumenberg, "Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie", Arch ivflir Begriffsgeschichte, VI ,
1960, pp . 88ff.
72. Leibniz, Theodicee, #28 : "C'est toute autre chose quand'il ne s'agit que de vraisemblances, car
l'art de juger des raisons vraisemblables n'est pas encore bien etabli, de sorte que notre logique
a cet egard est ancor tres imparfaite, et que nous n'en avons presque jusqu'icy que l'art de juger
des demonstrations ."
73. Chr. Wolff, Philosophia rationalis sive Log ica, Francof. & Lipsiae 1740, #593: " Enimvero ad
aestimandam probabilitatem opus est principiis specialibus, quae a principiis ontologicis &
philosophicis aliis pendent. Sed ea constituunt Logicam probabilium, quam in desideratis esse
Leibnitius jam agnovit. Commodum accidit, si eam post artem inveniendi tradatur, propterea
quod principia hujus artis in ea habeant locum. Immo cum Logica probabilium ostendat,
quomodo veritates probabiles in apricum eruantur & gradus probabilitatis investigetur; altera
pars artis inveniendi recte habetur." Compare: H. W. Arndt, "Christian Wolffs Stellung zur
'Ars Characteristica Combinatoria"', Filosofia XVI , 1965.
74. K .H . Frommichen, Uber die Lehre des Wahrscheinlichen und den politischen Gebrauch
derselben , Braunschweig und Hildesheim 1773, p. 29. (This work is very rare. A copy is in
the possession of the "Serninario di Lingua e Letteratura tedesca", Section of Foreign
Languages and Literatures, Faculty of Economics and Commerce, University of Pisa.)
75. a
G. 1. s'Gravesande, Introduction la Philosophie [1737], leide 1748, ##582ff.
76. Fortunatus a Brixia, Philosophia mentis, Brixiae 1741, Vol. I, pp. 90ff.
77. D. Hume, An Enqu iry concerning Human Understanding (1748), Section VI.
78. A.F. Boureau Deslandes, Traite sur les differens degrez de la certitude morale, Paris 1750.
79. M . Mendelssohn, Schriften zur Philosophie..., ed. Brasch, Leipzig 1880, Vol. I, pp . 108ff. (Von
der Wahrscheinlichkeit, 1756).
80. D 'Aiembert, Oeuvres, Paris 1821, Vol. I, pp . 157ff. (Essai sur les elemens de philosophie , 1759).
81. Blumenberg,op. cit. , pp . 102-3.
82. Frommichen, op. cit., p. 31.
83. 1.H . Lambert, Neues Organon [1764], in Philosophische Hauptschriften, ed . H .W. Arndt,
Hildesheim 1965, II , p 356 (Phiinom. #187). On probability, see the whole of section V of the
Phiinom. See also Lambert, Beitriige zum Gebrauche der Mathematik, Berlin 1765-72, I and III
Parts. Th is logical doctrine of probability is already at the foundation of the distinction
between "objective" and "subjective probability" in Ad . Fried. Hoffmann, Vernunft-Lehre,
Leipzig 1737, Second Part, Chapter VIII, sections 29,35,37,61 ; chapter IX , sections 4ff.
84. Chr. Garve, De nonnulis quae pertinent ad logicam probab ilium, Halae 1766.
85. Frommichen,op. cit. , pp. 7-9; P. 9: "Die Dialektik, deren Gegenstand die EVOO~CXt waren, war
in den altesten Schulen eine philosophische Kenntnis der Meinungen, oder wie die Logik jetzt
redet, der Vorurtheile, der Gesinnungen, der Urtheile des Volkes nach schlichtem Menschen-
verstande, oder dessen, was das Publicum ohne tiefsinnige Einsicht der Griinde anzunehmen
pflegt: diese Kenntnis war eine Wissenschaft, welche zugleich der Redekunst zu Athen und
Rom, und der Disputierkunst der damaligen Zeiten brauchbar wurde."
86. Ibid., pp. 14-19.
87. Ibid., p. 22.
88. Ibid., pp . 26-9 .
89. Ibid., p. 23.
90. Ibid. , p. 32.
91. Ibid., pp . 3~ .
92. Ibid., pp . 51ff.
93. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 5, line 10.
94. Ibid. , p. 38, lines 2ff.; p. 196, lines 17ff.; p. 433, lines 7ff.
95. Ibid. , p. 436, lines 20ff.
96 G. Tonelli

96. Ibid. , p. 196, lines 25ff.; p. 436, lines 22ff.; p. 437, lines 14ff.
97. Ibid., p. 433, lines 18ff.
98. The question whether the zetetical method of 1764 was already a method of opposition cannot
easily be answered. One can only observe that no materials from before 1769 remain by which
we can determine that the method of opposition already then played an important role.
99. C. Fromondus, Labyrinthus, sive de compositione continui , Antverpiae 1631.
100. Fr. A. Schultz lectured until the 1770's on Theologia thetico-antithetica. Compare 1. Bohatec,
Die Religionsph ilosophie Kants in der 'R eligion innerhalb der Grenzen der blofJen Vernunft :
Hamburg 1938, p. 22. Other authors also used an antithetical procedure: for example, the
Fulda philosopher I. Graw, in his Universa phi/osophia eclectica experimentalis infasciculum
thesium utiliorum ac nonnullorum supra antitheses et animadversiones collecta, Fuldae 1750; or
later Leop. Ludw. Wilh. Brunn, in his work: Widersprechende Fragmente neuerer Phi/osophen,
aus ihrem Schriften, Wittenberg 1778-81.
101. Reflection No. 4676 (Duisb. Nachl.), XVII , 657.
102. Reflection No. 4896, XVIII, 22.
103. Compare Tonelli, "Die historische Ursprung", cit.
I04. For the first time doubtless by Hamann (compare 1. G. Hamann, Briefe, edited by W. Ziesemer
and A. Henkel , Wiesbaden 1955- 59, vol. IV, p. 283, letter to Herder of27 April 1781. Then ,
among others, by C. Fried . Stiiudlin, Geschichte und Geist des Skeptizismus, Leipzig 1794; and
sti11later, for example, by E. Maurial, Le scepticisme combattu dans ses principes . Analyse et
discussion du scepticisme de Kant , Paris 1857. [Others in the late eighteenth century would
include Solomon Maimon, "Aenesidemus" Schulze, and Thomas Wizenmann - translator's
note.]
105. La Mothe Ie Vayer's Cinq dialogues fa its Ii l'imitation des anciens , edited by L.M. Kahle ,
appeared in Berlin in 1744. Poiret was well-known in Germany (compare M. Wieser, P. Poiret,
Der Vater der roman tischen Myst ik in Deutschland, Miinchen 1932, especially pp. 23ff.); his
influence on Chr. Thomasius was very considerable (compare M. Wundt, Die deutsche
Schulphi/osophie im Zeitalter der Aujkliirung, Tiibingen 1945, pp. 21, 42, 52, 54); he was even
more of an influence on Joach . Lange (ibid., pp. 75ff.). Huet 's chief work was very topical : it
first appea red posthumously in 1723, and was immediately translated into German (under the
title Von der Schwachheit des menschlichen Verstandes in Erkiinntniss der Wahrheit, Frankfurt
1724). It also stirred up refutations, like that of Fr. Ph. Schlosser, Scept icismus fidei eversor,
Wittebergae 1725, and 10. Egger, De viribus mentis humanae, Disquisit io phi/osophica Anti-
Huetiana, Bernae 1735.
106. Reflection No. 1635,58; Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 211, line 3.
107. Extrait du dictionnaire historique et critique de Bayle , Berlin 1765, foreword pp. III-VI. The
Abbe F. de Mars y published an Analyse raisonnee de Bayle (London 1755,4 vols.), which was
continued by 1. B. Robinet (London 1770, 4 vols.).
108. See E. Lichtenstein, Gottscheds Ausgabe von Bayles Dictionnaire. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Aujkliirung, Heidelberg 1915, especially p. 43.
109. 1.H.S. Formey, Le triomphe de l'evidence, Berlin 1756. This work is an expanded new edition of
an extract from Crousaz's work written by Formey before 1740, under the title "Abrege de
I'histoire du Pyrrhonisme de Crousaz". This extract rema ined unpublished in its original
version , but it was translated into German by A. von Haller and published under the title
Priifung der Secte, die an allem zweifelt , Gottingen 1751 (compare A. von Haller's Gedichte,
edited and introduced by L. Hirzel, Frauenfeld 1882, Introduction, pp. CLXXXVllIff.). This
work was recommended by Kant to his listeners (Kant, Gesammelte schriften, Vol. XXIV, p.
218, line 11).
110. See note 4, above.
lIl. An edition of his Opera graece et latine was published by 1. A. Fabricius in 1718. The
Hypotyposen were translated into French by C. Huart (Amsterdam 1725, London 1737).
Compare Popk in, "Scepticism in the Enlightenment", op. cit., p. 1324.
112. Compare Popkin, " Scepticism in the Enlightenment", op. cit. See, among others, G.
Ploucquet, Examen rationum a Sexto Empirico tam ad propugnandam quam impugnandam
Dei ex istentiam collectarum , Tubingae 1768. Compare also note 4, above.
 Kant and the Ancient Sceptics 97

113. Compare for example B. F. Dalham, De ratione recte cogitandi, loquendi et intelligendi,
Augustae Vindel. 1762, L. I, p. III, Cap. V, Scepticorum causa convellitur & evidentia
propugnatur; Joh . Pet. And. Muller, Von dem menschlichen Verstande und den nothwendigen
Vernunftwahrheiten, die man den zufdlligen entgegen setzt, Halle 1769, pp. 159ff., and many
others.
114. Popkin, The History ofScepticism, op. cit. , pp. 131ff., 142ff.
115. For some aspects of this position, see G. Tonelli, "La question des bornes de I'entendement
humain au XVIIIe siecle et la genese du crit icisme kantien, particulierement par rapport au
probleme de l'infini", Revue de Mhaphysique et de Morale, 1959; " Critiques of the Notion of
Substance Prior to Kant", Tijdschrift voor Philosoph ie, XXIII, 1961; " Die Anfange von Kants
Kritik der Kausalbeziehungen und ihre Voraussetzungen im 18. Jhdt,", Kant-Studien, LVII,
1966.
116. D.R. Bouillier, Pieces philosophiques, s.l. 1759, pp. Iff.
117. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. XXIV, p. 210, lines 36ff.; p. 217, lines 13ff., 38ff.
118. Crousaz,op. cit., pp. 2, 42; Formey, Le triomphe , op. cit., I, p. 66, II , pp. XVIff.
119. Dommerich,op. cit., p. 63.
120. D. Hume, Enquiry, ed. Selby-Bigge, Oxford 1902, pp. 116, 124, 129-30 ; A Treatise of Human
Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, Oxford 1888, pp. 180ff.
121. And. F. Boureau-Deslandes, De la certitude des connaissances humaines, London 1741,
chapter 1 (German translation, Quedlinburg 1744).
122. AI. Deleyre, Analyse de la philosophie du Chancelier Bacon , Leyde 1756, I, pp. 148ff: he set
forth the pros and the cons of scepticism, and pra ised the " liberte d'esprit" in the presence of
th is equivalence.
123. Ch. Bonnet, Palingenesie philosophique [1769], Oeuvres, vol. VII, Neuchatel 1783, p. 366.
124. Du Marsais, Essai sur les prejuges, Londres 1770, p. 276: " On blame avec raison un
scepticisme qui affecte de ne rien savoir, de n'etre sur de rien, de jetter du doute sur toutes les
questions. Des que nou s serons ra isonnables nous aurons distinguer les choses sur lesquelles
nous devons douter de celles dont nous pouvons acquerir la certitude. Ainsi ne doutons point
des verites evidentes que tous nos sens s'accordent anous montrer, que Ie temoignage du genre
humain nous confirme , que des experiences veritables constatent a tout moment pour nous .
Ne doutons point de notre existence propre; ne doutons point de nos sensations constantes et
reiterees ; ne doutons point de I'existence du plaisir et de la douleur... ne doutons point de
l'existence de la vertu ... - S'il n'est point permis a des etres raissonables de douter des verites
qui leur sont demontrees par l'experience de tous les siecles, illeur est permis d'ignorer & de
douter de Ie realite des objets qu'aucun de leur sens ne leur a ja mais fait connaitre; qu'ils en
do utent sur-tout quand les rapports qu'on leur en fait seront remplis de contradictions et
d'absurd ites; quand les qual ites qu'on leur assignera se detruiront reciproquement: quand
malgre tous les efforts de l'esprit il sera toujours impo ssible de s'en former la moindre idee.
Qu'il nous soit done permis de douter de ces dogmes theologiques, de ces mysteres
ineffables...".
125. Joh. Regius, Oratio pro scepticismo, Franequerae 1725, pp. 17-18: "Scepticismus igitur, quem
ego hodie laudabo, in eo consistit, videlicet, ut nemo cuidem assert ioni, alicui dogmati facile
calculum adjiciat nisi rationibus certis , evidentibus, e Principio indubitato petitis, post
iteratam meditationem diligentemque att entamque considerationem omnium, tam ratione
ipsius pr incipii, quam argumentorum ponderis & demonstrandi modi , satis fuerit convictus; si
vero his aliquid deesse, vel scrupuli aliquid superasse deprehendat, assensum suum prorsus
cohibeat, & tamdiu omnino existat dubius". For example, the connection between body and
soul (p. 46) and the or igin of the movement of heavenly bodies (p. 56) are indiscernible.
126. Chr. Meiners , Re vision der Philosophie, I, Gottingen and Go tha 1772, pp. 33, 78-81.
127. Compare for example the Traite de l'incertitude des scienc es, Amsterdam 1715 (pp . 244ff.: the
sciences are incapable of certainty, only revelation can help us). Other essays are cited in 1. S.
Spink, French Free-Thoughtfrom Gassendi to Voltaire, London 1960, pp. 307, 309, and Popkin ,
"Scepticism in the Enlightenment", op. cit., p. 1330. Also Huart, the translator of Sextus, was
a Pyrrhonian: see Popkin, op. cit., p. 1328.
98 G. Tonelli

128. N. Cartaud de la Villate, Pensees critiques sur les mathematiques, ou ron propose divers Prejuges
contre ces Sciences, Ii dessein den ebranler la certitude, & de prouver qu'elles ont peu contribue Ii
la perfection des beaux arts, Paris 1733, especially pp. 175ff., 212ff.
129. See note 105, above.
130. For example, Chr. Sonntag, Roth, Joh . Heinr. Schmidt, Ant . Sig. Jak . Apinus. See Tonelli, " La
question des bornes", p. 408.
131. Compare H. Schirmer, Die Grundlagen des Erkennens bei Joh. G. Hamann, Diss. Erlangen
1926; E. Metzke, 1.G. Hamanns Stellung in der Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts, Halle 1934.
132. Compare K . Hoppe, Der junge Wieland, Leipzig, pp. 34, 42ff.
133. Frederick II's familiarity with scepticism can also be found in his essay, " Dissertation sur
l'innocence des erreurs de I'esprit" (Frederic II, Oeuvres philosophiques, Berlin 1848, I, esp. pp.
42-4), written in 1738 but published posthumously, and in his "Epitre sur la faiblesse de
I'esprit humain, a d'Argens" (Frederic II, Oeuvres du philosophe de Sans-Souci, Neuchatel
1760, II, pp. 180ff.), which first appeared in 1750 (ID.E. Preuss, Friedrich der Grope als
Schriftsteller, Berlin 1837, p. 118). Compare G. Rigollot, Frederic1Iphilosophe, Paris 1875, pp.
41ff. The Secretary of the Berlin Academy, IH.S. Formey, in L'Anti-Sans-Soucl, ou lafolie des
nouveaux philosophes Naturalistes, Deistes & autres Impies depeinte ou naturel, new edition,
Bouillon 1761, tried to prove that the "Epitre a d'Argens ", along with two other letters to
Maupertuis and Keith, could not have corne from the king: see vol. 1, preface : "L'on ne saurait
en effet supposer a un Roi, tel que lui, un coeur capable de mepriser toute Foi, toutes Loix, &
toute Religion , cornrne Ie font un Voltaire & autres effrontes Irnpies, la peste de la Societe
civile, & la honte de nosjours". Since it seems unbelievable that Formey did not know that the
king was the true author of the " Epitres", and Formey's fearful and pliant character exclude
the possibility that he could have rebelled against the king, it is very likely that his work should
be considered an official repudiation of the king's authorship, desired or permitted by the king
himself, designed to support the state religion . Nevertheless, later Frederick took literary
revenge in his "Epitre a d'Alembert" (1773), in Frederic II, Oeuvres , vol. XIII (Oeu vres
poetiques, vol. 4), Berlin 1849, pp. 104ff.; compare letter to d'Alembert of27 April 1773, ibid.,
vol. 24 (Correspondence, vol. 9), p. 597.
134. lB. Boyer d'Argens, La philosophie du bons-sens, Dresde 1754, second edition [London 1737,
first edition]. Before the beginning of the main text is the general title "Reflexions
philosophiques sur I'incertitude des connaissances humaines". D'Argens believed, however,
in the certainty of geometry, algebra, astronomy, and the experimental parts of physics.
135. L. de Beausobre, Le Pirronisme du sage, Berlin 1754 (second edition La Haye 1755 under the
title, Le Pirronisme raisonnable). L. de Beausobre was the son of an intimate friend of
Frederick II, the Berlin minister of French extraction, Isaac de Beausobre.
136. Compare I W. Yelton, John Locke and the Way ofIdeas , Oxford 1956, pp. 18-19,99-100.
137. Compare H. M . Bracken, The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism 1710-1733, The
Hague 1959, pp. 20-22.
138. Compare Tonelli, "Die Anfange von Kants Kritik der Kauzalbeziehungen", op. cit.
139. Compare Gassendi, Opera, op. cit. , I, p. 79; Van Leeuwen, op. cit. , pp. 6, 105.
140. Politz 's introduction to Kant's Vorlesungen iiber die Metaphysik, op. cit., p. LV.
141. The translator would like to thank Bram Anderson for his generous assistance with the
translation .
 E. DEOLASO

LEIBNIZ AND SCEPTICISM*

The Spanish philosopher Ortega said, speaking of "the less brilliant periods" in
the history of philosophy, that the great thinkers had been the subject of a study
so exclusive as to prejudice that of other periods, of lesser brilliance but
decisive historical importance. As an example of this he used to say that there
had been three fairy godmothers at the birth of modern philosophy, about
whom we knew very little - modern stoicism, epicureanism and scepticism. 1
These lines were written in 1942; and since then we have learnt a great deal
about them, but most especially about modern scepticism. It was Richard
Popkin who explained how scepticism has come to exert so powerful an
influence upon modern philosophy'. As we know, Popkin pointed out that this
phenomenon had two causes, the first being the re-edited texts of Sextus
Empiricus and the appearance of the first Latin translations, the second the
growth of Protestantism and the Protestant rejection of the rule of faith . These
two causes grew in strength, inasmuch as in the course of their religious
polemics men again turned to one of the classic themes of Hellenistic
scepticism: the legitimacy of the credentials of any possible judge of their
disputes". The subsequent investigations of Charles B. Schmitt and others are
now shedding fresh light on important details of the genesis of modern
scepticism.' Leibniz has so far been a stranger to this story; and the only work
which has systematically explored any aspect of this relations with scepticism
(namely, his attitude to the principal French sceptics of his day, Huet, Foucher
and Bayle), is, as might have been foreseen, that of the tireless Popkin."
Although that work contains data and comments of great value, the reader
will understand that my general interpretation of those relations differs
considerably from that of Popkin.
The purpose of this study is twofold: I not only seek to show that no history
of modern scepticism would be correct or complete, if Leibniz' reactions to the
sceptic challenge were not recognized, but also to affirm that an interest in
scepticism played an extremely important part in the development of Leibniz'
own philosophy. The two hypotheses of Popkin's major work suffice to ensure
him of a place in such a history. Indeed, as we shall see, Leibniz at a very early
age made a profound study of what had been written about the controversy,
and was well aware of the problem of the judge of controversies, especially as

99
R .H. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 99-130 .
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
100 E. de Olaso

propounded by Hobbes . Besides, even if we were only to take into account the
impact of the printed editions of Sextus Empiricus, we should have to admit
that Leibniz is the only great modern philosopher who submitted an important
fragment of the canonical texts of scepticism to detailed criticism. Naturally, I
shall have to dwell upon these two aspects, hitherto neglected, of Leibniz'
position with regard to scepticism; but before doing so I must suggest a new
hypothesis which provides an adequate interpretation of Leibniz' philosophy in
so far as it relates to scepticism. This relationship cannot be altogether
understood without taking into account Zeno of Elea and Galileo. In spite of
the fact that they do not generally figure in the current bibliographies of
modern scepticism, the revival of interest in Zeno's and other similar para-
doxes, especially such as were expounded by Galileo, made Leibniz fear that, if
philosophy were not reformed, the way would lie open to the advance of
Pyrrhonism.
The novel character of the data which I shall bring forward (derived from
many different works of Leibniz), and the always fragmentary nature of the
latter's reflections on the subject of scepticism, will serve, I think, to explain
and perhaps to justify my frequent bibliographical references. The reader who
does not share my thirst for information, and considers superfluous or even
irrelevant the documentary "proofs" upon which I have presumed to base my
reconstruction, may read the text without troubling about the notes ; whilst the
reader who aspires to an improvement in our knowledge of the subject, may
find in some of them suggestions for further study.
In this study I have not analyzed the concept of scepticism, and have taken
scepticism, or Pyrrhonism, to be what Leibniz understood it to be. The problem
is worthy of deeper investigation , which is what I have tried to do in my book
Art of Doubting and Art of Thinking, this article representing a part of the
introduction thereto.
I shall begin, then , by showing how Leibniz was affected by some of Galileo's
reflections, and go on to describe briefly his reactions to Hobbes' proposed
solution of the problem of practical reason. In the next Section I deal
synthetically with Leibniz' attack on scepticism and discuss Popkin's inter-
pretation of it. Then I offer a resume of Leibniz' critical commentaries on
Sextus. The last two sections deal with scepticism in religion and historiogra-
phy. However, like all history, this one also has its prehistory, and the first
section is devoted to telling that tale.

I. FIRST REACTIONS
Precocious in all things, Leibniz was so also in his knowledge of scepticism. In
his earliest writings he mentions the sceptics of the Ancient World and the
Renaissance, pays serious attention to their opinions, and tries to refute them .
Here is a panorama of Leibniz' first reactions, during the 1660s. Perhaps his
first reference to scepticism is that which we find in his Specimen quaesti onum
philosophicarum ex iure collectarum, with which he obtained his master's degree
in philosophy at the end of 1664, that is to say at the age of 18. In the 11th
 Leibniz and Scepticism 101

quaestio he deals with the sceptical thesis which denies that "all men are of the
same essence, common to them all", and quotes amongst its supporters,
Girolamo Cardano, Francisco Sanches and Sebastian Basso :
Italian, Spaniard and Frenchman respectively, all of them were physicians
and hostile to the idea of the common nature of the human species. I do not
know whether the first two were atheists, certainly they were outstanding
sceptics, and perhaps the last-named had within him something of the
Calvinist spirit. But as physicians they were very much aware of the infinite
diversity of men's characters, and did not appear to have discovered what all
men have in common.
After commenting very briefly upon passages from the works of these three,
he goes on to say that it is not necessary or relevant to refute them; and sets up
against them, also briefly, the doctrine of the juris consult, who were indeed
aware of the common essence of mankind.f Sanches infers the existence of
human differences from the diversity of human customs; and as far as I know,
Leibniz never again studied this aspect of scepticism. 6 Sanches' opinion seems
to be a mixture of the second and tenth tropes of Aenesidemus." In the 12th
quaestio Leibniz examines logical and metaphysical problems: whether two
mutually contradictory propositions may not both be false, and whether there
is a third possibility between being and non-being. He also examines, among
other problems, some insolubilia of the stoics, which he later attributes to the
sceptics, although the sources he refers to are none of theirs. In the 13th
quaestio he refers to the paradox of personal identity in the changing world of
the senses, and he quotes Sanches and Basso several times, disagreeing with
their opinions.' In these early references of Leibniz to scepticism we discover
that the author of De principio individui (1663) is disturbed by the views of the
Renaissance sceptics, with regard to the unity of the human race and the
identity of the individual man within the flux of the sensory world. Sceptic
objections of this type do not reappear as being specifically sceptic in the rest of
Leibniz' work, although our philosopher was never to lose his interest in the
problem of individuation.
At the beginning of 1666, the year in which he published his dissertation De
arte combinatoria, Leibniz wrote, at the request of his master Thomasius, a
"Conjecture as to Anaxagoras' reasons for affirming that snow is black".
Anaxagoras reasons thus: Snow is frozen water, water is black, therefore snow
is black. Leibniz makes use of a mechanist hypothesis to reconstruct the
argument, and afterwards asks himselffor what purpose it was conceived. This
argument, he says, "like Zeno's against movement", may have been written "to
convince a presumptuous sophist, or to make parade of his own ingenuity, or,
finally, to be adopted by the sceptics in order to demonstrate the separation of
reason and the senses, and the consequently necessary failure of one or other of
these". Leibniz considers that if Anaxagoras did not arrive at this opinion by
any process of reasoning, but simply because "snow seemed to him black, then
he must have been joking, knowing that his paradox was irrefutable." I think it
may be fairly safely inferred that when Leibniz was writing his "Conjecture", he
had before him the two passages of Hypotyposes in which Sextus transmits
102 E. de O/aso

Anaxagoras' opinion. Indeed, it has been conjectured that the purpose of

Anaxagoras' ratiocination, was to provide the sceptics with evidence of the
necessary failure either of the reason or of the senses. Such indeed is the use to
which Sextus puts Anaxagoras' reasoning; and the analogy between this and
that of "Zeno against movement", suggests that Leibniz had before him the
other passage in which Sextus transmits Anaxagoras' opinion. Indeed, in the
second book Sextus mentions, just before Anaxagoras' ratiocination, two
soph isms which adduce that nothing moves and nothing comes into exis-
tences ,"" Although we cannot be absolutely sure of it, it is probable that
Leibniz has in his possession Sextus' own text. 11
In the Autumn of the following year, 1667, Leibniz published Nova methodus
discendae docendaeque iurisprudentiae, in which he recalls the sceptic saying,
"we know nothing, not even that we know nothing"; he analyzes it as a paradox
similar to that of the liar, which he remembers analyzing in his Specimen. 13
In his early and important letter to his master Thomasius, written in April
1669, Leibniz mentions "sceptics" together with "atheists, Socinians and
naturalists", as being sectaries who had to be convinced of their errors by
means of a natural philosophy which did not deal with secondary qualities in
their own right , but as derived from primary ones - someth ing which is implicit
in his "Conjecture't P
The prologue to Nizollo in 1670 attacks a supposed inductivism of his, which
would destroy all possibility of demonstrable science. For in this way, Leibniz
concludes, "Science would be subverted, and the sceptics would triumph".
Indeed, it would never be possible to formulate really universal propositions. 14
To encounter more absorbing problems , one must pass into the realm of
mathematics, a discipline which has hitherto felt itself immune to sceptic
objections. Milhaud sustained this opinion from a historical point of view:
sceptics, in his opinion, were recruited, not from geometricians but among
those who are not geometricians.P Yvon Belaval gave philosophical reasons:
"Mathematical evidence enjoys many privileges, which make it the starting
point par excellence of all rational certainty. To begin with, the essence and the
existence of the objects with which the mathematician deals, are one and the
same thing; and there is no room there for scepticism of any kind". 16 Milhaud's
opinion is correct, but is of no use to us, inasmuch as we are dealing with
problems which may lead to scepticism, irrespective of the intentions of those
who propounded them . (The most significant example of this lack of sceptical
intentions, perhaps, is that of Luther). Belaval's opinion is correct only if one
grants two assumptions, firstly, that the objections of the sceptics have to do
with the extra-mental existence of sensory objects; and secondly, that this is the
only kind of scepticism . But we are not obliged to grant the second assumption,
and Leibniz would not have done SO.17 Now we shall see that, for the young
Leibniz, the type of scepticism most greatly to be feared, is that which is
supported by mathematical paradoxes.
Towards the end of the 1660s, Leibniz becomes aware of a group of
mathematical problems, which he fears the sceptics may take advantage of,
unless they be faced up to, and a solution to them proposed. In the
 Leibniz and Scepticism 103

praedemonstrabilia of his Theoria motus abstracti, published in 1670, Leibniz

proposes to prove that "there are things indivisible and without extension",
since otherwise, he says, "one cannot understand the beginning or the end of
motion or of body". His demonstration is claimed to be valid for the beginning
or the end of all space, body, motion or time (i.e. the point, the conatus and the
instant). Let us pause to examine Leibniz' demonstration, which refers only to
the beginning.
Let us suppose that line ab represents either a point, or a moment, or a
conatus, etc. and that we are looking for the beginning ofline aboThe mid-point
of ab is c, the mid-point between a and c being d, and that between a and d, e,
and so on successively.
Now we look for the beginning on the left, the a side. But ac is not the
beginning, because de can be subtracted from it without ceasing to be a
beginning. Nor is ad the beginning , because ed can be subtracted from it, and
so on. Therefore nothing which is susceptible of subtraction from the right is a
beginning. But - and Leibniz does not make this explicit - every beginning
which has any extension can have something subtracted from it on the right
without ceasing to be a beginning. Now that from which nothing can be
subtracted has no extension . Hence either the beginning of body, space, motion
or time is null, i.e. has no beginning, which Leibniz considers absurd, or else it
has a beginning without any extension, quod erat demonstrandum.P
The premisses ofthis demonstration, though not its conclusion, appear to be
related to Zeno's ratiocinations against motion. Moreover the assertion that,
when all bodies, places and instants are divided ad infinitum, there can be no
beginning of motion, was handed down in that very form by Sextus Empiri-
19
CUS. Although Leibniz adopts the arguments of the Zenonians against the
beginning of motion, he does not conclude, as do the sceptics, that one must
suspend "judgment" but rather that one must postulate a beginning without
extension.
Zeno 's most famous argument refers to the end, and is the inverse of the
former one. We look for the end on the right , on the b side. Nothing which is
susceptible of subtraction on the left is an end. But every end which has any
extension can have something subtracted from it on the left without ceasing to
be an end. Moreover anything which is not susceptible of any subtraction has
no extension. Hence either the end is null, which Leibniz holds to be absurd, or
motion, body, space and time have an end which has no extension, which is
what he set out to prove. This is a variant of the dichotomy or the half-distances
paradox.'?
But this is not his only reference to questions relating to scepticism. After
building up his theory of abstract motion, details of which do not directly
concern us now.2 1 Leibniz claims to have found the solution of various
problems, and cites, among others, that of the concentric wheels, rolling on a
plane, that of incommensurable entities, and that of the angle of contact, to
which in great measure the sceptics owe their success.P The first is a physico-
mathematical problem, and the other two are geometrical. The first two
became famous through Galileo's presentation of them ; and the last is one
104 E. de Olaso

whose solution by Gregory of St. Vincent interested Leibniz at an early age and
was to reach Hume as a paradigm of the irrational.P

Interlude about an enigma

It seems to me important that we should be sensitive to such problems as have
had great repercussion in the development of modern philosophy and are
directly related to polemics about the continuum and its divisibility, and hence
to discussions about the scope of reason which may lead in the end to
conclusions in line with scepticism. This may, perhaps, be the right moment to
consider the problem of the concentric wheels, which appears for the first time
in the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanica, and hence it is known as "Aristotle's
Wheel".24 During the Renaissance this wheel-problem was frequently used to
establish analogies with the old problem of the constitution of matter and the
possibility of a vacuum, and also with those of condensation and rarefaction.
The mathematicians in their turn develop methods of using "Indivisibles" and
"Infinitesimals" and by such means explore new curves, amongst them the
cycloid, which is basic in the solution of the problem since it is the line traced
by a point of the circumference of a rolling circle. The enigma is more or less as
follows: if two circles of different sizes roll independently upon a tangent, the
paths they trace out in one complete revolution are unequal inasmuch as that
of each is equal to the respective circumference. But, if the two circles be rigidly
attached to each other at the same centre, the paths traced out by both circles,
as they roll, are equal. If the smaller circle is rolled along its tangent, without
slipping or sliding (that is to say, in such a way as to ensure that, in a single
revolution it will leave a path equal to its circumference) then the paths traced
out in a single revolution are, in the case of both circles, equal to the
circumference of the smaller; whilst if the larger circle is rolled along its
tangent, without slipping or sliding, then the paths traced out in a single
revolution are, in the case of both circles, equal to the circumference of the
larger . This is the difficulty observed by the peripatetics. The scholastics were
wont to say: "Rota Aristotelis magis torquet quo magis torquetur" (Aristotle's
wheel hurts more, the more it turns). Subsequent reformulations of the paradox
show that, like those of Zeno, it has to do with continuity and infinite
divisibility. This paradox intrigued Cusa and Cardano, but Mersenne alone
was responsible for making it generally known to the modern world. Rectifying
his own first attempts at formulation, he resorted to experiments, to determine
how a special kind of sliding might explain the enigma.P Mersenne had access
to the proof-copies of Galileo's Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, and he
urged the best brains in Europe to work upon the problem. Roberval, Torricelli,
Descartes and Fermat, are directly or indirectly involved in its solution. But
Galileo's was the clearest formulation of the most paradoxical aspect of the
problem, that is to say, the one-to-one correspondence of two infinite
aggregates of points as represented by lines of unequal length.i" Salviati's
solution is to consider the circles as polygons with an infinite number of sides,
that is to say, it assumes that matter is infinitely divisible, not merely potentially
 Leibniz and Scepticism 105

but actually. It is interesting to record the polemical debate between Franciscus

Linus (perhaps a pseudonym for the Jesuit Francis Hall) and Robert Boyle who
in his Explication ofthe Rota Aristotelica (1662), criticizes Linus' assumption of
indivisibles of time and space as well as of matter. Boyle replies with arguments
which, according to Drabkin, "are as old as Zeno's paradox of the stadium'v"

II. Theoretical Reason and Scepticism

Leibniz' first systematic philosophical reaction to the diverse objections of the
sceptics which he had noted during the previous decade is to be found in his
Demonstratio propositionum primarum, written about 1671 or 1672.28 Leibniz
postulates that philosophy adopt the method expounded by Pascal in De
/'espritgeometrique and also postulates a yet immature version of his theory
which proposes two kinds of truth, that of reason and that of fact. Such is the
unshakable foundation of his theory; but a new theme at once appears: Leibniz
finds himself opposed to those who hold that axioms must be admitted in
demonstrations as propositione per se notae. In his opinion , axioms consist of
definitions and are not irreducible . Leibniz asserts that once the definitions
which constitute the axioms have been determined, "I can get even a sceptic,
however radical a one may be, necessarily to accept them" (the axioms) (480).
This establishes an important part of Leibniz' epistemological programme: he
does not accept that axioms are "known of themselves" or self-evident", but
holds that they have to be "proved". Only such a programme as this will serve
to put the sceptics to rout. Just the same, is it not precisely proper to an axiom ,
that it cannot be proved?
Leibniz proposes a deduct ive system which allows both undemonstrable and
demonstrable propositions; and the former, in so far as the truths of reason are
concerned, are the identical propositions. But Leibniz' great originality lies in
the fact that the classic axioms change their status: he considers them as
demonstrable, not as undemonstrable. This doctrine makes its first appearance,
I believe, in his Demonstratio and stems directly from the mathematical
paradoxes which question the self-evident character of certain axioms, and
thus leaves human knowledge at the mercy of sceptical objections. Now this is
not something discovered by the sceptics, but it does constitute a critical
situation which, in Leibniz' opinion, can be exploited by them. In fact the
subject has never been studied as deeply as it should have been, although there
is evidence that such propositions - or "dignities" as Boethius called them -
have been much discussed. Indeed Leibniz recalls that certain axioms accepted
as such by Euclid, were treated by Clavius and others as theorems. Leibniz
asks, by what criterion is a given proposition to be considered as an axiom or
as a theorem? And to the foreseeable reply that axioms must be those which are
most easily comprehensible, he poses another question: "How is one to judge of
something known of itself (per se notum) , which needs no explanation"? But in
Leibniz' opinion, only identical propositions have absolute certainty; and he
therefore asks, defiantly: "How shall we answer the sceptics, who deride what
we hold to be known of itself"? (Per se notum) Indeed, there are mathematicians
106 E. de Olaso

who have dared to deny that "the whole is greater than the part", and there are
philosophers who have denied that "nothing is without a reason", although for
many people these propositions appear to be clear enough. Consequently, our
criterion cannot be that of what is self-evident or what is clear, since in that
case we have to accept the evidence of those who are doubtful of such
propositions, and "by discarding the absolute and rigorous universality of this
propositions, have questioned the certainty of all propositions discovered by
the mind of man". The conclusion which Leibniz draws from this generalized
state of doubt, which could pave the way for Pyrrhonism, is that we must re-
formulate our criterion of truth, which must no longer be that of what is clear
and distinct, as with Descartes, nor that of what is self-evident (per se notum),
as with the scholastics.P
Let us take one more case of mathematical paradox. The three problems
alluded to in the Theoria motus abstracti are paradoxes involving the infinite. A
similar problem of an arithmetical nature, which Leibniz believes to be
particularly likely to foster the growth of Pyrrhonism, is very diligently tackled
in his writings.
In his Discorsi e dimostraziont mathematiche, Galileo takes the case of the
series of natural numbers, which is endless because one unit, two units , etc., can
always be added to it. Galileo compares this series of all the numbers (the
roots) with that of their squares ; and observes that the series are bi-univocally
related , that is to say that each root has one square and one only, and each
square one, and only one, root.
123456789 ...
1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 ...
There are as many numbers in the upper line as in the lower, but the numbers
in the upper line are all the numbers possible, and those in the lower line only a
part of all these. Hence, Galileo concludes, in infinity the part must be equal to
the whole. Years later, in an extant letter, Leibniz presents Galileo 's paradox in
rigorous form, thus:

