•  573
    Bayle and Panpsychism
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 99 (1): 64-101. 2017.
    Pierre Bayle shows that, in order to avoid devastating objections, materialism should postulate that the property of thinking does not emerge from certain material combinations but is present in matter from the start and everywhere—a hypothesis recently revived and labelled “panpsychism”. There are reasons for entertaining the idea that Bayle actually considers this enhanced materialism to be tenable, as it might use the same line of defence that Bayle outlined for Stratonism. However, this woul…Read more
  •  321
    Les images psychiques selon S. Augustin
    In Danielle Lories & Laura Rizzerio (eds.), De la phantasia à l’imagination. pp. 103-136. 2003.
  •  302
    Le possible selon Aristote
    Revue de Philosophie Ancienne 22 (2): 37-96. 2004.
  •  283
    I examine Bayle's infamous statement that Christian mysteries are not only "above" human reason, but are "against" it. I put it back in the context of 16th-17th century Reformed thought. I then discuss the relation between reason and faith according to Bayle.
  •  138
    Scepticisme, métaphysique et morale : le cas Bayle
    In Hubert Bost & Anthony McKenna (eds.), Les « Éclaircissements » de Bayle, . pp. 499-524. 2010.
    In this paper, I examine the problem of Bayle's skepticism. I show that he is not a wholesale skeptic. Rather, he thinks that reason is plagued by internal conflicts. But its principles, which clash with each other, can be adopted separately from each other. It is often what we have to do when dealing with metaphysical problems. This also entails that reason is not to be rejected as a whole when it happens to be contradicted by faith; only some of its principles have to be denied, and solely in …Read more
  •  107
    I first explain the scholastic (Scotist) thesis on the independence of essences Bayle alludes to in the passage of the Continuation des Pensée Diverses where he presents the Stratonicians' and the Chinese philosophers' retorsion. Then, I show that this retorsion applies to the argument of the existence of God based on "aseity", but not to the occasionalist argument based on the "quod nescis" principle. I conclude that materialism (the "Stratonician hypothesis") cannot be, for Bayle, a satisfying…Read more
  •  75
    Bringing together two aspects of Thomas Aquinas's thought that have been studied separately: his theory of God's concurrence and his theory of instrumental causality, I show how he uses the latter (which I discuss first) to clarify the Proclusian principle that the first cause has a greater influence on an effect than the proximate causes. Thanks to this theory, Aquinas accounts for the fact that it is God who confers existence to every new being that is produced by natural processes, without ho…Read more
  •  72
    La théodicée de Pierre Bayle
    In Olivier Boulnois (ed.), Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu des philosophes : Révélation et Rationalité, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. pp. 171-193. 2023.
    Contrary to what many interpretations claim, according to Bayle faith does not completely eliminate reason. It intervenes to reveal factual truths that can only be known through revelation (for example, that God allowed Adam and Eve to sin). To these factual truths can be applied a rational principle (an axiomatic and evident one, according to Bayle, which he calls a "common notion"), namely, that "what God does is well done." God allowed sin, so we must think it was justified, even if we don't …Read more
  •  72
    This paper explores the origins of the term "causa sine qua non" used by Durand de Saint-Pourçain to describe the role of material things in knowledge. I show that its technical meaning comes from the Stoics and was transmitted to the Middle Ages by Boethius' commentary on Cicero's Topics. The expression "sine qua non" here does not have the ordinary and restricted meaning of "indispensable", "necessary condition", which can also apply to direct, per se causes of an effect. In the present contex…Read more
  •  56
  •  55
    The Coherence of Bayle’s Theory of Toleration
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 54 (1): 21-46. 2016.
    pierre bayle’s treatise on tolerance is a landmark in the birth of the modern mind. Written shortly before Locke’s Letter on Toleration, it advocates full toleration of all religious beliefs, not by reduction to the lowest common denominator, but rather because of the moral evilness of persecutions and forced conversions.However, many commentators believe that there is a flaw in Bayle’s theory: the so-called “conscientious persecutor aporia.”1 In order to show the wickedness of persecution, Bayl…Read more
  •  53
    The problem of the intensification and remission of qualities was a crux for philosophical, theological, and scientific thought in the Middle Ages. It was raised in Antiquity with this remark of Aristotle: some qualities, as accidental beings, admit the more and the less. Admitting more and less is not a trivial property, since it belongs neither to every category of being, nor to every quality. Rather it applies only to states and dispositions such as virtue, to affections of bodies such as hea…Read more
  •  38
    Scotus versus Aquinas on Instrumental Causality
    Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 7 (1). 2019.
