Pierre Bayle - Biography

Protestant philosopher and critic, born in Carlat, S France. In 1675 he took the chair of philosophy at Sedan until forced into exile at the University of Rotterdam in 1681, where he published a strong defence of liberalism and religious toleration. He was dismissed from the university in 1693 following the accusation that he was an agent of France and an enemy of Protestantism. In 1696 he completed his major work, the Dictionnaire historique et critique, a sceptical analysis of philosophical and theological arguments, which came to be influential in the 18th-c Enlightenment.

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Pierre Bayle (November 18, 1647 – December 28, 1706) was a French philosopher, skeptic, and writer.

Biography

'Pierre Bayle was born at Carla-le-Comte, near' Pamiers (Ariège), and was educated by his father, a Calvinist minister, and at an academy at Puylaurens.

In 1681 the university at Sedan was suppressed, but almost immediately afterwards Bayle was appointed professor of philosophy and history at the Ecole Illustre in Rotterdam. Here in 1682 he published his famous Pensées diverses sur la comète de 1680 and his critique of Louis Maimbourg's work on the history of Calvinism. The great reputation achieved by this critique stirred the envy of Bayle's colleague, Pierre Jurieu, who had written a book on the same subject.

In 1684 Bayle began the publication of his Nouvelles de la république des lettres, a journal of literary criticism.

Bayle's erudition was considerable. The Nouvelles de la république des lettres (see Louis P. Bayle und die Nouvelles de la république des lettres, Zürich, 1896) was the first thorough-going attempt to popularize literature, and it was eminently successful. des Maizeaux, 4 vols., 1740) Les Œuvres de Bayle (3 vols., The Hague) des Maizeaux, Vie de Bayle LA Feuerbach, Pierre Bayle (1838) Damiron, La Philosophie en France au XVIII' siècle (1858-1864) Sainte-Beuve, “Du genie critique et de Bayle" (Revue des deux mondes, December 1, 1855) A. 1, 1890), and La Critique de Bayle (1893) Émile Gigas, Choix de to correspondance inédite de Pierre Bayle (Paris, 1890, reviewed in Revue critique, December 22, 1890) de Budé, Lettres inédites adressées a J.