The Traité philosophique, Huet’s main philosophical work, was published only posthumously, two years after his death. But the bulk of the work was ready in 1685 and was meant as the first book of a larger work titled Alnetanae Quaestiones. In this chapter I relate the history of this work, from its conception to its publication, first in Huet’s own French translation in 1723 and then, in 1738, in its original Latin.
3.1 Huet’s Philosophical Project
In 1670 Huet is appointed sub-preceptor (assistant teacher) of the heir of Louis XIV, Louis de France (1661–1711).1 The appointment followed Huet’s ascension in the Republic of Letters with the publication in 1668 of his Origenis in Sacras Scripturas Commentaria, based on a manuscript of Origen’s commentary on Mathew’s gospel he and Bochart found in Christina’s library in Sweden.2 While working on his translation and commentary in Caen and Paris from the late ‘50s through the ‘60s, Huet established solid relationships with some of the major scholars at the time and entered in the Parisian salons, in particular through the mediation of two influential hommes des lettres at the time: Gilles Ménage (1613–1692) and Jean Chapelain (1595–1674).3 He thus developed friendship not only with scholars—what was already taking place since his graduation and first trips to Paris (1651–1652)—but also with powerful noble women and men. He was appointed to the sub-preceptorship by one of the latter, the Duke of Montausier, gouverneur of the king.4 The job took ten years (until the marriage of the Dauphin). This was the busiest period of Huet’s life.5 Besides teaching the Dauphin, he organized the edition of a series of scholarly commentaries of Latin classical writers ad usum Delphini,6 was elected to the French Academy, became a priest and worked hard in a huge apologetic work, in which he claimed to prove geometrically, employing definitions and axioms—but based on historical and philological arguments which required much erudition—the truth of the Christian religion.7
Once discharged from the teaching job at court and receiving the abbey of Aunay, close to Caen, abbot Huet began to work on a new project. Despite much criticized, Demonstratio Evangelica established Huet as one of the major world scholars, learned in Greek and Hebrew, a master in Latin writing, and endowed with vast knowledge of ancient literature. His fame disseminated throughout Europe.8 Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694), at the time occupying an influential political position in Sweden,9 made a great eulogy of the work and urged Huet—than already nominated bishop—to apply the same method in attempting a reconciliation between the Protestant and Catholic Churches. Huet considered the possibility of engaging in this new project. Given his authority as a major scholar recognized by Catholic, Calvinist and Lutheran philosophers and theologians, this project appeared as a plausible upward step in his career since no other intellectual endeavor at the time could be more important. As Pufendorf says in the letter, he had not only the intellectual but also the political requirements for such a difficult and delicate task: he was one of the most erudite Catholic bishops and close to the king of France.10 Huet gave up the project because of the theological and political difficulties he found among French Calvinists.11
Huet spent in Aunay the happiest periods of his long life.12 The abbey provided him the leisure to engage in what he says he appreciated most: philosophy.13 Once frustrated the project of reconciling the Christian churches (reformed faiths with Catholic faith), the new project was to reconcile religion with philosophy (Christian faith with reason). The new work would be his alternative to Cartesianism, at the occasion in process of becoming the hegemonic philosophy of the age, understood in the large sense of the time which included Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), and the Oratorian’s project of using Descartes’s philosophy to explain or clarify theological problems. Huet reacted to the two most important contemporary “Cartesians.” On a more strictly philosophical level, Huet reacted to Pierre-Sylvain Régis (1632–1707), the “official” Cartesian at the time. The work would be his alternative “system” to Régis’s Système de philosophie, contenant la logique, la métaphysique, la physique et la morale.14 Although published only in 1690, the same year of the publication of Huet’s Quaestiones in only three books, Régis’s systematic compendium of philosophy existed in manuscript since 1680.15 The fact that Huet refers to the Traité philosophique as his “system” suggests he was aware of Régis’ work which took so long to be published because of the difficulty in receiving the permission from the Sorbonne.16 On the frontier of philosophy with religion, the then crucial issue of the compatibility between a philosophical system and the Christian religion, the main “Cartesian” adversary is Malebranche,17 with his synthesis of Cartesianism and Augustinianism. Huet’s alternative was radically different: unlike Malebranche’s deistic natural religion established by philosophical reasoning, he proposed a historically universal Judeo-Christian religion established through erudite exegesis of myths held all over the world. In order to support his historical approach and discredit the dogmatic philosophical one, he attacked the latter arguing for the weakness of human understanding and attacking the most important philosophy at the time—Cartesianism—which more than any previous one supported the strength of human understanding.
In his Memoirs (II, 203), he says that Quaestiones (published in 1690) and Censura (published in 1689) “were part of a greater work” which he describes as follows. His study of philosophy at school and, afterwards, his close reading of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives, arouse in him a great interest in philosophy.
Huet tells that the subject grew to such an extent that he decided to break it “under certain headings” in order that it become “better accommodated to common understanding” (Memoirs, II, 205).18 This study, he adds, was the origin of Alnetanae Quaestiones de Concordia Rationis et Fidei and Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae.And as this science [philosophy] is boundless, wandering into immensity beyond the limits of time and creation, whilst the human mind, cooped within narrow bounds, depressed to earth, and involved in thick darkness, attempts by the aid of its reason to break forth into the light, and to seize upon the arduous summits of truth, I proposed to enquire how high it could raise itself by its own powers, and what aids were to be sought for it from faith. (Memoirs, II, 204–205)
The epistemological inquiry about the extent and certainty of human knowledge is a precondition for the reconciliation of reason with faith. Huet arrives at a conclusion quite opposite to Descartes’s who holds the need to examine—at least once in one’s life—all things the human mind can know without the supernatural aid of grace.19 Huet’s inquiry is carried out in what became much later the Traité but which was complete before the two other mentioned works were published. Huet omits the main reason for the division of the original work, namely, the suppression of the Traité, the existence of which he did not want to acknowledge during his lifetime. Of course the size of the original planned work could be an extra reason for the separation, but the major one is not completely hidden in the autobiography: the need to accommodate the work to vulgar men,20 who would not understand how skepticism could serve religion and therefore would be horrified at Huet’s philosophical view. Furthermore, that this view is skeptical and radically opposes dogmatic Cartesianism is clear enough in the passage, in which dogmatic metaphysical pretension is attacked through the exposition of the weakness of human understanding. Unshakable truth is available to men only through faith, not through reason, even the reason restored to its integrity through hyperbolic doubt such as proposed by Descartes.
3.2 The Originally Planned Alnetanae Quaestiones
In 1999 I discovered at BNF the most ancient manuscript thus far known of Huet’s Traité philosophique—it did not have this title when it was produced—together with a detailed syllabus containing the titles of books and chapters of this ambitious philosophical/apologetic work of Huet’s, Alnetanae Quaestiones in five books (not only the three published in 1690), almost concluded—but still in progress—when the syllabus was made.21
BNF Ms. Lat. 11,443: it contains (a) a syllabus of the whole planned work (Quaestiones in five books) with the titles of books, chapters and sections, with the respective page numbers except for the chapters and sections of book V probably because these were not yet finished; (b) the whole book I of this planned work (the first known manuscript of the text which was published much later under the title Traité philosophique de la faiblesse de l’esprit humain); and (c) part of the preface of former book II (published separately later under the title Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae). When the syllabus was made, probably in 1685 or early 1686,24 planned Quaestiones was almost complete, lacking only the final version of planned book V, though the exact titles of its chapters and sections were already indicated.
