Abstract
In the year 1767 Pierre-Jacques Changeux published a work entitled Traité des Extremes, ou des éléments de la science de la réalité (Amsterdam, 2 vol.). In the “Avertissement” the author states that his work had been undertaken at first as an article commissioned by the Encyclopédie, but that it had expanded so much that it had not been finished in time (I, p. V). In fact, the volume of the Encyclopédie with the letter R had been published in 1765, and included an article “Réalité” which was completely insignificant, which had nothing to do with Changeux’s ideas.
This research was made possible by a J.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.
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Notes
B. De Felice, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire universal raisonné des connaisances humaines, 42 vil., Yverdon 1770–1775
R. Desautels, Les Mémoires de Trévoux et le mouvement des idées aux XVIIIe siècle (1701–1734), Rome 1956, pp. 173–186
Actually, the Biographie calls this journal Journal de Physique; but in the Abbé Rozier’s time it was still entitled Observations sur la physique. The title was changed in 1794. See E. Hatin, Bibliographie historique et critique de la presse pérodique française, Paris 1866 (Rp. Hildesheim 1965) pp. 36–37.
Other information is contained in Ch. Brainne, J. Debar-Bouiller, Ch.-F. LaPierre, Les hommes illustres de l’Orléans, 2 vol., Orléans 1852, I. P. 308.
B. Pascal, Pensées et opuscules, ed. Brunschvieg, Paris 1912, p. 174. These passages were still unpublished in 1768, but not those referred to in Note 6.
Op. Cit., pp. 350–353.
See J. TH. Van Konijnenburg, Courantpascalien et courant anti-pascalien de 1670 à 1734 [in fact, until 1746], thesis Leided, Bruxelles 1932; B. Amoudru, Des “pascalins”aux “Pascalisantes”. La vie posthume des Pensées, Paris 1936; D. Finch, La critique philosophique de Pascal au XVIIIe siècle, University of Pennsylvania thesis, Philadelphia 1940; J. Ehrad, Pascal au siècle des lumières, in: Pascal présent, Clermont-Ferrand 1962; M. Krause, Das Pascal-Bild in der französischen Literatur, Hamburg 1955. M. Vamos’ monograph: Pascal’s pensées and the Enlightenment: the roots of a 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 Pensées are concerned.
L. Racine. Poésies, Paris 1823, p. 34 (La Religion, Ch. II): “Je ne suis à la fois que néant et grandeur.”
Amoudru, op. cit., p. 72. We also could consider a passage of Vauvenargues: see F. Vial, Luc de Clapier, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Paris 1838, (Rp. Genève 1970), p. 78.
G-L. Leclerc de Buffon, Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. Pivetau, Paris 1954 p. 41 {Hist. Nat., vol. XIII, 1765, “Seconde Vue!”).
See G. Tonelli, “Critiques to the Notion of Substance Prior to Kant,” in: Tijdschrift voor Philosophic XXIII, 1961.
R. H. Popkin, Scepticism in the Enlightenment, in: Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, XXVI, 1963, pp. 1321 ff.
See my essay, “Kant und die antiken Skeptiker, in: Studien zu Kant’s philosophischer Entwicklung, hrsg. v. H. Heimsoeth, Hildesheim 1967, p.109 (and footnotes referred to in it).
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.
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.
Op. cit., p. 1335.
L. Robinson, “Un solipsiste au XVIIe siècle, in: L’Année philosophique, XXIV, 1913, p. 29.
H. Kirkinen, Les origines de la conception moderne de l’homme-machine, Helinski, 1960, pp. 360–361. Kirkinen finds in Maubec a “raison générale” 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 & toujours uniforme” (pp. 109–110); “… ainsi il est visible qu’il est certaines choses sur lesquelles tous les hommes doivent raisonner à peu prés de la même manière” (p. 121). The point is the à peu près. This is a “raison generale & commune à 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 le peu d’apparence qu’il y a que Cieu a voulu nous tromper dans les choses qu’il nous fait appercevoir d’une manière 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 “mélange monstrueux de vérité & d’ereur, d’évidence et d’incertitude, de clarté et de confusion” (p. 122). However, Maubec plans to expound in a future work the criterion for the truth of reasonable knowledge, through an examination 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 Régis 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 constitution, and our education, as was held by Harvey, Helvétius, etc. One could propose a connection, perhaps, with Hobbes, whose influence in this field has not been studied adequately.
J.S. Spink, French Free-THought from Gassendi to Voltaire, London, 1960, pp. 220–221. I could not see personally Gaultier’s work.
R. Mercier, La réhabilitation de la nature humaine (1700–1750), Paris, 1960, pp. 205–207.
See L. Tolmer, P.-D. Huet (1630–1721), Bayeux, 1949.
Popkin, op. cit., p. 1326.
J.-F. Baltus, Sentiment…sur le Traité de la faiblesse…, in: P.-N. Desmolets, Continuation des Mémoires de littétature et d’histoire, T. II, le P., Paris, 1926.
Spink, op. cit., p. 307.
Popkin, op. cit., p. 1327.
See n. 2 above.
