Comment les modernes ont-ils été amenés à considérer sous un nouveau jour le problème de la certitude et de la connaissance? L’étude proposée ici vise à mettre en évidence le rôle joué par la renaissance du scepticisme et à montrer comment et par quels détours le “phénomène” du scepticisme pyrrhonien est devenu l’“apparence” des modernes. Dans cette histoire, les sceptiques déclarés n’ont pas seul opéré ce travail de reprise et de transformation : une part décisive revient aussi aux adversaires du (...) scepticisme . Le renouveau sceptique ne tire pas son importance de sa seule dimension critique; par ses objections, il a joué un rôle majeur dans la réforme moderne de la “philosophie première”.Faire de la connaissance un rapport entre le monde interne de la représentation et le monde extérieur des choses, a évidemment une origine sceptique. Mais cette conception a son histoire complexe et multiforme. Elle passe notamment par la dissolution de la doctrine aristotélicienne des species , par la reprise de la conception du phénomène tirée de Sextus , par une réflexion sur les effets destructeurs du scepticisme libertin , mais aussi par la conjonction du relativisme de Montaigne et des résultats de la nouvelle science . Ainsi, en rouvrant le dossier sceptique, Bayle peut mener sa critique des présupposés de la philosophie première en débat à la fin du XVIIe siècle. (shrink)

This article challenges the idea that Hobbes presents a negative anthropology and shows, to the contrary, that there is a thick web of social relations in his state of nature and laws of nature. It considers the contradiction between human natural equality claimed by Hobbes, and female subjection that de facto characterizes most of his passages on gender relations. The key to this puzzle is found in comparison of the notions of conquest and consent, and of acquisition and institution, comparisons (...) that establish a similarity between paternal authority and despotic dominion. A step towards the solution is provided by the hypothesis that the divide between “vainglorious” and “moderate” is gendered, with women more disposed to moderation than men. This can be explained by the idea that, “for society’s sake,” women in the state of nature appreciate more the advantages of long-term cooperation, even at the price of some subordination. (shrink)

While most scholars who have discussed the letters of Elisabeth and Descartes exchanged in 1646 on the subject of the Prince focused on Descartes, whether he was Machiavellian or not, I shall deal here more in depth with the position of Elisabeth. I shall address then four main points: the so-called “methodological” question raised by Descartes about the Prince and quickly dismissed by Elisabeth; the issue of political realism, that is one of the great themes of Machiavelli’s thought; the problem (...) of the “good man,” namely whether and how the natural law can bind in a “wicked” world; Elisabeth’s focus on the passions against Descartes’s political and providential mereology. Finally, I shall try to draw some more general conclusions as regards the place of Elisabeth in the broader context of seventeenth century political philosophy, especially in regard to Hobbes. (shrink)

Hobbes surely spent the ten years of greatest significance for his philosophical career on the Continent, in France, above all, in Paris. It was during this period that he published De cive; wrote the De motu, loco et tempore; produced a draft of the entire Leviathan as well as most of De corpore. His complicated relationship with Descartes has been studied closely, and Mersenne’s role has become clearer. There remains however the task of more carefully delineating the contours of Hobbes’s (...) relations with the circles of “learned libertinism.” The Libertinism which will be dealt with here was not only French, instead of English, but also “theoretical” and “intellectual” rather than practical, and nothing at all sexual, contrary to the common usage of that word in the current language. French Libertinism was a philosophical trend aimed at promoting a non-conformist approach to religion, history, morals, and even politics. (shrink)

In the 17th century not all manuscripts were clandestine because there also existed manuscripts written for public circulation, but it is undeniable that most of the resolutely “heterodox” authors found it useful to entrust their ideas to manuscripts both to protect themselves against the retaliation of the authorities and to circumvent the censorship to which printed books were subject. These philosophical manuscripts were messengers of “full heterodoxy” which we could call “global” and not “local”. The exclusion did not regard one (...) or another context but all of the contexts of the Ancien Régime, as they expressed a radical dissent in contrast with all of the orthodoxies of modern Europe. Bodin’s Colloquium, like Theophrastus redivivus and Meslier’s Mémoire, could not have been published either in a Catholic country or in a Protestant one, either in an absolute monarchy or in a republic. The clandestine authors were aware that it would be impossible to spread their ideas outside a circle protected by the manuscript form and most often by anonymity. (shrink)