BNF Ms. Lat. 11,442: autograph manuscript of books III, IV and V of planned Quaestiones, adapted by Huet in order to be published as a unique work deprived of planned books I and II. This publication is Alnetanae Quaestiones de Concordia Rationis et Fidei in three books, published in Caen in 1690.
BNF Ms. Lat. 11,444: autograph manuscript of former book II of planned Quaestiones, adapted to be published as a separate work: Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae, published in Paris in 1689.
BNF Ms. Lat. 6682: autograph manuscript of the planned Fourth Quaestiones (meant to be published after the three published Quaestiones in 1690) whose title is Dissertatio de Imbecillitate Mentis Humanae. This is a modified version of book I of planned Quaestiones (Lat. 11,443) in view of a publication intended in 1692 which did not come true. Latin 6682 also exhibits a second revision by Huet, this time in order to transform frustrated Fourth Quaestiones in the Latin text published by Du Sauzet in 1738, and which was translated by Huet himself to French with the title Traité philosophique.
Based on these manuscript material, in particular on Latin 11,443, and on Huet’s correspondence, we can shed light on the original planned Alnetanae Quaestiones, in the context of which the Traité was written to be its first book, and trace the main episodes of its clandestine history up to its publication right after Huet’s death. The three books of published Traité philosophique were chapters of the first book of planned Quaestiones and the chapters of each book of published Traité were sections of each chapter of the first book of planned Quaestiones. The first book of the published work contains thirteen proofs that truth cannot be known with perfect certainty through reason. These proofs derive from (1) Church authorities; (2) a theory of causal sense perception based on Descartes’s but subjected to some adapted Pyrrhonian modes dealing with variations in the perceiver and leading to the veil of ideas; (3) a circular reasoning in attempting to grasp the genus and differentia of things; (4) the flux of things; (5) human variations; (6) the infinity of causes; (7) the absence of a assured criterion of truth; (8) the possibility of doubting self-evidence; (9) the possibility of a deceiving God; (10) the circularity involved in attempting to prove by reason that reason is certain; (11) the uncertainty of reasoning; (12) philosophical disagreement; and (13) the fact that excellent philosophers were doubters. Book II presents positively Huet’s skeptical system: that man naturally cannot have perfect certainty; but this is compensated by faith; that there are no innate ideas or principles; the practical criterion (probability); the end (avoidance of error and preparation to faith); similarities and differences between Huet’s system and two philosophical schools (skepticism and Eclecticism). Book III presents objections and replies to Huet’s system: (1) that it is not viable in practice; (2) that it eliminates all knowledge; (3) that it is contradictory since it does distinguish truth from falsehood; (4) that it is not a philosophical school; (5) that it is contradictory also because it denies demonstrations; (6) that it is impious to suppose that God can be a deceiver; and (7) that it is an obstacle to the submission to faith. The most important chapters of these three books are examined bellow in the context of criticism made by Huet’s friends who read in manuscript planned Quaestiones of which the Traité was its first book. Others are examined in the comparison made in the other chapters of this book between Huet’s skepticism and the various modalities held by the other major French skeptics or mitigated skeptics. I remark in what follows the major additions, suppressions and modifications made by Huet in book I of planned Quaestiones to become published Traité.
The chosen title of the great work—Alnetanae Quaestiones—was inspired, from the formal point of view, by Cicero’s Tusculanae Disputationes.29 The dialogic form of Cicero’s philosophical works is especially fit for Cicero’s preferred philosophy. If the Greek Church fathers, Eusebius in particular, are the models for Huet’s apology for Christianity, Cicero’s Academic skepticism is the main model for his philosophical view. As Cicero decided to dedicate himself to philosophy in dialogue with his friends, “sitting or walking,” in his bucolic villa in Tusculum after he retired from his political activities in Rome, so Huet did (or imagined) the same in his bucolic abbey after his retirement from the sub-preceptorship of the king’s son in Paris. Cicero asked the interlocutor to raise a question which would be discussed by him in view of finding the more likely view on it among the many philosophical schools available.30 Huet holds this same Ciceronian-Philonian kind of Academic skepticism in the Traité (original first book of Quaestiones).31 Like the Tusculan Disputations, the Alnetanae Quaestiones would also be comprised of five books, each containing a particular topic discussed in one day, but, in Huet’s case, all derived from a question raised by the interlocutor of the first day (first book). The interlocutor of the first book is Huet’s friend Jean-Baptiste du Hamel,32 who asks Huet to explain his paradoxical claim in the preface of Demonstratio that skepticism was more compatible with Christianity than the other philosophies. The first part of the question, which is a purely philosophical discussion in which skepticism defeats dogmatism, is the subject of the first book, discussed in the first day, so the first Aunay question, but was to see the light only posthumously in the Netherlands in 1723. In the originally planned Quaestiones, the discussion continued in the second day (thus, second book, second Aunay question) with the arrival of another friend of Huet’s, Louis Le Valois,33 in the presence of whom and of Du Hamel Huet reduces Cartesianism, the most promising dogmatic philosophy at the time, to skepticism. In the third day (third book), with the presence of a third friend, Pierre Gautruche,34 Huet sets the conditions for a reconciliation of reason with faith (basically, limitation and subordination of the former to the latter).35 Finally, in the fourth and fifth days (books four and five), with the same interlocutor, the conciliation is carried out through a large expansion of the comparatist method—already employed in Demonstratio—between Judeo-Christian and pagan doctrines (fourth day and book) and morals (fifth day and book). The connection of planned Quaestiones to Demonstratio is thus clear: it begins with the philosophical skepticism endorsed en passant by Huet in the preface and concludes with an expansion designed to work as a proof of Christianity in face of other religions through the exegetical method deployed in Huet’s previous work.