W. Krauss, Cartaud de la Villate, Berlin 1960.
Mercier, op. cit., pp. 185–186.
G.-C. Legendre de Saint Aubain-sur-Loire, Traité 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 nonsensical, 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.
Spink, op. cit., pp. 309f.
Popkin, op. cit., p. 1330.
Mercier, op. cit., pp. 433f.
F. Quesnay, Essai physique sur V économie animale (1737), Paris 1747. Another important document of Quesnay’s scepticism is his article “Evidence” in the Encyclopédie (1756). See also J.B. le 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. Genève 1971).
F.M. Arouet de Voltaire, Micromégas, ed. Wade, Princeton, 1950. See Wade’s Introduction and notes, and pp. 141f.
F.M. Arouet de Voltaire, Romans et contes, ed. H. Bénac, Paris 1958, p. 315.
This is not the opinion of R. Geissler, Boureau-Deslandes, Ein Materialist der Frühaufklärung, Berlin 1967.
I will discuss this work more extensively in my monograph on Maupertuis.
See his poem La Religion (1742), in Poésies, Paris 1823.
See above, n. 36.
See, for example, L. de Clapier de Vauvenargues, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Bonnier, Paris 1968, vol I, pp. 251–252. (Réflexions sur divers sujets, 1, Sur le Pyrrhonisme).
Vial, op. cit., pp. 74–108.
E. Bonnot de Condillac, Oeuvres complètes, Paris 1803 suiv., I, pp. 2–3, 18, 110–112; III, pp. 373, 385–386; IV, pp. 222, 383–384, 392–393.
Condillac, op. cit., I, pp. 20–25.
See references given in n. 42.
Condillac, op. cit., pp. 125–146.
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.
See J. Schwartz, Diderot and Montaigne, Genève 1966, pp. 60–85; Popkin, op. cit., p. 1336.
See n. 33. Maupertuis’ basic works in this respect are: Réflexions sur l’origine des langues (1748), Essai de Cosmologie (1750), and Lettres (1752). See P.-L. Moreau de Maupertuis Oeuvres, 4 vol., Lyon 1768.
A. Le Sueur, Maupertuis et ses correspondants, Paris 1897, pp. 355–356 and n.
G.L. Leclerc de Buffon, Oeuvres complètes, Paris 1845, vol. I, p. 5.
Buffon, op. cit., I, p. 12; III pp. 115, 119, 131, 221, 222.
Buffon, op. cit., III, p. 126.
Buffon, op cit., I, pp. 11–12; III, pp. 115–116.
Buffon, op. cit., III, pp. 221, 222, 224.
J. Offray de la Mettrie, Oeuvres, Berlin 11774 (Rp. Hildesheim 1970). pp. 30–31.
Encyclopédie, vol IV, 1753, pp. 746–747.
Ch. Bonnet, Essai de Psychologie, Londres 1755, pp. 96, 105, 106, 118–122, 386; Essai analytique sur les facultés de l’âme, Copenhague 1760, pp. XIV-XVI, 14, 45, 79, 93,95, 168, 467. However, thought definitely seems to be different from matter: pp. XVIII-XX.
Popkin, op. cit., p. 1342.
N. Beguelinm, Mémoire sur les premiers principes de la métaphysique, I, in: Histoire de V Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres [de Berlin], MDCCLV, 1757, in particular, p. 419.
J.B. Mérian, Discours sur la Métaphysique, in: Histoire etc., MDCCLXV, 1767, pp. 459–461. The Discours also had been published separately in 1765.
See G. Tonelli, “D’Alemberts Scepticism”, to be published in The Review of Metaphysics.
Encyclopédie, vol. XIII, 1765, art. “Propriété”; Vol XV, 1765 art. “Sensations”, p. 35, “Sentiment intime”.
Popkin, op. cit., p. 1342, n. 42.
I, pp. 45–46: “Nous avons dit que ce n’est qu’en découvrant quelle est notre constitution présente, notre manière de sentir, que nous pourrons juger de la réalité dans nos sensations, & par une conséquence nécessaire, de la certitude dans nos idées et dans nos raisonnements, & que l’on ne peut autrement fixer cette manière de sentir, qu’en reconnaissant les deux Extrèmes entre lesquels se trouve.”
J. le Rond D’Alembert, Oeuvres, vol. II, Paris 1805, pp. 29–30 (Rp. as Elements de Philosophie, ed. Schwab, Hildesheim 1965).
See Buffon, op. cit., p. 12. For Locke, moral ideas had the same character as mathematical ideas: J. 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.
Locke, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 275ff.
Condillac, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 49–53.
Condillac, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 49–53.
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”.
See, e.g. G. Berkeley, The Works, ed. Fraser, Oxford 1901, Vol. I, pp. 276–277, 424.
See above, n. 61.
See G. Tonelli, “Kant und die antiken Skeptiker,” op. cit., pp. 110f.
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Tonelli, G. (1997). Pierre-Jacques Changeux and Scepticism in the French Enlightenment. In: Popkin, R.H., De Olaso, E., Tonelli, G. (eds) Scepticism in the Enlightenment. Archives Internationales d’histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 152. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8953-6_4
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