If every A has its corresponding B, and every B its corresponding A, it

follows that there are as many A's as there are B's, and vice versa.
And every number has its corresponding square, and every square its
corresponding number.
Therefore there are as many numbers as there are squares, and vice versa.
Therefore the set (multitudo) of all the numbers (if such a thing exists) is
equal to the set of all the squares.
But the set of all the numbers is a whole, and the sum of all the squares is a
part, because the sum of all the numbers contains numbers which are not
squares .
Therefore the whole is equal to the part, which is absurd.
 Leibniz and Scepticism 107

But at this point Leibniz goes further than his predecessors. He has to
resolve Galileo's contradiction, since Hobbes has already demonstrated that
the whole is greater than the part.'" Therefore, our text concludes, there is no
such set or number of all numbers, or of all the squares; it is a chimaera."
We have seen how Leibniz, faced with attacks which might confirm the
opinion of the sceptics with regard to scientific knowledge, proposes a change
in our criterion of truth. He sets up a criterion offormal demonstration, which
only admits as indisputable, identical propositions, which alone are undemon-
strable, against the scholastic criterion of per se notum, and against the
Cartesian criterion of the evident.32
The controversy about the maximum number has had very important
consequences for philosophy. Indeed, doubts about the whole being greater
than the part provoked Leibniz' reaction . The affirmation that the whole is
greater than its parts is a traditional example of an axiom as are other
propositions such as: quantities equal to the same quantity are equal to each
other; equals added to equals or subtracted therefrom, have equal sums or
remainders, etc. 33 But the reflections of mathematicians and philosophers
immediately preceding Leibniz, have raised doubts as to the self-evident nature
of one of them. Leibniz, in a letter to Gallois in 1672, says that some of the
defenders of the concept of knowledge per se notum invoke "natural light".
Now if the first truths are per se notae by virtue of this "natural light",34 why -
he asks - are such truths self-evident to some, unacceptable to others , and
conditionally acceptable to others yet? Leibniz does not identify the philoso-
phers who hold these diverse alternatives .
Allow me to pause a while to consider a question whose consequences make
it important. If the scholastics are to be criticized by Leibniz for their
unjustified reliance on natural light, so must Descartes also. Let us remember
that Descartes had warned us that he was using the word intuitus in the
etymological sense of "vision", and that in translating it into French, he used
the expression "natural light".35 On the other hand Descartes himself equates
intelligere with "vision'v" For Leibniz, the Cartesian criterion of truth "is
nothing more than vision".37 Therefore such a criterion is incapable of
resolving the apparent contradictions arising in mathematics. Later on, when
Leibniz is planning to write his Scientiia generalis a part of the work is to be
devoted to refuting scepticism. In a draft which we have of this refutation of
scepticism he asserts : "Descartes has not explained what natural light is".38
Now, on at least one occasion Leibniz has turned to natural light to refute
scepticism. Here I restrict myself to pointing out the fact, since given the great
number of questions here involved, any reasonably complete analysis would
take us altogether too far afield. Lady Masham warns of a danger in
philosophical discussions: if we accept anything without reasons we are giving
up the standards of judgment that enable us to discern when acceptance of
something is justified, and when it is not, and we shall never know where to
stop or what should be the boundaries of assent. Or why I might not believe a
like one thing, as well as another.l" Leibniz appreciates that the central
problems of scepticism are tied up with this question, and relies by proposping
108 E. de Olaso

an ontological version of natural light. Our understanding comes from God

and is "a beam from that sun"; and if our understanding develops in an orderly
way, it will be in accordance with Divine wisdom. And in conclusion he says,
"we have always found that when our judgments are arrived at by this natural
light, as we may call it, they are never confounded by events; and the objections
raised by the sceptics have always been held by reasonable people to be a mere
mental sleight of hand (unjeu d'esprit)". This is clearly unsatisfactory, inasmuch
as Leibniz' concept of "natural light" thus expressed hardly can be distinguish-
able from common sense; yet to the best of my knowledge Leibniz seldom held
common sense to be a conclusive argument in philosophical matters/'''
Let us go back to his letter to Gallois. Setting aside any possible recourse to
natural light by the defenders of the per se notum idea Leibniz observes that no
one can adduce any criterion to determine what per se notum means.
Furthermore, if we bear in mind that such a criterion would simply amount to
a common opinion the matter becomes insoluble, partly because we have to
remember that axioms are open to doubt. Moreover, if our criterion of the self-
evident is to be that of common opinion, then such opinion, which is also open
to doubt, cannot ground the knowledge of those axioms. But also, because if
we make common opinion our criterion of what is per se notum, we must admit
that proofs are based "upon probabilities, which means that we are surrender-
ing to the Pyrrhonians"."
After this experience Leibniz was always very careful in distinguishing
between "a principle" or rather "an axiom", on the one hand, and "absolutely
first principles", of which identical propositions are the only example, on the
other. Hence he responds to the old adage de principiis non est disputandum
with a conditional acceptance. That is to say, identical propositions alone, "a
thing is equal to itself", "A is A", "A is not non-A" (such in fact is the way in
which Leibniz generally expresses the principle of non-contradiction), are not
open to discussion but, he explains , "not if they be expressed in any other way:
for instance, there have been people who believed that the proposition "the
whole is greater than the part" is not universal. 42

What was Descartes' reaction to the problem of the infinite number? It is to

be found in one of the possibilities foreseen in the 8th of his Regulae ad
directionem ingeni/i: I perceive clearly and distinctly that something (in our
case the infinite number) cannot be clearly and distinctly perceived. In this
case it is true that I can neither affirm nor deny: but , is this not the same as
the sceptics' suspension of judgment? Partly it is so, since we find ourselves
in a situation where reason is impotent; but Descartes was to maintain that
such impotence is only partial since, although we cannot affirm or deny, this
is because of the rule of evidence. On the other hand being beyond the reach
of evidence for that very reason the principle of contradiction is no longer
applicable. Hence the doctrine of the eternal truths, and the reason for
Descartes' refusal to affirm or deny any universal logical necessity.t"
 Leibniz and Scepticism 109

Leibniz on the other hand is unwilling to submit contradiction to an

evidential criterion. Where there is a contradiction it must be resolved and not
shelved on the excuse of its being beyond the reach of evidence. And if we say
that our finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite (another of Descartes'
arguments), Leibniz replies that we can demonstrate what we do not under-
stand, or at least understand the impossibility of a contradiction. Contra-
diction is a sign of error, whatever Descartes' intuitive criterion may have to
say about it. 44
These youthful ideas of Leibniz had a powerful effect upon his metaphysics,
especially as regards the proof of God's existence by the definition, or the idea,
of Him. Leibniz sometimes distinguishes between the two arguments that
based upon definition and that based upon idea - and sometimes takes them
together.P The first runs thus: the necessary being exists ; God is such a being
(by definition of God); therefore God exists. The second is this: we have an idea
of the absolutely perfect being; the cause of this idea is the absolutely perfect
being; therefore the absolutely perfect being exists. Leibniz "caveat" to the first
arguments is as follows: from a definition nothing can be certainly inferred
about what is being defined, unless we know that the definition expresses
something possible, since it may contain a contradiction, and thus lead us to
an absurd conclusion. Such is the advice of the geometricians, who are masters
in the art of reasonings." His caveat to the second argument is this : the fact
that we understand what we are saying is not of itself sufficient to allow us to
conclude that we have an idea of the thing, since we often bring together things
that are incompatible." We can understand what we are saying without having
an idea of what we are talking about. It would be no exaggeration to assert that
it was the question raised by Galileo which made Leibniz think about both
these problems, and especially about the second one . Indeed he is later to say to
Malebranche that we can talk about the number of the numbers and believe
that we understand what we are saying although in fact such number does not
exist. The proof of this in simplified form runs as follows: the maximum
number is equal to the number of all the units; but the number of all the units
is equal to the number of all the numbers (since any unit added to those
preceding it, always form a new number); but the number of all numbers
implies that to any given number there corresponds an even number which is
twice the first. Hence the number of all the numbers is not greater than the
number of all the even numbers. That is to say, that the whole is not greater
than the part."
Apparently this debate was then very much in vogue. So much so that
Gassendi speaks of the proposition that everyone is constantly talking about,
that is that the whole is greater than its parts, which Gassendi Justifies only in
an empirical way. Spinoza, for his part, mentions Sextus Empiricus and other
sceptics, who affirm that "it is false to say that the whole is greater than its parts
and have the same opinion of the other axioms".49
110 E. de Olaso

III . Practical Reason and Scepticism

Let us remember that one of the central theses of Popkin's work is that the
revival of scepticism in modern times is attributable to Protestantism and the
controversies then arising about the religious rule offaith. Let us then examine
the importance of this factor in Leibniz' perception of scepticism . In one of his
autobiographical writings Leibniz recalls how he used to run around in his
father's library and thus became familiar at an early age with controversial
books, and made bold and guileless comments on the edges of their pages. Such
readings constituted Leibniz' first experience of how far removed are men's
words from their knowledge; and he also noticed how disproportionate are the
passions aroused by a given subject to its real importance. This shock with
controversial literature is important in the formation of Leibniz' thought. He
himself relates how these difficult matters moved him, at the age of 16, to write
"an exact discussion of a certain controversy", an idea which he afterwards
extended to the field of jurisprudence.50 The obscurity, the superfluity and the
irrelevance of the legal discourse of his day led him to "reduce it all to a few
propositions", a scheme which was publicly divulged for the first time in 1667,
in Nova methodus.
In the autobiographical work referred to, Leibniz states that he had been
extraordinarily pleased with Luther's book De servo arbitrio. This polemical
discussion of Luther's with Erasmus constitutes one of the main pillars of
Popkin's reconstruction of the history of modern scepticism.l! Although
reference to that controversy is not infrequent in Leibniz' writings, it is
mentioned in connexion with the theme of freedom and not with that of
scepticism with which it is also concerned. 52 The most scandalous case of
disorder in religious controversy is for Leibniz that of the proceedings of
Montbeliard's colloquium in 1586.53
What is the connexion between these controversies and scepticism? Since
Sextus Empiricus' time and possibly since that of Aenesidemus, scepticism has
been bringing up the question of the undecidibility of controversies. Sometimes
it has held that we are all parties to the conflicting opinions at issue, and
therefore have no authority to judge them; and the rule that "no one may be
judge in his own cause", has generally been taken for granted.54
Leibniz felt from his adolescence that controversies should be carried out
rationally and that "common logic, whose precepts Aristotle taught us", is "an
almost sufficient" ars iudicandi, even if it is of no use in ars inveniendi. But when
we have to judge things that are not sophistical, but are also not demonstrable,
a new kind of logic is necessary whereby we may determine degrees of
verisimilitude; and the lack of this is repeatedly deplored by Leibniz.P Leibniz
insists, however, that it is not necessary to wait for this new kind of logic to
evolve. The common kind - whereby conflicting opinions in a dispute are
formalized in syllogisms and pro-syllogisms - is extraordinarily useful, and
Leibniz calls it "the judge of controversies".56 On various occasions he pictures
the scene of two men in disagreement, sitting down with pen and paper, and
saying "calculemus't" In this scene there is a third person present, invisible but
 Leibniz and Scepticism 111

invested with authority to decide the question: the judge. Who is here the judge?
Reason. However, not reason as either of the disputants understands it, but
reason in the abstract, objective reason, that which we accept when we are
making mathematical calculations. This is not reason understood as a faculty
of the human mind, always swayed by the passions, but "sovereign reason". 58
This question of the judge of controversies has not been systematically
studied. Nevertheless it is very important because it has to do with an aspect
of the act of judging which is not generally taken into separate account, as it
should be, but which plays a leading part in the sceptical arguments regarding
the undecidibility of conflicting opinions.59
One of Leibniz' first systematic texts - in my opinion the first in which he
expounds the general tendency of his intellectual commitment - is Commenta-
tiuncula de iudice controversiarum seu trutina rationis et norma textus, written
about 1669-1671 but not published until 1930.60 This text begins with the
following statement: "The controversy of controversies is that of the judge of
controversies ". Leibniz goes on to say that this question is one which has
disturbed men at all times, but does so in a greater degree in his own because of
the increasing number of religious disputes. In controversies turning upon the
foundations of faith, the Pope's supporters maintain that some infallible judge
or some kind of God-given infallibility is necessarily called for; whilst the
Evangelicals sustain the necessity of a literal respect for the texts, without
adding or suppressing anything. But in so far as other controversies are
concerned, "which have not to do with the foundation of faith , there is no need
of an absolute infallibility, but only of a moral certainty or practical infall-
ibility" (sec.37). Leibniz considers different ways of settling controversies,
reaching the conclusion that "some kind of reason must be sought for, which
is not subject to the passions". He proposes "right reason taken in abstract. I
assert that this should be the judge of controversies in the world". Leibniz goes
on at once to deal with a sceptical objection, namely, that to discover such
reason another judge will be called for. He also mentions Hobbes' objections:
right reason is too abstract a concept, it is "useless, empty of meaning, foolish,
foreign to all activity"; and also that by right reason men really mean their own
reason , and are thus making their own decisions instead of submitting to an
objective authority (secs.54-55). Leibniz replies that in certain questions no
judge is necessary and in others right reason may serve in such capacity (sec
61).61 As an example of the former he gives instances of the first truths of fact
and reason, and draws from them the conclusion that it would be extraordina-
rily useful to construct a "balance of reason" (trutina rationis), by means of
which the weight of conflicting reasons could be determined with the greatest
nicety. This method "is of greater importance than the mythical science of
making gold" (sec.60) and constitutes "the true logic which until now no one
has given us, and most assuredly no one has applied" (sec.61), but which,
properly developed, would lead us "in all questions to a practical infallibility",
in the same way as our mathematical calculations lead us to a theoretical
infallibility. On various occasions Leibniz has proposed rules for this art of
disputation.
112 E. de O/aso

It is probable that Leibniz was helped on this way to this concept of recta
rati062 by Hobbes' impugning of reason as a faculty of the human mind, that is,
of individual men's self-interested reasons. Hobbes postulated an artificial
man, Leviathan, as the judge of controversies. Leibniz, on the other hand,
takes up the traditional concept in all its ambiguity.f?
In his enthusiasm for the unity of Christian religious denominations Leibniz
proposed his art of disputation as a mean of precisely determining the limits of
their mutual disagreements. He also proposed this art as a judge of contro-
versies in the specific case of fideism. He wrote, for example, a Dia/ogus inter
theologum et misosophum. In the first version he had written "sceptic" for
"misosopher". The latter is a partial incarnation of the personage later - and
not very properly - to be known as a "fidelst". The misosopher's basic postulate
is that of the separation of faith and reason, and the fundamental incompetence
of reason in matters of faith. To support his thesis the misosopher takes up very
similar positions to those of voluntarist theology and Latin Averroism. Leibniz
concludes by recommending reason as the means of settling disputes. "If you
reject syllogisms you reject all reasons since all reasons are always syllogisms
albeit imperfect", the theologian says to the misosopher; and sets up the value
of an authentic art of dispute, against " those who quibble about trivial details
and senseless questions", and thus demean this art. 64 Finally I should just like
to point out that the " Preliminary Discourse" in the Theodicy is a long
discussion with Bayle about the art of discussion in the case of the relationship
of reason and faith.
As against the sceptic reflections of Hobbes on the one hand and of the
fideists on the other, Leibniz recommended a return to the recta ratio as the
basis of practical reasoning. As yet there has been no study of the ambiguous
and difficult concept of recta ratio as it appears in the writings of Leibniz, but
by making one we could further our understanding of his thoughts about
ethics, among other branches of practical reason.
To summarize: We have examined the earliest writings in which it is possible
to study Leibniz' relations with scepticism. Then we have seen in some detail
what he felt to be the principal challenge to theoretical reason, that is,
apparently contradictory mathematical reflections. We have also taken a brief
look at certain challenges to practical reason, in particular Hobbes' objections
to recta ratio, and seen how Leibniz sets up a logic of dispute as a judge of
controversies. Now is the moment to show how Leibniz' relations with the
French sceptics of his time ought to be interpreted.

IV. Discussion with Contemporary Sceptics

Let us remember that about 1670 Leibniz has completed his first and very
profound study of scepticism, and has introduced important changes in the
philosophy he has inherited. Towards the end of this decade, as I have
suggested (I believe for the first time) ,65 Leibniz is considering a general attack
on scepticism. He is then engaged in writing the dialogue between a theologian
and a misosopher.f" the conversation of the Marquis of Pianese which,
 Leibniz and Scepticism 113

according to Grua,67 Leibniz interrupts in order to rewrite it in the form of a

dialogue between a politician and a priest. 68 Two plans for his general science
are of this period; in one of these Leibniz reiterates his theory of absolutely first
truths, i.e. those that are undemonstrable by their very nature, and of first
truths in relation to ourselves, that is, experiences we cannot doubt. Leibniz
was planning some "Thoughts about the Sceptics", apparently with regard to
the second of these classes of truth/" And in another plan in those same years,
an Introductio ad encyclopaediam arcanam, he restates this intention."? Leibniz
confided to Mariotte, in a letter written to the latter in 1676, that "all the
difficulties which beset a disciple of Pyrrho are confined to such truths as arise
from perception't" The first truths of reason and fact are not open to
discussion. Leibniz' greatest efforts to provide a dialectical argument against
those who deny the first truths of reason or fact are contained in two texts. One
of these is in Book IV of his Nouveaux essais. Thanks to the critical edition
published by the Academy we know that Leibniz had originally called it ad
scepticismum, giving it later the more general name ad vertigunem, i.e. "by
rote". The argument is as follows: "If this proof is not admitted, we have no
means at all of arriving at any certainty about the point in question, which
must be considered absurd". It is directed to any who deny the first truths. If
they were right "there would be no means of knowing anything about anything
at all. 72 A more detailed expose is to be found in his paper De principiis, in
which Leibniz tells of a conversation with the Catholic Bishop Rojas y Spinola,
who relied upon authority, in order to avoid having to fall back upon the
justification of knowledge.P This is another example, by the way, of how
closely epistemical and religious discussions were then linked. Indeed, Rojas y
Spinola proposed the reunion of the Christian Churches, with the approval of
the Emperor Leopold and that of Pope Innocent XI ; and his thesis, as
commented by Leibniz, is apparently derived from scepticism.i"
In 1670 or thereabouts, Leibniz was exchanging letters with Huet, and took
the opportunity, as we shall see, to defend his Censura philosophiae cartesianae,
but he did not embark upon any philosophical controversy with him. He only
began to correspond with Bayle in 1687, and with Simon Foucher from 1675
on. The first point to be mentioned is that when Leibniz comes across the
philosophical ideas of the French sceptics of his own time, he has already
worked out for himself the chief subjects of controversy with scepticism.
Moreover, he has radically revised the then official philosophy, in order to
provide it with a means of defence against present or future attacks of
scepticism . This first point has been overlooked by Popkin in his essay,7S which
is why the latter has felt obliged to provide some explanation of "the mystery of
the idyllic relationship between Leibniz and the sceptics't" I will say briefly
how I see the problem. Let us look at the case of Foucher who was the only one
of the three persons mentioned, with whom Leibniz kept up any extensive
philosophical correspondence. Foucher was not a Pyrrhonian: he confesses to
being "an Academic after the manner of Plato","? Moreover, he was concerned
to refute the arguments of those who thought that the Academic philosophers
of the Ancient World doubted everything. They only doubted "non-demon-
114 E. de Olaso

strable propositions'v" Foucher questions such theories could lead to Pyr-

rhonism, for example, Leibniz' views about the continuum." and Malebran-
che's about how ideas are perceived, a confessedly inexplicable one which
could lead him "to a profound Pyrrhonism". Foucher never questioned
Leibniz' theory of the first truths,80 and this fundamental accord between them
can only be explained by their frank agreement as to the capital and objective
importance of these points in the philosophy of knowledge. If we look at their
relationship from Leibniz' point of view it is easy to understand his keen desire
to talk over the problem he has hitherto tried to solve by himself, with a real
flesh and blood sceptic. Leibniz offers Foucher what is, in my opinion, the most
detailed presentation yet made, of the primary truths of'fact .I' Foucher has no
doubts about perceptions and believes that progress can only be made by
exercizing great caution. Leibniz is in entire agreement with him, and
recognizes that the Academics are here in the right of it.82 Leibniz is displaying
his own philosophical ideas and at the same time pointing out the precise part
played therein by the Academics. Something similar occurs when he defends
Huet's Censura against Swelling's attacks. But, let me return briefly to Leibniz'
complete presentation of the primary truths of fact. He's dealing with
immediate perceptions, which are of two kinds: "I think ", and "many different
things are thought by me"; and from them flow two consequences, namely, that
I exist, and I am affected in different ways.83 In his reply to Swelling Leibniz
says:

Let it be understood that internal perceptions are in themselves our first

experiences: not only do I who think , exist; but even the very sceptics - who
considered that appearances should be accepted - have held that there are
many different things in my thoughts. 84

It is not a little curious that the Cartesian cogito should co-exist on equal
terms , epistemically speaking, with the sceptic acceptance of experiences. I
believe that Leibniz never developed this idea; and that perhaps he was only
moved to propound it on this particular occasion by his desire to defend Huet.
In any case Leibniz again points out that his philosophy is broad enough to
make room for the sceptics, and give them the exact place to which they are
legitimately entitled.
Let us return briefly to Foucher: in Leibniz's opinion scepticism performs a
very useful function of which Foucher makes nothing, for it is the sceptics who
demand proof of such propositions as are generally accepted without it.
Leibniz thought to be exemplary, "the difficulties set up by Sextus Empiricus
against the dogmatists, because they serve to take us back to principles'V" And
an important letter of his to Varignon he writes, whilst thanking him for his
criticism of the infinitesimal calculus: "If the basis of all the sciences is to be
truly laid, it is of great importance that there be those ... who contradict; in this
sense the sceptics were quite right to fight against the principles of geometry ...
I have often thought that a geometrician who answered Sextus Empiricus'
objections, and those which Francisco Sanches, author of Quod nihil scitur, sent
 Leibniz and Scepticism 115

to Clavius, and others of the same kind, would be doing something more useful
than we imagine".86 Foucher, then, ought not only to say what he wants to do,
he must really put it into practice: "It's not enough to proclaim that truths must
be demonstrated from first principles, as did the Academics, we must really do
so, and practice what we preach".87So Foucher, encouraged by Leibniz, begins
to formulate axioms in the manner of the Academic School he seeks to
restore. 88 But he does so very halfheartedly. His curiosity, in Leibniz' opinion,
was very limited, and if his intention was to restore the Academic School "he
ought not to have been satisfied with generalizations: Plato, Cicero, Sextus
Empiricus and others could have shown him how to set about the matter".89
To keep this study within the bounds of prudence I have not spoken of
Leibniz' theory of empirical knowledge; but perhaps I may be allowed to refer
briefly there to inasmuch as the positions he takes up in this field are very close
to those of the modern sceptics, especially Foucher. To take a specific case:
Foucher, in his Critique de fa recherche de fa verite (1675), objected to the
Cartesian distinction between primary and secondary qualities; Bayle echoes
this in the article on Pyrrho in his Dictionnaire; and from thence Berkeley and
Hume seem to have taken and made use of it, in their rejection of nonempirical
philosophies.t" Now I presume that Leibniz arrived at the same conclusion
independently of Foucher. Leibniz' conclusion reads as follows: "With regard
to bodies I am able to demonstrate that not only light, temperature, colour and
other such qualities are apparent, but that motion, form and extension are so
toO".91 Leibniz upheld the thesis of the phenomenal nature of sensory things in
order to uphold, after the manner of Plato and against all empiricism, the
reality of the supra-sensory. 92
Hegel took an early interest in scepticism and incorporated it as a moment in
his own philosophy. In his opinion scepticism allows us to determine the
contradictions engendered by the senses and the understanding which can only
be overcome by reason; and for this very motive scepticism is an efficacious
introduction to philosophical thought." In similar manner Leibniz built
scepticism into his philosophy and set it up as an introduction to the study of
the true philosophy. Thanks to scepticism, Leibniz thinks, we can show that the
senses not, of themselves, lead to scientific knowledge.P" Hence the arguments
of the Academics and the sceptics constitute a very useful warning that the
senses are not the basis of all knowledge, something which the instability of
sensory things leads us to suspect.95 This concept of scepticism predisposed
Leibniz to see it as another form of Democritus' and Plato's philosophy.'" And
the more extreme forms of scepticism are open to the same criticism that
Leibniz levels at the dogmatists. Sceptics and dogmatists are alike mistaken
when they seek in the sensory world any reality other than the phenomenal.f"
Let us go back to the last years of the l670s. Leibniz is preparing his attack
on scepticism . His general strategy consists in showing the sceptic how some
things are beyond discussion and how legitimate are many of this warnings the
theoretical against overboldness and hastiness in making assertions about the
sensory world, and the practical against the inanity of the habitual disputes .
Now, what kind of sceptic is it that worries Leibniz? A new kind of intellectual,
116 E. de Olaso

part "philosopher" and part "man of the world" - the libertine. It is curious to
note for instance how Leibniz, in a letter to the Landgrave in 1683, expresses
his intention of resisting the attacks of the esprits forts, the libertines and the
impious, by means of sound metaphysical demonstrations. The Landgrave
confesses to being unsure of the metaphysical demonstrations "for I have only
passed through, and never dwelt in, that land of the Muses'; but even so he
encourages Leibniz with these words: "I rely much on your judgment and I do
not deny that they may be very useful against the must subtle of Pyrrhonians, if
not to convince them of the truth, at least to reduce and confine their restless
uneasiness'V" It is instructive to observe that both men find it natural to equate
"libertine" with "Pyrrhonian".
The character who plays the part of the wise man in the "Conversation du
Marquis de Planese" fears that the Marquis "is infected with the scepticism"
common to those of the fashionable world.99 On the other hand he who plays
the sceptic in the dialogue between a politician and a priest,100 evidently
represents libertinism. He is an impious man who has not yet ceased to
consider himself a Christian, a member of the European ruling class who has
given up trying to be an honnete homme and behaves like an esprit fort. Leibniz
fears that the access of men like this to positions of power in European politics
may be paving the way for the "general revolution which threatens Europe";
and he adds in an admonitory tone: "If they cure themselves of this spiritual
epidemic whose bad effects are starting to show, those evils will perhaps be
prevented; but if the disease continues to spread, it will engender a revolution,
and Providence will cure men by means of that" (Remnant's and Bennett's
translation). What disease is this? Leibniz' diagnosis at the beginning of the
18th century is that the absence of any fear of punishment beyond the grave has
unleashed men's passions. Generosity gives way to selfishness, public interest to
individual self-interest, patriotism to considerations of wealth and personal
"honour". The few survivors of our former political culture without any "good
morality and true religion" must inevitably disappear and leave no heirs".101 We
have here something which must be studied in depth since these terrible
practical consequences can be seen to have played an important part in moving
Leibniz to set about correcting the philosophical suppositions of scepticism .

V. Leibniz against Sextus

The most important episode in the history of Leibniz' relations with scepticism
was his prolonged discussion of some of Bayle's texts. In the Queen of Prussia's
house, Leibniz tells us, the Dictionnaire and other works of Bayle were much
read ; and Leibniz used very often to answer the latter's arguments. The Queen
ordered him to write down these answers ; and after her death Leibniz collected
such fragments as he had written and from them composed the Essais de
Theodicee, the only philosophical book of Leibniz to be published during his
lifetime (it appeared in 1710).102 Even today we have no critical edition of his
Theodicy. Producing such a work will imply exploring many of the classic
themes of scepticism. On the other hand research into Leibniz' relations with
 Leibniz and Scepticism 117

scepticism will allow of a much deeper study of that exceedingly valuable

book. 103 Now I must devote some space to the tract Leibniz wrote against the
first book of Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrronism.t'" We shall learn
something which is very little known about how much Leibniz appreciated
Sextus.
We have seen in the previous section how great an esteem Leibniz had for
Sextus' works. One might even say that the latter was one of his "classics".
Dutens, who edited the most complete collection of Leibniz' writings in the
18th century, tells the following story. A friend of his heard a learned Italian
saying that when he went to Hannover:

Wishing to get to know Leibniz personally he spent nearly twenty days with
him and when he was taking his leave our author says to him: "Too often
you have very courteously told me that I am not without knowledge of
certain things. Now I am going to show you the fountains at which I have
drunk all that I know". Then he led him by the hand into a narrow room,
where he showed him a small number of books such as the works of Plato,
Aristotle, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Euclid, Archimedes, Pliny, Seneca
and Cicero. lOS

On one occasion at least the volume of Sextus was the object of a systematic
study and exegesis which took the form of a tract of some 2500 words. As was
his custom with the rough copies of his research-papers Leibniz only wrote on
the left hand of the page, reserving the right hand side for extensive additions of
corrections. Only the first page contains numerous addenda which are difficult
to decipher. Thereafter his pen flows easily on, transmitting a notably well-
ordered train of thought. Towards the end his diminutive handwriting becomes
more painstaking and elaborate and the elegantly curving strokes of the last
line bring his reflections to a harmonious close. His oft-repeated transcription
of Greek technical terms makes it appear highly probable that Leibniz had in
his hand an edition of the Hypotyposes printed in the original language.
Furthermore Leibniz was not in the habit of using translations in his studies
of the ancient philosophers, and he recommended not doing so: "Certainly the
reading of Aristotle and other Ancient Greek philosophers in their original
form brings out many things of which the common run of philosophers take
little note".106 Lastly there was in Leibniz' library the bilingual edition
published in Geneva in 1621 by the brothers Pierre and Jacques Chouet. This
circumstance of course does not really prove anything since the volume in
question does not bear the name of its owner and there are in it no notes or
underlinings to help identify him. While other works were later bought and
added to the library, it seems highly probable that this was the copy Leibniz
used.
Let us pass to more substantial questions. There is no indication in the tract
as to when it was written . Leibniz refers to the Specimen, although he does not
name it in four letters written between 1711 and a few days before his death in
in statements1716, 107 nor made in 1716 to 1.G. Krause, editor of NeueZeitun-
118 E. de Olaso

gen von gelehrten Sachen, in which he comments on certain passages of the

previous year's edition of that journal.108 An examination of the watermarks of
the paper used reveals that we are dealing with something written during the
last years of Leibniz' life; and it thus seems appropriate to ascribe it to the time
of Leibniz' first reference to it, that is, 1711.The series of letters in question was
motivated by Fabriclus' announcement that he was preparing the edition of
Sextus Empiricus, which came out at Leipzig in 1718, after Leibniz' death. In
the preface to that edition, Fabriclus recalls that Leibniz has promised him a
refutation of Sextus Empiricus.
In the letters Leibniz recommends the study of Sextus as being a "subtle and
learned writer",109 who "is little-known, but nonetheless very helpful to the
understanding of the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks".110 The first book
"contains this writer's basic opinions" 111 and is "instructive" inasmuch as "it
begins to go into the principles of his school".112 Leibniz does not say when he
wrote his commentary; he says three times "on another occasion" (olim and
autrefois). Such imprecision is, moreover, typical of Leibniz. He says of himself
to L'Hopital: "When I have written something I forget about it almost
completely within a few months; and to avoid hunting for it in a chaotic pile
of rough copies, which I have no time to look through and put in order, I am
obliged to do the work all over again".113 Since he had not "completely
forgotten " it one cannot exclude the possibility that Leibniz wrote his Specimen
only a few months before he mentions it for the first time.

