Work · Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
Historical and Critical Dictionary
Footnotes as an arsenal of skepticism – on evil, on Spinoza and on the limits of reason in religion.
Introduction
Bayle’s Dictionary appeared in Rotterdam in two large folio volumes dated 1697, with an enlarged edition in 1702. Most articles are short biographical entries, but under them run long “remarks” in smaller type, in which Bayle collects sources, corrects errors and develops arguments. Famous examples are the articles “Manicheans” and “Paulicians”, which argue that reason cannot refute the dualist explanation of evil, the article “Pyrrho” on scepticism and the long article “Spinoza”. The work was one of the most widely owned books of the eighteenth century; Leibniz’s Theodicy and many Enlightenment authors responded to it.
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Connections
Builds on
- Essays1580 · Michel de Montaigne
Criticizes
- Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order1677 · Baruch de Spinoza
Answered in
- Theodicy1710 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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