Bayle, Pierre

(1647-1706)

   writer, philosopher

   Born a Calvinist at Carla-Bayle and educated at the jesuit College in Toulouse, Pierre Bayle converted to Roman Catholicism in 1669, but a year later again adopted Protestantism. In 1675, he became professor of philosophy at the Protestant Academy of sedan and, in 1681, was appointed independent professor of philosophy and history at the Protestant Academy of Rotterdam. His first popular work was Pensées diverses sur la Comète de 1680 (1682), a rationalistic statement on the widespread fear caused by the appearance at the time of the great comet. In 1693, he was dismissed from his post at Rotterdam because of the suspicion that he had written a tract expressing religious skepticism. He soon compiled his Dictionnaire historique et critique (4 volumes, 1695-97), in which he forcefully advocated freedom of thought and conscience, questioned authority, and adopted a rationalist view of religion. This work in particular would have a great influence on the French Encyclopedists and philosophes of the 18th century and make Bayle a precursor of modern historical criticism. His other writings include Critique de l'histoire du calvinisme du P. Mainbourg (1682); Nouvelles de la république des lettres (a literary publication appearing monthly from 1684 to 1687), and La France toute catholique sous le règne de Louis le Grand (1685), a pamphlet defending civil liberties.