Digression: Historical Pyrrhonism

In two passages of these letters Leibniz warns us that his notes are "merely
philosophical" 114 and I believe it is important to take due note of this
observation. In the first sections of this essay we have seen some examples of
mathematical controversies, which could lead to Pyrrhonism if not satisfacto-
rily resolved. We have also seen instances of religious controversies which could
have similar consequences if there were none to judge of them. I think that now
is the time to give a brief idea at least of that other kind of scepticism which
Leibniz fought against the so-called "Historical Pyrrhonism". Leibniz took an
interest in history before becoming official historian to the House of Braunsch-
weig. We know that when writing his cronicles he suffered under the urgencies
of an ambitious and implacable prince; and that such pressures were all the
more painful to him, because of his desire to carry out his work in accordance
with the most rigorous scientific standards. Leibniz criticized Descartes' lack of
interest in history and also the decided enmity for it always shown by
Malebranche. But his discussions with them are of lesser interest to us than
the reconstruction of Leibniz' attitude to "historical Pyrrhonism". Moreover, I
believe this to be a new theme which should be included in our proposed
history of modern scepticism.
Paul Hazard has shown very vividly how great was the break with the past
which took place in Europe towards the end of the 17th century. Profane
history was unreliable and seemed to be devoid of any sense of criticism and
 Leibniz and Scepticism 119

sacred history showed itself to be gravely arbitrary when confronted with

established chronologies. Dufrenoy, Perizonius and Paulian give warning of
the dangers of "historical Pyrrhonism"; and disputes over sacred and profane
chronologies engaged the attention of all the best brains, not excluding Newton
and Leibniz. This subject among others brought Leibniz and Huet together
especially in their common endeavour to demonstrate the supremacy of the
Christian religion by means of well-established history. I 15
The Jesuit Hardouin admitted to an absolute scepticism about history
inasmuch as he claimed that all the writings of the Ancient World and most
of those of the Middle Ages had been the work of 13th and 14th century
monks; and thought to see falsifications in all the official documents of the
Merovingian and Carolingian periods.l ' " Father Germon upheld similar
opinions against Mabillon and the Jesuits obliged him to retract. Leibniz did
not believe in the sincerity of that retractation since "Father Germon's ways of
reasoning prove that he is somewhat excessively infected with Pyrrhonism.l!"
The influence of historical Pyrrhonism spread to Germany at the beginning of
the 18th century, Burckard Mencke and especially Friedrich Wilhelm Blerling,
both followers of Bayle, being responsible. Leibniz knew and corresponded
with Blerling who in his book De Pyrrhonismo historico published in 1707
established (according to Daville) the principles of impartial historical criti-
cism and justified the need for doubt in history, both in order to strengthen the
value of a testimony as well as to limit it. 118 Leibniz congratulates Bierling for
"dealing elegantly and knowledgeably with the arguments of historical Pyr-
rhonism", but in characteristic fashion imposes a restriction upon doubt by
affirming that when there are no sufficient reasons to the contrary one should
support the better side. 119 One significant fact gives the measure of the impact
on Leibniz of this quaestio disputata as to the scientific possibilities of
historiography. On the frontispiece of his most important historical work,
Annales Imperio Occidentis Brunsvicenses, Leibniz plans to place a symbolic
figure with the following inscription: "The figure of truth triumphant after the
destruction of Pyrrhonism" (Figura veritatis triumphantis, Pyrrhonismo sub-
lato).120

Abstract ofthe Specimen

Leibniz praises Sextus for the way he expounds scepticism, and says he is going
to deal only with the first book of the Hypotyposes because that is the one which
contains all the fundamental views of the sceptic school. The first matter he
examines is the meaning of sceptical investigation in connexion with the
equivalence (isostheneia) of mutually opposed reasons. Sextus defines the
dogmatists, the Academics and the sceptics by reference to their respective
attitudes to investigation: the dogmatists believe they have discovered the truth,
the Academics believe it is impossible to discover it, and the sceptics continue
to search for it. Leibniz' commentary does not respect the text since he
attributes to Sextus having said that the sceptics deny that truth has been
discovered. This nuance is important inasmuch as it may imply that Leibniz
120 E. de Olaso

admits that the sceptics form judgments (even if they be negative ones). But it
may be taken to mean that Leibniz infers from their search for truth the denial
(implicit in such action) of having found it. In a later passage Leibniz infers
propositional knowledge from the behaviour of the sceptics. It can also be
taken to mean that what Leibniz says about the sceptics not having lost hope of
discovering truth is in the same way inferentially derived.
Leibniz connects sceptical investigation with the equivalence expounded by
Sextus in chapters 4 and 6 which the former interprets as the equivalence of
mutually contradictory reasons, which we have hitherto held to be opposite,
should, measured against each other, be found to be always of equal value?
Would not this be something approaching the monstruous, something nearly
impossible of fulfilment for the God who sought to bring it about? The
argument which connects the zetesis and the isostheneia of the sceptics is this:
how can we go on hoping to discover the truth if,such equivalence - which
implies the impossibility of discovering the truth - be in itself a truth? Leibniz
suggests a solution: perhaps such equilibrium was valid with respect to the
reasons hitherto known to us, let us say, until the moment that the sceptic
speaks of it, and must necessarily be disproved by investigation and cease to
exist when the investigation is complete. A brief comment: Leibniz interprets
equivalence as the equilibrium established between reasons. Sextus and all the
ancient sceptics believe that phenomena can be mutually opposed. As far as I
can see Leibniz is right in his correction of Sextus: it is always reasons that are
opposed to one another whether they be based upon rational or empirical
considerations. Now in my commentary I shall consider to what extent Leibniz
does justice to the sceptics when maintaining that opposing reasons are
contradictory.
Leibniz invites us to propound this hypothesis : in the beginning the reasons
are of equal value, later a new reason is discovered and the equilibrium is
shattered, but then again another reason is discovered, contrary to the last, and
the equilibrium is restored. Would not the labours of a God, who went to such
lengths to alternate zetesis and isostheneia, be futile?
This refutation of isostheneia takes its stand upon probabilities. But Leibniz
believes that he can show absolute proof that the invariable equivalence of
affirmation and denial is impossible. The results of Leibniz' proof are at least
open to discussion. 121
Later Leibniz examines that which the sceptic seeks, which is the absence of
all perturbation (ataraxia); but he criticizes Sextus because in Leibniz' opinion
to be in a constant state of doubt is to be subject to the perturbations of hope
and fear. Knowing, on the other hand, is being able to adopt sure and
unperturbed decisions; and even believing that one knows, although it may
lead to error, is better than being in a state of perplexity. In my commentary I
draw attention to the fact that Leibniz interprets the suspension of judgment
(epochi) as "doubt" and doubt as an involuntary state of ignorance which leaves
us at the mercy of impulses originating in the passions. Obviously the man who
is prey to a passion is perturbed; and it would seem absurd to try to achieve
imperturbability through perturbations. 122
 Leibniz and Scepticism 121

Leibniz adopts a curious strategy when examining chapter 7 since he

assumes that Sextus accepts every kind of perception; and hence Leibniz
recommends caution, suggesting that we distinguish between dream-percep-
tions and those proper to the waking state. He also notes Sextus' warning to the
effect that if a sceptic forms a judgment about something he does not do so with
respect to the thing in itself but to the thing as a phenomenon. Leibniz restricts
himself to asserting that such an attitude is not proper to scepticism, inasmuch
as many dogmatists hold that most of the "things" we perceive are not things
but phenomena. My commentary bears upon the question of the extent to
which Leibniz' interpretation is correct. In these passages Leibniz would seem
to believe that the sceptics are being somewhat over-dogmatic inattributing
such limitless sensory knowledge; but I do not think that this should be
conceded. Leibniz in his commentary takes chapters 8 and 10 together
assuming that in the first the sceptics are rejecting reason and in the second
are proposing to investigate whether things are as they seem to be. He has two
criticisms to make. He recalls that the sceptic's aim is to achieve imperturb-
ability, and asks whether such an attitude is relevant to the investigation of
phenomena since it is they alone that perturb us. His second criticism is this: if
Sextus admits reasons derived from phenomena he admits reasons not so
derived since the consequences that reasons may draw from phenomena are
something different from phenomena. This is an example of how Leibniz
differentiates phenomena and reasons. My commentary is directed to examin-
ing the validity of Leibniz' thesis that it is phenomena alone which perturb us.
Leibniz connects his distinction between phenomena and reasons with
chapter 11, where Sextus admits of the arts, which often enough do not deal
with phenomena but with reasons. Leibniz draws an analogy between the arts
and human action . In the arts we make calculations before we experiment, and
such a priori knowledge is also to be found in the field of action: before we act
we choose and in order to choose we establish preferences. Taking this into
consideration Leibniz is led to assert that when a sceptic acts he does so setting
aside the equivalence of reasons. Such is his third and last argument against the
isostheneia of the sceptics. J23
Chapter 12 of the Hypotyposes provokes two criticisms from Leibniz. Firstly
he suggests that imperturbability is not to be achieved by holding in check our
opinions about things: pain and pleasure (which are inevitable) lead us in
practice to avoid or to seek them, and give rise to hopes and fears independently
of the opinion we may hold about things. Secondly, the sceptics, like the
dogmatists, are troubled by hopes and fears. In obedience to reason , Leibniz
suggests, lies tranquillity in action ; and this is one of the occasions on which he
attacks the originality of scepticism. My commentary shows how Leibniz in
others of his works concedes that opinions play an important part in the genesis
of passions and examines his supposition that ataraxia claims to be perfect
imperturbability - which is a point not to be conceded. It also examines the sense
in which Leibniz sets up reason as the source of inspiration in practice.
Leibniz gives a partial abstract of chapter 13 and in his observations thereon
(which are examined in my commentary), disregards Sextus' arguments.
122 E. de Olaso

The exposition and refutation of Aenesidemus' tropes (which Leibniz,

following Sextus, attributes to ancient writers of the school), takes up a quarter
part of the Specimen . Leibniz gives a resume of each trope, a refutation of the
fourth, and a final refutation of all ten of them. The fourth trope presents cases
of opposite perceptual states, between which it is impossible to establish any
preference, since, according to Sextus, we have no criterion of preference.
Indeed, any criterion requires proof, and choosing a proof implies another
criterion. As against this circular manner of reasoning Leibniz propounds his
theory of the first truths of reason and fact. 124 In his general refutation of the
ten tropes Leibniz offers us a version of sensory knowledge based on a version
of hypothetico-deductive method.
The arguments of scepticism are not relevant, Leibniz says, and sometimes
contain errors of reasoning. We can give reasons for the different appearances
of things, we can introduce or foresee changes in them, and thus create and
foretell many other things derived from the first. Not only are we aware of
sensory qualities - which, according to Platonic teachings, spring from the
union of things with our senses; but there is also a radix apparitionis in the
nature of everything which can be learnt through our acts of production and
prediction.
Leibniz pays much attention to chapter 15 and examines the five tropes of
Agrippa. He takes the first and third of them as being refuted in his general
reply; and in his answer to the remaining three he relies on his reply to
Aenesidemus' fourth mode which invokes the primary truths. Leibniz pays
special attention to one of Agrippa's arguments according to which the
dogmatists fall into the trap of a vicious circle inasmuch as they confirm
sensory things with reasons and their reasons by means of the senses. Part of
Leibniz's reply is to allege that phenomena are not to be proved by reason but
rather that reason enables us to infer from perceptions consequences that
experience will later confirm.
After these refutations Leibniz goes on much more quickly and practically
restricts himself to resumes. Aenesidemus' modes against the aetiologists seem
to him insignificant; and he sums up in ten lines the last third of the first book
of the Hypotyposes. All appearances to the contrary, the sceptics have said
nothing new, Leibniz emphasizes; and he urges that someone should carryon
his work of refutation, taking his Specimen as a guide.
The fact that I have had to make such constant reference to his posthumous
works, and even more, the only now forthcoming publication of this tract,
show how true are two things which he said about himself. One: "I have written
innumerable things about innumerable things, but have published few about
few. 125 The other, somewhat less self-centered, is addressed to those coming
after him, and to us too : "Anyone who knows me only through what I have
published, does not know me". 126
 Leibniz and Scepticism 123

VI. Reasons and Motives

At the end of the winding road we have travelled together, we are left with a
predominant impression of ambiguity. On the one hand we have proved that
Leibniz has no difficulty in refuting, one by one, the sceptic objections. On the
other, we have seen how he enthusiastically recommends us to face up to
scepticism . May I be allowed, at last, to suggest a possible solution of this
riddle?
If scepticism is conceived of as a doctrine consisting of a number of
propositions abstracted from their own historical context and apart from its
role in polemic or dialectic, it is for Leibniz a doctrine which seemingly adds
nothing to the Platonic legacy. In the same way, if Leibniz' doctrine be
conceived of as consisting of a group of propositions derived by a process of
deduction from indisputable principles, such doctrine will be in no way related
to scepticism. Indeed, one may demonstrate demonstrable things without even
mentioning those that are doubtful. 127 Hence, from this point of view, which I
fear is the usual one, Leibniz and scepticism are two great matters which have
little or nothing in common.
However, if we complement such point of view with another, which sees
philosophy and science as being two works wrought by men in given social,
psychological and historical circumstances, we are better placed to understand
the high regard in which Leibniz always held scepticism. Indeed, thanks to the
objections of the sceptics men find themselves obliged to do something which
they would probably not have done ifleft to their own devices - that is, go back
to first principles, propound definitive justifications, lay sound foundations for
science, and thus perfect it. In this sense scepticism represents, for Leibniz, an
original approach in the history of philosophy. On the other hand, if Leibniz'
philosophy be conceived of as a diachronic labour based upon a given number
of suppositions, and taking shape as it deals with different problems, and
exchanges ideas with extant philosophies, it is not difficult to stress the
important part played by scepticism in the genesis of that philosophy. It is by
the light of the sceptical challenge that Leibniz broke away from tradition and
struck out for himself.

NOTES
Early versions of various parts of this paper were read between August 1983 and February 1984
at the Autonomous National University of Mexico, the State University of New York at Buffalo,
and the Warburg Institute (University of London) . I wish to thank the members of these institutions
who met there and discussed topics with me. I am especially grateful to lA. Robles, C.B. Schmitt,
R.H. Popkin , and M. Burnyeat.

The following abbreviations are used:

A ;: G.w. Leibniz, Samtliche Schriften und Briefe , ed. Academy of Berlin

(Darmstadt, 1923f.; Leipzig, 1938f.; Berlin 1950f.).
AT ;: R . Descartes, Oeuvres, ed. Adam and Tannery (Paris, 1964--1976).
C ;: L. Couturat, Opuscules et fragments in'dtts de Leibniz (Paris, 1903; rep.
1961).
124 E. de Olaso

D = G. W Leibnitzi Operapbilosophica, ed. L. Dutens (Geneva, 1768).

EF = G.W. Leibniz, Escritos filosoficos, ed. Ezequiel de 01aso (Buenos Aires,
1982).
GM = Leibnizens mathematische Schriften, ed. C.I. Gerhardt (Berlin-Halle,
1849-1863).
GP = G.w. Leibniz, Die philosophischen Schriften, ed. C.I. Gerhardt (Berlin,
1875-1890).
Grua = G.W. Leibniz, Textes inedits, ed. G. Grua (Paris, 1948).
K = Die Werke von Leibniz, ed. O. Klopp (Hannover, 1864-1884).
LB = Der Briefwechsel des G. W Leibniz, ed. E. Bodemann (Hannover, 1895).
LH = Die Leibniz-Handschriften, ed. E. Bodemann (Hannover/Leipzig, 1889).
Oeuvres = G.w. Leibniz, Oeuvres, ed. A.-L. Foucher de Careil (Paris, 1859-75).
SLS Studia Leibnitiana, Supplementa (Wiesbaden, 1968f.).

1. "Pr610go a Histo ria de la filosofia de Emile Brehier", in Obras completes (Madrid: Revista de
Occidente, 1947) VI, 380-381.
2. See my review of the last edition of Popkin's work, The History ofscepticismfiom Erasmus to
Spinoza (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press, 1979) in Notis XVIII ,
1 (1984), pp. 135-144.
3. Cicero Scepticus: A Study of the Influence ofthe "Academica" in the Renaissance (The Hague :
Nijhoff, 1972). The best up-to-date general view of research on that period is provided by
Schmitt 's study "Th e Rediscovery of Ancient Skepticism in Modern Times" in The Skeptical
Tradition, ed. Myles Burnyeat (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London : University of California Press,
1983), pp. 225-251.
4. "Leibniz and the French Sceptics", Revue Internat ionale de philosophic 76-77 (1966), pp. 228-
248.
5. A VI, 1,87.
6. Que nada se sabe (Buenos Aires: Emeco, 1944), pp. 114-115.
7. "Sextus Empiricus" Outlines of Pyrrbonism (hereinafter abbreviated as "PH") I, 79f., and
145f. That Leibniz should consider scepticism compatible with atheism, as in the passage
quoted, or scepticism with impiety, as in De religionis magnorum virorum (Grua 37), is
something quite uncommon in his works. In general. sceptics are. for him , religious believers.
8. A VI, i, 88and 90-91
9. A II, i, 4-5 .
10. See PH I, 33 and II , 242-244 .
1I. The other sources from which the argument is drawn (Cicero, Academica II, 23 and 72;
Lactantius, Inst , III , 23, and Galen , De simpl. medic.) cannot have inspired these reflections.
The question as to whether Leibniz had indirect knowledge of Sextus' text has still to be gone
into . I have examined the question of Mario Nizolio having been responsible for the
transmission of Sextus' opinions . Nizolio, whom Leibniz knew well, mentions Anaxagoras'
saying, and quotes Sextus and Cicero, but not within the context of Leibniz' analysis of
Anaxagoras'opinion. See Mario Nizolio, De verts principii's et vera ratione philosophandi
contra pseudophilosophos libri IV, ed. Quirinus Breen (Roma : Fratelli Bocca Editori, 1956) I,
28. In his letter to Thomasius in 1670, Leibniz was to say that the major premiss of
Anaxagoras' argument - that is, that snow is frozen water - should not be allowed. If we
follow this path , he observes humorously, "Anaxagoras' sophism melts", A VI, ii, 436-437 .
12. A VI, i, 309.
13. A II, i, 24; reproduced in A VI, it, 443. We do not know to what extent Thomasius was
interested in scepticism.
14. VI, ii, 431.
15. Gaston Milhaud, Les philosophes geometres de la Grece. Platon et ses predecesseurs (paris:
Alcan, 1934), p. 15.
16. Yvon Belaval, Leibniz critique de Descartes (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), p. 40; see also pp. 63 and
67.
17. Even the first condition, which a modern philosopher would consider only trivially relevant, is
not so obvious, and if it be attributed to ancient scepticism, can be shown to be erroneous. See
 Leibniz and Scepticism 125

M . Burnyeat's "Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed ",
in Idealism Past and Present, ed. G Vesey (London, 1982).
18. A VI, ii, 264.
19. Leibniz seems to follow Sextus' version rather than Aristotle 's. See Adversus mathematicos
(hereinafter abbreviated to "AM" ) X, 139f. A very abbreviated version in PH III , 76-77.
20. Richard Sorabji , Time. Creation and the Continuum (London: Duckworth, 1982), pp. 321f. I
have found that some modern sceptics establish a parallel between geometrical reasoning
involving the infinite, and that of the Pyrrhonists. See Montaigne, Apologie de Raimond
Sebond, Essais II, 12, ed. Maurice Rat (Paris : Garnier, 1948), pp. 277-278. The academic
Foucher merely pointed them out , when he feared "Pyrrhonian arguments which would have
the tortoises move as quickly as Achilles". See the letter to Leibniz (1691), GP 1,400. See also
ibid., 411-412.
21. See Gueroult, Leibniz . Dynamique et metaphysique (paris: Aubier, 1967), pp. 8-12.
22. A VI, ii, 267. Leibniz says that "the very eloquent Belin had challenged the philosophers of all
the planet to solve them ". The editors of the Academy edition mention the works of Jean
Albert Belin, Les aventures du philosophe inconnu en la recherche et en l'invention de la pierre
philosophale (Paris , 1646), and Apologie du grand steele (Par is, 1659), but say they have not
found the passage to which Leibniz refers.
23. See Leonard Marande, Jugement des actions bumaines (1624), p. 71. D. Hume, Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding , Sec. XII . Quoted by Popkin , op. cit., pp . 98 and 273, n.
48. Leibniz early accepts Gregory of St. Vincent's proposed solution of the paradox of Achilles
and tortoise. Years later, he quoted it by heart to Foucher, GP 1,403 and 416. Gregory of St.
Vincent's work, here referred to, is Opus geometricum (Antwerp, 1647).
24. I follow Israel E. Drabkin's excellent exposition in "Aristotle's Wheel: Notes of the History of
a Paradox", Osiris 9 (1950), pp. 162-198
25. Les mechaniques de Galilee mathematicien (1634).
26. Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze (Leiden , 1638). Le Opere di
Galilei, Edizione Nazionale (Florence, 1899-1909), VIII, 68r.
27. Art. cit., P. 19 1. Boyle's work is an appendix to his A Defense of the Doctrine Touching the
Spring and Weight of the Air. Perhaps we shall better understand the place of the "S ceptical
Chymist" in the history of scepticism , if we study Boyle's work in the traditional Zenonian
manner. Zeno 's fourth objection (as expounded by Aristotle) is related by Bayle to the
problem of the two wheels, "Zeno of Elea" Rem . E, in Historical and Critical Dictionary.
Selections, ed. R.H . Popkin and C. Brush (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1965), p. 359,
n.57.
28. A VI, ii, 479-486. We came to know of this important study as late as 1966, thanks to the
Academy's edition .
29. Idem . This formula is a variant of Euclid's Elements, I, 9. Obviously there are crucial
differences between different statements of this axiom . I will not here take them into account.
Leibniz has made an effort to refute the position of those who deny that the whole is greater
than its parts, in order to obviate the possibility of consequences favourable to scepticism . On
the other hand, it is strange that he does not usually connect scepticism with the attitude of
those supporters of scientia media who deny the principle that "nothing exists without a
reason". Besides, in his elementa iuris naturalis (1671) Leibniz insists that demonstrative
knowledge can resist attack by the sceptics and that philosophers ought not to transmit
propositionsm simply because they are clear (the Cartesian criterion) or per se notae (the
scholastic criterion), but rather they must prove them. A VIm i, 369. Some details about this
question in my study "The Proofs of Axioms, Praise and Sarcasm", International Studies in
Philosophy VI (New York/Torino, 1974 and Beleval, op. cit., pp. 160 and i62f/
30. A VI, ii, 480.
31. To lCh. Bbhmer (1694) A I,x, 448-449 . Leibniz studies this, among other problems, in the
Discorsi in 1672 and 1673. His observations in A VI, iii, 163-168, and see especially 168.
"Chimaerical" refers to an idea which contains a contradiction, Discours de metaphysique 23;
GP IV, 449. To Burnett, GP 111, 257. But I am not arguing that Galileo was a sceptic or that
he preached any kind of scepticism in mathematics - rather I have drawn attention to the
126 E. de O/aso

sceptical consequences which Leibniz thought could spring from mathematical reflections.
w.L. Wisan has suspected Galileo of a kind of mild scepticism with regard to empirical
knowledge, before 1616, and from then on of a more radical kind. W.L. Wisan "Galilee's
Scientific Method : A Reexamination", in New Perspectives on Galileo, ed. R.E. Butts and J.e.
Pitt (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978), pp. 23-24. I thank Professor A. Guillermo Ranea for drawing
my attention to this study.
32. It is necessary to give at least brief information about two different problems that are implied
here. The first one is that an indisputable character is attributed by Leibniz sometimes to
identical propositions, and sometimes to first truths of fact too. In this essay I cannot examine
this ambiguity of Leibniz. The second problem is that it is especially difficult to obtain a
precise definition of what the scholastics understood by per se notum .For example Aquinas'
definitions are not very illuminating . Drawing upon the fourth book of Metaphysics , and also
from Posterior Analytics I, ch.3 sec 4, Aquinas, in his commentaries on the latter, gives us the
following definition: "Propositions per se notae, are those that are immediately (statim)
understood, as soon as note (notis) has been taken of their terms"(I, 7). All that we can
understand from this definition, is that "per se" means "immediately". If Aquinas is trying to
tell us something about notum, he is reasoning in a circle. Leibniz accepts doubts about
axiomatic propositions which have not been demonstrated, but does not accept any doubts
about demonstrations. Thus he confesses having been astonished to read ("non sine stupore
leg"'), that Hobbes doubted Pythagoras' theorem, A VI, ii, 432.
33. An . post. 76b ff.
34. Aquinas ' reliance on lumen naturale , stands out clearly. In his commentary on the Posterior
Analytics, he maintains that axioms apprehended for the first time without analysis, cannot be
afterwards confirmed by any external consideration : "Non sunt notae per exter iorem
rationem sed per interiorem ... lumine naturall intellectus" (I, 1, 19). See other texts quoted
by Ortega in La idea de principio en Leihn iz (Buenos Aires: Emmece, 1958), p. 209, where the
author notes a petitio in another passage of Aquinas, similar to the one I have commented in
the foregoing note. Ortega is, moreover, the only scholar who has drawn attention to Leibniz'
criticism of the per se notum criterion. See the work quoted from, at pp. 143,221 et passim.
35. To Mersenne, ATII , 599.See Laporte's Le rationalisme de Descartes (Paris:P.U.F.,1945), pp.
6f.
36. To Regius, AT III , 455.
37. GP IV, 328. Visions which, in their non-critical character, Leibniz sometimes compares with
those of the enthusiasts , GP Ill , 257-258.
38. C 516. See Discours de la methode III ; AT VI, 27; letter to Mersenne, AT 11,597.
39. To Leibniz (1704), GP III, 351.
40. To Lady Masham, GP III , 353. See a didactic version of what Leibniz understood by natural
light, in his letter to Queen Sophia Charlotte, GP VI, 503-506. The role played by Leibniz in
the process of "insulation", describe by Burnyeat in his contribution to this volume,
[Scepticism/rom the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. R.H. Popkin and C.B. Schmitt] is
similar to that of Berkeley's.
4!. A III, i, 15-16. A version of this letter had already been published in the Academy edition, see
A 11, i, 222-229. The new version, published in 1976, seems to me preferable, inter alia,
because it is the only one which contains references to the Pyrrhonians.
42. Notes on Mariotte's Introduction aux sciences (May-July 1676 7), A VI, iii, 328. In this
restricted sense, he writes to Mariotte himself: "One should not argue contra negantem
principia" , A 11, i, 269.
43. AT X, 392, and Y. Belaval, op. cit., pp. 62--63 and 69-70
44. To Malebranche (1679) A 11, i, 477. There is a complication which I mention , but which I
shall not try to unravel. Leibniz givesup using the expression "evidence". In a letter to Calvor,
he writes: " It is certainly true, that what is most evident is most true; but that does not help us
much , because we are, precisely, looking for what is most evident, and what is the
characteristic of evidence. What I suggest, then, is this: the proposition must be identical, or
susceptible of being reduced to that condition by a simple substitut ion of equipollents",
Leibniz concludes by affirming that if "the Ancients had taken this into consideration, all the
 Leibniz and Scepticism 127

disputes of the Academics would have vanished into thin air ", A II, i, 525-526. On the other
hand, he is at pains to preserve the expression per se notum. Here is an example of that
problematical adaptation: "Per se notae are such propositions as must be granted in the light
of experience or by virtue of their own terms, that is to say, when anything opposed to them
implies a contradiction", A VI, (Vorausedition, 1982, p. 20). As to our comprehension of the
infinite, see GP IV, 360.
45. For the first case, see GP IV, 359; and for the second, GP IV, 422f.
46. GP IV, 401. 46 GP IV, 401.
47. To Mersenne, AT Ill, 393, and Replies to the Second Objections , AT VII , 160. In these replies
Descartes accepts the analogy between the Absolutely Perfect Being and the maximum
number. See also C 191.
48. A II, i, 477. Leibniz' favourite examples are : the squaring of the circle, the fastest motion, the
greatest of all circles, the number of all possible units . From 1675 on, these examples figure in
Leibniz' correspondence. See letters to Oldenburg, to Eckhard and to Elisabeth, in A II , i,
250, 306 and 435-436, respect ively.
49. About Gassendi, see Ralph Walker 's "Gassendi and Skepticism"; in The Skeptical Tradition ,
quoted in note 3, p. 331. I note by the way, that C.B. Brush has pointed out that the great critic
of the Cartesian criterion of truth, ends up by relying on that of the per se notum . Walker, art.
cit., p.328. See Spinoza's letter to Boxel, Spinoza Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt (Heidelberg: Carl
Winters , 1925), IV, 260. Professor Leiser Madanes points out to me that in his Tractatus
Politicus (III, 8) Spinoza takes the proposition that "the whole is not greater than the part" as
an example of a proposition in which a man may believe, only if he renounces the faculty of
judgment.
50. Vita Leibnitii a se ipso breviter delineate, Klopp I, xxxix-xl .
51. Popk in, op. cit., chap . 1. Terence Penelhum has recently given us a good resume of that
discussion with reference to scepticism, see "Scepticism and Fideism", in The Skeptical
Tradition , especially pp. 293-295 .
52. see Confess io philosophi. A VI, iii, 117; Theodicy, Preface GP VI, 38, and letter to Basnage GP
III, 143.
53. Ad staterum iuris, C. 213. Theodicy , sec. 238; GP VI, 259-260 ; Grua 419, and Des methodes de
reunion in Oeuvres, II, 2.
54. The question of the relation of the judge of religious controversies and cognitive scepticism is
clearly expressed in Montaigne's Apologie, quoted in n. 20. p. 313. A preliminary research into
the systematic problem involved, will be found in my study "Perception and Criterion",
prsented at the Fourth Mexican National Congress of Philosophy in 1983.
55. To Eler (1716), D V 403-404; see also GP IV, 366; to Tolomei, GP VII , 466; to Burnett, GP
III, 193-194 and 259; to Jacques Bernoulli, GM III, 83; to Jean Bernoulli, GM III, 850. As to
the subject in general, see my study "Leibniz et l'art de disputer". SLS XV (1975), pp. 207f.
56. To Placcius (1696), D VI, I, 72.
57. GP VII, 64-65 , 125 and 200.
58. Dialogue entre un habile politique et un ecclesiastique d 'une piete reconnue. LHI, VI,4 , folio 7
recto .
59. See my study, "Thomas Hobbes and recta ratio", Manuscrito IV, 1 (Campinas, Brazil, 1980),
pp.29-30.
60. A VI, i. 548f. I have taken this paragraph from a study of mine quoted in n. 55. Years later
Leibniz returns to the study of the subject. Complimentary and hitherto unedited texts will be
brought out in A VI (Vorausedition, 1982), pp. 17-23 .
61. This is certainly not the only question taken up by Leibniz with Hobbes , involving matters of
scepticism. It has generally been understood that Hobbes' nominalism was a form of
scepticism; and Leibniz takes pains to refute this in his Dialogus (1677), GP VII, 190f. See
also, R.H . Popkin's "Hobbes and Skepticism", in History of Philosophy and its Making, ed.
Linus J. Thro (washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), pp. 133-148.
62. Theodicy, GP VI, 49, 84 and 226. See my study quoted in note 59.
63. The latest publication on the subject is the collective volume Right Reason in Western Ethics, a
special number of The Monist LXVI , 1(1983) .
128 E. de O/aso

64. Grua (pp. 18-23) for the first time published this dialogue with important errata. A careful
edition will be found in A VI (Vorausedition, 1982). The letters exchanged between Leibniz
and Rauschenberg in 1702 are interesting for the study of the logic of religious controversies
and scepticism. The Protestant Leibniz affirms that the "authority of the Scriptures is the
truth, otherwise Pyrrhonism will be favoured at the expense of Christianity. Scepticism
springs from the Catholics , who subscribed to the Council of Trent's proposition: captivare
intellectus in obsequium fidei". At this Reuschenberg explains, "I hate Pyrrhonism, one must
believe everything or nothing". See LB, 239-240. Leibniz's words are to be found on folio 10.
On the question of the Church as judge and witness, and a certain "vicious circle" in the proof
of the Scriptures by means of the Church, and of the Church through Scriptures , see Jean
Baruzi, Leibniz et l'organisation religieuse de terre (Paris 1907), p. 299. Regarding the art of
disputation as an instrument for settling religious controversies, Leibniz points out to
Reuschenberg, that there are two perils to be avoided "not to leave unanswered solutions
which have been proposed, and not to reason as the sceptics do", " who reject everyone's
opinions, on the excuse that everyone wants to be right. As if discussion were not necessary in
order to decide who us really right!" ibid., (September 1702), f.23r. Th is kind of discussion
with the sceptics sprang, I think , from his early confrontation with Hobbes. In 1680 he
defends recta ratio and again expounds the Hobbesian problem. "When one man argues , the
other does not examine his argument, but simply repeats the question , "how do you know that
your reason is better than mine? What is your creiterion of truth"? GP VII , 187-188, One
final observation: when Wachter contemplates the complete separation of theology and
philosophy, and says that philosophy "is based upon a sceptical ground, that is, the respective
reason whereby different men conceive things as they do, starting from hypotheses" . Leibniz
does not accept that true philosophy is founded on hypotheses. A theology which is at war
with philosophy, he says, is a false theology. There are not two truths, as the 15th and 16th
century Averroists sought to show, Animadversiones ad Joh. G. Wachteri Iibrum de recondita
Hebraeorum philosophia, in Refutation inedite de Spinoza par Leibniz, ed. Foucher de Careil,
(Paris: Briere, 1854), p. 74.
65. The Attack on Skepticism, EF 203-208, and textual note on pp. 209-254 .
66. See note 64.
67. Grua 18.
68. See note 58.
69. C 219.
70. C 514; see also 516.
71. A I, u, 69.
72. Nouveaux essais IV, xvii; A VI, vi, 491. P. Remnant and 1. Bennett do not note this detail in
their recent translation New Essats on Human Understanding (Cambridge Umo. Press. 1981).
73. C 183-184.
74. PH I, 166.
75. See note 4.
76. Ibid, p. 239.
77. GP I, 388.
78. GP I, 407 and 410-411.
79. GP I, 400 and 411-412 .
80. GP I, 422 and Nouveaux Essais IV, 2, 14; A NYI, vi. 374.
81. GP I 370f.
82. GP I, 372.
83. CP IV, 357.
84. GP IV, 327; A I, vi, 338.
85. GP I, 402.
86. GM IV, 94. See also C 191.
87. GP IV, 497; see also Nouveaux essais IV, ii , 14; A VI, vi, 374.
88. GP I, 408.
89. GP II , 566.
90. Popkin, art.cit, 230--231.
 Leibniz and Scepticism 129

91. De modo distinguendi phaenomena realia ab simaginariis, GP VII, 322.

92. Theodicy, sec. 382; GP VI, 342; see also GP VI, 586 and GP VII, 536.
93. Verhaltnis des Skeptizismus zur Philosophie (Jena 1802). See also Hartmut Buch , "Zur
Bedeutung des Skeptizismus beimjungen Hegel", Hegel Studien 4 (1969); p. 49f. Klaus Diising
"Spekulation und Reflexion, Die Bedeutung des antiken Skeptizismus fiir Hegels Kritik der
sinnlichen Gewissheit", Hegel Studien 8 (1971), p. 119.
94. GP IV. 305. See A VI, iii, 323.
95. GP VII , 497; GP II, 623 and GP VII, 535.
96. Regarding Democritus and his pioneer theory about the controversial character of qualities,
see Antibarbarus physicus, GP VII, 343.; idem, 146-147 , 148. To Arnauld, GP II, 101; idem,
252 and 282 note ; GP III, 69. Leibniz describes sensory things in the Platonic manner,
"Semper f1uunt, nunquam sunt ", Theodicy sec. 382; GP VI, 342, perhaps drawn from his
reading of the Theatetus . See Leibniz' abbreviated Latin translation, especially that of 152d, in
A VI, iii, 304-305. The expression appears in Dextus PH III, 54 and AM VIII, 7. Now, Plato
is, for him, greatly superior to the sceptics. "Simple substances are the only true substances,
and material things are only phenomena, though well founded, and well connected. Plato, and
even the later Academics, and the sceptics themselves , have glimpsed as much, but these
gentlemen, who came after Plato, did not profit there from as much as he". Letter to Remond
(1714) GP III, 606. Finally, Descartes was not so original. He was a follower of Plato, the
Academics and the sceptics, GP IV, 308, 313 and 469.
97. GP IV, 356 and 367.
98. A I, iii, 572-573 and 580. I am speaking of "libertines" in a general sense, such as was
common at the time. About the history of the different meanings borne by the word, see F.
Charles-Daubert's note in K.O. Meinsm , Spinosa et son cercle (Paris :Vrin, 1984), pp. 47-53.
99. See Jean Baruzi's "Trois dialogues mystiques inedits de Leibniz" , Revue de Metaphysique et de
morale 13 (1905); see also my note 67.
100. See note 58.
101. Nouveaux essais IV, xvi, 4; A VI, vi, 462-463.
102. To Burnet (1710) GP III, 320-321.
103. About Leibniz 's relations with Bayle, see Popkin 's artilce quoted in note 4, pp. 233-238.
104. Specimen animadversionum in Sextum Empiricum, percurso libro Pyrrhoniarum Hypothesium
(sic) primo datum . LH , 123.
105. D II, I, 7-8 note.
106. To Koch , GP VII , 475.
107. There are letters (I) to Fabricius, 14 August , 1711, in D V, 424; (2) to Johann Christian Wolf,
1st November 1713, in D V, 448; (3) to Conrad Widou. 7th December, 1715, in D V, 472; to
Widou again, 6th October, 1716, D V, 475. Widou 's as yet unedited letters to Leibniz will be
found in LB, No. 1001, ff2r and 14r.
108. G.G. Leibnitii Cogitationes miscellania D V, 190. See also E. Ravier, Bibliographie des oeuvres
de Leibniz (Paris: Alcan , 1937), p. 546.
109. D V, 424.
110. D V, 472.
111. Idem.
112. D V, 475.
113. GM II, 228
114. D V, 424 AND 475.
115. P. Hazard, La Crise de la conscience europeene (1680-1715, (Paris 1935).
116. Leibniz , who appreciates his edition of Pliny the Elder, calls him "an extraordinary learned
but not less audicious man" (vir utique doctus egregie, sed non minus audax) , in a letter to
Edward Bernard, A I, x. 183; see another letter to the same person, A I, ix, 331. Leibniz
analyses well the habitual pride of the Jesuits in A I, viii, 141. But he certainly never equalled
Graevius' insult, passed on by Spanheim: "Who can be surprised by Hardouin's craziness",
A.I, ix, 599. He does speak , though of Harduini delirationes in a letter to Cuper of 29th
October 1707, quotesd by Conzw in Leibnizals Historiker (Berlin; Walter de Gruyter, 1951, p.
130 E. de Olaso

54, b. 193. Leibniz would approve of the Jesuits suppressing " this Pyrrhonisrn in their own
ranks", ibid.
117. To Lelong (1708) quoted by Daville, Leibniz historien (paris: Alcan 1909), pp. 475 and 476, n.
7. See also Conzc, op. cit., p. 53.
118. Daville, op. cit, p. 476. See D, 353. About Bierling, see Gerhardt's information in GP VII,
482--485, and his correspondence with Leibniz, idem, 485-511.
119. GP VII, 486.
120. W. Conze, op. cit., p. 53. See also Daville, op. cit, p. 477, where many references will be found
to historical Pyrrhonism, and Leibniz's attitude thereto. See also Y. Belaval , op. cit., p. 1021.
121. For a general presentation of the problem, see my contribution, "Objectiones inedites de
Leibniz au principe sceptique de l'equipollence", Akten des 4. Internationalen Kant Kongresses
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974), pp . 52-59.
122. See my study, "The Meaning of Sceptical Doubt", Revista Latinoamericana de Filosojia I, I
(1975), pp. 27-37.
123. Some reflections in my study "Praxis sans Theone? La refutation pragmiste de pyrrhonisme
selon un texte inedit de Leibniz', Akten des 3. Internationalen Leibniz Kongresses (Wiesbaden:
Steiner, 1980) SLS III, 159-167.
124. See my study quoted in note 54.
125. " Scripsi innumers et de innumeris sed edidi pauca et de paucis", To Jacques Bernoulli, GM
III,61.
126. "Qui me non nisi editis novis , non novit", to Vincent Placeius, D VI , i, 65.
127. Malebrance et Leibni z. Relations personnelles, ed . A . Robinet (Paris: Vrin, 1955, 121.
 E.DEOLASO

THE TWO SCEPTICISMS OF THE SAVOYARD VICAR

I have known Dick Popkin since the end of 1966. I was then preparing my
Ph.D dissertation about Leibniz' criticism of Descartes, exploring some issues
that were not considered in Yvon Belaval's famous book about the subject.
Both my thesis director - Professor Jose Ferrater Mora (Bryn Mawr College) -
and myself? considered that this research program was a natural sequence of
my Argentine dissertation "The Methodic 'Doubt' and Its Post-Cartesian
Criticisms" (Buenos Aires University, 1963). In 1966 Dick had just published
"Leibniz and the French Sceptics" in the Revue Internationale de Philosophie,
an article that distilled an always sincere although not always fair dislike of
Leibniz. In his essay Dick quoted Fabricius' claim that Leibniz once planned to
write a criticism of Sextus Empiricus and yet had not fulfilled his promise. I
immediately wrote to Dick pointing out to him that Leibniz had in fact written
that polemical work and that it was lying, with many other manuscripts, in his
unpublished legacy in Hannover. I thought that my remark was going to alter
Dick's plans and that an analysis of Leibniz' paper should find its place in
future editions of The History of Scepticism. As a matter of fact, I was the one
who had to change my plans. Indeed, Dick convinced me that I should decipher
Leibniz' Latin manuscript, and write a commentary about it, and that I should
change the subject of my dissertation to Leibniz' criticism of Sextus Empiricus.
In 1969, I defended my dissertation Leibniz and Greek Scepticism at Bryn
Mawr, and since then one of my permanent research programs is the study of
historical and epistemological aspects of the problem of scepticism. I have,
therefore, a great indebtedness to Dick and I am most grateful and pleased to
have this opportunity to write some pages to honor him. With them I intend to
enlarge Dick's domain of research and to suggest some alternative views
specially on the relevance of the distinction between different kinds of
scepticism.

