Abstract
This conclusion summarizes the main theses of the book: (1) that Charron proposes an Academic skeptical view of wisdom; (2) that Gassendi’s revival of ancient skepticism was mainly inspired by Charron’s opposition to dogmatic science; (3) that La Mothe Le Vayer’s attack on superstition and strong attachment to opinions in general also was a development of Charron’s Academic skeptical wisdom; (4) that Descartes’s use of skepticism and doubt was crucially mediated by Charron’s and (5) that he, like Pascal, opposed Charron’s skeptical view of wisdom, though based on different grounds and for quite different purposes.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Jardine (1983) shows that Academic skepticism was viewed by major Renaissance authors, in the footsteps of Cicero, as the epistemology compatible with rethorics. Granada (2001) examines the first reception of Academic skepticism in Italy. Naya (2008, 2009) has examined a variety of receptions of ancient Pyrrhonism and Academic skepticism in the Renaissance and argued that the latter—but not the former—was viewed by Christian authors, following Augustine, as capable of leading to Christian faith. This interpretation of Academic skepticism favored its reception at the time. Levy (2001) and Laursen (2009) have examined Pedro de Valencia’s reception of Academic skepticism. Panichi (2009) and earlier Limbrick (1972) and Eva (2013) have argued for the relevance of Academic skepticism in Montaigne’s kind of skepticism which has been almost exclusively related to ancient Pyrrhonism. Limbrick (1972) claims that Montaigne’s reception resembles Augustine whereas Panichi shows the great relevance of Plutarch’s middle Platonic view of Academic skepticism as characterized by the search for the truth.
- 3.
Both Popkin (2003, 35) and Schmitt (1972, 165ff, 1983, 233) believed that because Sextus’ works were much more philosophically interesting than Cicero’s Academica, only after the former became available did skepticism became central in early modern philosophy. Popkin also believed that Sextus’ more sophisticated skepticism became very influential because it coincided with the problem, emerged in the Reform and the religious controversies it suscitated, of justifying religious knowledge claims. This generated what he called a “crise pyrrhonienne” in the sixteenth century. I quote the opening paragraph of the first chapter of Popkin’s History of Scpeticism: “One of the main avenues through which the sceptical views of antiquity entered late Renaissance thought was a central quarrel of the Reformation, the dispute over the proper standard of religious knowledge, or what was called ‘the rule of faith.’ This argument raised one of the classical problems of the Greek Pyrrhonists, the problem of the criterion of truth. With the rediscovery in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of writings of the Greek Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus, the arguments and views of the Greek sceptics became part of the philosophical core of the religious struggles then taking place. The problem of finding a criterion of truth, first raised in theological disputes, was then later raised with regard to natural knowledge, leading to la crise pyrrhonienne of the early sixteenth century” (2003, 3). For the fortune of Sextus’ works from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, see Floridi (2002). For criticism of Popkin’s theory, see Ayers (2004), Perler (2004) and Maclean (2006).
- 4.
- 5.
One of Pascal’s fragments about Descartes is the following one: “Descartes. Il faut dire en gros: cela se fait par figure et mouvement. Car cela est vrai, mais de dire quelles et composer la machine, cela est ridicule. Car cela est inutile et incertain et pénible” (La 84). Locke is the philosopher who most extensively and famously exposed the limits of natural philosophy along these lines: if the pre mechanical philosophy is basically tautological or unverifiable by experience, the new mechanical view makes it plan that natural philosophy can be only probable.
- 6.
Gassendi (1962) contains all the rounds of the fight.
- 7.
The literature on this debate is immense. Lennon (1993) provides a detailed analysis of the main philosophical issues controversed, first in the direct confrontation and then in the followers of Descartes’s and Gassendi’s, in particular in the two major ones in the period, respectively, Malebranche and Locke.
- 8.
Arnauld (1777, vol. X, 342) claims that Tubero’s (the pseudonym used by La Mothe Le Vayer in the Dialogues faits à l’imitatioin des anciens) épochè is contrary to Christian faith.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Another such transitional figure is Glanvill, see Introduction, note 17.
- 12.
Charron’s direct influence on Foucher, Huet and Bayle, which I suppose little, still waits further inquiry. In the case of Bayle, the article “Charron” in the Dictionary seems relevant to at least some aspects of his own skepticism. On Bayle’s reception of Charron, see Paganini (1980, 92–96), Bianchi (1988, 141–175), and Adam (1991, 202–206). Huet knew well Charron’s work. In his marginalia of Pascal’s Pensées, he notes that Pascal’s wager is a reappraisal of one of the arguments in Charron’s Trois Vérités (see Maia Neto and Popkin 1995 and Orcibal 1956). Although the list of Huet’s personal library indicates Charron’s works, I could not find the books in the collection preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In any event, Charron does not seem directly relevant to the main skeptical arguments in the Traité Philosophique. Finally, Foucher’s philosophy is pretty much the result of his engagement with Cartesianism. Charron’s Wisdom seems to play no role in it.
- 13.
I argue in Maia Neto (1999) that Bayle’s skepticism is Academic and show his reception and modifications of the skepticisms exhibited by Charron, La Mothe Le Vayer, Descartes and Pascal.
- 14.
See Huet (1974, chapter 6: “Quelle est la fin que l’on se propose dans l’art de douter”). Avoiding error is the immediate end, the ultimate end is to prepare for the reception of religious truth. For Huet’s fierce reaction to Descartes’s view of the plain truth, see Lennon (2008). For the presence of Descartes’s doubt in Huet’s skepticism, see Maia Neto (2008). For that of Pascal’s, see Maia Neto (2006).
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
See letters to Heinrich Köselitz from 30 March and 16 April 1881, in eKGWB/BVN, 1881, 97 and 103. I thank Rogério Lopes for calling my attention to these references.
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Neto, J.R.M. (2014). Conclusion. In: Academic Skepticism in Seventeenth-Century French Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 215. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07359-0_7
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