Huet said in his autobiography and in private conversations with friends that he took great pleasure in his original Quaestiones.36 It would be his opus magna, to be published after the successful Demontratio Evangelica (1679), surprising those many who considered him just an antiquarian erudite, for with this work he aspired to take the post of Malebranche as the major French philosopher after Descartes, without the ignorance of the former and, unlike Descartes and his followers, with a philosophy in perfect harmony with—and not threatening—the Christian religion. But the pleasure of writing the work was soon replaced by disappointment. By the time the Syllabus was made, Huet showed it, together with the already written parts, to some friends, who strongly reacted to the skepticism of its first book.37 Charles de la Rue,38 although claiming to be a disciple of Huet’s, urged him not to publish the first book of planned Quaestiones. Huet would do better to abandon philosophy and concentrate on his erudite studies of the Bible and the Church Fathers. If he did not want to ruin his reputation acquired as a great scholar and learned Churchman, he should publish only the book against Cartesianism (that is, book II) and the comparison of Christian and Pagan dogmata (book IV) as two separate works, that is, excluding books I (the Traité philosophique) and III (the agreement of reason with faith).39 Huet largely followed his friend’s advice. He first published book II, which was by then ready for publication, as a separate work under the title of Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae in 1689 (the titles of chapters and sections in the Syllabus match exactly the published text). He then completed the originally planned book V (the moral comparison), which was probably not yet finished at the time the Syllabus was made (it is not detailed in the syllabus and none of the letters of his friends refer to it), and published Alnetanae Quaestiones in 1690 with three books, the first on the concordia ratio et fidei (the book III of the earlier version of the work), the second containing the dogmata comparatio (planned book IV) and the third the moral comparatio (planned book V). The autograph manuscript of Alnetarum Quaestionarum at BNF (11442) shows the alterations of the work due to Huet’s decision to exclude its original first (that which much later becomes the Traité) and second (published as a separate work) books. “Primus” and “Secundus” in the running heads of the manuscript are written above the crossed words “Tertius” and “Quartus” respectively. The manuscript shows that these two first books plus the introduction are extensively corrected by Huet, whereas the third one contains almost no correction. The reason is that the first and most of the second books were already written when Alnetarum Quaestionarum was drastically cut from the originally planned five books to three, with the exclusion of the Traité and the Censura, which was published separately as suggested by De la Rue. Indeed, the book against Cartesianism had to be published separately because it could only cohere with the others that make up Alnetarum Quaestionarum if its original book I (the Traité) was not excluded, for it is a kind of empirical corroboration of the epistemological thesis argued for in the Traité, that man cannot attain truth with complete certainty through reason. However, Huet did not follow De la Rue‘s advice entirely since he included former book III on the agreement of reason and faith, a book that exhibits clearly enough the author’s skepticism, as was remarked by some of Huet’s readers at the time.40
The great work was thus drastically reduced because of Huet’s decision to exclude from it its crucial first philosophical book. Huet’s publication of former book III (book I of published Quaestiones) shows that he did not accept De la Rue’s advice to abandon philosophy or at least to abstain from publicizing his philosophical views. The decision to omit his skeptical system was at this point merely strategic and temporary. He probably feared that his original first book might be censured by the Sorbonne, compromising the whole work. The preparation of Alnetanae Quaestiones in only three books includes the replacement of Gautruche with Du Hamel as the interlocutor and adjustments in the original preface: mainly the exclusion of the part of the original plan of refuting Cartesianism. But Huet keeps in the preface of published Quaestiones the main goal of the work stated in the original plan, namely, to elucidate his paradoxical statement in the preface of Demonstratio that “the philosophical schools that consider everything that we know through the senses and reason to be dubious and uncertain and suspend all assent, are much less contrary to Christianity than is figured by vulgar men,”41 thus supporting skepticism (former book I) in order to show its adequacy to the reason/faith relationship set up in book III of the planned Quaestiones (book I of published Quaestiones).42 Why did he maintain this since the first part of the work was not included? Because Huet had not yet been persuaded by De la Rue not to publish his skeptical system. He just did not want to run the risk of former book I compromising the whole Quaestiones. He intended to publish it after the publication of books III-V of planned Quaestiones as a fourth Quaestion (after the three published). Two letters by Edme Pirot, a Sorbonne theologian who had to approve the work in order for it to be published, indicate this happened in early 1692.43 This means that Huet initially thought that his skeptical book could be forbidden—so compromising the others—but he still considered that it might be published in France, that is, get through Sorbonne censorship, provided he accepted, as he did, the suggestion of his friends—mainly of Du Hamel’s, fictional interlocutor of the first version of the Traité—to moderate the skepticism of the work. He thus prepared the autograph manuscript 6682, whose title is Dissertatio de imbecillitate mentis humanae ad veritatem firmissime clarissimeque percipiendam sive Alnetanarum quaestionum liber quartus. I show below the main modifications he made in this manuscript as compared with previous 11,443. In the preface of this Fourth Quaestion (former book I of planned Quaestiones with five books),44 Gautruche—who had been replaced by Du Hamel in published Quaestiones with three books (1690)—joints Huet and Du Hamel in the Aunay gardens. Huet adapts the exordium to book II of originally planned Quaestiones (on Cartesianism, which was published as a treatise, detached from the fiction set up for the Alnetanae Quaestiones), replacing Le Valois (11,443, fol. 119) with Gautruche. He recalls the original issue of published Quaestiones (remember that the reference to the main topic—skepticism-- was preserved in the preface to published Quaestiones) and asks Du Hamel to relate what was fictionally discussed the day before because it logically antecedes what was published as Quaestiones. The weakness of reason vis-à-vis faith argued for in book III of planned Quaestiones —book I of published Quaestiones —presupposes a philosophical criticism of reason. Gautruche will be the judge. A change of roles then occurs in a modification made by Huet in the verso of fol. 4 of 6682 (a first version of 6682 was already written). Whereas in book I of the planned Quaestiones Huet reports his own skepticism to Du Hamel, now it is Du Hamel who reports the skepticism he heard, not from Huet, but from a “subtle and acute man” who came to Caen.45 This means that in Fourth Quaestion Gautruche would judge between the skepticism propounded (but not held) by Du Hamel—who like Huet also was from Caen—and the eclecticism exposed by Huet (whereas, as I show below, in planned book I, Huet exposes his own skepticism and Du Hamel his own eclecticism). This move detaches the former abbot of Aunay, at this moment already bishop of Avranches,46 from the skeptical views presented in the book. Fourth Quaestion would require three characters because it attempts to remediate the omission of former book I in published Quaestiones. In order to preserve the logical order of the argument of the original book, Huet and Du Hamel had—in this fiction—already discussed the skeptical topic before the discussion of the topics of published Quaestiones. The fourth Quaestion is thus, in the dramatic context set up for Quaestiones, the recollection of a conversation that happened before those that make up published Quaestiones. Once Pirot, the Sorbonne censor, frustrates the publication of the Fourth Quaestion,47 Huet’s philosophical work is no longer linked to Quaestiones. It becomes an independent work—the Traité philosophique—with only two characters as in the final version published in French by Du Sauzet. At this point Huet translates the text into French and decides to publish it under pseudonym in Holland, were censorship was close to nothing as compared to France. This probably is the French autograph manuscript Popkin discovered in Amsterdam.
Why does Gautruche replace Le Valois in the planned Fourth Quaestion? After all, the name of the latter was available because with the omission of book I of planned Quaestiones, original book II against Cartesianism was separated from the Quaestiones project and published independently as a treatise and not as a dialogue. The reason for the replacement is probably because the main thesis of Gautruche’s major work—see below—is contested in books II and III of published Quaestiones, whereas Le Valois would be mainly relevant for the discussion of Cartesianism. The preface of book II of planned Quaestiones ends when Huet describes the parts of the work on the relationship of reason and faith. Four were established (11,443, fol. 121), but only the first (on the weakness of human understanding) is mentioned: the text breaks down suddenly. In the preface of Fourth Quaestion, the same text continues indicating that, after the discussion just mentioned (on the weakness of human understanding), the following one was on the relations of faith with reason, the third the dogmatum comparatio and, fourth, the preceptorum comparatio (in agreement with Quaestiones already published by then). We can thus reconstruct the original preface of book II (which becomes Censura) of which only a part is extant in 11,443, when the plan still was to publish all books together. It should have been presented as the three other parts: 2nd/ the examination of Cartesianism; 3rd/ reason and faith; 4th/ the two comparationes. As I show below, Du Hamel was the ideal interlocutor of the Traité. He had to replace Gautruche in published Quaestiones in order to figure, in the Fourth Quaestion, which Huet was already planning when he excluded the planned First Quaestion from published Quaestiones, as the philosopher who had discussed skepticism with him. This replacement indicates how important—in itself and as preparation for the rest—Huet considered his originally first skeptical Aunay question. He preferred to replace the ideal interlocutor of the published books with the ideal of planned book I in order to make clear for the reader of the Fourth Quaestion that its skepticism is a precondition for the apologetic work.