I
Although in The History ofScepticism, Popkin reaches as far as the seventeenth
century, he has also done detailed research on several aspects of scepticism in
the eighteenth century. The essays compiled in The High Road to Pyrrhonism

131
RiH. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 131-146.
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers .
132 E. de O/aso

are an eloquent proof of it. Less known is his pioneer article "Scepticism in the
Enlightenment" written in the early sixties ; it was perhaps the first all-
embracing survey of the period.' With the remarkable exception of Hume,
Popkin finds that, in respect of the problem of scepticism, the age of Enlight-
enment is perhaps as rich as the picture drawn by Popkin of scepticism in the
previous century.3
In the present essay I intend to include Rousseau for the first time in the
history of eighteenth century scepticism. Besides this historiographic point, I
suggest that two different kinds of scepticism coexist in Rousseau. This
problem is partly historical, partly epistemological. I am one of the few current
writers who think that Pyrrhonian scepticism cannot be entirely reduced to
Academic philosophy. I cannot go now over all the relevant aspects of one of
the oldest problems of philosophy, that was already considered old by Gellius.4
I suspect that this relic, that apparently can only attract erudites, is nowadays a
worthwhile challenge. I guess that some unsuspected new light will be thrown
on basic problems of the theory of knowledge, such as the problem of the
criterion as a consequence of restating of the old enigma.
In what follows I confine my attention to the first half of "The Creed of the
Savoyard Vicar". First, I show that Rousseau declares himself alien towards
the ordinary image of scepticism with which he was acquainted. Second, I show
that when Rousseau considers the cognitivity of the issues of classical
metaphysics (God's existence, the immortality of the soul, the structure of the
world the freedom of the will) he argues following a dialectical pattern that is
good enough for setting forth a debate, and even to win it, but certainly not to
prove that one is in possession of true knowledge. Finally, I show that
Rousseau's resort to sentiment, as an answer to all problems , unexpectedly
makes him a member of the Pyrrhonian tradition.

II
Is it possible to consider Rousseau as a true philosopher?

I am not a philosopher . . . I never intended to be one . . . I don't like

philosophy at all . . . I have never boasted of being in the possession of a
good philosophical faith , simply because I do not know one."

Let us keep these words in mind when we follow steps of the Vicar's spiritual
itinerary, because these words have been often forgotten by philosophy
teachers anxious to consider Rousseau as a fellow of the "Societe Francaise de
Philosophie'T'
Let us begin by making a distinction between two types of scepticism :
Pyrrhonian scepticism and Academic scepticism. Pyrrhonian scepticism has
been many things to many men. Let us depict two significant varieties of
Pyrrhonian scepticism which are relevant for a better understanding of Vicar's
Creed: Pyrrhonian scepticism as opposite to common sense and Pyrrhonian
scepticism as is established by Sextus Empiricus in the first book of his Outlines
 The Two Scepticisms ofthe Savoyard Vicar 133

ofPyrrhonism. This taxonomic conception of Pyrrhonian scepticism is the one

that is nowadays best known and most widely accepted. There are however
other varieties of Pyrrhonian scepticism which are equally historic in their
credentials and equally valid in setting up epistemological inquiry.
In a pejorative sense, Pyrrhonism denotes the attitude adopted by those who
(really or fictitiously) doubt everything. The least favourable characterization
of such a subclass of scepticism is possibly given by Descartes when he
criticizes those sceptics "that doubt just for the sake of doubting and pretend
to be always wavering"," Even in Sextus' works we can find an equivalence
between " Sceptical" and "aporetical" schools. Henri Estienne translated
"dubitatoria vel haesitatoria" into the phrase "aporetical school"." I do not
use now any argument about the sense in which one could say that doubting is
an essential part of scepticism.? This is precisely the version of Pyrrhonism
refused by the Vicar when he overcomes his crisis.
I cannot understand how anyone can be a sceptic sincerely and on principle.
Either such philosophers do not exist or they are the most miserable of men.
Doubt with regard to what we ought to know is a condition too violent for the
human mind; it cannot long be endured; in spite of itself the mind decides one
way or another, and it prefers to be deceived rather than to believe nothing. 10
This is the kind of scepticism that he indirectly rejects when, at the end of his
long and touching meditation. He describes the calm mood that he keeps
regarding Christian religion:

This is the unwilling scepticism in which I rest. 11

This image of scepticism as an eternal and impossible task of doubting about

everything was quite expanded during the eighteenth century. In the first pages
of his book. De Crousaz introduces an American Indian who he considers to
be a paradigm of common sense, and makes him judge over the viability of
such a kind of scepticism. Scepticism is thus rejected as being impossible . 12
These descriptions tend to present the sceptic as a mentally sick man and
scepticism as a task that demands a continuous state of perplexity. But thus is
not the only kind of Pyrrhonism. I think that many authors of the pejorative
image of Pyrrhonism were intimidated people who prefer to exorcise prema-
turely the phantom of Pyrrhonism rather than dare listen to seriously. The
sceptic's real motive always remains obscure in these descriptions.
Allow me to offer briefly an exposition of the second kind of Pyrrhonism
involves some justification of the Pyrrhonist's motivation. According to Sextus
Empiricus' description, the Pyrrhonian goes in search of truth and finds himself
with a variety of opinions. This multiplicity makes the Pyrrhonian think that
the differences do not come from the thing itself (physis). In other words, the
Pyrrhonist in search of physis finds himself with a variety of opinions. 13 He then
needs a criterion that will allow him to prefer one opinion than another and so
the problem of the criterion is stated. Indeed, to determine which are the marks
of true knowledge; I must examine a token of true knowledge; but to be able to
know that the chosen knowledge is not a false I must be already in possession
134 E. de Olaso

of the marks of true knowledge. I am therefore caught in a circle. In such a

situation, the Pyrrhonist decides that one opinion is as good (or as bad) as
another: this is the equivalence (isotheneia) of conflicting opinions. But the
Pyrrhonian's goal is a practical one. He looks for knowledge only for the sake
of acquiring quietude (ataraxia). He now finds that the search for true knowl-
edge (in fact only a domain of conflicting judgments and philosophical
discussions) is precisely the main cause of his perturbation. For the sake of
obtaining quietude, he decides to refrain from judging or from subscribing to
other people's judgments. Never again will he get into a discussion, having
succeeded in exiling himself from philosophy. His philosophy should not be a
doctrine, but rather an activity, and it will have a therapeutical purpose: to
show the undecidable nature of philosophical problems but this does not
amount to saying that the sceptic has paralyzed his actions. He accepts natural
impulses, that is, instincts, habits, feelings of piety, traditions of customs and
laws, even instruction in the arts.!" The Pyrrhonian discovery consists in
having noticed that it is still possible to guide one's own life according to
nature after giving up philosophy as a guide.
The second kind of scepticism, Academic scepticism, is well reputed and
more common in modern times. It is a doctrine, a moderate philosophy in its
own right, and not a merely practical "attitude" or non-philosophical orienta-
tion . "Academic scepticism" denotes uncertainty regarding the first principles
of being and knowing, accompanied by an acute consciousness of what was
then known as "the limits of human knowledge'tP This kind of sceptic is
altogether different from the Pyrrhonian: as a consequence of a different
understanding of philosophical conflicts , the Academic sceptic practices a
moderate suspension of judgment. Indeed, Academic sceptics need not
abandon the world of opinions; they pretend to take sides with the more
reasonable solution. Like the Pyrrhonian, the Limitationist or Academician
(in this essay I do not distinguish between them) also has a practical intention,
namely, to live in a tranquil condition as a consequence of moderate assent to
the most plausible views; he admits, therefore, some criteria which are, if not
rational, at least reasonable; furthermore, instead of the problem of truth (the
presence of physis) he states the problem of true likeness (that is, mitigated
assent to the most reasonable opinion) . A great transformation has therefore
taken place : what we could call "the ontological conception of truth" yields its
primacy to the logic of probable argumentation, that is to say, to topics or
dialectics.
Therefore, the acknowledgment of what is reasonable is turned into a
doctrine of the degrees of assent which involves a correlative modulation of
epoche . This epoche is the same as mitigated assent. The Academician is
worried by the risk of being excessively dogmatic, either by affirming too much
or denying too much. He tries to live in accord with his philosophy, which is of
course a non-dogmatical one: all his efforts are directed toward consecrating
the proportion between what he believes and what he can possibly know. He
likes reasonable discussion, he is an expert of weighing the pros and cons of
different opinions according to the degree of assent that those opinions deserve.
 The Tho Scepticisms ofthe Savoyard Vicar 135

This is the kind of sceptic that I label "Academic". Instead of the "either black
or white" of the Pyrrhonian, the Academician defends the "either more or less"
of the knowledge that is attainable to us. The Academician could then be
considered as the founder of relevant aspects of modern theory of knowledge,
while the Pyrrhonian was surely the first who tried to ruin all possible theory of
knowledge.
Giorgio Tonelli was also the first philosopher to point out the importance of
this Academic scepticism in France about the middle of eighteenth century.
Gassendi and Locke were the ones who inspired it, Locke being much better
acclimated in France than in England. The Academic fashion continues with
Fontenelle and Quesnay, is freely assumed by Voltaire. Vauvenargues and
Condillac, reaches a high point with the first Diderot, Maupertuis, and Buffon.
and perhaps, its most representative philosopher is d'Alembert. 16 I now
examine Rousseau's text.

III
The Creed begins with a formal promise : the Vicar doesn't intend to argue; just
pretends to be sincere (p. 228). Once he has finished with his speech he reminds
us that he did not wish to philosophize (p. 253). Yet, it is not difficult to realize
that a large part of the Creed consists in a philosophical disquisition and,
furthermore, in a philosophical discussion. Is it necessary to emphasize once
more the intrinsical weakness of that "laborious and candid metaphysics'Y'" It
seems to be more fruitful to examine the Creed, taking it as the testimony of
what Pierre Villey calls (and Popkin adopts) "fa crise pyrrhonienne",18 which
Rousseau intends to overcome by Academic means. In this essay, I consider
only the first part of the Creed and I assume the hypothesis that the structure of
this work differs from the structure assigned to it by Rousseau when he says in
later discussions that the first part of the Creed is dogmatic and the second part
of it is dialectical or probable. I show that the first part is a brilliant exercise of
dialectical metaphysics, that is, a metaphysics which achieves only probable
conclusions.
Let us first recall the context in which the heated Vicar's meditation takes
place. The religious convictions of our hero have been shaken by a profound
crisis. When he later remembers it, he will be once more shaken by "the fear of
falling back again into my former Pyrrhonism" (p. 275). Does he intend to
regain happiness by means of knowledge? The Vicar is afflicted by two
important problems: God's existence and the fitness of a rule for his moral
duties. He finds himself in that same state, "of uncertainty and doubt" which he
considers analogous to the disposition required by Descartes for the search of
truth (p. 229). It has been often said that this analogy ends just in the moment
of his proposal. Yet, we should pay attention to the following differences: Rene
Descartes is a real man who plays the role of an imaginary Pyrrhonist.P while
the fictitious Vicar seems to suffer and behave as a real man . This impression is
not entirely baseless. As soon as Descartes finds his first evidence and his
criterion of truth, he abolishes methodic doubt. But the Vicar does not succeed
136 E. de O/aso

in eradicating the reasons for his doubt, and so the crisis, like his shadow,
follows him wherever he goes. The Vicar does not succeed in determining the
mark of truth, its criterion.P' because he is looking for a kind of truth that is
really different from the truth that Descartes looked for and found. These are
the Vicar's own words:

I love truth. I seek her, and cannot find her. Show me truth and I will hold
her fast; why does she hide her face from the eager heart that would fain
worship her? (p. 230)

Let us compare these words with the resignation at the end of the Creed's first
movement:

I have done all I can to attain to truth; but its source is beyond my reach; is
it my fault if my strength fails me and I can go no further; it is for Truth to
draw near to me (p. 258).

Rousseau has obviously failed in his purpose of establishing a metaphysics

considered as the search for first principles and causes (Aristotle, Metaphysics,
982b10). And as the Vicar shares Aristotle's assumption that to know some-
thing completely amounts to knowing it according to its first cause (idem
983a25), he therefore must resign himself to a topical metaphysics, that is to
say, a metaphysics that consists only of probable knowledge.
The Vicar begins by listening to the philosophers. The way he questions
them is rather curious:

I consulted the philosophers, I searched their books and examined their

various theories; I found them all alike proud, assertive, dogmatic, profes-
sing , even in their so-called scepticism, to know everything, proving
nothing, scoffing at each other. This last trait, which was common to all of
them , struck me as the only point in which they were right.

And after this mockery (in which plenty of doctrine is enclosed) we read :

Braggarts in attack, they are weaklings in defense. Weigh their arguments,

they are all destructive; count their voices, every one speaks for himself; they
are only agreed in arguing with each other. I could find no way out of my
uncertainty by listening to them (ibid. ).

He immediately refers to "the weakness of human understanding" but he is

speaking as a radical follower of Bayle. His apparent Academical resort to
"weigh reasons" and to "count voices" is notoriously fallacious : he has never
even dreamed of doing such operations. Pyrrhonism is at work here, as
isotheneia is based on the perplexing power of reason . Insoluble problems, he
says, are common to all systems "for man's mind is too small to deal with
them" (p. 231). Does not this amount to a Pyrrhonic reading of the philosophy
 The Two Scepticisms ofthe Savoyard Vicar 137

of his age?21 As we have already been instructed by our reflection on

scepticism's logic, we now wait in hiding to see what kind of reaction the Vicar
will have . Will he turn away abruptly from the opinions of the philosophers and
from all judicative activity as Pyrrhonians did? Or, following the Academic
strategy, will he choose a moderate solution?
His disillusioned reading of philosophers, his idea of reason, are Pyrrhonian.
His withdrawal towards the intimate tribunal of conscience seems to imply a
radical abandonment of any possible discussion, a sort of drastic Pyrrhonian
epoche. And yet, just at that moment the Vicar proposes a criterion according
to which one should prefer the theory "which alone explains all the facts, when
it is no more difficult than the rest" (ibid .). The Pyrrhonian crisis will be cured
by a typically Academic therapy. The epoche is thus mitigated and the Vicar,
although not explicitly, starts now discussing with his fellow philosophers.
Henri Gouhier makes a masterly reconstruction of the Vicar's interlocutors.F
As an Academic sceptic, the Vicar also acknowledges that his representations
have different degrees of intensity, and he admits as a rule of evidence all that
he could not honestly refuse to believe (p. 232).
"La crise pyrrhonienne" has therefore turned into an Academic scepticism
with cautiously established rules and a definite position in a tournament of
opposing probable judgments. Rousseau is also well aware that he will be
facing problems similar to those faced by his opponents, the materialists
encyclopaedists, but he is willing to show the greater explanatory power of his
spiritualist metaphysics.
Should we not be surprised by such unacademic terms as "articles of creed"
of "dogmas", that are often used by the Vicar? I think that those terms playa
dialectical role . If Rousseau remarks their dogmatic aspect, it is with the
purpose of showing that they are not in the least less principles than those
dissemblingly dogmatic principles of the materialists.P But Rousseau also
knows that they suffer from an extreme logical weakness. I now examine those
"dogmas".
The first one says: "I believe, therefore, that there is a will which sets the
universe in motion and gives life to nature". This statement has been deduced
from a general proposition: "no motion which is not caused by another motion
can take place, except by a spontaneous, voluntary action; inanimate bodies
have no action but motion, and there is no real action without will." But the
ultimate reason "to go back from one effect to another, till we arrive at a first
cause in some will" is for the sake of avoiding "an infinite succession of
causes"(pp. 235-236). It seems clear to me that Rousseau intends to show
indirectly that his enemies are condemned to fall into the same paralogism. But
still, the way he prefers for avoiding these extreme consequences does not seem
impeccable. Rousseau himself confesses that the dogma he has just established
"is indeed obscure" (p. 236). Yet, he remarks that it is still better than the
materialists' principle.
The Vicar's double strategy can be seen here at work. He uses the sceptics'
weapons when criticizing the dogmatists, but to defend his own position he
resorts to a topical philosophy that trades on its own weakness and the limits of
138 E. de Olaso

our mind. The Academic sceptic knows that his metaphysics is more true-than
that of the materialists He also knows that we have "an unbridled under-
standing and a reason which knows no principle" (p. 254). The Vicar therefore
says that his dogma has an advantage compared with the dogma of his enemies.
Does this mean to say that his dogma is true? Not at all. It is the best of them,
but a rather poor best, indeed. Its only advantage consists in "making some
sense". But then, is the materialist dogma a sophism in dictione? Indeed, this is
what Rousseau seems to be suggesting. By bringing forth a first cause he makes
his speech rest hypothetically in a referent, while the materialist's speech,
lacking this referent, falls into the regressus and has no meaning at all. But if
the Vicar pretends to avoid a paralogism, namely, a regresses ad infinitum by
use of this article of creed we should nonetheless remark that by avoiding it he
is actually falling into another paralogism: the postulate. The hypothetical
God, established or postulated by the first dogma, seemed to be good enough
for the sake of defeating the dogmatists within a logic of discussion. Yet, it will
not be enough to appease the Vicar's anxieties.
I now examine the second dogma. The Vicar admits, as every moderate
sceptic does , that "the mechanism of the universe may not be intelligible to the
human mind". Yet, he polemically adds that "when a man sets to work to
explain it, he must say what men can understand" (p. 237). The materialist's
metaphysical explanation should once more be able to satisfy semantic
requirements. The second dogma is: "If matter in motion points me to a will,
matter in motion according to fixed laws points me to an intelligence" (ibid. ).
This dogma is openly grounded on the former one and it is as "obscure" as the
former one is. But if one admits that it is perhaps impossible to comprehend the
world 's mechanism, then there is only one topical argument left: given the same
difficulties, my explanation is (roughly) more intelligible than my adversary's. It
is a matter of a victory of one opinion over another, of the best over the not so
good. But it is still possible that both could be wrong, for both are grounded on
mere conjectures.
Finally, I consider the third dogma: "Man is therefore free to act , and as such
he is animated by an immaterial substance" (p. 243). The negative ground of
this dogma is: "To suppose some action which is not the effect of an active
motive power is indeed to suppose effects without cause , to reason in a vicious
circle" (idem). According to the Vicar, this proves that: "It is not the word
freedom that is meaningless, but the word necessity" (idem). I think that it is a
mistake to consider as a vicious circle the paralogism of speaking about
relational entities while suppressing at the same time the relation itself. Yet, it
is more important to observe that Rousseau is once more using the semantic
argument and the sceptic's logical weapons. But he is not acting as a
Pyrrhonist: he is trying to overcome the materialist's positions by means of a
positive thesis, and therefore he is liable to other sceptic objections. Indeed, to
assume the existence of an active principle just for the sake of avoiding
objections is tantamount to falling back once again into the postulate. In sum,
the Vicar uses the sceptic's weapons for the sake of refuting the materialists
while pretending to satisfy their objections. Is he proposing a metaphysics? The
 The Tho Scepticisms ofthe Savoyard Vicar 139

Vicar says: "The jargon of metaphysics has never led to the discovery of any
single truth, and it has filled philosophy with absurdities of which we are
ashamed as soon as we strip then of their long words" (p. 236). However, the
metaphysicians are, without knowing it or without admitting it. the materi-
alists. But if it still makes sense to speak metaphysically, then the Vicar's speech
appears to have more explanatory power. I think that the Vicar has reasoned ad
hominem and also that he has been completely conscious of his position's limits.
Because if it is senseless to speak metaphysically, then both materialism and
spiritualism are equivalent dogmatic madnesses and therefore the isotheneia
appears once more . The Vicar gives up his "alarming show of philosophy: we
may be men without being scholars" (p. 254).
The most intimate voice, the voice that speaks in silence and is farther away
from any dispute, will then appear when the Vicar goes back to the level of
conscience after being displaced from it by the requirements of the art of
disputation.

IV
The Vicar intimately feels that God exists . He also feels that his soul is
immortal. But if he wants to go even farther and nourish the lust of knowledge
that disturbs the Dogmatists, he must then raise some Dogmatic problems such
as: "What is that life? Is the soul of man in its nature immortal?" (p. 246). The
Vicar's answer is instructive: "My finite understanding cannot hold the infinite;
what is called eternity eludes my grasp . What can I assert or deny, how can I
reason with regard to what I cannot conceive?" (idem). And since to affirm and
to deny are the ways by which we judge, then could I possibly judge? Yes, but
only about finite things . We are not confronted here with the Pyrrhonian epoche
which refrains from philosophy, but with the Academic epoche which refrains
from metaphysics. This limited epoche keeps him away from both Dogmatism
and Pyrrhonism.j"
Regarding the soul's immortality, he prefers to abstain; at least he does not
assert to it dogmatically. During his reflection, the Vicar imposed upon himself
as a methodic rule to leave in uncertainty "neither accepting nor rejecting" all
difficulties whose explanation was not useful for practical purposes (p. 232). He
tries to reach a conception that would be both reasonable and comforting
concerning immortality. Being unable to imagine how it could be possible for a
thinking being to die, he then concludes: as I cannot imagine how it can die. I
presume that it does not die" (p. 246). Surely, this is a provisional conclusion.
Indeed, once again we are in the field of topical logic. and not in the field of a
logic of necessary consequences. Both the Dogmatist who believes that he is
able to offer true demonstrations of immortality. and the Pyrrhonist who
suspends his assent concerning the truth of those dogmatic statements, are
not reflecting Rousseau's interests. His third position resorts to the concept of
presumption, which may be the most relevant concept in topical logic.25
Which is the epistemic status of the Vicar's creed? His relative certainty in
the immortality of the soul does not exclude the possibility of being refuted,
140 E. de Olaso

because it is not grounded in a necessary conclusion. Of course, this truth does

not appear to him as being most unprobable, but still its contradictory is not
necessarily false. To consider it as being presumably true amounts to consider-
ing it as being prima facie true or true until the contrary is proved (donee
probetur eontrarium). This is the reason why he who has on his side the
presumption during a discussion, then also has the benefit of assigning to his
opponent the task of carrying the burden of proof (onus probandi in eontra-
rium).
The materialists must now prove that the soul does not exist, and that if it
does exist it is then perishable. But, is it possible for them to prove this
contention?
And what about life after death? The Vicar imagines it full of happiness and
suffering and "that which my fancy pictures is enough to console me in this life
and to bid me look for a life to come" (p. 247). And in regard to possible
actions of God that he does not like and does not understand, he exclaims: "I
abandon my feeble reasons to thy justice" (p. 247). He even confesses to being
confused by the idea of creation, an idea that surpasses his limitations (p. 248).
He assures that he discovered the divine attributes according to consequences
that were forced "by the right use of my reason; but I affirm them without
understanding them, and at bottom that is no affirmation at all" (p. 249). Inner
assent does not belong to rational operation. What epistemic status do these
empty assertions have? Are they judgments? However, statements without
assent are not judgments. The Limitationist creed is the minimum of con-
jectural metaphysics required to mitigate the perturbation that arises from
those enigmas.
This extremely difficult point is displaced . without being resolved, by the
problem of the rules for guiding our conduct. Once again he refuses
philosophy: "Still following the same method, I do not derive these rules from
the principles of the higher philosophy I find them in the depths of my heart,
traced by nature in characters which nothing can efface" (idem). This is the way
of nature, and not of philosophical opinions.
I do not here try to discern the labyrinthine echoes stirred up by that inner
voice which is capable of speaking to both senses and spirit, and that changes
to conscience when it is the soul's voice and into passion when it is the body's
voice. It is important to remark here that reason is unable to solve the struggle
between those two silent voices. Conscience still remains. He who follows it,
boldly says the Vicar, "is following nature and he need not fear that he will go
astray" (pp. 249-250). Nature is speaking through conscience. (xxvi)

V
I have reached the main point of the Vicar's creed. Rousseau intends to point
out that goodness is not an essence or concept that dwells in an intelligible
realm, beyond the reach of our faculties: "The morality of our actions consists
entirely in the judgments we ourselves form with regard to them" (p. 250). I put
aside many interesting problems now to concentrate on the problem of
 The Two Scepticisms ofthe Savoyard Vicar 141

judgment. Is this judgment analogous to the judgment made by philosophers?

Does nature speak through judgments? And if not, in what sense, then, can we
speak of the Vicar's "Dogmatism of feeling", according to Belaval's attractive
forrnula?27
Let me continue with the Vicar. He is now resolutely inviting us to step into
our own selves. "Let us obey the call of nature; we shall see that her yoke is easy
and that when we give heed to her voice we find a joy in the answer of a good
conscience" (p. 251). He immediately refutes the materialist denial of morality
- conscience and prejudice, according to this philosophy, are synonymous -
and he also refutes the Pyrrhonian arguments according to which there are
only Dogmatic prejudices in respect to the essence of morality and a variety of
habits that is irreducible to reason. Now Montaigne is being accused: "Among
this amazing variety of manners and customs, you will everywhere find the
same ideas of right and justice; everywhere the same principles of morality, the
same ideas of good and evil" (idem). There is "at the bottom of our hearts an
innate principle of virtue, by which, in spite of our maxims, we judge our own
actions or those of others to be good or evil; and it is this principle that I call
conscience" (p. 252). This principle, therefore, exists independently of Dog-
matic opinions.
Rousseau has foreseen the reaction of both sides. The encyclopaedists will
tell him that he is mistaking judgments for prejudices and they will also -
willingly or unwillingly - strengthen the conclusions of scepticism about the
conventional character of all morality. Once again the Vicar is adopting an
Academic attitude against the Pyrrhonian consequences of materialism, and of
Montaigne's. Maybe among distant peoples who were discovered by European
travelers we can find some exceptions regarding to the practice of moral
principles, but he asks: "A few strange and doubtful customs, based on local
causes, unknown to us; shall these destroy a general inference based on the
agreement of all the nations of the earth, differing from each other in all else,
but agreed in this?" (p. 252).
It is interesting to observe that once again Rousseau is blocking the road to
Pyrrhonism, and this is preventing Pyrrhonists from stating their typical
dilemma, namely: what marks or criter ia can we count on to decide in favour
of one system of moral precepts instead of another? The Vicar talks about
"general induction", a somewhat sophisticated name for the old "majority of
voices" theme. But, is this an acceptable criterion? To affirm it, for a
Pyrrhonist, is tantamount to blasphemy. But not for an Academic sceptic. The
Vicar adds this creed:

It is no part of my scheme to enter at present into metaphysical discussions

which neither you nor I can understand, discussions which really lead
nowhere. I have told you already that I do not wish to philosophise with
you, but to help you to consult your own heart. If all the philosophers in the
world should prove that I am wrong, and you feel that I am right, that is all I
ask (p. 253).
142 E. de O/aso

The change of attitude is evident . Although he was an Academic sceptic for

the sake of discussing ideas, he now abandons his creed when dealing with
sentiment. The value of the voice of physis, the "proof of feeling,,28 is
irrevocably superior to the value of a proof sustained by all philosophers. It is
not a matter of finding out now that the testimony of all peoples - although
with some exceptions - is plausible; it is a matter of considering that the
testimony of conscience is irrefutable, against the opinion of all philosophers
without exception. Rousseau himself seems to realize that the coherence of his
speech is being endangered and he therefore proposes a solution. It is true that
acquired ideas exist and that they are subsequent to natural sentiments "for
feeling precedes knowledge." This is the first point. A comparison follows:

and since we do not learn to seek, what is good for us and avoid what is bad
for us, but get this desire from nature, in the same way the love of good and
the hatred of evil are as natural to us as our self-love (p. 253).

And so here we face the statement that, according to my point of view, is the
clue to understanding Rousseau's position towards philosophy:

The decrees of conscience are not judgments but feelings. Although all our
ideas come from without, the feelings by which they are weighed are within
us. and it is by these feelings alone that we perceive fitness or unfitness of
things in relation to ourselves, which leads us to seek or shun these things.
(idem).

If we accept literally the doctrine of this paragraph, then we must also admit
that it would be attractive. although finally confusing to talk about 'dogma-
tism'. Indeed, if on the one hand the acts of conscience are irrefutable and this
makes them remarkably similar to dogmas - on the other hand they are not
judgments. Is it possible to talk , therefore, about a dogmatism that lacks
judgments?
Now then, what is the criterion for demarcating between the boundaries of
philosophy (either Dogmatic or Academic) and Pyrrhonism? I suggested that
Pyrrhonism embodies the view that one is, in one sense, "dogmatic" when one
assumes a philosophical doctrine, that is to say, a systematical or nonsystema-
tical set of judgments (probable judgments included), as a guide for one's own
life. To submit oneself to those judgments, even if they are probable, is the trap
into which philosophers fall. Not so the Pyrrhonist sage: he avoids the trap by
means of the epoche. The Pyrrhonist silently retires towards what is natural in
us: impulsions, instincts , habits , and routine operations, and he refuses to talk
dogmatically about Nature.
Rousseau would have accepted this strategy so far. However, his originality
consists in having discovered that Nature is not merely a residual and passive
state unaffected by the anguish nourished by opinion.P Rousseau's great
discovery consists in listening to the Voice of Nature in the most hidden part
(hidden by civilization) of one's intimacy. Instead of preparing himself to put
 The Tho Scepticisms ofthe Savoyard Vicar 143

up with what is inevitable and adopt the Pyrrhonian mute intrepidity, he finds
that the voice of conscience is the voice of Nature and not the voice of men (pp.
253-254). This voice of Nature is the one that speaks in Rousseau's admirable
prose. It is a magical voice that says the same thing in everyman's conscience,
and it is also an unvanquishable, although non-cognitive, voice.
Conscience is, therefore, the rule of understanding and the principle of
reasonr''' Physis presents itself in conscience; it is the criterion looked for by
Pyrrhonians. Physis gives us the infallible mark.
The fulfillment of the requirements of Pyrrhonism produces, however, an
interesting displacement of its field of attention. Traditionally, the Pyrrhonist
used to attack philosophical Dogmatism. But in the second part of his Creed
Rousseau will raise once more Charron's flag and he will use his weapons
against religious Dogmatism, but not against the "natural" religion that
belongs to intimacy, established by Rousseau in the first part of the Creed,
and that seems to have been also accepted by the Pyrrhonian tradition."
I conclude with a brief historical remark. As all of you know, Kant was
fascinated by Rousseau's Emile. He read it passionately. Is it not plausible to
examine Rousseau's text as a relevant antecedent of the Antinomies of the
Transcendental Dialectic? Rousseau seems to be, from this point of view, the
last metaphysician to fall into the transcendental illusion . But he appears as
well to be the first metaphysician who acknowledges that his dogmas are part
of insoluble antinomies for theoretical reason, and that practical reason is the
only way of giving them a definite solution.V
All through this essay I argue that Pyrrhonism is not (to say the least)
completely reducible to Academic philosophy I have distinguished three kinds
of Pyrrhonism:

(1) Pyrrhonism which leads to paralysis or suicide, anyhow to self-

destruction: it is the legendary and popular version;

(2) Pyrrhonism as search for physis: it occurs in Sextus' exposition of

the ten modes;

(3) Pyrrhonism as a recovery of physis: this, it seems to me, is

Rousseau's Pyrrhonism.

