The topic of my dissertation is the
relationship between philosophical reason and religious belief in the
work of Pierre Bayle, a seventeenth-century Huguenot skeptic. Bayle
was one of the most erudite and prolific homme de lettres of his day, which made him eminently qualified to compile the Dictionnaire historique et critique, his encyclopedic work and magnum opus.
But he was also a deeply religious man (or at least appeared to be
outwardly); his family was heavily persecuted in France for their
religious beliefs, and Bayle himself briefly converted to Catholicism
before returning to the Huguenot faith. These events provided the motivation for his liberal position on religious toleration, as well as his
skeptical philosophical position.
My dissertation first examines
other conceptions of the reason-faith relationship among rationalists
and skeptics of the seventeenth century, and sketches the contemporary
interpretive landscape of Bayle studies, currently deeply divided over
this very issue. It then uses the method of close textual analysis to
develop in turn Bayle's conception of the nature and function of
philosophical reason, and then his conception of religious belief and
faith as distinctly Huguenot. Finally, it provides a systematic
interpretation of Bayle's thought that I call "philosophical fideism,"
which integrates Bayle's conception of reason and his conception of
religious belief into a coherent account of the reason-faith
relationship that is faithful to both the spirit and the letter of
Bayle's texts and life. It also provides the grounding for Bayle's
claims about the erring conscience and the justification for religious
toleration.