    The medieval notion of instrumental cause is not limited to what we call today “instruments” or “tools.” It extends way beyond the realm of technology and includes natural entities, for instance, the accidents by which a substance acts on another substance, sensible species in the air acting on a visual faculty, sacraments, bodily organs, and sometimes creatures with respect to God’s action. In all these cases, instrumental causes, like secondary causes in general, are subordinated to a principa…Read more
  •  25
    Leibniz et Bayle: confrontation et dialogue (edited book)
    Franz Steiner Verlag. 2015.
    Les textes reunis dans ce volume visent a combler une importante lacune : l'absence d'etude d'ampleur consacree specifiquement aux relations entre Pierre Bayle et Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, permettant d'evaluer l'influence qu'ils ont exercee l'un sur l'autre, par leurs ecrits et leurs echanges, directs et indirects.Le but est de confronter ces deux philosophes majeurs du XVIIe siecle, en cherchant a depasser l'opposition reductrice entre scepticisme d'un cote et rationalisme dogmatique de l'autr…Read more
  •  22
    Giles of Rome on the Intensification of Forms
    Quaestio 20 217-238. 2021.
    Quaestio, Volume 20, Issue, Page 217-238, January 2020.
  •  17
    Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy ed. by Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender
    with Nick Westberg
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 59 (4): 688-689. 2021.
    This volume is a welcome addition to early modern scholarship, providing a source of reflection on the connection between cognition theory and causation theory. The collection's great merit is exploiting this cognition-causation connection to provide a new avenue for historical research that is at the same time philosophically significant.Several of the essays advance our understanding of key figures by using this connection to settle longstanding interpretive disputes. For instance, in "Descart…Read more
  •  14
    Silence et philosophie
    Revue Philosophique De Louvain 103 (4): 613-637. 2005.
  •  12
    Alain de Lille, le docteur universel (edited book)
    with Alain Galonnier and Anca Vasiliu
    Brepols. 2005.
    xx
  •  11
    La logique d'un texte médiéval: Guillaume d’Auxerre et la question du possible
    Revue Philosophique De Louvain 98 (2): 250-293. 2000.
    The problem of the limitations of or conditions for God's power was one of the most fruitful topics in medieval discussions. While debating it, medieval thinkers came to redefine the concept of the "possible." William of Auxerre's disputed questions offer an example of critical reexamination of Aristotle's conception of possibility. Parallel to the account of William's views on the topic, the article provides (from a formal point of view, so to speak) an analysis of the sequence and formulation …Read more
  •  10
    François-Xavier Putallaz, Figures franciscaines de Bonaventure à Duns Scot (review)
    Revue Philosophique De Louvain 98 (2): 366-367. 2000.
  •  10
    Giles of Rome on the Intensification of Forms
    Quaestio 20 217-238. 2021.
    On the question of the intensio/remissio formarum, Giles, while sharing Thomas Aquinas’s view’s main tenets, develops a very different theory - in fact, a theory that is unique, and deeply “aegidian”: the increase or decrease does not take place in the essence of a qualitative form, but only in its esse, in function of the disposition of the subject that receives this form. Giles’s position, however, may be threatened by a risk of infinite regress in the conditions that explain the receptivity o…Read more
  •  8
    Recueil de contributions sur la connaissance du monde par Dieu et sur le statut des vérités objectives de la science montrant la diversité des approches proposées par des philosophes tels que Thomas d'Aquin, Duns Scot, Guillaume d'Ockham, François de Meyronnes, Nicolas Malebranche, Pierre Bayle...