I also remark that in the Creed Rousseau argues against materialists as an

Academic sceptic, and that he ends as a revolutionary settler of a new
Pyrrhonism.
In this essay, I only indicate possible ways of examining different kinds of
modern scepticism. Although I disagree with Popkin on this topic , his influence
(it seems to me evident) is everywhere present in my texts. It is his under-
standing of modern scepticism with which I argue most and which I frequently
undertake to refute.33 Whether my refutations are successful , I leave it to the
reader to decide. 34
144 E. de Olaso

NOTES

1. An earlier version of this paper was read at the Center for Logic. Epistemology, and the History
of Science, Campinas State University, Campinas, Brazil. in October 1978. It was published in
Spanish in Manusonto. Vol. 3. 1980, pp. 7-23. I am grateful to the editors for permission to use
portions of that article .
2. "Scepticism in the Enlightenment", Studies on Voltaire and the Eighreenth Century, Vol. 24/27,
1963, pp. 1321-1345.
3. See Giorgio Tonelli, "La question des bornes de l'entendernent humain au XVIIIe siecle et la
genese du criticisme kantien", Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale, Vol. 4, 1959, pp. 396-427;
"Die Anfange von Kants Kritik der Kausalbeziehungen und ihre voraussetzungen im 18.
Jahrundert", Kant-Studien, Vol. 57. 1966, pp . 417-456; "Kant und die antiken Skeptiker" in
Studicn zu Kants philosophischer Entwicklung, hrsg. v, H. Heimsoeth, Hildesheim: Olms, 1967.
pp . 93-123. "The 'Weakness' of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment", Diderot Studies, Vol. 14,
1971. pp. 217-244. See also infra note IS.
4. Noc. At. II. See my essay "On Hume 's Scepticism Again," Manuscrito, Vol. I, 1978, pp .45-73.
5. See Rousseau Juge de Jean-Jacques . Deuxieme Dialogue. in Oeuvres Completes . Pleiade edition.
Vol. I. p. S38 (hereafter referred to as 'OC'). Letter to Mereau. March 1963. in Correspondance
Generate. Th . Dufour and Plan . eds., Paris . 192W1934. Vol. 9. pp. 140-141, and Letter to
Beaumont. OC. Vol. 4. p. 991. See P. Burgelin. La Philosophie de I 'Existence de 1.-J. Rousseau.
Paris : 1. Vrin, 1973. p. 42.
6. Yvon Belaval must be credited with this witticism. See his " Rationalisme sceptique et
dogmatisme du sentiment chez Jean-Jacques Rousseau". Annales de ia Societe 1.-1. Rousseau.
Vol. 38. 1969-1971. pp. 7-21. At the end of the present essay I examine an important thesis
offered by Belaval in this article .
7. Discours de la Methode. 3. in Oeuvres de Descartes. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. eds.. Paris :
1. Vrin .1897-1913 (hereafter referred to as 'AT). Vo1.6. pp. 2S-/9. Diogenes Laertius, Life of
Pyrrho, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers. R .D. Hicks. ed., Loeb edition. London: W.
Heinemann, Cambridge, Mass .: Harvard University Press, 1950. See also Descartes' Lettre-
Preface to Principes de la Philosophie AT, Vol. 9B, p. 6.51
8. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. by R.G. Bury, London: W. Heinemann,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press , 1933 (hereafter referred to as 'PH '), p. 7: Sexti
Empiric: Opera quae extant . . . Pyrrhoniarum Hypotyposeon libri III. . . Henrico Stephano
interprete . .. etc. Paris , Geneva: P. & 1. Chouet, 1621, p. 2.
9. I argue in "The Meaning of Sceptical Doubt" (Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofia Buenos
Aires, Vol. I, 1975, pp. 27-37) that if epochs is 2 suspension of dubious (and so of perturbing) -
judgments, it is at least confusing to identify doubt and epoche.
10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Emile, Barbara FoxIey, tr., London, New York: Everyman's Library,
s.d., p. 23Q. All passages quoted in the text are from this edition unless otherwise indicated. See
also Letter to Voltaire, OC, Vol. 4, pp. 1070-1071 and OC, Vol. I, p. 879.
II. Ibid., p. 272.
12. Jean Pierre de Crousaz, Examen du pyrrhonisme. The Hague: publisher unknown, 1733.
13. See the exposition of the ten modes as a (perhaps Democntean) counterpoint of physis and
nomos, PH, pp.59, 78, 87, 93,100-103, 119, 123, 125, 128, 129, 132, 135, 140, and 163. Except
for the ninth mode he appears always in search of physis .
14. PH, I, 22-24.
15. I have labeled this attitude "Limitationism", see supra note 9.
16. G. Tonelli, "Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment", Studia
Leibnitiana, Vol. 6, 1974, pp. 106--126; see especially : "But as Locke, in my opinion, was in fact
an academic sceptic, French XVIIlth Century Lockeanism, being in most of the cases a kind of
scepticism, seems to me to be much more genuine than the British. If Hume as a sceptic did not
arouse much interest in France, this may well have happened because the 'philosophes' were very
well acquainted in advance with many basic traits of Hume's scepticism, which had been
developed within the local tradition, e.g, by Maupertuis", p. 112. Compare this with Popkin's
 The Tho Scepticisms ofthe Savoyard Vicar 145

claim in "Skepticism and anti-Skepticism in the Latter Part of the Eighteenth Century" in The
High Road to Pyrrhonism, San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1980, pp. 58-59.
17. P.H. Masson, cited by Burgelin, op. cit., p. 100.
18. Pierre Villey, Les sources et l'evolutton des essais de Montaign e, Paris: Hachette, 1908. Richard H .
Popkin , The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza . Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:
University of California Press, 1979, p. 43 et passim .; The High Road to Pyrrhonism, p. 229.
19. Notae in programma, AT, Vol. 8, p. 367.
20. The term "critere", as Bouchardy points out, was diffused by Rousseau ; see DC , Vol. 3, p. 1248,
DC , Vol. 4, p. 1518, and Gouhier's remarks DC , Vol. 4, pp. cxci-cxcii.
21. "I find that the Cartesians are ridiculous because they want to give a reason of every natural
effect by means of their assumptions, and I find that the Newton ians are even more ridiculous
because they take their assumptions as if they were facts: et us be satisfied with our knowledge
of matters offact without pretending to investigate how things are, because such a knowledge is
beyond our means ", Memoire Ii Mably, DC , Vol. 4, p. 30. In a footnote Spink considers that "this
statement is too Pyrrhonian for 1740", DC, Vol. 4, p. 1264. footnote 6.
22. Les meditationa metaphysiqus de J-J Rousseau. Paris; J. Vrin, 1970, Ch. 2. In the first Part of
the Creed. Rousseau's attacks are directed mainly against the author of the article "Evidence" of
the Encyclopedie who, according to Rousseau , is either Condillac or Buffon, although nowadays
is supposed to be Quesnay ; DC , Vol. 4, pp. 1129 and 1304.
23. Nouvelle Heloise, Vol. 6, p. 2; DC , Vol. 2, p. 708. See also Emile. DC, Vol. 4, p. 1513.
24. The Vicar is not dogmatic regarding metaphysic, as Rousseau says to Beaumm . He is a sceptic.
Already in his letter to Voltaire he "ingen iously" confesses that in respect to God 's existence
"the light ofreason" show neither its pro nor its con ," and that if the theist bases his feelings on
probabilities, the athe ist, even less accurate , seems to base his own feelings only on the opposite
possibilit ies. Furthermore, the objections raised by both sides are always unsolvable because
they concern matters abou t which we do not have true ideas" (in manuscript "2" there are the
following crossed out words : "such as infinite, eternity, substance , matter, mind , necessity,
contingency, and other words that mean noth ing to us"). DC , Vol. 4, pp. 1070-1071 . See also the
important paragraph of Rousseau Juge de Jean Jacques, DC, Vol. I, p. 879. The conclusion is
paradoxical: the best metaphysics is the spiritualist, although it is certainly beyond the reach of
human mind and may even be false.
25. See my essay "Leibniz et I'art de disputer", Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa, Vol. 5, Wiesbaden :
Franz Steiner, 1975, pp. 207-228. Rousseau had this in mind when he wrote his letters to Sophie,
the Creed's first sketch: " I agree that they are only conjectures without probability, but if the
opposite cannot be proven then it is enough for me to infer those doubts that I desire to state.
Where are we? What do we see, what do we know, what does exist? We are only running after
evanescent shadows", DC , Vol. 4, pp. 1098-1099; see Nouvelle Heloise DC, Vol. 2, p. 707; and in
the same work: "we don't assume that we are active and free, we feel it. They have the burden of
proving ('c'est a eux de prouver ') not only that this feeling could deceive us, but that in fact it
does deceive us", DC, Vol. 2, pp. 683-684.
26. "Here 1 have, therefore , abandoned reason and consulted nature, i.e. the inner feeling that
guides my belief independently from reason" , Correspondence generale, Vol. 3, p. 287, quoted by
P. Burgelin in DC , Vol. 4, p. 1517, footnote 4.
27. Belaval's essay quoted supra in note 6. Yet Rousseau's originality, about which he was
completely aware, lies in his refusal to identify moral conscience's voice and judgment. See
Nouvelle Heloise , DC , Vol. 6, p. 7; DC , Vol. 2, p. 683.
28. Letter to Voltaire, DC , Vol. 4, p. 1072.
29. See supra note 14 and PH, I, 193.
30. The acts of conscience would, then, form an autonomous doma in, extrinsic to reason. For
analysis of the difficulties implied by this thesis for Rousseau's own doctrine, see Y. Belaval, " La
theorie du jugement dans L'Emile", in Jean Jacques Rousseau et son oeuvre, Paris : KJincksieck,
1963, p. 154. For some problems concerning the interpretation of this notion of conscience, see
L.G. Crocker, Nature and Culture. Ethical Thought in the French Enlightenment, Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963. pp. 171-176.
146 E. de Olaso

31. "Although, following the ordinary life, we affirm undogmatically that Gods exist and reverence
Gods and ascribe to them foreknowledge, yet as against the rashness of the Dogmatists we
argue as follows . .." PH, 3, 2. Is not this passage a rough anticipation of the Vicar's program
concerning religion?
32. As far as I know no one has yet studied the similarities between Rousseau's and Kant's style of
rejecting classical metaphysics. It has not yet even been remarked either by Cassirer or by later
commentators. See Ernst Cassirer's "Kant and Rousseau" in Rousseau, Kant, Goethe,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945, pp. 1-60, and S.J. Al Azm's, The Origins of Kant's
Arguments in the Antinomies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
33. See my booklet Scepticism and Enlightenment, Valencia: Carabobo University Press, 1982.
34. I wish to express my thanks to Leiser Madanes and Pina Montoreano who helped me translate
this essay from Spanish and also for translating some of Rousseau's texts from French. I also
express my thanks to Richard A. Watson for many valuable suggestions concerning the
translation into English.

[An earlier version of this paper was read at the Center for Logic. Epistemology,
and the History of Science, Campinas State University, Campinas, Brazil. in
October 1978. It was published in Spanish in Manuscrito. Vol. 3. 1980, pp. 7-
23. I am grateful to the editors for permission to use portions of that article.
 E. DEOLASO

SCEPTICISM, OLD AND NEW

Scepticism, both as a challenge of today and a historical problem, has become

one of the basic topics of these last decades of our century. But "Sceptic" and
"Scepticism" mean many things to many people. The only way of preserving
the topic's philosophical potential is to redefine it constantly. As soon as one
attempts to reach a passable characterization, the fact that there have been and
are many different varieties of Scepticism becomes obvious. Among the
distinctions that have appealed the most to specialists is the one between
ancient and modern Scepticism. Not only have specific studies been devoted
to it,I ,2 but those which are probably the best studies of ancient Scepticismv"
incorporate the distinction in a significant and crucial way.
I think that recent discussions tend to overlook a basic component of ancient
Scepticism, and believe that acknowledging its existence may help us to draw
the distinction properly. I am also aware that my views about ancient
Scepticism, being as they are very different from those now current, are open
to strong criticisms. The concluding part of this essay contemplates some of the
possible objections.

I
This is what I suggest: among the ancient Sceptics, the Pyrrhonists practice and
recommend a closed investigation, while the Academics, like the modern
Philosophers (and Sceptics), practice and recommend an open one. As I
conceive of it, a closed investigation fulfills at least the following requirements:
the person conducting it proceeds according to an unquestionable method,
knows in advance what results it will achieve and also knows that it will always
achieve its results. In other words, the investigator is not prepared to admit
anything new into her investigation, and changes of opinion are a limine
excluded . For us, a "dogmatic investigation" is an oxymoron, not for Sextus
(cf. PR 1 198, 199,200,208). This could be due to the fact that "dogma", in the
ancient sense, has no pejorative tone: "dogma" means simply "doctrine" (ref. 7,
pp 1-2). I will not follow this new convention because it erases the difference
between what we call a "Dogmatist" and an "academic Sceptic".

147
R.B. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scept icism in the Enlightenment, 147-155.
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
148 E. de O/asa

The investigation of the Pyrrhonist is, in my opinion , closed and destructive;

the one of the Dogmatist, closed and constructive. We react against the phrase
"dogmatic investigation" only because our concept of investigation derives
from the academic tradition, which is also the modern one.
Investigation was an important ideal for the Fourth Academy. It was guided
by a constructive purpose and best begun when strong notions about the
conclusion to be reached were unavailable. Plato was much more admired than
the Dogmatists because of his tendency to investigate everything (Ac. 1, 46).
An anonymous commentary to the Theactetus (written towards the end of lst
century be) praises his investigations on the grounds that they ask questions
which do not imply any previous position. But the platonic investigation is not
merely exploratory; it goes from the obscure to the clear, from the particular to
the universal.
Investigation was an academic virtue . It consisted in penetrating everything,
in being able to present arguments for and against any given position and
abstaining from dogmatic assertions (Ac. idem.). Although normally no
decision can be reached between such arguments in terms of truth or falsity,
one of them may be more plausible than the other, and the use of this criterion
makes academic investigation different from pyrrhonian zetesis. Coupled with
this was the pedagogical practice of insisting that the student use his own
reasoning powers instead of accepting the side of the argument presented by a
dogmatic teacher (Ac. II 7-9). The object of academic investigation was
approximate truth, not the suspension of judgement. s But as the Pyrrhonists
defined themselves as investigators (PH I 1-4), it is quite natural to suppose
that they were particularly devoted to such an activity, and that it had similar
characteristics to the one practiced by the Academics, characteristics wh ich
nowadays we take for granted.

II
Zetesis is the word normally used by Sextus to designate the Pyrrhonists'
refutations, i.e. the argumentative activity they directed against dogmatic
doctrines. Their examination of sign is a "zetesis" (PH 11, 103; AM VIII, 143
and 394). It is also a "zetesis" their criticisms to proof (PH II, 182; AM VIII,
300) and to genres and species (PH II, 224). All the criticisms to Professors are
"zetesis" (cf. against grammarians AM I, 41, 43, 63, 71, 99, 119, 120;
rhetoricians, AM II, 46, 51; geometers, AM III , 6, 10; astrologers, AM V, 1;
musicians, AM V, 106 and AM VI, 38; logicians, AM VIII, 47, AM VII , 314,
AM VIII, 180, 182,394; physicists, AM VIII, 481; AM IX, 294, 436; AM X,
112, 169,247-8,310; and, finally, moralists AM XI, 39, 90, 110,203,257).
It is important to notice that the Pyrrhonists prided themselves in planning
their attacks with great care, as if contemplating military maneuvers or the
demolition of a building ( AM I, 40; PH II, 84). Descartes also recommended
his readers not to go through the series of particular things, because the ruin of
the foundations, "suffosis fundamentis", suffices to bring down the whole
building "quid quid Us superaedificatum est sponte collabitur" (Meditatio I). But
 Scepticism. Old and New 149

while he aspired to find a firm bed of rock on which to erect his New Science,
Sextus recommends us to attack the foundations in order to bring everything
down, as with a wall which one does not plan to replace by a new construction
(PH II 194; AM V, 49; AM VIII , 142,338-9). Sextus also uses the metaphor of
the citadel which the Pyrrhonists must besiege and then conquer (AM IX, 2.
Cf. Fit. 54c; Ac., II, 7,20; 24,76; 46,142. AM VII, 191-200; PH I, 215; DL II,
93; for a possible reference to the cyrenaics, cf. ref. 9, pp. 205-6) .
The Pyrrhonists' zetesis, then, is "methodical". Sextus not only calls it so (PH
II, 194; AM VII, 2; AM VIII, 141, 300 and 337a), but openly rejects "a-
methodical" zetesis (PH II, 21; AM VIII, 300). Zetesis is an activity, it is not the
work of the senses, which are passive, but of the understanding (dianoia; AM
VII, 293). Finally, and what is more important for us, Sextus criticizes the
Academics, especially Clitomachus, who argue with the Dogmatists in no
order, tackling each difficultyas it appears, and suggests such behaviour should
be replaced by the pyrrhonian strategy which, being both economical and
successful, is also extremely elegant. The Sceptics do not go for a prey at a time,
but lay traps in which many fall in one swoop (AM IX 1-3; PH II, 84).
I think that the difference between the investigation of the Pyrrhonists and
that of the Academics is by now clear, so I shall not elaborate on this topic (for
some initial remarks on the subject , cf. ref. 10). Obviously, this martial
sounding prose is shocking, but even if Sextus could have avoided it (cf. PH
II , 103), it is clear that Sextus knows (or believe he knows) what his target is: he
is clearly committed to destroy the sciences. And this, if any, is to have strong
beliefs. These beliefs are a prominent feature of his refutatory activity.

III
If the intention with which the Pyrrhonists conducted their investigations has
proved difficult to grasp, that was probably due to Sextus himself, who
characterized them as those who continue to investigate (PH I, 1-4, 7). The
Dogmatists think they have reached the truth (so they cease to investigate),
while the Academics think one can never reach the truth (so they also cease to
investigate). Sextus did not lie; he did not say that the Pyrrhonists "continue to
investigate, hoping to find the truth", although the context certainly suggests it.
The passages I have mentioned, however, show that the sole purpose of the
Pyrrhonists' zetesis is refutation. Such zetesis will continue for as long as there
is a Dogmatist left on earth, but it does not aim at establishing any truth (AM
VII, 25-6; PH II, 6; AM 1, 5). Sextus never says or leads us to understand that
Scepticism would change, and his message is clearly the one that delenda est
episteme.
The way in which the texts of PH are written is misleading, because saying
that the sceptics "continue to investigate" suggests that the object of the
investigation can be reached , at least in principle. This brings immediately to
our minds the idea of an open investigation ; but Sextus, while making us
believe he professed an open zetesis, really professed a closed one.
150 E. de Olasa

IV
Most interpreters of ancient Scepticism have accepted the version of zetesis
given by Sextus at the beginning of PH . Burnyeat and Frede are very good
examples of this tendency, precisely because of the ability they have shown in
uncovering many of the implicit assumptions of Pyrrhonism.
Burnyeat holds that (1) the zetesis of the Pyrrhonist has no end; and this
implies that (2) he is possibly prepared to admit that there are answers. But
then , (3) as ataraxia depends on there always being equipollence, i.e. there
never being an answer, (4) if an answer appears, it would put ataraxia at stake
(ref 3, p. 52).
Burnyeat's first point (and I think also the first paragraph of ref. 11) is a
paraphrase of the beginning of PH. But Sextus does not say that zetesis has no
end. What he says, in words that are both exasperating and slippery, is that the
Sceptics continue to investigate. This does not mean that zetesis will never end.
But in order to understand it one must admit that the Sceptics' zetesis is
destructive and has a very narrow objective. As I have suggested, zetesis will
come to an end only when, and if, dogmatic assertions cease to be made (cf.
AM 1,120; AM III, 10; PH II, 9).
Burnyeat's second point is that no one continues to investigate unless she is
persuaded that there are answers . This clearly implies that Burnyeat considers
the zetesis of the Pyrrhonist to be an open one.
I agree with (3): ataraxy and open investigation are incompatible. And I
disagree with (4): ataraxy is not at stake because the Pyrrhonist will do
anything to preserve equipollence, or so the texts suggest.
Burnyeat has considered - and rejected - the possibility of interpreting the
Pyrrhonist's investigation as a closed one: "He is not a negative dogmatist
furnished with a priori objections that rule out the possibility of answers as a
matter of general principle once and for all" (idem .). It is obvious that we are
presented with an extreme case, and are in a sense blackmailed into rejecting
such an unsavory model. Nevertheless, this reading is doubtful because Sextus
never implies that he is ready to be persuaded about the existence of answers.
Pyrrhonists preserve ataraxia at the cost of maintaining universal equipol-
lence: they never consider non-equipollent oppositions. Modern Philosophers
abandon this ideal of tranquillity and so they are free as regards as universal
equipollence.
The prevailing interpretation of ancient Scepticism, according to which the
Pyrrhonist's zetesis is an open one, has acquired in recent years formal and
explicit credentials." Frede states that there is no great difference between
certain Pyrrhonists and their academic counterparts, and he believes what they
share is, precisely, a similar understanding of the Socratic elenchos, a similar
concept of investigation (ref. 6, pp. 257 ss.). Frede is simply saying in an
excessively clear way something which many interpreters of ancient Scepticism
take for granted. The problem is that the texts do not back what he is saying.
Frede also proposes that the Sceptic does not suspend belief completely, but
rather practices a minimal assent to some beliefs. The Sceptic involuntarily
 Scepticism, Old and New 151

admits into her conscience some impressions, but her attitude is passive.
According to Frede, she is not involved in any way with those impressions.
"The Sceptic has no stake in the truth of the impressions he is left with. He is ever
ready to consider the matter further, to change his mind. He has no attachment
to the impressions he is left with. He is not responsible for having them, he did
not seek them out. He is not out to prove anything, and hence feels no need to
defend anything" (idem., p. 265). So one may say that the Sceptic believes in her
impressions, although in a very weak sense of the verb "to believe".
Few texts, however, support these proposals. And besides, how can we infer
that the Sceptic considers her impressions to be revocable? What the texts show
is that the Pyrrhonist never undergoes a change of opinion.
One may allege that the Sceptic does not have to admit that her impressions
are revocable, and not because she behaves like the Dogmatist. The Dogmatist
claims to be infallible, supposes her knowledge to be uncorregible. But a
Sceptic may admit into her conscience impressions for which she has no
Justification, and she would not admit being wrong because that would amount
to admitting she may know something. She cannot be wrong because she
cannot have a wrong knowledge - she does not know anything.
There is a sense in which a Pyrrhonist may change her arguments: when they
do not persuade the opponent. But these are external changes that have to do
with a closed investigation , rather than with an open one.

v
As investigation is one of the basic concepts of Pyrrhonism - if not the basic
concept- it is quite obvious that adopting my point of view would entail a
radical shift in the interpretation of Pyrrhonism now current. What is unclear is
the sense in which it also entails losing our attractive and interesting - although
maybe gratuitous - image of the Pyrrhonist.
Let us remember that the originality of Burnyeat's position consisted in
demonstrating, in a very persuasive way, that the Pyrrhonist not only suspends
the justification of belief, but suspends belief itself.3 I am inclined to think that
Burnyeat has been very modest in his commentary of the texts which back such
an interpretation: a dozen more could have been rallied to his support. II SO, let
us take this interpretation seriously and find out if the sceptic's suspension of
belief allows her to expect a charitable reading of his texts.
The majority of interpreters of ancient Scepticism (I leave aside Frede's
interpretation) (1) maintain that the ancient Sceptic suspends any belief
whatsoever (let us label this version of Scepticism "radical Scepticism") and
(2) they also endorse the general policy of admitting charity as a principle of
interpretation. I will argue, however, that these positions are mutually
incompatible.
Firstly, charity in general. The common and informal way of expressing the
principle of charity (let us call it the "sentimental" version) suggests that we
must always go for the strongest and most consistent version of the doctrine
under examination.
152 E. de Olasa

Although the point is not considered to be controversial, there seem to be

some exceptions. Take, for example, a doctrine that has for centuries been
interpreted according to the sentimental version, i.e, its coherent parts have
been emphasized and its incoherent ones brushed aside. In such a case the
doctrine has also been exposed to degrading into ideology. Then it could be
charitable to rescue it from its frozen and scarcely attractive rigidity, which
makes it liable to implement inquisitorial attacks, and to restore to it some sort
of vitality at the cost of disclosing several inconsistencies. Good examples are,
on the one hand, some scholastic interpretations of Aristotle, and on the other
Aubenque's attempt'f to show that Aristotle's is in many senses an open and
lively Philosophy - precisely because of some inconsistencies that may be
detected in it.
Charity in interpretation, then, can be defined as either an unrestricted
attempt to achieve coherence or as a subtle way of restoring incoherences.
Consequently, I believe we must try to obtain a more rigorous version of
methodological charity.
In his recent book G. Vlastos offers a view of charity in interpretation which
is far from being merely sentimental: charity's basis is the fact that belief is
dispositional. According to him, "to claim that someone believes p is to claim
much more than he asserts it at just this moment; it is to claim that this is what
he would continue to assert unless something happens to change his mind. So,
if we have reason to think that a person would not wish to hold both p and q,
and would not if he realized that they are inconsistent, then we have that much
reason for doubting the claim that he does believe both and would assert each
as his personal opinion; in the absence of direct evidence for the claim that he
does believe both of them, we have that much reason to reject the claim that he
does, and opt for an alternative interpretation of his words which preserves
consistency". 13
In order to apply a charitable interpretation to Sceptic texts, then, we may
try to find out if the Sceptic inadvertedly asserts a belief which is inconsistent
with other beliefs she holds. In such a case the interpreter has good reasons to
be charitable and reestablish coherence.
As we saw, however, recent interpreters maintain that the Sceptic refrains
from believing. But it is inconsistent of them to maintain a principle of
interpretation which requires the Sceptic to have beliefs and to maintain at the
same time the hypothesis that the Sceptic refrains from believing. This strategy
of interpretation amounts, in fact, to saying at the same time that the Sceptic
does not believe anything and that she believes something.
The beliefs we accept are the background against which inconsistent beliefs
stand out. But the strictures of the recent interpretation require us to assume
that the Sceptic does not admit any belief whatsoever. So we must come to the
conclusion that recent interpreters cannot - without incoherence - be chari-
table to their own image of the ancient Sceptic.
Allow me to make a passing suggestion. It seems that recent interpreters face
the following dilemma : they must either accept the principle of charity in
interpretation (which amounts to foresaking the interpretation of Scepticism as
 Scepticism, Old and New 153

a total suspension of belief), or they must persist in their interpretation of

Scepticism as a total suspension of belief (which amounts to foresaking the
principle of charity in interpretation). Let us consider the second possibility. If
we hold the principle of charity in interpretation in its strict version,
renouncing it appears to be severely damaging to any attempt of interpretation
of a philosophical text. In other words, if you admit that an author may change
his opinion any time, or hold inconsistent opinions, i.e. if the Philosopher were
to behave as the poet does, it is difficult to envisage the possibility of a
philosophical hermeneutics. This leads me to think that recent interpreters will
prefer to modify their interpretation of ancient Scepticism rather than abandon
the principle of charity in its strict version.

VI
However, it is not an inevitable decision. Apparently, the strict version of the
principle of charity is not the only one; recent interpreters may allege that this
version did not take into account the exegesis of ancient Scepticism, and that it
is unnecessary to link the principle of charity to the problem of belief. They
could also add that what the principle of charity demands is not that there be
coherence between the discourse of a Philosopher and her beliefs, but
coherence between her discourse and the rules that she has laid out for the
understanding of it.
I would like to draw the readers ' attention towards the rule that says: "of
none of our future statements do we positively affirm that the fact is exactly as
we state it, but we simply record each fact, like a chronicler, as it appears to us
at the moment" (PH I 4) (for more on the topic, cf. ref. 11). This is the
canonical text the Sceptics refer us to when we accuse them of holding certain
beliefs, because if you abstain from asserting that a fact is exactly as you
express it is, then you may also be said to abstain from believing it is true .
But in another key text of Scepticism we find the following characterization:
"Scepticism is an ability, or attitude, which opposes appearances to reasons in
any way whatsoever, with the result that, owing to the equipollence of the
things and reasons thus opposed we are brought firstly to a state of suspension
and next to ataraxy" (PH I 8).
There is an evident tension between restricting oneself to momentary
impressions and saying that equipollence always holds. And if charity in
interpretation must strive for coherence between philosophical discourse and
its rules, it is quite difficult to see what sort of interpretation can surmont such
an obstacle at its very beginning.

VII
The fact that the Sceptic always counts on there being equipollence reveals her
complete lack of charity towards the texts she examines. The Sceptic is not
charitable, she never acts as an interpreter, giving the best possible version of
philosophical statements, but rather uses them against each other in order to
154 E. de Olasa

neutralize all. The enormous difficulties in finding a coherent interpretation of

the Sceptic texts, coupled with the generalized attitude of benevolence towards
Scepticism that has characterized these last decades of our century, has
promoted a sort of heroic mercy in the interpretation of ancient Scepticism.
Never before has a philosophy so petty in its treatment of other philosophical
texts asked for (and obtained) so much hermeneutical abnegation from its
interpreters.
Unrestricted charity in a certain domain of the History of Philosophy,
however, may ipso facto imply the violation of the principle of charity in
another one. In our case, the heroic mercy with which ancient Scepticism has
been treated brought about a great deal of unfairness towards Modern
Philosophers.
I think I have prepared the ground for a reappraisal of the way in which
Modern Philosophy interpreted ancient Scepticism. The charge against Mod-
ern Philosophy is that it reduced ancient Scepticism to the suspension of
knowledge, and did not realize that the ancient Sceptic proposed the suspen-
sion of belief. My strategy has consisted in pointing out the various places in
which the texts allow us to attribute strong beliefs to the ancient Sceptic. The
case of the Sceptics' zetesis is, as I see it, particularly appropriate. Mine may
not be primafacie very fruitful as an interpretation of ancient Scepticism, but it
is also true that - the ancient Sceptics were sometimes quite open and explicit
about their strong beliefs (and other times quite ambiguous and obscure) as if
to pave the way for the modern reading of their texts.
If the Modern Age can be defined in terms of its struggle for an open
investigation, even at the cost of our peace of mind, I do not believe it was
preposterous of many modern Philosophers to consider that Pyrrhonism was a
kind of dogmatic Sceptic ism and that the acceptable sort of Scepticism was a
variety of academic Scepticism.

NOTE

I have greatly benefitted from discussions with Julia Annas and Myles Bumyeat .

REFERENCES

1. 1. Annas (in press) "Sceptic ism, Old and New", Festschrift for Gunther Patzig. Edited by M.
Frede and G. Striker.
2. R.H. Popkin (1992) "Scepticism , Old and New", in The Third Force in Sevent eenth-Century
Thought. Leiden.
3. M. Burnyeat (1980) "Can the Sceptic Live His Scepticism?" Doubt and Dogmatism. Studies in
Hellenistic Epistemolog y, edited by M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat and 1. Barnes. Oxford .
4. M. Burnyeat (1984) "The Sceptic in His Place and Time", in Philosophy in History. Essays on the
Histo riography of Philosophy. Edited by R. Rorty, J.B. Schneewind and Q. Skinner . Ideas in
Context. Cambridge.
5. M. Frede (1987) "The Skeptic's Beliefs", in Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Oxford .
6. M. Frede (1987) "The Sceptic's Two Kinds of Assent and the Question of the Possibility of
Knowledge ", in Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Oxford .
 Scepticism, Old and New 155

7. 1.Annas and J. Barnes (1985) The Modes of Scepticism . Ancient Texts and Modern Interpreta-
tions. Cambridge.
8. H . Tarrant (1985) Scepticism or Platonism? The Philosophy ofthe Fourth Academy. Cambridge.
9. L. Robin (1948) La pensee Grecque. Paris.
10. E. de Olaso (1988) "Zetesis" Manuscrito XI, 2 (Campinas, Brazil): 7-32.
11. E. de Olaso (1996) "Scepticism and the Limits of Charity", in Scepticism in the History of
Philosophy. Edited by R.H.Popkin . Dordrecht, Kluwer.
11.1. Barnes (1982) "The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist", Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society, 208 (New Series 28): 1-29 .
12. P. Aubenque (1962) Le probleme de l'etre chez Aristote: Essais sur la problematique aristotili-
cienne. Paris.
13. G. Vlastos (1991) Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher. New York.
 R.H.POPKIN

NEW VIEWS ON THE ROLE OF SCEPTICISM IN THE

ENLIGHTENMENT

In 1963 at the first International Congress on the Enlightenment held in

Geneva I brashly presented a paper entitled "Scepticism in the Enlightenment"
in which I argued that David Hume was the lone philosophical sceptic left in
the second half of the 18th century, ignored for his philosophical scepticism by
the philosophes who were sure they had found positive knowledge. Only
Thomas Reid and Immanuel Kant, I said, saw what Hume had accomplished,
and tried, each in his own way to avoid the devasating results for the
intellectual world. 1 I reiterated this in a paper I gave for the American Society
for 18th Century Studies at McMaster University a decade later.i
My paper, which sought to cover an aspect of the whole intellectual world of
the Enlightenment in twenty to thirty minutes was taken by some as a road
map for following what happened to philosophical scepticism, and to the basic
issues of epistemology during the 18th century. The scholar who did the most to
follow up on my initial presentation was the late Giorgio Tonelli. He said, "The
only survey of Enlightenment scepticism we have is a well known article by
R.H.Popkin, which provides a broad frame of reference, but which neglects
many details"." Tonelli proceeded to give many details in a series of fascinating
papers on various French and German thinkers of the period. His work has
been followed by that of Keith Baker on Condorcet" and Ezequiel de Olaso on
Rousseau' all showing that scepticism was more basic and more pervasive
than I had imagined, in spite of the scientific optimism and belief in the endless
potential progress of human knowledge by leading thinkers. Olaso called my
study a pioneering one, "the first all-embracing survey of [scepticism] of the
period'L'' He then proceeded to argue that I had missed the important forms of
scepticism in Rousseau's account of the Savoyard vicar.
Further research on discussions about scepticism in Germany before Kant,
and immediately after the presentation of his critical philosophy indicated that
there was much more than just detail to be considered." So when I was invited
to speak at a plenary session of the American Society for Eighteenth Century
Studies, I felt that this might be the appropriate time to reconsider what I had
said on the subject almost thirty years ago. It is also appropriate, I believe,
because I am preparing a collective volume of studies on the subject by Tonelli,

157
R.H. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 157-172.
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers .
158 R.B Popkin

01aso and myself, and because I am in the process of organizing a conference

for the Foundation for Research in Intellectual History on scepticism at the
end of the 18th century to be held in 1993 or 1994. [It was actually held in
1995.] I was unable to attend, but have helped in editing the proceedings which
will be published in the near future .] I shall try to show the problem of
packaging the various types and strands of scepticism in the period is far more
complicated than I previously thought, but I think my original evaluation still
has some merit, though it needs quite a bit of modification .
Three matters that have to be considered at the outset are first what is meant
by "scepticism" in this context, and second what prior sceptical traditions
carried through and developed in the period, and third which spawned
continuing sceptical currents into the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 18th
century scepticism, which had been seen as primarily a philosophical view
deriving from Greek Pyrrhonism and Academic scepticism, centering primar-
ily on questions about the reliability of purported knowledge claims, began to
be seen also as a principal weapon against religious belief. The term "sceptic"
no longer meant just a doubter about various claims to knowledge about an
external reality, but came to have as a major meaning, a doubter in the Judeo-
Christian revelation. 8
The sceptical traditions leading into the 18th century were first those of
revived ancient Pyrrhonism, in the texts of Sextus Empiricus, which was
published in a careful critical edition by IA Fabricius in 1718 and in French
by the Swiss mathematician Claude Huart in 1725,9 and the editions of
Diogenes Laertius and of Cicero in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Then
there was the tradition of the "fideistic" version of the new Pyrrhonism as
stated by Montaigne, Charron, La Mathe Le Vayer, Pierre Bayle, and Bishop
Pierre-Daniel Huet; and a tradition of mitigated scepticism stated by Gassendi,
by the moderate Latitudinarian theologians from Chillingworth to Bishop
John Wilkins and to the Rev. Joseph Glanvill, and by scientists of the Royal
Society like Robert Boyle.This culminated in the semi-scepticism expressed in
Locke's theory of knowledge, 10 especially in the French translation of his Essay
concerning Human Understanding. 11 One also has to consider the impact of
Pascal's scepticism on both religious and irreligious thinkers in France
(especially on Voltaire and Condorcet): and a concern about scepticism as an
important living philosophical tradition that appears in German histories of
philosophy throughout the century, culminating in CF, Staiidlin's Geschichte
und Geist der Skepticismus of 1794.
My earlier discussion was based mainly on a view of historical development
that saw Hume's philosophy as central to subsequent interest and concern with
scepticism. From the Anglo-American perspective, the 18th century has three
major thinkers, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. More recently Thomas Reid has
been added to the list, as an antidote to Hume. Histories of philosophy written
for the Anglophone philosophical public have managed to ignore the entire
French Enlightenment as having any philosophical importance.V Its leading
figures usually only get mentioned in this literature because they were personal
friends or enemies of David Hume . Only in Lewis White Beck's Readings in
 New Views on the Role ofScepticism in the Enlightenment 159

