Bayle and the Cartesian Crisis

Paper Summary:

The paper explores the role of Bayle as the Father of the Enlightenment, and attempts to explain the enigma of how such unrelenting scepticism can at all have been the "Arsenal of the Enlightenment". It lays forth the Cartesian debate with its origins in the Baconian method of science and Descartes ontology regarding the certainty of empirical knowledge. It also argues that the hidden rationale of the Cartesian debate, was to justify the Bacon's claim that sense experience is the root to absolute knowledge. This attitude of premeditation led the Cartesians into false arguments, confusion and absurdity. It looks at how in the end Bayle espoused a form of scepticism that was so thoroughly honest that it jolted the Western intellect back to its senses.

From the Paper:

"Cartesian doubt is the process by which Descartes arrived at the prize of absolute certainty of knowledge. The premise is that one should begin with Pyrrhonian doubt, thereby doubting everything stemming from experience, until one is left with consciousness of thought alone, and this, Descartes argues, cannot be doubted because the very process of doubting is also the process of thinking. "Cogito, ergo sum" was the conclusion of Descartes - I think, therefore I am. This is the one solid certainty left after Cartesian doubt. But then he introduces the false argument that God would not deceive him regarding the universe, and thus it is real, and sense experience is true knowledge of it. From this argument emerges the concept of mind and body duality. Thought is taking place in the mind, and this has no material substance or spatial extension. On the other hand the body does have substance and extension, along with everything else in the universe. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bayle, Pierre. Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections. Trans. Richard H. Popkin. Craig Brush (Ed.) Hackett Publishing Company, 1991.
• Durant, Will. The Story of Civilisation (Vol. 8): The Age of Louis XIV. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963.
• Faguet, Emile. Dix-huitieme Siecle. Paris: Societe Francaise D'Imprimerie et de Librairie Paris, 1980.
• "Pierre Bayle" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 7 Sept. 2004. 2 June 2004. <http://www.plato.stanford.edu/entires/bayle>
• Robinson, Daniel Sommers. S. Anthology of Modern Philosophy. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1931.

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