3.3 Huet’s Fictional Interlocutors in Planned Quaestiones
In his planned Quaestiones, Huet discussed the topics of the books with three friends, all priests and connected to the Jesuit College du Mont in Caen like himself: apologetics with Gautruche; Cartesianism with Le Valois, and skepticism with Du Hamel.
3.3.1 Pierre Gautruche (1602–1681): Original Interlocutor of Books III-V of Planned Quaestiones (Published Quaestiones in Three Books)
Pierre Gautruche was a Jesuit who arrived at the college du Mont in Caen when Huet was finishing his studies there.48 When Huet introduces him in the preface of Fourth Aunay Quaestion, he recalls the beginning of their friendship at College, he as a young student eager to learn, Gautruche as an excellent senior philosophy teacher.49 Huet had in common with him the interest in mathematics (a discipline Gautruche also taught there from 1668).50 Gautruche’s teaching resulted in the six-volume book Philosophiae ac Mathematicae totius clara, brevis, et accurate institutio, ad usum studiosae iuuentutis.51 The first volume is on logic and ethics; the second and third on physics; the fourth on metaphysics; the fifth on mathematics; and the sixth provides a synthesis of philosophical theses and a critical discussion of those held by the Jansenists. The second chapter of the book on logic refutes the “Scepticos & Academicos.”52 Gautruche’s arguments were the traditional ones that (1) skeptics must recognize they exist and that their tenets are true, (2) that to the extent that Academics accept the verisimile they must acknowledge the truth, (3) that the senses provide reliable certain knowledge if they are properly used; and (4) that God would not have created intellectual creatures willing the truth but incapable of attaining it. Huet replies to (1) and (2) in the third book of the Traité, chapter 1, combining his skeptical argument of the veil of ideas (developed in chapter 3 of book I, which indirectly also responds to (3)) with replies given by the ancient skeptics.53 Huet replies to (4) agreeing that God created us to enjoy certain truth but plain certainty is available only to those who, saved, will contemplate God face to face. On this earth, the maximum degree of certainty one can achieve is trough faith (“divine certainty”)—this being due to the fact that human beings are creatures naturally capable of a lesser degree of certainty (“human certainty”) which is morally sufficient in this life.54
However, Gautruche was not chosen as the interlocutor of Huet’s skeptical book I of planned Quaestiones, but of the apologetic books III-V. So it was the teacher not of philosophy or mathematics but of theology that qualified him for his role in the work. Gautruche’s most famous work was, indeed, L’Histoire poétique pour l’intelligence des poètes et auteurs anciens, a work which was broadly diffused at the time.55 In the Memoirs, Huet says that he “profited by the society of Peter Gautruche, … a man of extensive erudition, who enriched the republic of letters with various works, especially relative to polite literature” (Memoirs, I, 29). L’Histoire poétique is directly concerned with the content of books IV-V of planned Quaestiones but presents a viewpoint quite different from Huet’s. First, Gautruche focuses almost exclusively on Greek mythology (the poets concerned are Homer and Hesiod) whereas Huet deals with other pagan religions including American native. Second, Gautruche’s major aim is to exhibit the falsity of the pagan idols, whereas Huet’s effort is to show their partial veracity to the extent that according to him they are corrupted copies of Hebrew figures. The choice of a well-known expert on ancient mythology indicates Huet’s willingness to make clear his greater erudition and innovative approach at the time, though in line with some Greek fathers’ approach to Greek mythology and with the recent work at the time of the great ancient scholar Gerard Vossius.56
The two other interlocutors, Du Hamel and Le Valois, also commented on versions of original Quaestiones.57 Rapetti published their letters containing many detailed objections. Du Hamel read a complete version of 11,443, but made remarks only on books I, II and III. Le Valois read another version of the manuscript and also commented only on these same philosophical three books. Many of Du Hamel’s and Le Valois’s objections were either accepted by Huet or lead him to modify his text to better clarify his points. So the fictional interlocutors of, respectively, books I and II of planned Quaestiones, actually debated in correspondence Huet’s philosophical views with him before publication, not only those related in the specific books in which they figure as fictional interlocutors, but in all three first philosophical books. Du Hamel, a closer friend of Huet’s than Le Valois, says in the beginning of his commentary that he will use the liberty “which you have given me, and furthermore it is reasonable that I support the character which you honored me.”58 In Sect. 3.3.2 I introduce Le Valois and his relationship with Huet, examine his objections to the first version of the Traité, in particular those related to Descartes, in whose examination I also include Du Hamel’s. In Sect. 3.3.3 I introduce Du Hamel and his relationship with Huet, examine some of his objections not dealt with in the precedent section, and show that his identification as the fictional anonymous author of published Traité philosophique sheds light on the text.
3.3.2 Louis Le Valois (1639–1700): Original Interlocutor of Book II of Planned Quaestiones (Published Censura)
Louis Le Valois was a Jesuit like Gautruche and, like the latter and Du Hamel, also had a connection with Caen. By the time he collaborates with Huet’s planned Quaestiones, he had been professor of philosophy, grammar and ancient literature and also director of the Jesuit College in which Du Hamel and Huet had studied and Gautruche had taught.59 In the exordium to the second book of planned Quaestiones, Huet refers to this direction, their friendship, and exalts his erudition and virtue.60 Rapetti (2003, 51–71) examines his views from the viewpoint of his objections to Huet’s skepticism and attack on Cartesianism. He was one of the main French critics of Cartesianism at the time, targeting the very sensitive problem of the implications of Descartes’s new physics to the Catholic mystery of the Eucharist. His Sentiments de M. Des Cartes touchant l’essence et les propriétés du corps, opposez à la doctrine de l’Eglise, et conformes aux erreurs de Calvin , sur le sujet de l’Eucharistie (1680) was carefully annotated and partially used by Huet in his Censura (1689).
Le Valois and Du Hamel, the two characters fictionally assembled by Huet in his abbey to discuss skepticism, Cartesianism and their relation to Christian faith both appear in Le Valois’ Sentiments. Huet annotates in his copy of Le Valois’ book the Jesuit’s reference to Du Hamel as one major Peripatetic critic of Descartes’s view that an unextended body is impossible so the body of Christ cannot remain under the qualities of bread: “the learned Mr. Du Hamel, who has already given us so many nice works, who still works daily to give us new ones; … only few persons know better than him the different doctrines held by the philosophers, both ancient and modern… and none have explained their views with more clarity, sincerity and truth.”61
Le Valois has views on Descartes with which Huet agrees in Censura: that Descartes was a great philosopher but fallible (unlike the way he was seen by his followers),62 and that Descartes’s doctrine of the creation of eternal truths was a subterfuge to deal with the opposition of his doctrines to Catholic faith: the opposition would be irrelevant because God can make contradictions.63 Huet includes as one of his arguments against the certainty of the cogito Le Valois’ point—highlighted by Huet in his copy with a vertical trace—that the most certain thing according to Descartes and the Cartesians, namely, that thinking requires the existence of a thinking thing—would be uncertain if God can make contradictions true.64
The contents of Le Valois’ and Huet’s works against Cartesianism are, however, quite different to the extent that Huet’s is a general criticism of Descartes’s philosophy (with emphasis on epistemological problems) whereas Le Valois focus on the Eucharistic problem, an issue pointed out only in passing by Huet.65 However, Huet knew that Le Valois did not agree with his own view of the reason and faith relationship and, by choosing him as his fictional interlocutor in planned book II of Quaestiones, probably envisaged the possibility of persuading him that a more general and philosophically consistent attack on Cartesianism from the point of view of Christian faith required a more radical depreciation of reason than that which Le Valois was willing to allow.