18th Century Philosophy is there any attempt to see the 18th century
philosophical scene as it must have looked to cosmopolitan intellectuals of the
time,13 with equally important thinkers in France and Germany to those in the
British Isles.
Hume influenced Kant. Of that there can be no doubt. 14 But did he have
much impact on the developments in France? Did the philosophes have much
impact on the Kantian and post-Kantian world? Did the sceptical themes in
these different world interact, and continue into the 19th century? Present
Anglo-American historical presentations jump from Hume and Kant to
Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, and see nothing of interest in between
except for a few logicians. After the 18th century Burne was pretty much
ignored in France. His Treatise was only completely translated in 1946. 15 Hume
remained important in the German world because of his impact on Kant, and
Kant's proffered solutions to the problems Burne posed.
In assessing the role of scepticism in the Enlightenment I think we have to
detach, at least partially, the question of influence in later times, and try to see
what scepticism represented during the 18th century, how it affected the major
thinkers of the time, and how it developed during the period. Scepticism was
regarded as a clearly distinguishable intellectual movement stemming from
ancient times, and having a recent continuous history from Montaigne and
Charron and La Mothe Le Vayer to Bayle and Buet. 16 There was an ongoing
debate by the opponents of scepticism about whether any sane person could be
a sceptic, or whether the view could be stated without contradicting itself. 17 Its
modern spokespersons interacted with the major philosophers from Descartes
to Spinoza to Malebranche to Locke and to Leibniz. The 17th century
intellectual world had not yet been carved up into just two camps - the
rationalists and the empiricists. The sceptics, and especially Bayle, were co-
equal contenders for serious attention in the Republic ofLetters with all of the
luminaries whom we now remember and study. Decades before anyone thought
of writing the history of British empiricism or of Continental rationalism, there
were historical sketches of scepticism ancient and modern.
Scepticism was seen as a set of arguments, and /or an attitude, challenging
knowledge claims of philosophers, theologians and scientists, ancient and
modern. It was also seen as both a defense of religion and as a potential or
real enemy of religion. From Descartes onward the leading philosophers spent
a good deal of their intellectual time, and their systems developing answers to
scepticism, which was at least as live an adversary position as Scholasticism.
At the very beginning of the 18th century Bayle packaged the best sceptical
arguments of antiquity and of modern times into a thoroughgoing assault on all
sorts of theories, and his packaging provided the Arsenal ofthe Enlightenment.
The French thinkers of the 18th century began with Bayle, as was also the case
for Berkeley in Ireland and Burne in Scotland. Hume, as I have argued many
times, was consciously wedding Bayle's total Pyrrhonism with the naturalistic
moral science of the Scots. IS The philosophes took a somewhat different route,
Bayle provided the basis for their rejection of the philosophies of the ancient
regime. They then developed their positive views from their reading of Locke
160 R.B. Popkin

and Newton, seen as limited sceptics, mitigated sceptics, who admitted that
there were narrow limits to what human beings could know, but believed that a
positive science was possible within these limits.
The studies of Bongie about the fortuna of Hume's scepticism in France. 19
and by Retat20 about thefortuna of Bayle's total Pyrrhonism in France, reveal a
most interesting development. Bayle and then Hume were heroic figures up to
the mid 1750's and then began to be seen as reactionary figures by the
philosophes, and as justifiers of traditional religion and politics by the ultra
conservatives. Diderot in his article on Pyrrhonism.f Voltaire sometimes, as in
his tribute to Bayle, and D'Alembert, began replacing the extreme or excessive
scepticism of Bayle and Hume with a modified sceptical outlook that justified
their scientific writings and activities.22 Turgot, once one of Hume's closest
friends and admirers, realized that Hume in his thorough-going scepticism was
really in complete opposition to the program of the philosophes for the reform
of human understanding and of human society. that Hume was in fact an
enemy of what the philosophes considered "enlightenment't.P
In 1768 Hume answered a letter of Turgot's in which the latter had said
something positive about Rousseau's ideas. Hume said, "I know you are one of
those who entertain the agreeable and laudable, if not too sanguine, hope that
human society is capable of perpetual Progress towards Perfection, that the
Encrease of knowledge will still prove favourable to good Government, and
that since the Discovery of Printing we need no longer Dread the usual returns
of Barbarism and Ignorance'V"
Hume then contended that events in England "appear a little contrary to
your System", and went on to generalize about the hopeless state of human
beings based on the Wilkes riots which had just taken place, Turgot replied that
Hume should not be blinded by little local events, and little jealousies and
should realize that both human beings and their knowledge are perfectible, and
that progress is inevitable.P Then Turgot in his last known word to his ex-
friend Hume, said "Adieu, monsieur - car Ie terns presse".
In assessing the way the philosophes moved away from Bayle and Hume, I
think one has to remember that the French thinkers of the 18th century were
first-class or better mathematicians, and that they really understood the
mathematics and physics of Newton's Principia, whereas Bayle was doing
mathematics Ii la Zeno of Elea, and was concerned more with challenging the
metaphysics of physics old and new than in appreciating the new scientific
world view of Newton and the Newtonians. Hume's mathematics was a
confusion of Bayle's and Cudworth's views on the subject, as Part II, Book I
of the Treatise attests. Hume may have thought he was applying the Newtonian
method to the social sciences, but he hardly had a clue of what the method was
beyond the simplest and crassest empiricism .
Though Keith Baker has shown that Condorcet, perhaps the greatest
mathematician amongst the philosophes, got his plan for applied mathematics
from one of the more baffling sections of Hume's Treatise, that on the
probability of chances.i" Condorcet and others saw the possibility of a serious
mathematical science of human problems. What most of the philosophes
 New Views on the Role of Scepticism in the Enlightenment 161

realized from Voltaire and Diderot to D'Alembert to Turgot to Condorcet was

that Newton ian science, and the sciences of human nature had to be worked
out in recognition of the limits of human understanding, These limits were
better spelled out by Gassendi and Locke than by the complete undermining of
the capacities of human understanding offered by Bayle and Huet and Hume.
Tonelli in several articles stressed the theme that a major concern of the
Enlightenment thinkers in France and at the Berlin Academy was the weakness
of reason . Tonelli showed that in contrast to usual interpretations of the power
of reason according to various 18th century thinkers, that most of the major
thinkers were concerned to point out , as an introduction to their knowledge
claims, that human reason was unable to know about a real world independent
of the mind. This view of the subjectivity of all knowledge was usually
buttressed by pointing out that Gassendi, Locke, Fontenelle or even Pascal,
had shown this. Locke's denial of scientific knowledge in the sense of knowl-
edge that could not possibly be false was taken as showing that what we could
know was only about our experiences, without being able to tell if these
experiences and our knowledge about them related to independent real
objects. 27
It is interesting that this sceptical reading of Locke contrasted with the
realistic version that Berkeley and Hume were criticizing, in which the stress
was laid on Locke's insistance that one could not doubt that there were
substances in which experience inhered , and that one could not doubt that
sensory experience was about some independent world. Berkeley and Hume
showed that on Locke's principles one could know nothing about the supposed
substances, material or mental, or about the independent cause of experiences.
The French readers of Locke took the purely empirical reading as what was of
course the case. They rejected Berkeley's immaterialism as silly, and Hume 's
scepticism as outre, as going far beyond what was required.
Within this recognition of the weakness of reason, one could supposedly
develop sciences based upon experience, and one could apply mathematics to
these to develop a system of laws that constituted meaningful and useful
knowledge.
One of the younger philosophes, Jean Pierre Brissot, in 1777 proposed to
D'Alembert that an encyclopedia of Pyrrhonism be prepared. When D'Alem-
bert turned him down, Brissot was ready to publish what he had compiled, but
did not do so. Instead five years later he published a large work surveying the
very limited amount of knowledge one could have in various fields."
Condorcet, the most optimistic of the philosophes with regard to the
potential progress of human knowledge, is interesting to consider in this
regard. Keith Baker extended Tonelli's way of reading the philosophes to
Condorcet, showing that, all the optimism notwithstanding, Condorcet was a
sceptic of sorts with regard to epistemology, but his sceptical doubt was only
part of the story. He had declared in his notes to his edition of Pascal's Pensees
that "All those who have attacked the certainty of human knowledge have
committed the same mistake. They have established (nor was it difficult to
establish) that neither in the physical sciences nor in the moral sciences can we
162 R.B. Popkin

obtain the rigorous certainty of mathematical propositions. But in wishing to

conclude from this that man has no sure rule upon which to found his opinions
in these matters, they have been mistaken. For there are sure means of arriving
at a very great probability in some cases and of evaluating the degree of this
probability in a great number".29
The sceptical side of the story Condorcet took from Locke's Essay. We
cannot arrive at a necessary science of nature because of our limitations. We
can observe empirically what happens all of the time, but not why it happens.
Even Newton's laws do not provide a guarantee that nature must behave in
certain ways, and cannot be otherwise. In the study of nature we are not able to
reach logical demonstrative certainty, such as we find in mathematics. But does
this lead us to the kind of complete scepticism that Pascal and Hume set forth?
The world may be completely determined, but we can only begin with what
we know, the empirical observations and intuitively recognized relations of
ideas. From the empirical facts we can induce laws, but these are only probable,
because we do not know whether or not nature will be uniform, and hence
whether the future will resemble the past. So, the scepticism of Pascal, Bayle
and Hume made Condorcet realize the limits of our empirical knowledge. 30
However, the development of the mathematics of probability allowed people
to formulate a mathematics of reasonable expectation, if one presumed that
nature would remain uniform. This mathematics does not tell what will
happen, but rather what human beings can expect might happen.t!
In his notes for his inaugural address to the French Academy, Condorcet
indicated that his kind of scepticism applied even to mathematics. One realizes
that a proposition like 2+2=4 is intuited to be certain. But can we be sure that
our minds will continue to function in the same manner so that the proposition
would seem certain in the future? The kind of doubt that Condorcet was raising
is something like the point raised by Hume in the Treatise concerning
scepticism with regard to reason . Condorcet seems to have been the only one
of the philosophes who read the Treatise and knew about Hume's scepticism
with regard to mathematicsj.F Mathematics then became slightly dubious, and
somewhat empirical (depending on the continuity of the way the human psyche
operates). Mathematics like physics and the moral sciences is only probable.
This sceptical conclusion is then turned positive by pointing out that the moral
sciences can then have the same sort of precision and exactitude as the natural
sciences, and the same kind of certainty. Hence all the sceptical questions
notwithstanding, we are able to know with certainty about the empirical study
of nature and of man and society, providing we accept that nature and man will
act uniformly.
The physical sciences and the human ones can then be constructed in terms
of probabilities. Our knowledge in these areas can grow indefinitely, and can be
applied to improving the human scene. So, we have every reason to expect the
indefinite progress of human knowledge, and the perfectibility of mankind.P
Hume with his basic doubts about man's ability to improve the human world
could write off the progress people in his essay on "The Idea of a Perfect
Commonwealth" as political projectors who could do much more harm than
 New Views on the Role ofScepticism in the Enlightenment 163

good .l" Condorcet, on the other hand, (who never mentions Hume in his
published works),35 spent the pre-Revolutionary years offering solutions to
problems like eliminating slavery in the colonies." During the Revolutionary
period he was one of the most active persons in the government, writing up
proposals for reforming education, law, hospitals,prisons, writing a liberal
democratic constitution, and so on, politically projecting until the end of his
career and his life.
Another side of our theme involves the anti-sceptical views of the time. The
l Sth century began with the presentation of the most forceful sceptical
arguments since Sextus Empiricus in the most widely read Dictionaire histor-
ique et critique of Pierre Bayle, and with opponents claiming that scepticism
was one of the greatest dangers of the time, injurious to all mankind because it
tries to rob mankind of its most noble ornament, its certainty. In spite of the
fact that mankind has made so much progress since the Restoration ofLetters,
Pyrrhonism, it was claimed, has reached its highest point, and has to be fought
against most strongly.V This theme, the tremendous dangers of Pyrrhonism to
/'esprit humain, was reiterated when Bishop Huet's Traite de la Foiblesse de
/'esprit humain appeared posthumously in 1723,38 and culminated in the
massive diffuse Examen du Pyrrhonisme of Jean-Pierre Crousazr'" over 800
pages, blaming the decline in morals, the financial scandals, and all of society's
ills on Pyrrhonism, exuding from the folios of Bayle, the authority of Bishop
Huet, and the new editions of texts in Latin and French of Sextus Empiricus.
Crousaz's massive counter-attack on scepticism was too unfocused to
achieve its aim. The work was condensed and reworked by Haller and Formey,
but whatever force it had was soon outdated by the appearance of Hume's
efforts, and by the translation of his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
into French and German by leaders of the Berlin Academy, and later by the
posthumous publication of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , and
its rapid dissemination in the French and German Enlightenment worlds.
Although it probably was considered a poor joke among avant-garde intellec-
tuals that Pyrrhonism could possibly be the cause of all of society's woes and
evils during the l Sth century, scepticism, in its weak or strong forms obviously
became a factor in the changing prevailing attitudes of the time. The weak form
of scepticism, the emphasis on the limits of understanding, made it a common-
place among the philosophes that metaphysical knowledge could not be
attained (since it required knowledge beyond the limits of human capacities)
and that traditional theology was nonsense, or superstition, but not knowledge
in any meaningful sense. The weakness of reason allowed for serious natural
and social science , and at most a deistic empirical theology, based on the
teleological argument, the argument from design.
The strong form of scepticism, that of Bayle, Huet and Hume,undermined
confidence in science, and deistic religion, leaving either religion based on
faith, or no defensible or probable religion/" Though Hume regarded atheism
as a non-sceptical view, a form of dogmatism, that no reasonable person could
accept;" sceptical arguments were extended to the knowledge claims of both
revealed and natural religion, leading to the surge of acceptance of agnosticism
164 R.H Popkin

and atheism among the elite thinkers.

Although the semi-sceptics, and the Scottish commonsense anti-sceptics
may have thought that they had successfully defanged the sceptical dragon, I
think there is evidence that another kind of crise pyrrhonienne was building up
in the last decades of the 18th century, which is explored and examined by
Rousseau's Savoyard vicar and by Staiidlin in the lengthy introduction to his
Geschichte und Geist der Skepticismus, where he deals with the impact of
scepticism prior to Kant, and with the new super or deep scepticism directed
against Kant in the first years after the Critique of Pure Reason appeared in
1781.
The Scottish critics of Hume insisted that it was against commonsense to
doubt the reality of what human beings experienced.V As Hume and others
contended the Scots did not offer counter arguments to refute Hume's
scepticism, but said over and over again that nature would not allow one to
carry doubting to the point of questioning the existence and reality of the
external world. This Hume agreed with, but pointed out did not answer his
arguments. Hence the Scottish position, as seen by both Hume and Kant, was
still buried in sceptical problems. However, the Scottish views played a great
role in the developing interest in and attitude towards scepticism in Germany in
the latter part of the 18th century.f
Rousseau, in the confession by the Savoyard vicar in Emile, and later in Les
Reveries du promeneur solitaire/" presented a picture of how one became
immersed and engulfed by a personal crise pyrrhonniene, as all one's beliefs
were cast in doubt." Perhaps more strongly than his enemy Hume, Rousseau
portrayed the frightening inner life of the doubter, which was only overcome by
accepting those opinions which seemed the best founded, the most believable,
the most probable, but which still could be questioned. The tranquility so
gained did not eliminate sceptical problems or sceptical moments, but the
doubting episodes were short, and could be accepted as just unimportant
vibrations in an ongoing life. In this Rousseau's solution is somewhat like that
of the philosophes. He accepted a basic sceptical attitude that could not be
overcome, but which did not prevent belief and action on some kind of
probabilistic basis.
Olaso, in a brilliant paper, "The Two Scepticisms of the Savoyard Vicar"
argues that Rousseau went beyond the usual Pyrrhonism of the time, such as
the Pyrrhonism of Hume, in relying on Nature as the solution or the way of
overcoming doubts. Rousseau's "originality consists in having discovered that
Nature is not merely a residual and passive state unaffected by the anguish
nourished by opinion. Rousseau's great discovery consists in listening to the
Voice of Nature in the most hidden part (hidden by civilization) of one;s
intimacy'v"
The attitude of the Scottish common sense realists and of Rousseau created a
climate of opinion in the latter part of the century, especially in Germany.
There without using the Cold War rhetoric of Crousaz and other rabid anti-
sceptics, late 18th century accounts portray an intellectual and social world
genuinely affected if not infected by sceptical questioning of knowledge,
 New Views on the Role ofScepticism in the Enlightenment 165

affected so that the lives of the participants in the sceptical world were severely
changed, their values and purposes questioned; a state of affairs that was to
continue for the next two centuries, and during which many different attempts
would be made to overcome the basic doubts, dispel the anguish, and find some
new basis for some kind of satisfactory certitude to enable lives to go on. As we
shall see, the discussion, especially in Staudlin's introduction to his Geschichte
und Geist der Skepticismus, runs over most of the possibilities that have been
offered in the last two hundred years to deal with this situation.
It is strange that a work written by a friend of Kant's, the first large scale
history of scepticism, has been ignored in studies of Enlightenment scepticism.
I have referred to it briefly in earlier papers, and pointed out that in 1794 the
author could divide the history of scepticism into two parts and two volumes,
one from Pyrrho to Bayle and Huet, the other just on Hume and Kant, whose
portraits appear at the front of the volume. Staiidlin's work is an interesting
source, but is more significant as a work in its own right, and as an evaluation
of Kant as a sceptic by some one Kant admired and was friendly with.47
Staudlin at the time was a professor at Gottingen and a preacher.
He began with the problem of whether scepticism is a system, an attitude, or
a set of arguments, in which he ranges over discussions from Sextus down to
Kant and some of the post-Kantians of his day. Then he considered the source
and origin of scepticism as a personal intellectual problem. "There are in the
life of many intelligent and thoughtful people times when the awakening of
reason and their own examination of the teaching that they had up to then
believed in, can bring about a condition of doubtfulness which will often be
painful, convulsing their way of thinking and their emotional condition. This
will be decisive in the formation of their character and their future life and
happiness.v" Rousseau's confession of the Savoyard vicar, plus Rousseau's
own personal statement about scepticism are then presented. Staiidlin next said
that there are few who are able, like Rousseau, to work out a way of thinking in
which the passions subside and a quiet scepticism takes over the mind, which
overcomes passionate doubt, and allows one to proceed." Instead Staudlin
claimed most people start their sceptical journey by questioning the religion
they are brought up in. From questioning dogmas, they then doubt revelation
as such, and adopt a religion of reason until this becomes dubious too. This
happens not just to individuals but to whole societies. The abbe Raynal was
cited as saying that Catholicism moves incessantly towards Protestantism;
Protestantism towards Socinianism; Socinianism towards deism; and deism
towards scepticism. 50
Staudlin brought the matter to a personal level and discussed what
happened to his fellow students and himself at the university of Tubingerr'! as
they sank deeper and deeper into uncertainty. Reading Kant just made matters
worse. Staudlin quoted at length from the descriptions of personal crises
pyrrhonnienes that his fellow students wrote around 1786, shortly after Kant's
Critique ofPure Reason had appeared. The first account begins with disillusion
with religious teaching, followed by thinking for oneself, and rejecting what
one had been taught, then going through something like the Cartesian doubt.
166 R.H Popkin

But the human soul cannot sustain complete doubt, and "soon reverts to
accepting some belief or it will end in total despair, madness and even
suicide".52 So the sceptic vacillates between belief and doubt, between hope
and fear. Staiidlin cited a second correspondent who believed in God, but was
unable to believe that he could know anything about God's attributes or will,
and hence could not tell if anything that went on made any sense. "In all our
understanding of God we see nothing but fog, nothing certain, nothing that is
more true than untrue and imperfect."53
Doubt of the certainty of one's original religion is usually the beginning of
the sceptical condition, but it can also develop in many ways with differing
effects. Some find serenity and certainty in natural religion, others suffer the
shipwreck of reason and only reach a safe haven in revelation.54 As an example
of what can happen to a person, the story of Uriel da Costa is offered. who
abandoned Catholicism in Portugal, fled to Amsterdam where he became a
Jew, doubted the Judaism of the community and was excommunicated, finally
begged for readmittance, was expelled again, and in despair committed suicide.
His autobiography indicates he became a believer in natural religion, but
Bayle, in telling the story, had suggested if he lived longer, he would have
abandoned that too.55 In contrast Staiidlin describes Cardinal Pellison who
argued with Leibniz, and deserted reason to save his faith. 56
The march from doubts about one's original religious beliefs to learning to
think for oneself, to questioning everything as one searches for reasons for all
human knowledge and for objective truth, can lead to genuine philosophical
scepticism, in which ones ceases looking for absolute truth, and accepts that all
is uncertain, and one can have only personal opinions.57 This kind of
scepticism and the sceptic who adheres to it Staiidlin saw as no enemy of
mankind. A more frivolous scepticism is used as an excuse for immorality and
debauchery. Scepticism, if adopted as a way offreeing one from all constraints,
can lead to something like De Sade's behavior, or to Nietzsche's rejection of
accepted morality.58
Staiidlin then went on to portray the social and political consequences of
scepticism. "Our century is the century of revolution in the moral and political
world and of the secret political orders." Conviction in accepted political views
and institutions are questioned and undermined leading to new orders which
are also open to question .59
The study of the history of philosophy can lead to scepticism. Huet and
Bayle became sceptics this way. Seeing the variety of philosophical views and
that the non-rational influences on philosophers can lead to doubt about the
philosophical enterprise. Similarly the more that has been discovered about
nature has led to scepticism about the real nature of things.P"
If there are many factors leading people into scepticism, what is its effect on
them and on society? Ancient scepticism claimed that it brought its adherents
peace of mind, and that the adherents would be conformists who would not
cause any trouble to society, since they would accept the rules and laws of the
society undogmatically. Staiidlin refused to believe this would work in the
modern world, and pointed out that Bayle, Huet, La Mothe Le Vayer,
 New Views on the Role ofScepticism in the Enlightenment 167

Montaigne and Hume accepted in the moral realm matters that they doubted
in theory?'
The attempt to make scepticism the road to faith is rejected. Staiidlin refused
to take the step that Kierkegaard was to make central. Perfect scepticism would
destroy both reason and faith . So Staiidlin advocated a modest scepticism that
regards metaphysics as open to endless doubts, but which accepts a kind of
subjective certainty. This is sufficient to accept the moral teachings of the
Gospel without needing theological justification. It is sufficient to challenge
dogmatic science, and to seek new outlooks on nature. This modest scepticism
becomes a constant urge to advance knowledge, and to deflate dogmatism.
Such a scepticism Staiidlin saw as the effect of Hume's views, which in turn led
to Kant's modest dogmatism, which will again lead to scepticism with its
critique of all previous dogmatisms. 62
The intellectual moral and social world Staiidlin portrayed in 1794 was
thoroughly infected by scepticism, challenging philosophical and religious
principles, and affecting acceptance of norms and standards in the social and
moral realms. Intellectually scepticism in various forms had taken over. The
sceptical arguments in Sextus Empiricus, Bayle. Huet and Hume undermined
dogmatic philosophy. The various attempts throughout the 18th century of the
philosophes, the deists, the Scottish common sense philosophers, the anti-
sceptics like Crousaz and Formey, did not succeed in eliminating scepticism.
Only Kant managed to deal with scepticism, and Staiidlin saw his efforts were
already spawning a new scepticism as presented in his own time by Schulze-
Aenesidemus and Jacobi. v'
The history of scepticism was offered as the vehicle for understanding the
current intellectual age. Staiidlin throughout his history deplored the malevo-
lent influence that unphilosophical scepticism could have on morals, society
and religion, while portraying philosophical scepticism as valuable for the
progress of human life and understanding from Pyrrho to Kant. This
philosophical scepticism was approximately a combination of the semi-scepti-
cism of the philosophes and the limited scepticism of Rousseau, but was hardly
the deep scepticism of Bayle or Hume.
Was this evaluation just one man's opinion or does it tell us something about
the temper of the times, and maybe about the import of Kant's philosophyr'"
The only study of Staiidlin that I know of is a recent article by John C.
Laursen'f on Kant and Staiidlin. The latter was not an isolated provincial
preacher. He came from Swabia, studied at Tiibingen, 1779-1784, (where
Schelling and Hegel studied a bit later) became a pastor, travelled extensively
in Germany, France and Switzerland, and spent a year in England. He was
appointed professor at Gottingen in 1790.66 He and Kant corresponded from
1791-1798, and Kant dedicated his Conflict of the Faculties of 1798 to him .
Both he and Kant were very active in the 1790's in opposing popular disruptive
kinds of scepticism. But Staiidlin not only favored what he called "philosophi-
cal scepticism" but he saw it emerging at the end of the century from Kant's
critical philosophy.
Even though nobody except Kant seems to have paid much attention to
168 R.H Popkin

Staiidlin, his picture throws light on how the Kantian revolution was seen at
the time. Those like Staiidlin who saw Kant in terms of the history of
scepticism, and saw him as a sceptic malgre lui, saw the 18th century ending
immersed in scepticism, and pregnant with new ways of dealing with it. Just
while Staiidlin was writing, Fichte and Hegel were beginning their intellectual
careers by seeking new ways of emerging from scepticism. Instead of offering
the semi-scepticism of the philosophes they sought to reach an intellectual
plane on which the sceptical problems were no longer so dominant.
Scepticism in the 19th century was a strong current that has not been
systematically studied. Hume was not a major figure until the latter part of
the century. The semi-scepticism of the philosophes turned into dogmatic
positivism. Hegel's bout with scepticism spawned a new metaphysical age, that
had to be challenged later on by reapplying sceptical arguments. New kinds of
scepticism appeared in the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and the
Russian neo-Orthodox theologians. It has recently been found that perhaps
the most important American philosopher of the period, Charles Saunders
Peirce, developed his fallibilist views after extensive study in the history of
philosophy, including a detailed examination of the texts of Sextus Empiri-
CUS!67
SO, contrary to my previous view, scepticism was not petering out in the
latter half of the 18th century. It was taking on different forms, and reacting to
different ways in which dogmatic philosophers tried to answer the sceptical
challenge. Some of its more popular effects involved undermining confidence in
the old orders of church and state in Western Europe, breeding a sceptical
"basis" for democratic and tolerant worlds if no traditional system of ideas or
institutions could be rationally defended.
Hume was the major presenter of sceptical arguments for the middle and end
of the 18th century. Others tried to mitigate the force of his complete
Pyrrhonism, and to show ways one could live with it, and still see possibilities
for the advancement of human knowledge. The closing moments of the century
saw what was later to be taken as a new stage of philosophy, Kant's Copernican
Revolution, almost immediate enmeshed in sceptical attacks, and interpreted as
another form of scepticism, or leading to new forms of scepticism. The
challenges of various post-Kantians such as Schulze-Aenesidemus, Maimon,
Hamann and Jacobi , sought to show that on Kant's terms one really could not
know anything about the conditions of experience or the world, But none,
perhaps with the exception of Hamann, saw the deep scepticism that this could
lead to. Hamann has read all of Hume, and had concluded that in the most
sceptical and most irreligious arguments, Hume really spoke as the greatest
voice of orthodoxy! by pointing out that one only knows by faith and not
reason or experience.
The 19th century began with scepticism still being the spectre haunting
European philosophy.
In the light of the above I would certainly no longer say, as I did in 1963,
"that the Enlightenment was pretty much a hiatus in the continuous develop-
ment of scepticism".68 Scepticism was an active force all through the period. It
 New Views on the Role of Scepticism in the Enlightenment 169

may not have had original presenters of the view or attitude after Hume, but
the tradition of Sextus, Bayle, Huet and Hume lived on , and had to be
addressed in one way or another. Scepticism may not have been seen as deeply
and fundamentally troubling as it was for Hume, but in modified form it was
part of much of the basic philosophical discussion of the period, As Staiidlin
contended the popular and elite intellectual movements were affected positively
or negatively by the sceptical legacy, And at the very end of the l Sth century a
whole new era of scepticism versus dogmatism was about to be launched in the
wake of Kant's supposed resolution to the crise pyrrhonienne induced by
Hume's arguments.
It was only when one thought one had found better answers, and maybe
better questions, that historians of philosophy from the mid-19th century could
package their past, so that the 17th century was just the philosophies of Bacon,
Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibniz, and that of the l Sth century just the
philosophies of Berkeley, Hume and Kant. Hume was no longer a sceptic, but
the end man of the British empirical trinity-Locke, Berkeley and Hume.
This might have been comforting if one saw the intellectual world as the
triumph of either British empiricism or Continental rationalism. But each of
these movements was soon to be confronted with sceptical problems , and so
the dialectic of scepticism versus anti-scepticism goes on. And as one of
Hume 's friends wrote, "The wise in every age conclude, what Pyrrho taught
and Hume renewed, that dogmatists are fools".69

NOTES

I. R.H . Popk in, "Scepticism in the Enlightenment", Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century,
26:1963, pp. 1321-1335 .
2. R.H. Popkin, "Scepticism and Anti-scepticism in the Latter Part of the 18th Century", in Paul
Fritz and Richard Morton, eds., Woman in the 18th Century and Other Essays, Toronto and
Sarasota:Samuel Stevens Hakkert, 1976, pp. 319-343.
3. Giorgio Tonelli .t'Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment",
Studia Leibn itiana, 55:1974, p. 108.
4. Keith M. Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics, Chicago, Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1975.
5. Ezequie1 de Olaso, Escepticismo e ilustracion, La crisis pirronica de Hume y Rousseau , Valencia,
Venezuela, 1981.
6. Ezequie1 de Olaso, "The Two Scepticisms of the Savoyard Vicar ", in R.A . Watson and J.E.
Force, The Sceptical Mode ofModern Philosophy, The Hague : Nijhoff, 1988, p. 44.
7. G.Tonelli, "Die Anfange von Kants Kritik der Kausalbeziehungen und ihre voraussetzungen im
18, Jahrhundert", Kant-Studien, 57:1966, pp. 417-456, and "Kant und die antiken Skeptiker",
Studien zu Kants philosophischer Entwicklung ; hrsg.v. H.Heimsoeth, Hildesheim: Olms, 1967,
pp. 93-123; John C. Laursen, " Kant in the History of Scepticism" in Martyn P. Thompson, ed.,
John Locke und/and Immanuel Kant, Philosophische Schriften , Band 3, Berlin, Duncker &
Humblot, 1991, pp. 254-268;and Danie l Breazale , "Fichte on Skepticism", Journal of the
History ofPhilosophy, 29:1991, 427-454.
8. See Oxford English Dictionary, entries on "scepticism".
9. Besides these editions there is a lengthy review of more than 100 pages by Jean Leclerc of the
Fabricius edition in the Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne , 14:1720, pp. 1-113.
170 R.H Popkin

10. Richard Kroll's discussion of the influence of Gassendi on English thought shows how easily
Locke could have imbibed Gassendi's mitigated scepticism . Cf. Kroll, The Material Word
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1991.
II. Done by Pierre Bayle's good friend , Pierre De Coste, who used the 17th century terminology in
French Pyrrhonian writings to express Locke 's theory of knowledge. His translation which
played such an important role in the Enlightenment on the Continent has not been given the
scholarly attention that it deserves.
12. Its study as been left to the French departments and the French historians. The recent
publication of a volume of philosophical texts by Voltaire, edited by Paul Edwards, is an
attempt to get Anglophone philosophers to realize this part of their intellectual heritage.
13. Lewis White Beck, Eighteenth Century Philosophy, New York :Free Press, 1966.
14. I put this in because in the 1960's I started a controversy about whether Hume ever read
Berkeley, and whether he was actually influenced by him . On the basis of a letter of Hume's that
turned up in Crackow, I finally wrote "So Hume did Read Berkeley", Journal of Philosophy,
61:1964, pp. 773-779.
In Kant's case the question is whether he read Hume's Treatise ofHuman Nature which had
not yet appeared in German. Portions of the Treatise did however appear in the German
translation of James Beattie, and in other works.
15. David Hume, Traite de la nature humaine, translated by Andre Leroy. A translation of Book I
was published by Charles Renouvier and Francois Pillon in 1877.
16. It is so treated by Jacob Brucker in his six volume history of philosophy, which was the first
attempt to place all of the modern philosophers in categories or schools . Constance Blackwell is
publishing a study on Brucker's views on the history of scepticism .
17. Cf. R.H. Popkin, " David Hume and the Pyrrhonian Controversy", Review of Metaphysics,
6:1952-53, pp . 65-81.
Bayle, Huet and Hume all addressed these questions. As Huet said at the end of his Traite it is
one thing to philosophize and another to live.
18. R.H. Popkin, "Bayle and Hume", in Popkin, The High Road to Pyrrhonism, Indianapolis,
Hackett, 1989, pp, 149-160 .
19. Laurence Bongie, David Hume, Prophet ofthe Counter-Revolution, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,
1965.
20. Pierre Retat, Le Dictionnaire de Bayle et la lutte philosophique au XV/lIe siecle, Paris :Les Belles
Lettres, I971.
21. Denis Diderot, "Pyrrhonienne ou sceptique philosophie", Encyclopedie, 13:612ff.
22. Volta ire, The Lisbon Earthquake, where he said that Bayle, "the greatest master of the art of
reasoning that ever wrote, has only taught to doubt". Then he went on, "What do I learn from
Bayle, to doubt alone? Bayle, great and wise, all systems overthrows, Then his own tenets labors
to oppose. Like the blind slave to Delilah's commands, Crushed by the pile demolished his
hands". On D'Alembert's views on scepticism, see G. Tonelli, "The Philosophy of D 'Alembert.
A Sceptic beyond Scept icism", Kant-Studien 67:1976, pp. 353-371.
23. Cf. R .H . Popkin, "Hume, Turgot and Condorcet", in Condorcet Studies II, ed, by David
Williams, New York: Peter Lang, 1987, pp. 47-62.
24. David Hume, The Letters ofDavid Hume, ed. J.Y.T.Grieg, Oxford :Oxford Univ. Press, 1932, II ,
180, letter 417.
25. Turgot, letter in John Hill Burton, Letters of Eminent Persons addressed to David Hume ,
Edinburgh and London, 1849, 163.
26. Keith Baker, Condorcet, From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics , Chicago:Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1975, pp . 135-155 .
27. Cf. G. Tonelli,"The Weakness of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment", Diderot Studies,
14:1971, pp. 217-244, and "Changeux and Scepticism".
28. See Jean Pierre Brissot, Memoires de Brissot, ed. by De Lescure, Paris:Firman-Bidot, 1877, pp.
99-100 and 166-67. I have recently been informed by Laurence Bongie and by my son, Jeremy
Popkin, that Brissot's original proposal has turned up, and it is about sixty pages long . I hope to
examine it and analyze it in the near future . [In 1992 I examined it in the Archives Nationale in
Paris, and have discussed it in a forthcoming paper on Brissot's scepticism .]
 New Views on the Role of Scepticism in the Enlightenment 171

29. Quoted in Baker, op. cit., p. 129.

30. Baker, op. cit., chap. 3.
31. Baker, op. cit. loc. cit.; and R.H . Popkin, "Condorcet's Epistemology and His Politics", in M.
Daseal and O. Gruengard, Knowledge and Politics, Case Studies in the Relationship between
Epistemology and Political Philosophy, Boulder, Colorado:West view Press, 1989, pp. 113-115.
32. On Condorcet's knowledge of Hume's Treatise see Baker, op. cit., chap. 3, pp. 139-155 and
181ff, and Popkin, "Condorcet and Hume and Turgot", pp. 47-48 .
33. Baker, op.cit ., pp. 44, 74, and 181-182, and Popkin, "Condorcet's Epistemology and his
Politics", p. 114.
One always has to remember that Condorcet's most powerful statement of the progress theory
and of the perfectibility of mankind was written while the agents of the Reign of Terror were
looking for him, and that he died either by his own hand or by execution just after finishing the
Equisse.
34. "Of all of mankind, there are none so pernicious as political projectors , if they have any power,
nor so ridiculous if they want it", Hume, "Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth", Essay XVI in
Philosophical Works, ed. T.H. Green and T.H. Grose, London , 1882, p. 480n.1.
35. See Popkin , "Condorcet and Hume and Turgot ". I could not find any evidence that they ever
met when Hume was in Paris.
36. See Popkin, "Condorcet, Abolitionist ", in Condorcet Studies I, ed. L.c. Rosenfield, Atlantic
Heights , N.J.:Humanities Press , 1984, and "Condorcet's Epistemology and his Politics".
Condorcet was the head of the Societe des amis des noirs.
37. This is what is said at the beginning of the review of Pierre Villemandy's Scepticismus debellatus
of 1697 in the Histoire des Ouvrages de Savans , 1697, art . x, pp. 240-250.
38. On the many editions of this work in French , Latin, English, German and Italian, and about the
furor that occurred when the work appeared , see Popkin, "Scepticism in the Enlightenmen t", p.
1326.
39. On the Examen , see Popkin , "Scepticism in the Enlightenment ", pp. 1328-1330, Crousaz has
gotten a pretty bad press from those who see him primarily in terms of the Examen du
Pyrrhon isme. He was also an important logician who works on the subject were translated into
English. And, perhaps his greatest claim to fame is that he was Edmund Gibbon's teacher when
the latter was shipped off to Switzerland to undo his youthful flirtation with Roman
Catholicism .
40. Hume at the end of the Dialogues has his sceptical spokesperson, Philo, contend that all of
natural theology comes down to one vague proposition, "that the cause or causes of order in the
universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence".
41. At least this is what he is supposed to have told Baron D' Holbach and his circle at a dinner
party in Paris. Cf. Ernest C. Messner, The Life of David Hume , Austin:Univ. of Texas Press,
1954, pp. 483-486 .
42. On the Scottish Common Sense answer seen in this context , see Popkin, "Scepticism and Anti-
Scepticism in the Latter Part of the 18th Century ", pp. 332-335.
43. On this see Manfred Kuehn, Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800 , Kingston and
Montreal:McGill Queen's University Press, 1987.
44. Jean Jacques Rousseau , Emile, Livre IV, and Reveries, Second promenade.
45. I think the best study of Rousseau in this connection is Olaso, Escepticismo e i/ustracion. La
crisis pirronica de Hume y R ousseau.
46. Olaso, "The Two Scepticisms of the Savoyard Vicar", p. 56. For Hume the voice of nature has
been covered up by barbarism, but is becoming evident in more civilized times. Rousseau 's
more anarchistic view about civilization leads him to rely on a primitive voice of nature
unta inted by the arts and sciences, by the so-called civilized world.
47. On the theme of Kant as a sceptic, see two recent interesting articles, John C. Laursen, "Kant in
the History of Scepticism", in John Lacke und/and Immanuel Kant. Philosophische Schriften ,
Band 3, 1991, pp. 254-268 , and Manfred Kuehn, "Kant's Transcendental Deduct ion: A Limited
Defense of Hume", in B. den Ouden, New Essays on Kant, New York, 1987, pp. 47-72. Laursen
describes Kant's relations with Staudlin, which led Kant to dedicate a work to him, pp. 255-56 .
172 R.H Popkin

48. Carl Friedrich Staiidlin, Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus, vorziiglich im Riicksicht auf
Moral und Religion, Leipzig, 1794, p. 39. My quotations are from a translation of Staiidlin's
work prepared by Rosemarie Bock. A different translation is being prepared by the Foundation
for Research in Intellectual History.
49. Staiidlin, op. cit, p. 51-62.
50. Ibid., p. 63-64 .
51. Where there was great interest in the Scottish "answers" to Hume. Cf. M.Kuehn, Scottish
Common Sense in Germany, chap. iv.
52. Ibid ., p. 74.
53. Ibid., p. 81.
54. Ibid. , p, 84.
55. Da Costa story is told in Bayle's article "Acosta", and in Da Costa's Exemplar vitae humanae,
originally published as the appendix to the debate between the Remons trant Philip van
Lirnborch, and the Jewish philosopher, Orobio de Castro. At the end of the 18th century, as
Spinoza was becoming a central figure in German thought, Da Costa was being seen as his
brave, heroic predecessor, and maybe even his teacher. Spinoza never mentioned his case or his
death .
56. Bayle suggested his scepticism was extended to religion as such. Bayle, Dictionaire, art . Pellison,
rem. F.
57. Staiidlin, op. cit., pp. 89-93 .
58. Ibid. , p, 96-97.
59. Ibid. , p. 100.
60. Ibid. , pp. 104-107.
61. Ibid. , p. 117.
62. Ibid., pp. 135-136 .
63. Staiidlin did not seem to be aware of the efforts of Solomon Maimon , which even Kant thought
constituted the most incisive sceptical critique of his work.
64. One has to remember that Staiidlin's History was written at the time of the Reign of Terror in
France, and the repression of progressive ideas in England.
65. J.e. Laursen , "Kant in the History of Scepticism", pp. 254-268.
66. On his life and career see P. Tschackert, "Staudlin", in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Berlin,
1971, Vol. 35, pp. 516-520.
67. Cf.Robert G.Meyers and R.H.Popkin, " Early Influences on Peirce: A Letter to Samuel
Barnett ", Journal ofthe History of Philosophy, XXXI . 1993, pp. 607-21.
68. Popkin, "Scepticism in the Enlightenment", p. 1344.
69. This is the original version of poem by Thomas Blacklock as it appears in Hume's letter of April
20, 1756 to John Clephane, in The Letters of David Hume, ed. lY.T. Gre ig, 2 vols., Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1932, 1:231.
 R.H.POPKIN

BERKELEY IN THE HISTORY OF SCEPTICISM

It may seem strange to discuss Berkeley's role in the history of scepticism, when
he (or his spokesperson, Hylas) proclaimed that he was the furthest from
scepticism of any of the philosophers of his time. Forty years ago in my article
in the Review of Metaphysics, entitled "Berkeley and Pyrrhonism",' I offered
the view that Berkeley saw himself as the one who could overcome the sceptical
challenge that was rampant at his time, following a century and half of modern
sceptical presentations, that took place after the rediscovery of the texts of
Sextus Empiricus, and culminating in the publication of the very popular
Dictionnaire historique et critique of Pierre Bayle in 1697 and 1702. Bayle had
drawn together many, many sceptical arguments, added new ones, and applied
them to various issues in seventeenth century philosophy, science and theology
up to the contributions of Malebranche, Leibniz, Locke and Newton.
Berkeley's Principles ofHuman Knowledge and Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous are each subtitled by the author as answers to scepticism; the
Principles subtitle states, "Wherein the chief causes of error and difficulty in
the Sciences, with the grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and irreligion are
Inquired into"; and the Dialogues subtitle states, "The Design of which is
plainly to demonstrate the reality and perfection of human knowledge, the
incorporeal nature of the soul, and the immediate providence of a Deity: in
opposition to Sceptics and Atheists". Berkeley, as his earlier notebooks show,
was well aware of the challenges raised by Pierre Bayle to all kinds of
knowledge claims, including those concerning real knowledge of bodies
through their primary and secondary qualities. Berkeley, using some of the
Bayle's arguments that appear in the notorious articles "Pyrrho" and "Zeno of
Elea",then contended that it was actually Berkeley's opponents, the followers
of John Locke, who would find themselves driven to scepticism because of their
distinguishing appearance and reality. Esse est percipi was presented as the way
of eliminating sceptical problems. Whatever is perceived is real, and appear-
ance is reality. Berkeley presented the claim at end of the Dialogues that the
"same principles which at first lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain point,
bring men back to common sense". This was supposed to show how Berkeley's
theory started out with sceptical arguments but then led beyond the doubts to
common sense and to Berkeley's form of immaterialism.

