With these notes of the lectures of EE by prof dr. Van Bunge, you will certainly enjoy the learning process.
My apologies for any inconvenience in language structure. They were made while watching the lectures and have not been corrected since. Any feedback is welcome.
Early Enlightenment lecture 1 (03-09-2019) – Bayle and the Enlightenment
There can be found four problems considering enlightenment:
The Enlightenment can be considered to have took place in the 17 th or 18th century. The
Enlightenment can be characterized as a social cultural trend across Europe, that acquired a
radical political edge. The French revolution (1789) was a major happening in this concept,
but even earlier there already was the American revolution (1776). The biggest mistake one
can make is that the goal of the Enlightenment was to bring forth a certain philosophy.
Philosophy was however used to justify the actions that took place in this era.
Enlightenment can be characterized as an era between the 17 th to the 18th century or a social
political/cultural movement. Initially it was a cultural movement that got a radical political
edge. This is the American Revolution. Afterwards there was the Batavian Revolution (Dutch)
and afterwards the French Revolution. These revolutions were not the goal of the
Enlightenment, it is not a justification. Bunge would say the Enlightenment would be from
Bayle to Kant.
o Pierre Bayle Robespierre quoted a lot of Rousseau.
In France the Pantheon was made, serving as a church but later being used as cemetery. In
the centre of this action was Napoléon.
There is also a question if one could even speak of a European revolution. There are seen
cultural differences during this period. This disapproves the unity of the Enlightenment.
There are different kinds of Enlightenment throughout nations. Also, there are distinctions
between the level of Enlightenment: moderate or radical?
The concept of Enlightenment does not anymore refer to a certain period in history or
philosophy. Nowadays it is being used as a summary of …, causing uproar within the
discipline. Back when people when in the Middle Ages they were not aware of being in the
Middle Ages, because the concept was not known yet – such notions can only be made post
factum.
The difference between Early and Highly Enlightenment – within a French context – is that:
By the middle of the 18th century French state censorship got into trouble.
One of the biggest ‘philosophe’ of France – Voltaire – gets angry the moment the censorship
had been gotten rid of.
Julien de La Mettrie – in Leiden – publishes l’Homme Machine. The publisher – very smart –
published critique on this book afterwards. The most important concept of La Mettrie’s book
is that matter is motion.
o He died because of spoiled food; in other words, he ate himself to death.
The launch of the first Encyclopédie by Lambert, composed of knowledge of several authors.
The complaining of the ‘Church’ about the philosophers – they are taking over the public
domain. Somehow they got authority and well-known positions in the society – i.e. in the
Academy.
We start of at the French Enlightenment because of the modern and most civilized languages they
could educate: Latin and French. Until the middle of the 19 th century Latin was even being used in the
Netherlands. English was being considered an exotic and barbaric language. The funny part is that
most philosophers we know and learn from nowadays used English and abandoned French. However
, there were here and there still translations of texts into Latin, this was however considered to be
weird.
The initial start of the Enlightenment takes off moderately; gradually it becomes revolutionary.
However not everyone is happy with this notion. Pierre Bayle comes in at this part, because of his
important within the ‘European Enlightenment’. He is born as a son of a Protestant minister in the
Catholic part of France. He spend most of his career at Rotterdam, because of the colliding of the
religious movements implemented by Louis XIV. He befriended a nephew of Adrian Paets, Jacob van
Zoelen and via him he got a job at and illustrious school in Rotterdam as a professor.
Bayle starts his work by les comètes; trying to figure out the nature of these comets and what
association they have. Most of its work has been published by Reinier Leerts. Afterwards it went like
a train with his works. However a decade after his first work he gets critique and a demand of
suspension and firing, probably because of his religion. Paets had already died by then, so there was
no one to actually protect him. This lead to his full commitment to his magnum opus: his dictionnaire
in which he accounted six million words, explaining about several topics, consisting of lots of
annotations. It was probably his plead for religious toleration that lead to his demise in his
professional career at the school. Protestants cannot trust the Catholics, because the latter have
their obligation towards the Pope. The toleration was therefore very strange, in which he included
even atheists. This was probably because of the death of Bayle’s most loved brother who died in a
French prison.
Locke did not like atheists. One of his reasons was that they are not obliged to behave morally, since
there is no judgement to be passed after death.
Willem III wanted to teach Louis XIV a lesson, which Bayle was not fond of, being a pacifist. Bayle
came with two arguments towards toleration:
Christ told his disciples: “Compel them to come in, so that my house may not be empty.”
(Luke 14:23). This was an obvious demonstration of Christ’s desire to forcefully convert the
non-believers. Bayle argued about the real meaning behind this, because conversion without
will is a crime. This organizes hypocrisy.
o This lead to the rule that biblical texts are misinterpreted if they make us do crimes.
Every human being has the right to make mistakes. Faith is a matter of conscience, a
subjective relationship between you and God. No power has the right to intervene in this
relationship. Who is to say who is mistaken? This is a form of scepticism from Bayle’s side.
Bayle is thought the be the ultimate protestant, because he always protested.
Some people even claim that the French Revolution could be prevented if Bayle would have been
died, because he was a radical protestant. This however lead to Bayle being the profile of the
‘enlightened philosopher’, for he made a pathway towards the stop of the theological wars.
Human reason is not able to the major issues it wants to address, that is why we should suspend
judgements. This is the ultimate conclusion of scepticism. The problem of evil gets involved in here,
which says that evil is being recognized whenever we are unable to distinguish the goodness. It is
however a subjective affair.
There are two ways to see evil: the absence of good or a subjective affair.
God is omnipotent and all-good, however how is it possible that there is evil in the world. Bayle was
an expert in addressing this problem towards Christianity for this religion was – according to him –
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