As the letters from Huet’s disciple, De la Rue, to Huet indicate, Le Valois was not convinced. Some of his objections indicate their different views, more opposed to Huet’s than those of Du Hamel.66 Among his objections, Le Valois claims that Huet’s adamant commitment to his system contradicts its skepticism. Huet concludes 11,443 recognizing that despite the cogency of his arguments “we cannot promise ourselves a more favorable reception from the vulgar; but neither the suspicions which they entertain of us, nor the complaints that are made against us, shall ever be able to make us forsake our resolution” (Weakness, 223).67 Le Valois comments:
Le Valois is quite right in calling Huet’s attention to his dogmatic claim and bringing him back to his Philonian Academic skepticism. And Huet agrees, adding, in the verso of fol. 90 of 6682, the qualification that his willingness is that of not giving up—he adds—“of following what appears to us probable, till we are drawn from it by a greater probability.”69 However, he also adds at the end of book II (in which he relates his principles) that “if any man should either ironically or flatteringly call us Ιδιαγνωμοναs, that is, men who stick only to their own sentiments, we shall never go about to hinder it.”70 The correspondence of Huet with De la Rue indicates that Le Valois’ rejection of Huet’s skepticism was emblematic of the general opposition he received, including from friends and scholastics.71 This addition seems to be his reaction to the pressure he suffered from his closest friends (Du Hamel, De la Rue) not to publish this part of the work of whose truth he was convinced—the repudiation of which would compromise his own intellectual integrity—and considered the foundation of his apology for Christianity.72It seems to me certain and evident that it is necessary to change this which seems contrary to your System: it is one of the strongest claims you may make. It seems to me that what must be said is that you do not doubt that you will receive fierce opposition and that you will not be surprised at this opposition. But that your System seems to you more probable than any other and that you will change your view when someone shows you something else which will seem to you closer to the truth. In this fashion you will conclude your first book [remember that Le Valois comments on planned Quaestiones with five books, of which the Traité was the first] practicing—and not destroying—your principles.68
Le Valois rejects outright as a “chicane” (Rapetti 2003, 74) Huet’s main skeptical argument derived from a Pyrrhonian interpretation of Descartes’s theory of sense perception.73 Huet agrees with Descartes’s external world skepticism and might have thought that Le Valois would go along with him from his underling of Le Valois’ criticism of Desgabets’ view that the intentionality of ideas about material objects guarantees the latter independent existence.74 Le Valois’s negative reaction to Huet’s Cartesian skeptical argument based on the uncertainty of our origin is still stronger: “choquant,” he says, “my mind cannot apprehend it.”75 Likewise, commenting on Huet’s argument against the cogito in book 2 of planned Quaestiones in five books, namely, that the cogito is inconsistent with Descartes’s doubt that God could had created us such as always to err,76 Le Valois writes that “Deus sapiens, bonus, fidelis, non potuit” (cf. Rapetti 2003, 78). Le Valois is not only pointing out to Huet that the argument is unacceptable from a Christian standpoint but probably also indicating that Descartes’s God is supremely wise, good and veracious, for the doubt of the First Meditation is supposedly eliminated in the Third Meditation. Le Valois certainly does not agree with Descartes’s proofs but, unlike Huet, he fully accepts the theological tradition that the existence of God and God’s veracity can be proved by reason. Du Hamel also criticizes Huet’s Cartesian skeptical doubt in book I of planned Quaestiones. This is one of the major problems he sees in Huet’s system (the others are its skepticism and—for Du Hamel—negative impact on faith).
These reactions of his friends and fictional interlocutors of the work made Huet modify the two occasions he uses Descartes’s skeptical argument: first to enhance his own skeptical view in book I and then as an ad hominem objection to the cogito in book II. The former is Huet’s ninth proof mentioned above. In the original version (11443), after citing the First Meditation and Principles I, articles 5 and 13, Huet already distances himself from responsibility for this skeptical argument saying that it was up to Descartes—who raised the doubt—to refute it, which of course he thinks Descartes cannot do. Du Hamel’s remark suggests he agrees Descartes does not provide a solid solution to this doubt, which is a further reason Huet could not have proposed it. However, it is precisely because of its epistemic force that Huet appropriates it in his Traité philosophique. He says in this same original version (fol. 36) that “this doubt is of such weight, that it must hinder us from receiving any proposition as certain, whilst we make use of our reason; and Descartes is so far from having overthrown it, that I cannot see how it can be even shaken, unless faith comes to the help of reason.”78 In revising the text, Huet adds an explanation for his claim that the skeptical scenario of the deceiver is “digna Philosopho dubitatio,”79 whose aim is to respond to reactions such as Le Valois’ and Du Hamel’s.What Descartes says cannot agree with the true idea of God, who is the truth itself and cannot have created us under this necessity of deceiving us. For what you add, namely, [that this doubt] is worthy of a philosopher doubt, I don’t know if this doubt is worthy of a philosopher but I don’t believe a Christian may doubt whether God has created us such as to always go wrong, even with respect to these things which appear most evident. [Descartes ] should at least solve his doubts and therefore I would not like to approve this fiction of Descartes’s .77
Huet makes clear—following Descartes on this issue—the strictly philosophical validity of the argument. Then, in book III of published Traité, replying to the objection that Descartes’s skeptical doubt is impious, he adds, in the beginning of his reply thatwhen I call it worthy of a philosopher, I don’t mean a Christian philosopher, who knows that God enlightens every man coming into the world, John i.9 but here Descartes speaks as a philosopher, and not as a Christian, and who could suppose that there was no God (Descartes , Princ. Part I par. 7) [a point that Le Valois remarked to Huet],80 could as well suppose that God had created mankind subject to error.81
And the text continues as presented in the earlier version. Huet’s claim in the original version, where it is not indicated that it is only Descartes’s and not also his own position, is that since we are deceived sometimes and God is not responsible for these mistakes, why would God be responsible if our mistakes were systematic?83 After developing this, he adds another disclaimer at the end of the chapter: “Thus may Descartes defend himself from their attacks; but it is his business and not ours, who are far from pretending to maintain his opinions.”84 Du Hamel and Le Valois lead Huet to hide his Cartesian skepticism which, importantly, would be forbidden in France soon after (1691).85It belongs to Descartes to answer that objection, seeing he is the author of this reasoning, which I have only mentioned without approving of it; for our holy religion teaches us quite other things. But suppose yourself to be now disputing with Descartes: he will not fail telling you …82
Huet does not accept Du Hamel’s and Le Valois’s rejection of the argument on religious grounds. He wants to expose the weakness of philosophy—in particular, of Descartes’s philosophy—to answer the argument, thereby defending the legitimacy of doubt. He thus agrees with Descartes’s separation of reason and faith, the right of reason to examine every opinion which is not strictly supernatural. He argues in book III of planned Quaestiones that a philosopher should not appeal to theology to solve (or in this case, to avoid) philosophical problems.86
Huet thus clarified his adhesion to Descartes’s doubt (as a philosopher, not as a Christian) thanks to the objection made by his fictional interlocutor and did the same concerning his ad hominem use of this doubt against the cogito in the originally planned second book [the Censura], this time responding directly to Le Valois, by introducing the following passage in the autograph manuscript of Censura:
Emphasizing the distinction between natural philosophy and supernatural theology—in this agreeing with Descartes—but at the same time believing that Descartes does not successfully (philosophically) rebuke his own skeptical argument, which can be rebuked only appealing to Scripture, doubt remains from the philosophical, rational, point of view. The philosophical cogency of Descartes’s skeptical argument is not only an embarrassment to Descartes’s dogmatism (pointed out in book II of planned Quaestiones) but it is a central argument for Huet’s own skepticism in book I. The two contribute to set up the strictly philosophical background for the mitigated fideism proposed in planned book III (book I of published Quaestiones), the “lex concordia rationis et fidei.”I myself do not want at this point to make an issue of this invention of his, so strange to Christian ears, that God is able always to deceive us. The ground would be that God is good, perfect, and veracious, and is truth itself,87 and that from the outset He makes us such that we participate in His light. Indeed, Descartes himself acknowledged this ground in several places and wrote that God is “supremely perfect and is the source of all light, and thus it is a contradiction that He should deceive us or that He should be strictly and positively the cause of error” [Descartes , Principles I, 19; Meditations I and II]. Elsewhere he prefers to imagine rather than God, some exceedingly powerful evil demon, who lies in wait for our souls, constantly plunging us into error and darkness. But whichever of the two he might appeal to, we shall remember that we are philosophizing, and that philosophy or the pursuit of truth gives license to the most exaggerated fictions, that we are created such as always to err and to do so without exception.88
3.3.3 Jean-Baptiste du Hamel (1624–1706): Original Interlocutor of Book I of Planned Quaestiones (Published Traité)
Jean-Baptiste du Hamel was born in Vire, a village close to Caen, where he studied a few years before Huet. He was member of the Oratory until 1653 when he becomes professor of ancient philosophy at the College Royal, a position which he left in 1666 to become secretary of the French Academy of Sciences.89 Occupying this office, Du Hamel collaborated with Huet’s establishment of the Académie de Physique de Caen,90 supported the candidacy of Malebranche’s to the French Academy,91 and collaborated with Boyle and the Royal Society of London which he visited. Like Huet, Du Hamel was adept to the kind of experimental philosophy practiced by the members of the Royal Society. Huet speaks very favorably of him in his Memoirs (II, 15):
He is presented by Huet in Quaestiones as a most learned man in philosophy and sciences, his countryman and close friend.92 When Huet chose him as the interlocutor of the skeptical book I of his planned Quaestiones, Du Hamel had already published Astronomia Physica and De Meteoris et Fossilibus in 1660, De Consensu Veteris et Novae Philosophiae in 1663 (an agreement proposed in natural philosophy), De Corporum Affectionibus in 1670, De Mente Humana in 1672 (in which he attacks skepticism), De Corpore Animato (1673), and Philosophia Vetus et Nova ad Usum Scholae Accomodata (1678). The work in which Du Hamel cites favorably Huet, remarked by the bishop in the passage of his Memoirs about him cited above, is Theologia Speculatrix et Practica. Published in 1690, Du Hamel cites Huet’s work in which he figures as interlocutor (Quaestiones) published this same year. Rapetti (2003, 143–169) examines his philosophical views, articulating them with his detailed criticism of Huet’s skepticism. He was not chosen by chance or mere friendship. Huet may have genuinely wished—if not to convert his friend to skepticism—at least to show its plausibility (which Du Hamel denied), compatibility with Christianity (which he strongly denied) and the incompatibility of Christianity with Cartesianism (a philosophy with which he partially sympathized). Huet may have even considered the possibility of Du Hamel’s conversion to his system provided his friend 1/ had a better understanding of skepticism, basically, that it did not deny experimental science and, mainly, 2/ realized that rather than opposing religion it might be a preparation for it.At this time also [between late 1650s and early 1660s] I received demonstration of regard from John Baptist du Hamel, than whom I never knew a man of more worth or candor, or, after he had permitted me to rank among his friends, one of firmer fidelity. What his opinion was of me he has occasionally declared in the many valuable writings with which he has enriched the literary commonwealth.
The discovery that the role played by the pseudo-author of published Traité, Théocrite de Pluvignac, is originally Du Hamel’s sheds light on most of his interventions in the dialogue. Rapetti interprets Du Hamel’s philosophy as Eclectic. According to her analysis, his Eclecticism has two major grounds. The first is philosophical freedom from any authority in philosophy. In particular in the field of natural philosophy, which was his main expertise, Du Hamel refused sectarianism around Aristotle and Descartes. Rapetti cites the preface of Du Hamel’s Astronomia Physica in which he cites Cicero’s support of intellectual integrity as the ground of his independence from the two major opposing philosophical schools at the time.93 Huet’s writings on natural science, including astronomy, shared this same point of view.94 The second major ground of Du Hamel’s Eclecticism is, according to Rapetti, theological. Only God has access to total and plain truth. Because no single philosopher or philosophical school (e.g, Cartesianism) can have the whole truth, its diverse fragments must be collected from different philosophers.95 Huet argues in the Traité (book II, chapter 10) that Eclecticism is close to his own philosophy, though skepticism is closer. “[I]n this free and disengaged method of philosophy, and of running over all the Sects of it, we do but follow the example of several very learned men, especially of Plato” (Weakness, 163/Traité, 217). This seems to be directly addressed to Du Hamel, who follows mainly Plato through Augustine. Reminding that Cicero, who considered himself Academic, employed “this free and disengaged method of philosophy”, Huet gives as the single example of eclecticism in his time that of the Royal Society of London, “which has produced so many excellent men, does condemn the arrogance of the Dogmatists, and, without adhering to any Sect, does wholly apply itself to find out and cultivate all the best things that any Sect has hitherto taught, or to discover something that is better.”96 Cicero’s Neo-Academicism and Eclecticism are compatible through his notion of the probable, which implies a detachment from the view accepted. This detachment is not possible when what looks probable is dogmatically assumed as true.97 This freedom characteristic of the Academic philosopher enables him to consider the various doctrines proposed by different and opposing sects: the doctrines he accepts as probable in different schools are not contradictory because they are not held as true and therefore does not violate the law of excluded middle. Huet attributes precisely this approach to the Royal Society, which he would like to see followed by all philosophers. Curiously, Du Hamel, secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, complained that Huet did not also give as example of this free way to do science, besides the Royal Society, the French Academy.98 This is one suggestion Huet did not accept. Huet considered Du Hamel ’s personal approach in this fashion. At this point, in the original version of the text he says: “te vero ipsum, Hameli” (11443, fol. 94), is a kind of Eclectic, and refers to “tuo De Consensu veteris et nova Philosophiae,” thereby agreeing with Rapetti’s interpretation of his friend’s philosophy.99 Recognizing the affinity of Eclecticism with his own system, Huet says he is not Eclectic because Potomon, “le Prince” of the Eclectics, was a dogmatist and to become an Eclectic would compromise his philosophical freedom.100 In other words, Eclecticism is acceptable only if held in the Ciceronian Academic fashion.