When does Renaissance philosophy end, and Early Modern philosophy begin? Do Renaissance philosophers have something in common, which distinguishes them from Early Modern philosophers? And ultimately, what defines the modernity of the Early Modern period, and what role did the Renaissance play in shaping it? The answers to these questions are not just chronological. This book challenges traditional constructions of these periods, which partly reflect the prejudice that the Renaissance was a literary and artistic phenomenon, rather than a philosophical phase. (...) The essays in this book investigate how the legacy of Renaissance philosophers persisted in the following centuries through the direct encounters of subsequent generations with Renaissance philosophical texts. This volume treats Early Modern philosophers as joining their predecessors as ‘conversation partners’: the ‘conversations’ in this book feature, among others, Girolamo Cardano and Henry More, Thomas Hobbes and Lorenzo Valla, Bernardino Telesio and Francis Bacon, René Descartes and Tommaso Campanella, Giulio Cesare Vanini and the anonymous Theophrastus redivivus. (shrink)

Difficulties with periodization are often symptoms of internal diseases affecting the history of philosophy. Renaissance scholars and historians of early modern philosophy represent two scholarly communities that do not communicate with each other, as if an abrupt change of scenery had taken place from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, from the age of Campanella to the age of Descartes. The assumption of an arbitrary division between these two periods continues to have unfortunate effects on the study of the history (...) of philosophy. This chapter provides a diagnosis of this problem by looking at the way in which periodization crystallized in the history of philosophy. It then lays a foundation for attempting a new approach to this issue, which consists in mapping direct connections and conceptual links of seventeenth-century philosophers with the philosophies of the Renaissance. We intend to shift the weight from the problem of assessing the ‘modernity’ of Renaissance philosophers to the creation of a space of interaction between Renaissance and early modern thinkers in the spirit of ‘conversation’, with special attention to tracing sources, direct allusions, confutations and continuities. (shrink)

This book reassesses the role and impact of skepticism in early modern philosophy, revisiting and reinterpreting the positions of some of the main early modern philosophers in relation to this tradition and showing its relevance to others who have not previously been connected to skepticism.

This book reassesses the role and impact of skepticism in early modern philosophy, revisiting and reinterpreting the positions of some of the main early modern ...

The article regards the transformation of friendship in Hobbes’s work. From simple acceptance of the Aristotelian definition in The Whole Art of Rhetoric, Hobbes passes in the Elements to a dual approach. On one hand, he goes so far as to reaffirm the natural sociability of man solely through friendship but, on the other, he subordinates the whole question of passions to the new concept of power, which involves the redefinition of friendship as an "Instrumentall power". In Leviathan this connection (...) between "power", "honour" and "friendship" becomes tighter and tighter. Did Gassendi influence Hobbes’s shift, which was fully developed in Leviathan? Security and need are the key words in the Epicurean doctrine of friendship, and also Epicurus did not endorse the thesis of human natural sociability. The analogies with the Hobbesian doctrine are impressive . However, Gassendi was well aware of the objections raised against the too utilitarian nature of Epicurean friendship. His strategy consisted in moralizing this kind of affection and promoting a revival of Aristotle’s theory. With its insistence on the need for security and utility, it is Hobbes’s approach, therefore, that is closer to the true Epicurean doctrine of friendship. By contrast, he reacts against its apolitical character. Whereas for Epicurus and Gassendi the aim of friendship is essentially a "defense" within the context of individual ataraxia, for Hobbes friendship is a "power" that can bring about real and stable benefits only through the social contract and within a political dimension. (shrink)