173
R.B. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment, 173-186.
1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
174 R.B Popkin

In spite of Berkeley's conviction that he had really resolved the sceptical

crisis that other thinkers were unable to do, his writings were soon seen by
others as David Hurne's noted, as "the best lessons of scepticism, which are to
be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not
excepted. He professes, however, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great
truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics as well as against the
atheists and free-thinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise
intended, are , in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of
no answer and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause that
momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the result of
scepticism'Y
Berkeley was labelled a sceptic very soon after his first works were published.
Harry Bracken who studied the early comments about Berkeley says that the
German theologian, Christoph Matthaeus Pfaff was the first to attribute
scepticism to Berkeley in his discussion in Oratio de Egoismo of 1722.3 This
led the Encyclopedists to say, in article "Egoisme" that this view is "Pyrrhon-
ism pushed as far as it can go. Berkeley [sic] among the moderns has tried to
establish it".4
In 1727 the Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay, who had been Cardinal
Fenelon's secretary, and was the leader of the Free Masons in France, in his
very popular Voyages of Cyrus said that egoism is species of insane Pyrrhon-
ism, and as he and others knew, Berkeley was holding a view almost like
egoism. (Ramsay, in a much more extended discussion of Berkeley's philoso-
phy, in his Philosophical Principles ofNatural and Revealed Religion, unfolded in
Geometrical Order, contended that the Berkeleyan fiction "end[s] inevitably in
Spinosian blasphemy, contrary to the pious intention of" its inventor." The first
books of Ramsay's Principles are devoted to refuting Spinoza, and arguing that
Malebranche and Berkeley, no matter what they say, end up promoting a form
of Spinozism.)
It is also of some interest to our topic that Berkeley's writings (as well as
those of his contemporary Arthur Collier) were published in a volume in
German in 1756 in which they are both accused of denying the existence of a
material world and leading people to scepticism.f This work, among others,
clearly connected Berkeley's views with the Pyrrhonian sceptical tradition of
antiquity. The translator, Eschenbach had originally intended to translate
Sextus Empiricus, and instead decided to translate two modern writers he
considered Pyrrhonists. Berkeley was also briefly included in the largest attack
on scepticism of the time, that by the Swiss thinker, Jean-Pierre Crousaz. in his
Examen du Pyrrhonisme (1733), Berkeley was criticized as a sceptic on this
point. "A modern author pretends to overthrow Pyrrhonism by denying the
existence of bodies and admitting only that of spirits. If he intends to impose
that way on the rest of men , and if he hopes to succeed in it, he has a very
wrong opinion; and if he thinks as he speaks, he does not give a lofty notion of
his good sense, and it is necessary that he suppose the brains of other men to be
as upside down as his certainly is".7
 Berkeley in the History ofScepticism 175

Harry Bracken, in his The Early Reception ofBerkeley s Immaterialism, 1710-

1733 presented a picture of Berkeley being rejected in the first decades after the
publication of his Principles and Dialogues because he was considered either
crazy or was a sceptic, or both." Berkeley was often interpreted by his
contemporaries first in the British Isles and then in France as being a "scep tique
malgre lui". And as Bracken showed, many of the early reviewers and critics
who attacked Berkeley had not actually read what he had written."
While almost all the thinkers in Great Britain ignored Berkeley or just joked
about him, he did become an important figure in the French Enlightenment.
The philosophes saw Berkeley's arguments as presenting a new and basic form
of scepticism. Diderot, Condillac, Maupertuis, Rousseau among others,
discussed his views, and related them to their own ways of resolving the
sceptical problems of the time. (They saw Berkeley as offering an extreme
sceptical view, and/or a crazy metaphysics, while they, on the other hand, were
offering "reasonable" sceptical views. They saw Berkeley as presenting a form
of "egoism", a purported theory advanced after Malebranche, contending that
only the egoist him or herself really existed, and everything else was just ideas
in the mind of the egoist. It is was alleged that there was a Egoist of Paris,
unnamed, who held this theory. When the French thinkers learned of Berkeley,
they immediately put him in this tradition, as well as in the line of the French
followers of Locke who were offering a pure empiricism. The avant-garde
French thinkers, from Voltaire onward, saw on Lockean empiricism and
Newtonian science as ways of criticizing the philosophy of the ancien regime,
of eliminating the religious control of their intellectual world, and as a way of
advancing new social and political proposals. It was in terms of the sceptical
finale of Malebranche's philosophy and the impact of Locke's philosophy, in
the somewhat sceptical interpretation, that Berkeley's ideas were seen as
relevant to the concerns of the philosophes.
Diderot's article, "Pyrrhonisme" in the Encyclopedic seems to be driven from
a tribute to Bayle to a condemnation of Berkeley as leading beyond Baylean
scepticism to a total scepticism. It is an article that Diderot revised a great deal
because of censorship problems. In the final version he saw that a view like
Berkeley's about all of our knowledge being perceptions would lead to a view
that we, ourselves, were just a bundle of perceptions.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau first referred to Berkeley in his 1750 Discourse on the
arts and sciences, as a philosopher who claimed that there are no bodies, and
that all is just representations. 10 In a later statement he gave vent to the usual
French Enlightenment reading of Berkeley's achievement. In his letter to M. de
Franquieres of 1769, Rousseau said, "while all of modern philosophy rejects
spirits, suddenly Bishop Berkeley appears and sustains that there are no
bodies". How can we answer "ce terrible logicien". If we withdraw the interior
feeling, our sentiments, then I defy all the modern philosophers together to
prove to Berkeley that there are any bodies".11
In the more detailed theories of knowledge that were first proposed by
Condillac in his Essai sur les origines de la connaissance humaine 1746 and
Traite des Systemes 1749, and Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles, 1749, and
176 R.H Popkin

Maupertius's inaugural address to the Berlin Academy, Berkeley's views are

seriously discussed.
In Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles, after arguing that Condillac's explana-
tion of how our knowledge originated was really presenting a kind of idealism,
Diderot then strongly suggested that Condillac should study Berkeley's
Dialogues. Diderot told him that he would find there some very good
observations in line with Condillac's theory. But this kind of idealism deserves
to be rejected, Diderot insisted. The Berkeleian hypothesis is intriguing not just
because of its singularity, but more because of the difficulty of refuting its
principles. However, Diderot claimed both Condillac and Berkeley offered the
view that "essence", "matter", "substance" provide no illumination to our
minds. but they gave no understanding of what is really in the world. They
both held the view, that Diderot also agreed with, namely that when we look
into the heavens and into the depths, we never get away from ourselves. It is
only our own thoughts that we are aware of. "This is the conclusion of the first
dialogue of Berkeley, and the basis of his whole system."12 Diderot rejected this
however, and developed his empirically based materialist view instead.
Condillac, in his next major work, Traite des Sensations, of 1754, discussed
Berkeley's views in connection with the basic empirical question raised by the
Molyneux problem, and asserted that Berkeley was the first to say that sight, by
itself, cannot judge situations, distances and dimensions. In Condillac's next
work , Traite des Animaux of 1755, there is a long note at the beginning
comparing Count Buffon's view and that of Berkeley on the same matters.
Unlike Diderot, Condillac liked Berkeley's pure empiricism, and did not see it
leading to a fanciful metaphysics. Instead Condillac's limited his debt to
Berkeley to the statement of a non-metaphysical phenomenalism.
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis was a major figure at the time, who
became President of the Berlin Academy in the mid 1740's. He has been little
studied in recent decades. Giorgio Tonelli, in the years before his early death,
was writing a study of Maupertius's ideas, as part of a history of scepticism in
the eighteenth century that he was preparing. Maupertius developed an even
more thoroughgoing phenomenalism and scepticism about metaphysics than
his contemporaries, using some of Berkeley's views. He knew Berkeley's
Dialogues and probably also Siris by the time he began developing his theory.
In his address of 1748, he was happy to compare his own immaterialism, based
on developing the implications of recognizing that all that we know are our
own perceptions, with the theory of the Irish philosopher.
The little known philosophe, Jean-Pierre Changeux, 1740-1800, probably
developed the most complete empirical scepticism in which Berkeley played a
role. His Traite des Extremes, ou des elements de la science de la realite, 1769,
was praised by D'Alembert, Condorcet, Condillac and Buffon. Changeux went
beyond Locke or Condillac in giving up any attempt to establish any truth that
went beyond the phenomenal, or purely mental world. He contended that we
know only our sensations, which do not deceive. However, we cannot even
know whether there are realities that are external to us, or whether besides
ourselves there is a God. In his discussion Changeux refers to Berkeley, and
 Berkeley in the History ofScepticism 177

obviously accepts much of Berkeley's view except for his spiritology and his
theology. 13
The phenomenalist beginning of a theory of knowledge was the view of
Condillac, Diderot, Maupertius and Changeux, and many others, and it was an
essential part of their special kind of scepticism. However, the Berkeleyan
theory that developed from this phenomenalism was seen as a "systeme
extravagant" which Diderot insisted could only have its origin among those
who were blind.
Among these French thinkers Berkeley was regarded as much more im-
portant in the discussion of the theory of knowledge and of scepticism than was
David Hume. The phi/osophes sought solutions for the problems posed by
Berkeley rather than those raised by Hume in his Treatise or his first Enquiry. It
is in the German philosophical literature, before and after Kant, that Hume
looms as a major figure in the history of scepticism, and Berkeley appears as
just a little amusing dialectician .
In 1963 I presented a paper at the first international congress on the
Enlightenment on "Scepticism in the Enlightenment". In it I contended that
Hume was the main , and possibly the only sceptic in the latter part of the 18th
century. 14 The late Giorgio Tonelli, who was present at my lecture, said years
later that "the only survey of Enlightenment scepticism we have is a well known
article by R.H. Popkin , which provides a broad frame of reference, but which
neglects many details ". 15 Tonelli then preceded in a series of excellent scholarly
articles to produce the details, as well as an exciting picture of the kinds of
scepticism that prevailed among the most significant figures of the time in
France and Germany. In the historical framework that he presented, some of
the fundamental theses of this French Enlightenment empirical scepticism were
quite close to some of Berkeley's well-known views. In Tonelli's list of the basic
characteristics of the academic (rather than Pyrrhonian) brand of scepticism
that developed among the French thinkers, he listed as generally held theses by
these philosophers (1) we cannot know things as they are in themselves-all we
can know are our own ideas, and they do not represent the real essence of their
objects; (2) we do not know what matter and spirit are in themselves; (3) there
is no proof for the real existence of bodies, (4) of other finite spirits; among the
central views of these thinkers . 16
A possible explanation of this apparently strange state of affairs, namely that
Berkeley, rather than Hume, was regarded as a central figure in the discussions
of this kind of scepticism, may be the following: Hume was a personal friend of
the phi/osophes, having met many of them when he was an English diplomat in
Paris 1763-5. Even earlier he had become the darling of the French Enlight-
enment figures, and continued in this state up to the time of his sad and
unfortunate involvement with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Shortly after Hume had
written up and circulated his own version of what caused the contretemps
between himself and Rousseau, he was dropped by Turgot who had been one of
his best friends in France. After reading Hume 's comments on recent events,
Turgot realized that Hume was really not on the side of the phi/osophes, was not
actually a believer in their view of infinite perfectibility of mankind, and the
178 R.B Popkin

continual improvement of the human scene. He was known among the

phi/osophes principally for his essays on political, moral and social questions,
rather than his epistemology, and for his historical writings, rather than his
scepticism. (Voltaire, however, did address him as "un vrai philosophe".) The
central formulation of the problem of knowledge in the French Enlightenment
occurs in the discussion first by Voltaire in his exposition of Newtonianism,
and by Condillac, Diderot, and then by Rousseau, starting in 1746. They were
very concerned to understand the origins of human knowledge, including the
process by which it is actually acquired. They worked out their answers starting
from Locke's empirical system, as expressed in the quite sceptical French
translation of Pierre Coste, a good friend of Pierre Bayle. The phi/osophes saw
Locke as having freed them from both the need for any metaphysics and from
any of the then accepted dogmatisms by his semi-sceptical view of the limits of
our knowledge, and his denial that we could attain any real science, in the
Aristotelian sense, about anything. Berkeley was taken by the phi/osophes, as
he himself wanted to be read , as contributing to developing certain important
conclusions from Locke's empiricism. Berkeley's new theory of vision was
taken most seriously and was part of the long running French discussion of the
Molyneux problem concerning what a person blind from birth would see and
recognize if given sight.
Voltaire was the only one of the philosophes who had actually met Berkeley
in person. He encountered him when he was in England in the mid 1720's, and
has several conversations with him!" (and was apparently somewhat surprised
to find that Berkeley really did believe that matter did not exist). Voltaire used a
fair amount of material from Berkeley's New Theory of Vision and Alciphron
(both works were published in French in 1736), in his Efemens de fa ph ilosophie
de Newton, especially in connection with the empirical questions raised by the
Molyneux problem and Locke's comments upon it. In fact Voltaire in the
Efemens just printed some long passages from Berkeley's text verbatim. And
some of Voltaire's comments about Berkeley are also cited verbatim in
D'Alembert's article on the senses in the Encyclopedie.P Later on Voltaire said
that he had been criticized by various English philosophical and scientific
writers because he accepted Berkeley's criticisms of Newton and the New-
tonians about mathematics. Voltaire also defended Berkeley's character when
he was nastily criticized by the Jesuit Pierre Desfontaines. Berkeley's mis-
sionary work in America was advanced by Voltaire to show how good the
Bishop really was. Alciphron was portrayed as "a saintly book".19
Voltaire was more critical of Berkeley's reasons for denying that bodies exist.
The French phi/osophe started off his article "Corps" with a brief statement of
Zeno of Elea's view denying the existence of bodies. This was followed
immediately by a detailed discussion of the views of the Bishop of Cloyne who
"is the latest to claim to prove that bodies do not exist". Voltaire then went over
Berkeley's reasons for denying that secondary and then primary qualities can
belong to external objects, and then commented that he did not believe that
objects depended on one's perceptions of them. "Le paradoxe de Berkeley ne
vaut pas la peine d'etre refute." After showing how Philonous led Hylas to
 Berkeley in the History ofScepticism 179

disown his original realistic views, Voltaire offered a sceptical way of avoiding
Berkeley's conclusion. Hylas ought to have said that we know nothing about
this extended, solid, divisible, mobile , figured substance. We know no more
about the thinking feeling and willing subject, but this does not diminish the
existence of this subject since it has essential properties of which it cannot be
deprived. (Voltaire gave no indication about how he combined the avowed
scepticism about what we can know with his insistence that there were mental
and physical substances nonetheless.)
Berkeley's Three dialogues appeared in French in 1750. Alciphron, the New
Theory of Vision and Siris also were translated, the latter by one of Berkeley's
few admirers, the French Protestant pastor in London, David Renaud
Bouiller.i'' Points in the Dialogues, were discussed by Diderot in his Lettres
sur les aveugles. In the range of significant works on the theory of knowledge
written by French Enlightenment figures from 1746-1760+, Berkeley was of
some importance. Beginning with Condillac, the Irish philosopher is cited and
discussed. He also appears in the formulations of Diderot, d'Alembert,
Maupertius, Turgot, Changeux, Rousseau, Condorcet and J.P. Brissot, the
leader of the Girondins, among others.
Tonelli also presented his case about the character of French scepticism by
pointing out that the leading French Enlightenment sceptics were concerned to
show not only the power of reason, but also to show the weakness of reason. To
indicate the latter they stressed that there were limits of human knowledge.P
Condorcet in his survey of the progress of the human mind, written close to the
end of the l Sth century, praised Locke as the first one to set out the limits to
what human beings could know. 22
Several of these French thinkers were phenomenalists, who were concerned
to show how all of our knowledge starts from phenomena, and can be
accounted for in terms of phenomena.P The great thought projects that were
set out by Condillac, trying to show how all knowledge can be built up first
from the sense of touch, and then the other senses, and by Diderot, starting
with the experiences of blind persons, offered the most developed and detailed
empirical accounts of knowledge of the time. In the light of these views,
Berkeley's empirical theory was in accord with what the philosophes were
trying to accomplish. However, in order to make clear the virtues of their own
versions of constructive scepticism, the French philosophers used Berkeley's
strange conclusions to point out the lunacy that had to be avoided by the
philosophes. They combined what they regarded as the truly sceptical side of
Locke's views along with Gassendi's via media between scepticism and
dogmatism, thereby avoiding the complete Pyrrhonian scepticism of Bayle or
the flight into metaphysical fantasy of Berkeley. So, Berkeley's views were
needed, or at least were used, first as part of the exposition of their sceptical
empiricism, and then to delimit their views, and to show that they did not go to
excess, as happened in Bishop Berkeley's case.
The two French thinkers who devoted the most energy to discussing
Berkeley's views were Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, born in 1727, the impor-
tant economist, mathematician and political reform figure under Louis XVI ,
180 R.B Popkin

and Jean Pierre Brissot, the liberal journalist-philosopher who became the
leader of the Girondins during the Revolution.
From early in his intellectual career, Turgot felt it necessary to fight against
Berkeley's theory and to defend a kind of hypothetical materialism. Turgot
discussed Berkeley in two letters of 1750 written to the abbe de Cice about the
nature of our knowledge and about the faults in Berkeley's theory" Then he
further offered his criticism of Berkeley's philosophy in the article "Existence"
in the Encyclopedie. Turgot's critique of Berkeley's views is one of the best
offered at the time, taking seriously what Berkeley was arguing for, not
distorting or simply dismissing his theory. (When one compares his discussion
with those of nasty critics like Andrew Baxter, Turgot's is polite, considered,
measured and responsible.)
His letters began by saying that all that Berkeley actually proved was that
existing matter outside of us is not the immediate object perceived by our
minds. But how could he prove that this being outside of us, this cause of our
sensations , which people call matter, does not exist? Turgot insisted that our
experiences with lenses makes us realize that there has to be something more
than just our perceptions, that accounts for the various ways in which we can
see things. If body or matter does not exist then physics, the study of nature,
would be destroyed . We are nourished not by taste , which is an idea, but by an
unperceived digestion, a material process. Turgot went on to contend that the
common shared experiences of many people showed that there must be
something out there that they are all experiencing. Then appealing to what he
and his friends regarded as Berkeley's best point, his theory of vision including
the contention that distance is not directly perceived, Turgot said that, contrary
to Berkeley, this in fact shows that experience alone cannot teach us what is
there in the world.
In the second letter, Turgot continued to challenge Berkeley. He quoted him
as saying that nothing like our ideas can exist outside of us, because a being
which has reality only as perceived cannot exist unperceived. Turgot contended
that matter existing outside of us has geometrical properties which depend on
distance, shape, and motion. There has to be a common cause outside of us to
account for our common order of the sequence of experiences. Turgot insisted
that on Berkeley's account the orderly sequence would be bizarre and
incomprehensible. And the order supposes the existence of matter.
Turgot never seemed to catch on to Berkeley's way of explaining experience
as ideas in the mind of God which can persevere apart from individual
perceptions. Turgot contended that the order of ideas is inexplicable on
Berkeley's account. If, instead, one supposed real material factors , which are
not perceived, then one can account for the sequences of our ideas.25
"In a word , all is explained by supposing bodies: all is obscure - and bizarre
- in denying them.,,26 Turgot claimed his supposition about bodies made it
possible to explain how we get our ideas, how we have common ideas with
other people, and how we know that there are other people, all of which he
contended Berkeley could not account for. What led Berkeley astray, Turgot
asserted, is that he thought external realities would have to resemble our ideas.
 Berkeley in the History ofScepticism 181

What they are like is not conceivable, but nonetheless they help us understand
our world in some sort of mathematized physics of bodies. Turgot rather
carefully tried to develop problems about Berkeley's (and Maupertuis's)
phenomenalism. He tried to show that Berkeley's attempt to explain the
constancy and coherence of our ideas by interpreting them as the result of the
order of ideas of God, really does not explain what is going on. Hence he
concluded that Berkeley's system is ridiculous .F
In the article "Existence" in the Encylopedie, Turgot again took on Berkeley.
He said that there are those who deny the existence of bodies and the material
universe. These people are called "immaterialists". The view, Turgot said, was
too subtle to be widely held. In fact, he said, it has very few partisans except
among Indian philosophers. However, "It is the famous Bishop of Cloyne, Dr
Berkeley, known for a great number of works filled with much spirit and
singular ideas, who, in his dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, has in our
time revived the attention of metaphysicians in this forgotten system". Most
have found it quicker and easier to denounce the view than to answer it. Turgot
insisted on his own answer that reality does not comprise just what is
immediately sensed.28
Turgot did not just jeer at Berkeley's views, but tried seriously to advance a
sort of hypothetical critical realism as a preferable theory to phenomenalism.
Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville, who one of the very last of the phi/osophes,
proposed to D'Alembert in 1777 that they join together and put out an
encyclopedia of Pyrrhonism. D'Alembert was not interested, but Brissot, who
was just in his early 20's at the time, worked on the project on his own. He
wrote a still unpublished 90 page manuscript on Pyrrhonism, and in 1782 he
published De la verite ou Meditations sur les moyens de parvenir Ii la verite dans
toutes les connoissances humaines (republished in 1792,29 a year before Brissot
was guillotined during the Reign of Terror), exploring whether there is any-
thing we can know with certainty in any of the sciences. Brissot's work (which
has not been studied at all by historians of philosophy) is, I believe, the most
extended presentation of French Enlightenment scepticism. In it he said, "Nous
ne pretendons pas renouveler le paradoxes de fameux Berklei sur l'existence des
corps".30 Berkeley's arguments, Brissot pointed out, have embarrassed modern
philosophy.I! He said that most thinkers have treated the reasonings of
Berkeley as just sophisms. This is not sufficient. It cannot just be treated as a
joke. One has to try to refute them.
Theologians would see Berkeley's theory if true as a dangerous badinage. The
resurrection of Jesus would be no more than an appearance of resurrection;
Jesus's miracles no more than appearances of miracles.
One can say, Brissot contended, that the Bishop of Cloyne has gone too far in
his system. He denied the existence of bodies. He is wrong in this. We always can
conclude concerning the reality or falsity of objects that surround us from our
individual sensations. If Berkeley revised his system so that he offered a simple
doubt, instead of a denial, he would not be attackable. His views would then be
reasonable, and if one wished, would be "pirrhoniste". Both Malebranche and
Berkeley have a similar view. But Brissot said, we, the sceptics. do not deny the
182 R.H Popkin

existence of bodies, nor do we affirm it. We do not know enough to decide, we

can only consider the probabilities.V Such a revision of Berkeley's views would,
ofcourse, have made his theory into a form of sceptical phenomenalism.
In contrast to these many French Enlightenment discussions of Berkeley's
views one finds none about Hume's theory of knowledge, or his theory
concerning our knowledge of external objects. As already pointed out, some
of the philosophes knew Hume personally, and must have known something of
his views. They saw him as very important to the Age of Enlightenment, but
they did not see his writings as relevant to their own most detailed discussions
of problems in accounting for empirical knowledge, if it be knowledge in any
real sense.
It is strange that although so much was written and published on central
issues concerning empirical knowledge in France in French from around 1750-
1780, this rich body of literature concerning empirical thought is usually
completely ignored in Anglophone histories of empiricism. "British empiri-
cism" is the stock term for empiricism. We do not hear of "French empiricism"
though there was far more of it in the 18th century, and far more detailed
discussion of particular problems, philosophical, psychological and physiolo-
gical, than one finds in the English literature except for Locke's Essay, which in
its sceptically oriented French translation, was the basic text for the French
Enlightenment. Anglophone historians of philosophy have been able to ignore
all of the French thinkers, categorizing them as just journalists, literati,
politicians, novelists, historians, anti-religious polemicists etc., anything but
philosophers to be taken seriously. 18th century philosophy for the Anglo-
phone historians had just Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume and Kant as its
figures.
Hume 's A Treatise ofHuman Nature seems to have been unknown in France,
though it was reviewed in French by such well known writers as Pierre
Demaizeaux. (As we know, the work was hardly read anywhere at all in the
decade after its publication.) And it is in this work, especially in Book I, Part
IV, Book I, that Hume discussed some of the very same issues that Berkeley did
about our knowledge of the external world, and the possibilities of a phenom-
enalist theory of knowledge. The Treatise only existed in English at the time, a
language that was not read by most of the philosophes. The first of them that we
know of who actually owned a copy was Condorcet, who obtained it sometime
in the 1760's or early 70's. (And he developed a theory of how mathematical
probabilities could be applied to social events, and an extreme scepticism with
regard to reason, from Hume's discussions of mathematics, of the probability
of chances and of logic.33)
Hume's Essay Concerning Human Understanding was published in 1748, and
was translated into French a few years later. However, it is not mentioned in
any of the major discussions of the problems of empirical knowledge by the
ph ilosophes. Only the scholars in the Berlin Academy who translated the
Enquiry concerning Human Understanding into both French and German,
Johnann Georg Sulzer and Hans Bernhardt Merian, realized that Hume was
a crucial figure in the development of scepticism in the 18th century and that he
 Berkeley in the History ofScepticism 183

had to be refuted." (This was, of course, before the Scottish Common Sense
philosophers became known in Germany, and made thinkers aware of Hume
as the philosopher who had to be refuted.) Merian had referred to Berkeley as
"le savant Eveque de Cloyne" and as "un excellent homme". After Kant had
appeared on the scene, Merian wrote a piece in 1792 "Sur le Phenomenisme de
Hume", in which he joined with the German interpreters who now saw the
history of modern philosophy moving from Locke to Berkeley to Hume to
Kant. Finally in 1796 another member of the Prussian Academy, Ancillon,
wrote a dialogue of a discussion between Berkeley and Hume as the two super-
sceptics of the century who regretted what they had accomplished, and the
effect that it had had on the world of learning." In the dialogue, the Berkeley
character referred to Sextus Empiricus. Hume's Dialogues concerning natural
religion were translated into German by Plattner and by Kant's friend, lG.
Hamann.
Reid saw Berkeley as trying to avoid scepticism, rather than advancing it. He
portrayed Berkeley as the first to show that the systems of Descartes and Locke
and Malebranche lead inevitably to scepticism. However, Berkeley's own
answer, immaterialism or idealism, though eliminating one basic fault in the
previous systems, contained problems that Hume sowed also lead to scepti-
cism. Reid's disciple, James Beattie, however, said, "For did not BERKELEY
write his Principles of Human Knowledge with this express view (which does
him great honour), to banish scepticism both from science and from religion?
Was he not sanguine in the hope of success? And has not the event proved, that
he was egregiously mistaken? For is it not evident, from the use to which other
authors have applied it, that his system leads to atheism and universal
scepticism?,,36 Reid and his disciples were the first to portray the mainstream
of English thought as that of the trinity of Locke-Berkeley-Hume, advancing
from empiricism to consistent empiricism to total scepticism. Reid and Beattie
provided most German thinkers with their information about Berkeley, whose
writings were not generally known in Germany as they were in France . The
Dialogues had appeared in the 1756translation from the French by Eschenbach
which was hardly read. 37 Another translation, from the English appeared in
1781.38
The final part of our story is how Berkeley appears in C.l Staiidlin's Geist
und Geschichte der Skepticismus. Berkeley by now at the end of the 18th century
is a minor character in this story while Hume is portrayed as the major
sceptical figure before Kant. Staiidlin's book was published in 1794. The author
was a professor at Gottingen and a friend of Immanuel Kant's (who dedicated
a work to Staiidlin.) The work is the first full scale history of scepticism from
ancient times up to the present. The final part is entitled, "From Hume to
Kant", centering the then contemporary understanding of scepticism on Kant's
proferred solution, its roots in Hume's sceptical arguments, and the sceptical
attacks on Kant by German writers of the time like Maimon and Schulze-
Aenesidemus. (It should be noted that this lengthy history of scepticism ancient
and modern, up to almost the date of publication, precedes any history written
about modern empiricism or rationalism by several decades.)
184 R.B Popkin

There is a short discussion of Berkeley and his views in the section V of the
history of scepticism covering thinkers from La Mothe Le Vayer down to
David Hume. "Berkeley, just as eccentric as ingenious and charming a
philosopher described the terrible consequences of disbelief for the well being
and morality of human society.,,39 Berkeley's idealism Staiidlin saw as follow-
ing on the views of Descartes, Malebranche and Bayle "but Berkeley defined it
dogmatically". He held, according to Staiidlin, that there is nothing in this
world called matter. There are only spirits and ideas. "However much these
statements favored scepticism and contributed to its advancement", it was
pointed out that Berkeley said on the title page of the Dialogues that he was
answering scepticism and atheism. Staiidlin then gave a digest of Berkeley's
views and just repeated Berkeley's claim that they refute scepticism and
atheism, without comment. We are then told that at the end of his life Berkeley
began to doubt the certainty of all metaphysical investigations, and turned
towards politics and medicine (presumably the latter point referred to his
interest in tar-water as a medical cure). The discussion of Berkeley closes by
saying that "Few scholars acquired such a reputation for virtue as he did and
Pope immortalized him with this line: To Berkeley every virtue under
heaven'V'"
Staudlin's information about Berkeley came from the Dialogues, (which is
quoted), the 1781, Leipzig, German edition of Berkeley's works, and the
Annual Register for 1763, which said that at Trinity College Berkeley was
looked upon as the greatest genius or the greatest dunce. Later on he was
considered one of the best metaphysicians in Europe, though his analysis of
matter was considered most paradoxical ("the most ingenious paradox that
ever amused learned persons"?').
Berkeley is not made a major figure whose views, sceptical or otherwise,
flow from the sceptical tendencies of the English deists of the time. Instead he is
just put forth as a curiosity. Then, in the succeeding section on Hume, Berkeley,
along with Locke, is made a source of the views in Hume's Treatise, and Hume
is presented as developing "a moderately sceptical system which seemed to flow
naturally from Berkeley's and Locke's principlesv.V Staiidlin then devoted
himself to expounding Hume's views, Kant's reactions to them, and the
sceptical aspects of Kant's theory, and the sceptical attacks on Kant that were
taking place at the time. Staudlin considered Kant as a sceptic malgre lui.
This survey I have presented indicates the ways that Berkeley was regarded
in discussions of scepticism during the 18th century. In spite of Berkeley's
youthful enthusiasm that he had solved the crise pyrrhonienne, he was quickly
transformed into a key figure in 18th century French sceptical thought. His
immaterialism was seen as a kind of scepticism. By the end of the century, after
Reid and Kant had made Hume the key figure in 18th century scepticism,
Staudlin, writing the first "complete" history of scepticism, could just see him
as a minor curious figure whose odd views contributed to Hume's scepticism.
(In contrast Hamann insisted that without Berkeley there could not have been
a Hume, and without Hume there could not have been a Kant. 43)
In terms of Kant's contribution, Berkeley was to become significant in the
 Berkeley in the History ofScepticism 185

development of idealism as a genuine metaphysical possibility. In the post

Kantian age idealism became a serious option. And in terms of the Scottish
common sense answer to Hume, Berkeley was to become a central figure in
British empiricism. His role as a sceptic malgre lui disappeared as well as the
fairly significant role his ideas had played in the course of the development of
the now forgotten scepticism of the philosophes. History, it is often pointed out,
is written in terms of the victors, which seems to be as true in political as well as
in intellectual history. The history of modern philosophy has become mainly
the road to the philosophies of Hume and Kant, and the developments of
philosophy from them . In these terms Berkeley's fortunes and his influence in
France dur ing the 18th century are not of interest any longer. The fact that he
was so much more important to the philosophes than Hume does not matter.
But, perhaps, if one considers Berkeley historically in French 18th century
terms, rather than just as a predecessor of Hume, we may appreciate better
some of the central issues of that time.