Huet thinks Du Hamel does not follow Cicero completely to Academic skepticism because: 1/ he does not see—unlike Christian skeptics such as Montaigne, Charron and La Mothe Le Vayer—that because only God knows the truth, no plain certain truth is available to human beings; and 2/ Du Hamel shares the traditional view that skepticism is contrary to religion—in particular because of Augustine, who is the main philosophical and religious authority for him,101 and of the bad reputation of skepticism among the “Cartesian” Augustinians of the time (Malebranche, Arnauld and Nicole). After Du Hamel’s criticisms, Huet mitigated the skepticism of his system but doubled the effort to reverse the view that skepticism is an enemy of faith, probably aiming at a compromise with Du Hamel’s position (a kind of via media between dogmatism and skepticism acceptable to both philosophers). He thus added a whole new chapter in book II, whose title is that “Faith does supply the defects of reason, and makes those things to become most certain, which were less so from reason.”102
The fictional character Du Hamel’s first long remark in the Traité is in the beginning of book II, after hearing Huet’s various skeptical arguments displayed in book I. He says he “could never relish that presumptuous philosophy, and obstinate method of arguing, which is so tenacious of its notions and opinions,” a sectarianism that precludes the philosopher even from eventually changing his views. But, on the other hand, he goes on, “I cannot but think that the instability of the Academics, who are always more ready to speak what they don’t think, than what they really do think … puts an end to all kind of knowledge.”103 This charge corresponds to the second objection raised in book III of the Traité: “you deprive yourselves of that knowledge which is the clearest light of the mind, without leaving one single spark to help you to see the truth” (Weakness, 172/Traité, 229). Huet’s reaction to the charge is stronger than to the others: “Can you tell me nothing, but what has been said so many hundred times? I expected something new and more clever from you.”104 In his reply, Huet abbreviates a much longer section which targets Descartes and the Cartesians (mostly Malebranche, who claims that skeptics are ignorant), originally present in the earliest known manuscript of the work (Lat. 11,443), claiming that the Cartesians—who deny erudition—not the skeptics (Huet) are those who deny the sciences and are ignorant.105 The original lengthier passage, which made, in the first version of Traité, the reply to this second objection the longest, was transferred to the Censura when Huet gave up the project of publishing planned Quaestiones in five books. In Censura it makes almost entirely the seventh fault of Descartes’s , namely “that he was overly concerned with novelty; he therefore feigned ignorance, which his votaries have extended” (Against, 214/Censura, 195). The reason of the transference is that it reveals the real author when it supports his master Bochart against Malebranche’s attack, so it could not appear neither in Fourth Aunay Question nor in the pseudonymous version of the work. I cite the more personal phrases of this section.
As Lennon (2003, 243n113) comments on this long passage, “[a]lthough Huet speaks of Descartes’s followers in the plural, Malebranche is the specific target in this and the following chapters.”107 This Huet-Du Hamel exchange appears very personal when we take into account that the latter was a friend both of the former and of Malebranche’s and that he agreed with Huet’s anti dogmatic natural philosophy and valorization of erudition needed for the study of the ancients—he was professor of ancient philosophy after all—since plain/whole truth is not available to a single philosopher or philosophical school.Most of his [Descartes’s ] followers have maintained this ignorance, not falsely as he did, but genuinely. It is remarkable that some from this faction have recently followed the perverse example of the Epicureans and have dared to declare war not only on belles lettres, but also on abstruse scholarship. … For what more monstrous and barbarous voice could there be than that expressed to their eternal ignominy in their books, that it be a small loss if everywhere everything of the pagan philosophers and poets were consumed by fire? … The followers of Descartes forbid the study of Eastern languages and the reading of the rabbis, of whose great usefulness to the unferstanding of sacred scripture they are ignorant. They would have it that man is free to investigate the natures of animals, but that it is foolish and useless to discuss the animals mentioned in sacred scripture … as if it is up to men who are, I shall not say ignorant or semi-learned, but less than cultivated in every kind of learning to judge the works of Bochart, a great man with a deserved reputation in literary matters, whom they publicly criticize. I remember having so greatly enjoyed the acquaintance of Bochart as if I then foresaw what I now realize, that with him gone I would never have anyone like him from whom to learn. … They inadvertently betray themselves as so ignorant and unschooled that they scarcely allow writing in any language other than the vulgar, and no Latin that is not simple, unadorned, and easy, lest of course they more frequently need a translator when reading. Therefore we now deserve derision from the Cartesians because we are learned.106
Another exchange in the Traité, which happens in a central part of the work, is also illuminated by Du Hamel’s philosophy. This is chapter 3 of book II where Huet supports empiricism against Plato, Proclus and Descartes. The chapter begins with Du Hamel speaking:
Fictional Du Hamel’s objection here reveals the real philosopher’s Augustinian Platonism which is also Descartes’s . For instance, real Du Hamel objects to Huet’s fourth Heraclitian skeptical argument derived from the continuous flux and perishability of things.109 He objects that the argument, even if valid with respect to corporeal things, does not apply to intelligible things which “semper sunt et nunquam fiunt.”110 On the specific passage cited above, Du Hamel tells Huet that he “continues to hold the same view [belief in innate ideas] at least on what concerns knowledge of first principles.”111 He opposes Huet’s claim that “I know nothing of such eternal Ideas; for that which I find in me, for instance, of a triangle, is something obscure and confused, it being neither circumscribed nor determined, but only produced in me from the idea of those particular, triangles which I have seen” (Weakness, 143–144/Traité, 192). Du Hamel says that our idea of the triangle is formed at the occasion of our perception of particular triangles whose particularities are abstracted to form the universal idea which has immutable properties. However, he appears to agree partially with Huet “pour les idées naturelles,” of which, he says, “I do not commit myself to support them, except according to Augustine’s view, about which I have already pronounced [I address this below], and even so it is necessary to modify it and not extend it to all we know, as it does F[ather] Malbr[anche].”112But said I to him (for I did often interrupt him) what was it I heard you advance a while ago, that there was no other way for our Ideas to come to the understanding, but through our senses? Have we not several innate Ideas in our understanding, which never came to us through our senses; such as the Idea we have of our own very understanding, of angels, of God, and such as we have from those common maxims and notions which the Logicians call axioms?108
Huet’s fictional Du Hamel in the Traité is more Cartesian than Augustinian. His intervention cited above is an almost explicit reference to Descartes’s Third Meditation in which, after showing that our belief in adventitious ideas—which would prove that external material things exist—are ungrounded, Descartes says there is a second way to knowledge—pursued in the Third Meditation—through inquiry about the cause of the objective reality of our innate idea of God.113 This is Descartes’s metaphysical way out of solipsism which, according to him, gives metaphysical certainty to our innate idea of corporeal nature as extension. In his reply, Huet attacks the Platonic view that our ideas of universals could not be acquired through the senses and Descartes’s causality principle in order to argue that our idea of God is adventitious.114 Descartes is attacked directly in an argument similar to Locke’s and Hume’s: what is innate is our faculty to form ideas, the understanding, which is one and the same for the three kinds of ideas distinguished by Descartes in the beginning of the Third Meditation.115 When we look at Censura, we see that Descartes’s metaphysical way to avoid skepticism—given that he recognizes that metaphysical certainty is impossible in any other way except determining the formal cause of the objective reality of our idea of God—is what Huet considers the worst part of Descartes’s philosophy. In his ranking of Descartes’s works, the Meditations figures in the last place.116 What Descartes established after the doubt of the First Meditation is strongly criticized by Huet—mainly the cogito, which supposedly is not affected by doubt.117 The skepticism of the Meditations is, on the other hand, the part of Descartes’s philosophy most used by Huet in the Traité. Many of the skeptical arguments of the first book are either plain Cartesian or skeptical-Cartesian (that is, Descartes skeptically interpreted). The eighth proof rehearses Descartes’s dream argument, the ninth the deceiver God, and the eleventh uses Descartes’s doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths to argue that “les raisonnems sont incertains.” Besides these three arguments, the second, which Huet considers the most important from the philosophical viewpoint, is based on Descartes’s theory of sense perception. Cartesian skepticism was precisely what Du Hamel and Le Valois most opposed in Huet’s first book of planed Quaestiones. The two major sources of Huet’s system are Sextus’ five or logical tropes (PH I.164–177) and Descartes’s skepticism, excluded/refuted Descartes’s metaphysical attempt to defeat it.