NOTES

I. R.H. Popk in, "Berkeley and Pyrrhonism", Review ofMetaphysics, 5:1951.

2. David Hume , Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
3. Harry M. Bracken, The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism 17/0-/733, The Hague;-
Nijhoff, 1965, p. 20.
4. Bracken, op.c it., p. 21.
5. Andrew Michael Ramsay, Th e Philosophical Pr inciples of Natural and R evealed Religion,
Glasgow 1748, Book III , p. 280. Berkeley is discussed and criticized from p.198 onward. At
the end of Book III , Ramsay offered Cor .I, " Hence it is absolutely false that the existence of
matter is neither probable, nor possible". Ramsay is a most interesting figure who has hardly
been studied. He was David Hume 's patron when Hume arr ived in France to write his Treatise.
Ramsay at the time was writing the Philosoph ical Principles and may have shared some of his
strange views with Hume. Certainly Hurne's odd discussion of Spinoza 's philosophy seems to
derive from Ramsay.
6. J.C. Eschenbach, Sammlung der vornehmsten Schriftste/ler die Wiirklichkeit ihres eignem
Kiirperwelt ldugnen , Rostock, 1756. According to T.E. Jessop, this German edition was
translated from the French of 1750 rather than from the original English .
7. Jean Pierre de Crousaz, Examen du Pyrrhonisme, The Hague :1733, p. 97.
8. Harry M. Bracken , The Early Reception ofBerkeley. by Richard H. Popkin .
9. Ibid.
10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres completes, ed. Michel Launay, Paris:Editions de Seuil, 1971, II,
p.66.
I I. Rousseau, Oeuvres , III, p. 322.
12. Denis Diderot, Lettre sur les aveugles, p. 36.
13. Giorgio Tonelli, "Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment",
Studia Leibnitiana, 55:1974,106-126.
14. Richard H. Popkin , "Scepticism in the Enlightenment", Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteeneth
Century 26, 1963, 1321-1345 .
15. Tonelli, "Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment", p. 118.
16. Ibid., 112.
17. Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, art. "Corps".
18. D 'Alembert. "sens", Encyclopedic, Vol. 15, pp. 16-34.
19. Voltaire, Le Preservatif, No . XXVI.
186 R.B. Popkin

20. The translations are described in T.E . Jessop, A Bibliography of George Berkeley, 2nd edition,
The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973. Alc iphron appeared in French in 1734 in both The Hague and Paris.
On Boullier and his admiration of Berkeley 's philosophy, see R .H.Popkin, "David-Renaud
Boullier et l'eveque Berkeley", Revue philosophique de /a France et l'Etranger, 148:1958, pp. 364-
70. Boullier said that Berkeley was one of the outstanding philosophers of the time and one of
the most acute minds of the century.
21. The special character of Rousseau's scepticism, which was not treated by Tonelli , is discussed in
some detail by Ezequiel de Olaso in "The two scepticisms of Savoyard vicar" in R.A. Watson
and James E. Force, The Sceptical Mode in Modern Philosophy, Dordrecht:K1uwer, 1988, pp.
43-59.
22. Condorcet, Equisse.
23. Giorgo Tonelli , "The Weakness of Reason in the Enlightenment", Diderot Studies 14:1971, pp.
217-244.
24. The letters were first published in 1808. They appear in Oeuvres de Turgot, edited by Gustave
Schelle, Paris.Felix Alean, 1913, Tome I, pp. I 85-93.It is not completely sure who the addressee
was .
25. Ibid., p. 189.
26. Ibid., p. 190.
27. Ibid., p. 193.
28. "Existence" in Encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers, Pa ris,
1756, Tome XVI, p. 260.
29. Both printings were published at Neuchatel by the Imprimerie de la Societe typographique. The
second edition says on the title page that it exactly conforms to the original edition.
30. Jean-Pierre Brissot, Pyrrhon, Paris, Archives nationales, 446/AP/21 , fol. 12r.
31. Ibid., fol. 12v.
32. Ibid., fol. 19v.
33. Condorcet's notes on Hume's Treatise exist, and were used by Keith Baker in his important
study of Condorcet.
34. On interest in Hume and in refut ing him amongst members of the Berlin Academy see
Lawrence Bongie, David Hume: Prophet of the Counter Revolution in France, Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1993; and Manfred Kuehn, "Kant's Conception of "Hume's Problem", Journal of
the History ofPhilosophy, 21, 1983, pp. 177-78, note 7.
35. This work of IP.F. Ancillon appears in the 1796 issue of the Memoires of the Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Berlin .
36. James Beattie, Essay on the Immutability of Truth , Part II, chap. ii, 2.
37. Manfred Kuehn, Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800, Montreal:McGill-Queens
University Press ,1987, p. 178.
38. Jessop lists this edition (#98 in Jessop's bibliography) as Berkeley'sphilosophsiche Werke, Erster
Theil, aus dem Englishen iibersetzt, Leipzig, 1781. The translator is unknown.
39. Staiidlin, op.cit., V, p. 42.
40. Ibid., p. 44.
41. Ibid, note 125.
42. Staiidlin, VI.Hume to Kant and Platner, p. 3.
43. See the quotation from Hamann in Kuehn, op.cit ., p. 227.
 INDEX OF NAMES

Abicht 86 57, 69, 70, 75, 82, 84, 88n4, 91n10, 99, 112,
Adam , Charles 126n43, l44n7 113, 115, 125n27, 129n103, 136, 158, 159, 160,
Addison, 1. 90n I0 161,162,163,165,166,167,168,17OnIl,
Aenesedemus , see Schulze, G.E. 172n55-6, 173, 178, 184
Aenesidemus 101, 121 Beattie, James 11,25-6, 33n47, 86, 183, 186n36
Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius 122 Beausobre, L. de 12, 15n19, 16n42, 40, 58, 84,
Alembert, Jean Ie Rond d' 10,37,42,43,44,45, 98n135
47,48,50n23,52,59,62,63,64-5,68n65,78, Beck, D. 90nl0
83, 88n4, 95n80, 135, 160, 161, 176, 178, 179, Beck, Lewis White 158, 170n13
181, 185nl8 Beguelin 40, 58, 68n59, 78
Amoudru,B.66n7,66n9 Belaval, Yvon 102, 124n16, 126n43, 130n120, 131,
Anaxagoras 10I 141, 144n6, 145n27, 145n30
Ancillon , 1.P.F. 186n35 Bennett,1. 128n72
Anderson, Bram 98nl41 Berger, N. 56
Annas. J, 154nl, 155n7 Berkeley, Bishop George 1,3,5, I 1,12, 14n3,
Anton , John P. 33n47 15nI6 ,23,26, 36,44,45,48,59,68n71,85,
Aquinas, S1.Thomas 126n32, 126n34 115,158,159,161,169, 170n14, 173-86
Arbuthnot, John 31n4 Bernae 96nl05
Argens, J.B. Ie Boyer d' 57, 67n33, 82, 84, 94n67, Bernard, Edward 129n116
98n134 Bernoulli 78, 80
Aristotle 63, 136 Bernoulli , Jacques 127n55, 130n125
Arnauld 129n96 Bernoulli, Jean 127n55
Arndt, H.W. 95n73 Bierling, Friedrich Wilhelm 119, 130nll8
Atlas, Samuel 34n65-6 Blacklock, Thomas 16n34, 172n69
Aubenque, P. 152, 155n12 Blackwell, Constance 170n16
Autrey, M. de 16n42, 59 Blount 90nl0
Azm, S.1. 146n32 Blumenberg, H. 94n71, 95n81
Bock, Rosemarie 172n48
Bacon, Francis 37, 38, 63, 86, 169 Boerbaave, H. 45, 50nl6
Baker, Keith 157, 160, 161, 169n4, 170n26, Boeth ius, A.M .S. 79, 105
170n29-31, 171n33, 186n33 Bognie, Laurence 8, 16n28, 19, 31n12, 32n15-16
Baker, Th. 56 Bobatec,1. 95nl00
Baltus, J.-F. 15n8, 56, 67n23 Bohmer,1.Cb. 125n31
Barbier 16n21 Bolingbroke, Henry John 43, 45, 54, 83, 84
Barnes. J. 154n3, 155n7, 155nll Bonald 20, 32nl7
Baruzi, Jean 128n64, 129n99 Boncerf, Abbe C.1. 14n2, 82, 88n4
Basedow 79,84 Bongie, Laurence 160, 170n19
Basnage 127n52 Bonnet43,44,58,68n57,83,97nI23
Basso, Sebastian 101 Bossuet, 1.B. 90n I0
Baudisius 78 Boswell, James 33n30
Baumeister, F.Chr. 89nlO Boucbardy 145n20
Baumgarten, A.G. 70, 72, 77, 83, 89n4, 90n10, Bouillier, D.R . 14nl, 83, 97n1l6, 179, 186n20
92n24,94n68 Boulton, 1.T. 33n38
Baumgarten, S.1. 91nl2 Bourdaloue 90n I0
Bayle, Pierre 1,2,3,4,5,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, Boxel127n49
15n6, 15n16, 17,21, 31n5, 36, 37, 43,55,56, Boyle, Robert 44, 45, 104-5, 125n27, 158

RH. Popkin et al. (eds.), Scepticism in the Enlightenment. 187-192.

1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
188 Index ofNames

Bracken, H.M . 14n3, 33n40, 98n137, 174-5, Condorcet, M.J.A.N.C., Marquis de 10, 52, 157,
185n3-4, 185n8-9 158,160,161,162, 171n32, 176, 179, 182,
Brainne 65n4 186n22, 186n33
Breazale, Danie1169n7 Conze, W. BOn 120
Breen, Quirinus 124n11 Cordonnier, H . 88n4
Brissot, Jean Pierre 161, 170n28, 179, 181, Costa, Uriel da 166, 172n55
186n30-2 Coste, Pierre de 170n11, 178
Brown, Thomas 25 Cotes 46
Brucker, J. 9, 14n2, 31n2, 70, 73, 75, 76, 77, 82, Couturat, L. 128n69-70, 128n73
88n4 , 92n25-6, 92n29, 93n44, 94n55 -60, Craig 78
94n65 , 170016 Cramer, de 78
Brunet, Pierre 56 Crellius, 1.L. 93n40
Brunneman 78 Crocker, L.G . 145n30
Brush,C.B. 125027, 127n49 Crousaz, Jean Pierre de 4-6 , 15n14-16, 15n18, 43,
Bruyere, la 900 10 48,5008,70, 82,83,88n4,96nl09,97nI18,
Buch, Hartmut 129n93 133, l44nI2, 163, 164, 167, 174, 185n7
Budde , 1.Fr. 39, 71, 91n10 Crusius, Christian August 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48,
Buddeus, 1.Fr. 88n4 , 91n11, 93n40 86
Buffon, G.-L. Leclerc de, Count 48, 52, 53, 58, 62, Cudworth, Ralph 75, 90n10, 92n29, 160
66n10, 68n50-4, 68n66, 135, 176 Cuper 129n116
Burgelin, P. 144n5, 145n26 Cusa 104
Burke, Edmund 23-4 Cusanus 60
Burnet 129n102
Burnett 125n31, 127n55 Dacier, A. 89n7
Burnyeat, M. 124n3, 124n17, 126n40, ISO, lSI, Dalham, B.F. 96nl13
154n3-4 D'Argens, 1.B. Ie Boyer see Argens
Burthogge, R. 43, 92025 Daries, 1.G. 93n39
Burton, J.H . 31n12, 170n25 Darjes 75, 78, 86, 93n45
Bury, R .G. l44n8 Dascal, M. 171n31
Butler, Bishop 6 Daubert, F. Charles 129n98
Butts , R .E. 126n31 David, Lazarus Ben 30
Daville 119, 130n117-18
Cardano, Girolamo 101, 104 Debar-Bouiller, 1. 65n4
Carpo~J. 73, 77, 92n25,94n67 Deleyre 83, 97n122
Carrol, Robert T. 32025 Demaizeaux, Pierre 21, 182
Carstens 78 Democritus lIS, 129n96
Cartaud, F. 56--7 Desautels, Rene 65n2
Cassirer, E. 35, 146n32 Descartes, Rene 24, 37,43,47,63,69,82, 104,
Castro, Orobio de 172n55 107, 108, 118, 127n47, 129n96, 131, 133, 135,
Chambers, E. 88n4, 90n10 159,169,183
Changeux, Jean-Pierre 176,177,179 Desfontaines, Pierre 178
Changeux, Pierre-Jacques 51-65 Desgu1iers 46
Charles, Prince (of Scotland) 4 Deslandes, A.F. Boureau 57, 76, 78,83, 94n49 ,
Charron 1,4,158,159 94n52, 94n61, 95n78,97n121
Cheyne, George 31n4 Desmaizeaux 32n24
Chillingworth, William 21, 158 Dextus 129n96
Chouet, Jacques 117 Diderot, Denis 9-10, 16n32, 19, 32n14 , 36, 42, 44,
Chouet, Pierre 117 51,53,58, 78,88n4,90n10, 135, 160, 170n21,
Cicero, Marcus Tullius 79, 124n11, 158 175,176,177, 178, 179,185n12
Clarke 48 D idot , Firmin 51
Clavius 105, 114 Dommerich, 1.C. 77, 83, 94n66 , 97nl19
Clephane, John 16n34, 172n69 Donne90nl0
Clerc , Jean le 5, 15n8, 15n17, 44 Drabkin, Israel E. 105, 125n23
Clercius, 1. SOn12 Dresde 94n67
Collier 48, 81 Du Marsais 83, 97nl24
Collier, Arthur 12, 174 Dubos 56
Combe, Edward 15n7 Diiding, Klaus 129n93
Condillac, Abbe Etienne Bonnot de 10-11 , 16n33, Dufrenoy 118
31n2, 36, 37,42,43,44,45, 47, 50n9, 50n22, Dutens, L. 117, 129nl09-10, 129n112, 129n114
52,57,62,64, 67n42-4, 68n68-9, 83, 135, 175,
176,177,178,179 Eberhard 40
 Index ofNames 189

Eckhard 127n48 Gottsched 82

Edwards, Paul170nl2 Gouhier, Henri 137
Egger, J. 96nl05 Graevius 129nl16
Ehrad, J. 66n7 Graw, I. 96nl00
Eler 127n55 Green, T.H . 171n34
Epicurus 76 Gregory, of St . Vincent 103, 125n23
Erasmus 69, 110 Greig, 1.Y.T. 31n4, 170n24 , 172n69
Eschenbach, 1.C. 12, 16n43, 174, 183, 185n6 Grimm 8
Estienne, Henri 133 Grose, T.H . 171n34
Euclid 105 Grua, G. 112, 124n7, 127n64, 128n67
Euclides of Megara 76, 94n61 Gruengard, O. 171n31
Euler 78 Gruyter, Walter de 129nl16
Gueroult 125n21
Fabricius, 1.A. 4,5, 96n11 I, 118, 131, 158
Feder, J.G. 75, 79, 93n41 Hakkert, Samuel Stevens 16902
Feldmann, E. 91nl0 Hall, Francis 104
Felice, B.de 51, 65nl Haller, A. von 5, 96nl09, 163
Fenelon 4 Hamann, 1.G. 13,20, 29, 84, 96n104, 168, 183,
Fermat 78, 104 186n43
Fichte, 1. G. 30, 34n67 Hamilton, Sir William 33n40
Fichte, J.G. 168 Hammond 90nl0
Finch, D. 66n7 Hardouin 119
Fonseca, P. 75, 93n43 Hartley, David 26, 34n51
Fontenelle 36, 56, 90n10 , 135, 161 Hatin, E. 65n3
Force, James E. 186n21 Hayer, Father Hubert 14nl
Formey, 1.H.S. 5, 12, 13, 14, 14n2, 15nI8-19, Hazard, Paul 35, 118, 1290115
16n39, 16n40, 16n41,28,58,82,83,84,92n23, Hegel , GW.F. 30, 115, 168
96nI09,98nI33, 163, 167 Heineccius , J.G. 76, 88n4 , 94n54
Forster, J.e. 72, 73, 76, 90nl0 Helvet ius, Claude-Adrien 8
Fortunatus a Brixia 78, 95n76 Henkel, A. 96n 104
Foucher, Simon 43, 99, 113-15, 125n20 Herz , Marcus 30
Foxley, Barbara 144n10 Hicks , R .D. 144n7
Franquieres, M. de 175 Hirzel, L. 96nl09
Frede, M . 150, 151, 154nl, 154n5-6 Hobbes, Thomas 90nlO, 99, 107, Ill, 112,
Frederick II 82, 84, 98n 133 127n61, 128n64
Fritz, Paul 169n2 Hocquincourt, Marechal d' 3
Frommicben, K.H. 79-80, 95n74 , 95n82 , 95n85- Hoeker, 1. 89n8
91 Hoffmann, A.F. 39, 95n83
Fromondus, e. 81, 95n99 Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d' 8,10, 19,46,
Funke, G. 49nl 47,50n24,171n41
Furetiere 90n I0 Hollman, S.e. 44, 86, 90nl0
Hooker 90nl0
Gale90nl0 Hoppe, K . 97n132
Galileo 100, 103, 104 Horoius, G. 87n4
Gallois 107, 108 Huart, Claude 4, 15nl4, 56, 97n127 , 158
Garve, e. 79, 95n84 Huet, Bishop Pierre-Daniel 1,3,4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13,
Gassendi, Pierre 1,4, 55, 69, 75, 83, 86, 87n3, 14, 17,56,82, 93n40, 99, 114, 119, 158, 159,
92n25 ,93n39,98nI39, 109, 127n49, 135, 158, 161, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168
161, 169n10, 179 Hume, David 1,2,6-8, II, 12, 14n3, 16022-8,
Gaultier 56 16n36, 16n38, 16n41, 17-21 ,22,23,24,26,27,
Ge issler, R . 67n36 29,30,31n4-5,3InI0-12,32nI2,32nI7,32n24,
Gellius 132 32n43-4 ,33n29,33n48,44,45,47,48,50n7,
Gentzkenius, Fr. 76, 88n4 , 93n49 50nl9, 54, 55, 73, 78,83,85, 95n77 , 97n120,
Gerhardt, C.I . 128n77-89, 128n91-2 , 129n94-5 , 103, 115, 125n23, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162,
129n97, 130nI18-19 163,164,165,166,167,168,169,170nI4-15,
Germon, Fr. 119 170n24, 17l n40 , 174, 177, 182, 183, 185n2,
Geulinex 43 1314
Gibbon, Edmund 171n39 Husser!, Edmund Gustav Albert 30
Glanvill, Reverend Joseph 158 Hutcheson, Francis 6
Goclenius, R. 73, 89n8 , 92n27 Huygens 78
Gordon, Douglas H . 16n31 Hylas 178, 181
190 Index ofNames

Irving 40 Locke, John 2, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13,22,24,26,28,

32n27,36,37,38,42,43,44,45,53,55,62,63,
Jacobi 168 66nI8, 68n67, 85, 86, 135, 159, 161, 162, 169,
Jessop, T.E. 20, 32n19, 185n6, 185n19, 186n38 169n10, 17OnI1, 173, 175, 176, 178, 182, 183,
Joach 39 184
Johnson 90n10 Louis (XVI), King 20
Johnston, E. 67n33 Lowrie, Walter 34n63
Luther 110
Kahle, L.M . 14n2, 79, 96n105
Kames, Lord Henry Home 8, 21, 23, 24, 32n24, Mabillon 119
33n30 Maclaurin,C.48,50n20
Kant, I. 1,2, 12-13 , 16n44, 27, 28-9, 34n55, Madanes, Leiser 127n49, 146n34
34n57, 35,40,41,44,47,48,64,69-87,89n5- Maimon, Solomon 13, 29-30 , 34n65, 96n104, 168,
6, 91n10, 91n13-20, 92n21-2, 92n28, 92n30, 172n63, 183
92n32, 93n46-7, 94n50-1, 94n61-3, 95n93-7, Maistre, de 32n17, 20
96n109, 97n117, 143, 157, 158, 159, 164, 165, Ma1ebranche, Nicolas 37, 109, 113, 118, 126n44,
167,168,169, 171n47, 172n63, 177, 182, 183, 159,173,174,175,181,183,184
184 Mandeville 6
Kastner 78, 79 Marais, Mathieu 5, 15n20
Keith 98n133 Marande, Leonard 125n23
Keynes, 1.M. 31n6 Mariotte 45, 113, 126n42
Kierkegaard, S.A. 1,29,69,167, 168 Marsy, Abbe F.de 96n107
Kirkinen, H. 66n18 Masham, Lady 107, 126n40
Koch , 129n106 Masson, P.H. 145nl7
Konijnenburg, J.Th. van 66n7 Maty, M. 14n3, 21
Krause, 1.G. 117 Maubec 56, 66n18
Krause, M. 66n7 Maupertuis, P.-M. de 16n41, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45,
Krauss, W. 67n27 50n10, 55, 58, 65, 68n48, 78, 83, 98n133, 135,
Kroll , Richard 169n10 175,176,177, 179
Krone 78 Mauria1, E. 96n104
Kuehn, Manfred 171n43, 171n47, 172n51-4, Meier, G. 89n9-10
186n34, 186n37, 186n43 Meiners, C. 40, 47,84, 97n126
Kunke 35 Meinsm, K.O. 129n98
Mencke, Burckard 119
La Mettrie 10 Mendelssohn, M. 30, 40, 47, 78, 95n79
La Mothe Le Vayer 1, 12, 14n2, 76, 82, 96n105, Mercier, R. 67n20, 67n28, 67n32
158, 159, 166, 183 Merian, 1.B. 12, 14, 16n41, 28, 40, 43,58, 68n60,
Laertius, Diogenes 158 77, 94n67, 182, 183
Lambert,J.H.45,48,50nI5, 73, 79,95n83 Merlan, Philip 34n62
Lammennais, R. de 20, 32nl8 Mersenne 83, 104, 126n35, 127n47
Landgrave 115-16 Mettrie, J. Offray de la 44, 46, 58, 68n55
Lange,1. 39, 84, 88n4, 96nl05 Metzke, E. 97n131
Laporte 126n35 Meyers, Robert G. 172n67
Launay, Miche1185nlO Milhaud, Gaston 102, 124nl5
Laursen, John C. 167, 169n7, 171n47, 172n65 Milo 79
Leclerc, Jean 169n9 Milton 79
Leeuwen, H .G.van 32n25, 87n1, 90n10 Minsheu 90nl0
Lehmann, Professor G. 89n5, 92n21 Moivre 78
Leibniz, G.W. 4, 15n9, 36, 37, 38, 78, 94n72, 99- Molyneux 178
123,131 ,159,169,173,182 Monier, M. de 16n21
Leland, John 23, 34n56 Montaigne 1,4, 12, 125n20, 127n54, 141, 158,
Lelong 130nl17 159, 166
Leroy, Andre 32n23, 170n15 Montbilard 110
Lescure, M. de 15n20, 170n28 Montoreano, Pina 146n34
Lewes, George Henry 33n45 Mora, Jose Ferrater 131
Lichenstein, E. 96nlO8 More, Henry 43
Lichtenberg 78 Moreau, P.-L. 68n48
Limborch, Philip van 172n55 Morhof75
Linus, Franciscus 104 Morton, Richard 169n2
Lipsius, Justus 75 Mosheim (Jena) 92n29
Mossner, Ernest C. 31n4, 31n8, 32n13, 171n41
 Index ofNames 191

Muralt, 8. de 57 Racine, Louis 53, 57, 66n8

Muratori, Lodovico Antonio 14n2, 15n7 Ramsay, Andrew Michae14, 15n13, 23, 33n37,
Musschenbroek 46 174, 185n5
Ranea, Professor A. Guillermo 126n31
Newton, Isaac 9, 10, 11, 13, 36, 37, 38,45,46,49, Raphson 48
159, 160, 173 Rat, Maurice 125n20
Nietzsche, F.W. 166, 168 Rauschenberg 128n64
Niewentijt 45 Ravier, E. 129n108
Nizolio, Mario 124nll Regis 66n18
Nollet, 1.A. 45, 50n18 Regius ,1. 72-3, 84, 92025, 97n125, 126n36
Norton, David Fate 23--4, 33n39 Reid, Thomas 11, 13, 14, 16n35-7, 21, 22, 24-5,
33n40,33n43-4, 86,157,158,183
01aso, Ezequiel de 99-130, 131-146, 147-156, Reimann 75
157, 164, 169n5-6, 171n45-6, 186n21 Reimarus 48
Oldenberg 127n48 Remnant, P. 128n72
Olivet, Abbe 15n8 Renouvier, Charles 32n23, 170n15
Ortega 99 Retat, Pierre 31n3, 160, 170n20
Ouden, B. den 171n47 Reusch, 1.P. 79, 89n10
Riche1et 900 10
Pacius 79 Rigollot, G. 98n133
Pamus 79 Risse, W. SOnS
Panckoucke, c.r. 77, 94n67 Rizetti 78
Pascal, Blaise 21,52,53, 65n5, 78, 105, 158, 161, Roberval45, 104
162 Robin, L. 155n9
Paschius, G. 88n4 Robinet, A. 48, 130n127
Paulian 118 Robinet, 1.8. 96n107
Pellison, Cardinal 166 Robinson, L. 66n17
Pe1vert, Abbe Bon Francois Rivire 14n2 Rorty, R. 154n4
Pemberton, H. 45, 46, 50017 Rosenfield, i,c 171n36
Pene1hum, Terence 127n51 Roth 97n130
Perizonius 118 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 131--46, 144n10, 157,
Petty 78 160,164,165,167, 171n44, 175, 177, 178, 179,
Pfaff, Christoph Matthaeus 174 185n10-11, 186n21
Pfaffius, e.M. 93n40 Rowning46
Phillips 90n 10 Roy, Georges Ie 16n33, 31n2
Phi1onous 178, 181 Rozier, Abbe 52
Pianese, Marquis 112 Riidiger 39,79
Pierce , Charles Saunders 168 Russell , Bertrand 27, 159
Pierre, Ch .-F. 1a 65n4
Pillon, F. 32n23, 170n15 Sade, de 166
Pitt,1.e. 126n31 Saint Aubain, Legendre de 57, 67n29
P1aceius, Vincent 127n56, 1300126 St. Evremond 3
Platner, Ernest 12, 16n43, 28, 34n55, 86, 183 St. Hyac inthe , Themiseul de 57, 88n4
Plato 59, liS, 148 Sa1viati 104
P1oucquet, G. 88n4 Samson, A. 8702
Poiret 56, 82 Sanches, Francisco 101, 114
Politz 86, 98n140 Sanchez 1
Pope 90n10 Sauveur 78
Popkin, Richard H. 1-16, 17-34,35, 49n2 , 54, Schelle, Gustave 186n24-7
66nI2,66nI5,67n22,67n25,67n31 ,68n46, Schirmer, H. 97n131
68n58, 68n62, 69, 87n1, 96nlll-12, 96n114, Schlosser, Fr. P. 96n 105
97nI27,99, 109, 110, 125n23, 125n27, 126n40, Schmidt, J.H . 97n130
127n51, 127n61, 128n90, 129n103, 131, 132, Schmitt, Charles B. 99, 126n40
143, 145n18, 154n2, 157-172, 173-186 Schneewind,1.8. 154n4
Premontval 40 Schofield, M. 154n3
Price, Richard 11 Schoockius,M.87n4,93n40,94n52
Priestley, Joseph 26--7 Schuize 30
Pyrrho 10,25,73,76, 165, 167 Schultz, Fr.A. 81, 95nlO0
Schulze , G.E. 13,29, 34n64, 86, 96nlO4
Quesnay, F. 57, 67n33, 135 Schulze -Aenesidemus 168, 183
Schwartz,J.68n47
192 Index ofNames

Sclatcr 90nl0 Torrlcelli 104

Search 79 Tressan, de 58
Segner 78 Trevoux 90010
Selby-Bigge, L.A. 16n23 , 31n7 Tschackert, P. 172n66
Semler 71 Tucker, A . 79
Seneca 93n42 Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques 19, 31n12, 160,
Sextus Empiricus 2, 4, 5, 6, 9,12, 15n9-10 , 15n17, 170n25, 177, 179, 179-81
28,56,75,83, 87n2, 99-100, 102, 103, 109,
117,118,119-22,131,132,133, 144n8, 147- Ulrich 79
50, 158, 163, 167, 168, 173, 174, 183 Unger 78
s'Gravesande 78, 95n75
Shaftesbury 6, 15n12, 36, 53 Vallet 51
Shelton 90nl0 Vamos, M. 6607
Skinner, Q. 154n4 Varignoo 114
Smith, Adam 21 Vartanian, Aram 5004
Smith, Norman Kemp 16n25, 3109 Vauveoargues, L. de Clapier de 57, 67040, 135
Socrates 73 Vemeius 79
Sonntag, C. 970130 Vesey, G . 124n17
Sorabji, Richard 125n20 Villate, N . Cartaud de la 84, 970128
Sorbiere, S. 88n4 Villemaody, Pierre 171037
Spanheim 1290116 Villey, Pierre 135, 145018
Spink, 1.S. 67019,67024, 67030 , 970127, 145021 Vindel, Augustae 960113
Spinola, Bishop Rojas 113 V1astos, G. 152, 155013
Spinoza 59, 109, 127n49, 159, 169, 172055 , 174 Voltaire, F.M. Arouet de 8, 9, 16029-30,36,40,
Sraffa, P. 3106 47,50021 , 57,67n34-5, 83,135,145028,158,
Stanley, Th. 70, 76, 8704, 94n53 160, 170n22 , 175, 178, 185017, 185019
Stattler, B. 93047-8 Vossius, G.J. 8804
Staiidlio, c.r. 2,13, 15n5, 28, 34059, 96nl04, 158, Vrin,1. 145022
164,165-7,168,171047-8,172049-50,172057- Vyverberg 35
64, 183, 184, 186039-42
Steiner, Franz 145025 Wachter, 1.0. 128n64
Stillingfleet, Bishop Edward 21, 22, 32025-6, Walch, J.G 8804
32028 Walker, Ralph 127049
Strahan, William 16038, 33048 Wallis 45
Striker, G. 15401 Walton, Craig 33041
SiiBmilch 78 Wareville, Jean Pierre Brissot de see Brissot
Sueur, A.le 68n49 Watson, R .A. 8701 ,186021
Sulzer, 1.G. 12, 14, 16041,28,182 Watson, Richard A. 146034
Swelling 114 Widou, Conrad 129nl07
Syberth 78 Wieland 84
Wieser, M . 960105
Tannery, Paul 126n43 , 14407 Wiley, M .L. 8701
Tarrant, H. 15508 Wilins 90nl0
Terrasson 48 Wilkins, Bishop John 21, 158
Tetens 40, 47 Williams, David 170023
Teyler 78 Wisan, W.L. 125031
Thomasius, Christian 36, 38, 39, 42, 44 , 45, 47, Wittebergae 960105
48, 50013, 79, 101 Wittgensteio 159
Thompson, Josiah 34062 Wizenmann, Thomas 960104
Thompson, Martyn P. 16907 Wolff, 1.C. 36, 38-40, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49,
Thro, Linus 1. 127n61 50n6,50014, 78,91010,95073,1290107
Tillotson, Archbishop John 21, 22 Wundt,M.92029,960105
Tolmer, L. 67021
Tolomei 127n55 Yoltoo,1.W. 980136
Tonelli, Giorgio 3103, 34055 , 35-50, 51-68, 69-
98, 135, l44n3, 144nI6, 157, 161, 169n3, Zedler, J.H . 88n4
16907,170027,176,177, 179, 185013 ,185nI5- Zeno ofElea 73-6,81,100,178
16, 186023 Ziesemer, W. 960104
Torrey, Norman L. 9, 16031
 ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
*
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

125. R.M. Golden (ed.): The Huguenot Connection. The Edict of Nantes, Its Revocation,
and Early French Migration to South Carolina . 1988 ISBN 90-247-3645-5
126. S. Lindroth : Les chemins du savoir en Suede. De la fondation de l'Universite d'Upsal
a Jacob Berzelius. Etudes et Portraits. Traduit du suedois, presente et annote par J.-F.
Battail. Avec une introduction sur Sten Lindroth par G. Eriksson . 1988
ISBN 90-247-3579-3
127. S. Hutton (ed.): Henry More (1614-1687). Tercentenary Studies. With a Biography
and Bibliography by R. Crocker. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0095-5
128. Y. Yovel (ed.): Kant's Practical Philosophy Reconsidered. Papers Presented at the 7th
Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter (December 1986). 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0405-5
129. J.E. Force and R.H. Popkin: Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac
Newton 's Theology. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0583-3
130. N. Capaldi and D.W. Livingston (eds.): Liberty in Hume's 'History ofEngland '. 1990
ISBN 0-7923-0650-3
131. W. Brand: Hume 's Theory of Moral Judgment. A Study in the Unity of A Treatise of
Human Nature. 1992 ISBN 0-7923 -1415-8
132. C.E. Harline (ed.): The Rhyme and Reason of Politics in Early Modern Europe.
Collected Essays of Herbert H. Rowen. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1527-8
133. N. Malebranche: Treatise on Ethics (1684) . Translated and edited by C. Walton . 1993
ISBN 0-7923-1763-7
134. B.C. Southgate: 'Covetous of Truth' . The Life and Work of Thomas White
(1593-1676).1993 ISBN 0-7923 -1926-5
135. G. Santinello, C.W.T. Blackwell and Ph. Weller (eds.): Models of the History of
Philosophy. Vol. I: From its Origins in the Renaissance to the ' Historia Philosphica'.
1993 ISBN 0-7923 -2200-2
136. M.J. Petry (ed.): Hegel and Newtonianism. 1993 ISBN 0-7923-2202-9
137. Otto von Guericke: The New (so-called Magdeburg) Experiments [Experimenta Nova,
Amsterdam 1672]. Translated and edited by M.G.Foley Ames. 1994
ISBN 0-7923-2399-8
138. R.H. Popkin and G.M. Weiner (eds.): Jewish Christians and Cristian Jews . From the
Renaissance to the Enlightenment. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2452-8
139. J.E. Force and R.H . Popkin (eds.): The Books of Nature and Scripture. Recent Essays
on Natural Philosophy, Theology, and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands of
Spinoza's Time and the British Isles of Newton 's Time. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2467-6
140. P. Rattansi and A. Clericuzio (eds.): Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th
Centuries. 1994 ISBN 0-7923 -2573-7
141. S. Jayne : Plato in Renaissance England. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3060-9
142. A.P. Coudert : Leibniz and the Kabbalah. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3114-1
143. M.H. Hoffheimer: Eduard Gans and the Hegelian Philosophy ofLaw. 1995
ISBN 0-7923-3114-1
144. J.R.M. Neto: The Christianization of Pyrrhonism. Scepticism and Faith in Pascal,
Kierkegaard, and Shestov. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3381-0
145. R.H. Popkin (ed.): Scepticism in the History of Philosophy . A Pan-American
Dialogue . 1996 ISBN 0-7923 -3769-7
 ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
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INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

146. M. de Baar, M. Lowensteyn, M. Monteiro and A.A. Sneller (eds.): Choos ing the
Better Part . Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678).1995 ISBN 0-7923 -3799-9
147. M. Degenaar: Molyneux's Problem. Three Centuries of Discussion on the Perception
of Forms. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3934-7
148. S. Berti. F. Charles-Daubert and R.H. Popkin (eds.): Heterodoxy. Spinozism, and Free
Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe. Studies on the Traite des trois
imposteurs.1996 ISBN 0-7923-4192-9
149. G.K. Browning (ed.): Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reappraisal. 1997
ISBN 0-7923-4480-4
150. G.AJ. Rogers, J.M. Vienne and Y.C. Zarka (eds.): The Cambr idge Platonists in
Philosophical Context. Politics , Metaphysics and Religion. 1997 ISBN 0-7923 -4530-4
151. RL Williams: The Letters ofDominique Chaix, Botanist-Cure. 1997
ISBN 0-7923-4615-7
152. R.H. Popkin, E. de OIaso and G. Tonelli (eds.): Scepticism in the Enlightenment. 1997
ISBN 0-7923-4643-2
153. L. de la Forge. D.M. Clarke (ed. and transl.): Louis de la Forge : Treat ise on the
Human Mind (1664). 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4778-1
154. S.P. Foster: Melancholy Duty . The Hume-Gibbon Attack on Christianity. 1997
ISBN 0-7923-4785-4

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