The major modification Huet made in the first version of the Traité (BNF, Ms. Lat. 11443) was to comply with Du Hamel’s first and main request that he mitigate his skepticism: “it seems to me that you carry skepticism too far away and if you limit it a bit this will not compromise your plan.”118 Huet thus changes the very skeptical thesis of the book. In 11443 the thesis is that human understanding cannot have certain knowledge of the truth (11443, fol. 1). In 6682 we see Huet’s correction in the title of book I and in those of all chapters in which he cites literally the thesis (chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 of book I, and chapter 1 of book 2). On all these occasions “firmissime clarissimeque” replaces “certo.”119 This mitigation of the skepticism of the work is explained in a passage added in 6683 which clearly aims at addressing Du Hamel’s concern. It is a long passage included at the end of chapter 3 of book II, a chapter which, as I point out above, attacks the Platonic and the Cartesian way of ideas, favored by the Augustinian Du Hamel. It comes after Huet’s conclusion of the chapter “that truth cannot be clearly known by us.”
In order to support his view, Huet includes in this added passage a quote from Augustine on the darkness of human mind caused by its union with the body and original sin.121 Huet thus opposes Augustine, the theologian, to Du Hamel’s Augustine, the philosopher. For in his objections to Huet, Du Hamel proposed an Eclectic compromise with Huet’s skepticism in the following terms:Besides, we must remember what I said at the beginning of this Discourse, concerning the several degrees and different kinds of certitude; for we are now speaking of that supreme and entire certitude, to which nothing is wanting, that can raise it to the highest degree of perfection, such as neither our reason nor our senses can attain to, and which we shall never be able to enjoy, till we are united to God, who is the fountain of truth.120
Huet’s modification of his text to cite Augustine at this point aims specifically at Du Hamel’s objection. He has no philosophical sympathy for Augustine’s theory of divine illumination which for him gives humans an angelic nature, disregarding the predicament posed by our body.123 Nor did Huet have any sympathy for Augustine’s anthropological pessimism emphasized at the time by the Jansenists, though he avoided publicizing his anti-Augustinian views.124One could, it seems to me, reconcile the Skeptics with the others saying that, considering only ourselves, we cannot know the truth with certainty without God’s help, which is, however, general, more a grace from the creator than from the Savior. It is not necessary to accept natural ideas, but a divine light, referred to by Scripture and which enlightens even the impious.122
Du Hamel also plays an important role in the third book of the Traité. In this last book, seven objections are raised against Huet’s skeptical system and answered. Some objections are standard in ancient skeptical literature: the apraxia charge (chapter 1), that skepticism is contradictory (chapters 2 and 5), and that it does not constitute a school (chapter 4). Another is also classic but acquires a particular relevance in Huet’s case, namely, that “we deprive ourselves of knowledge by it” (chapter 2). The two others target central issues particular to Huet’s reappraisal of skepticism in his time.
The first is that the hypothesis of a deceiving God is impious (chapter 6), a point that was made by both Le Valois and Du Hamel in their independent reviews of the manuscript, which lead Huet to modify his text, as I show in the section above, in the three chapters in which he deals with Descartes’s skeptical argument (the tenth of book I and the sixth and fourteenth of book III).
The second is the “important Objection,” Huet recognizes, that “our suspending our judgment and our assent does alienate us from the submission which we owe to faith” (Weakness, 207/Traité, 272). Huet adds four objections to this chapter which were not mentioned in the original version of the text.
The first is the third general objection raised by Du Hamel’s, namely, “that it is difficult to name one Father of the Church, nor one ancient scholastic who followed this way of philosophizing; almost all attacked [the skeptics] when the occasion appeared.”125 This is given by Du Hamel as a major reason why Huet should comply with his first and main suggestion, which he repeats in the sequel: “Therefore it seems to me that it is not safe to reappraise this sect, if one does not moderate it quite a bit.”126 As I show above, Huet accepts the main suggestion and moderates his skeptical thesis, but he faces up this serious charge and endeavors to list passages of Church authorities which he interprets as favoring epistemological skepticism. He thus adds, probably assisted by his disciple De la Rue,127 long passages in his first proof “tirée des Auteurs sacrez,” from Ecclesiastes, Arnobius, Lactantius, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, and Augustine.128 Also, in the objection that skepticism leads to irreligion (chapter 7), Huet includes in the new version passages of the Church Fathers directly attacking the Academics: one by Tertullian claiming that the Academic “overturns the whole state of life” and, by doubting sense perception, precludes the recognition of Christ’s humanity129; the other by Augustine claiming that “the City of God … abhors such a method of doubting” and that the little we know is provided with certainty.130 In his reply, Huet addresses the passages quoted, dismissing Tertullian’s “old complaint of the Dogmatics,” and rejects his relying on the senses to prove the humanity of Christ.131 With respect to Augustine, he compromises, arguing that he agrees that faith requires certain assent but its ground is not reason, recalling Augustine’s view of the damage caused to reason because of the “filth of flesh and blood” (with which he agrees) and the “darkness of error,” caused by original sin, about which he, like his Jesuit friends, is more cautious, though he strategically hides this disagreement in the Traité.132
The second added objection was raised by Le Valois: “theology and philosophy claim that the certain existence of God is not known through faith but through natural reason alone. But this seems to be against your principles.”133 In his reply, on the one hand Huet reaffirms his view that God is most certainly known through faith and not through reason, but, on the other, attempts to compromise by claiming that “we cannot acquire a more certain knowledge by the help of reason, than the knowledge of God” (Weakness, 209/Traité, 275). However, in his exposition of the degrees of certainty, knowledge of God is not included, alongside “some first principles and axioms in Geometry,” in the highest degree of human certainty.134 And Huet does claim that through reason we have only probable certainty of God’s existence,135 consistently with his attack in the Censura on Descartes’s proofs of the existence of God, assumed by Descartes as provided with a degree of certainty superior to the probable arguments of theological tradition.136
The third added objection is the problem, also raised by Le Valois,137 of theological syllogism.138 Because one of the premises is grounded on reason, the conclusion necessarily will not attain the superior certainty of faith of the other premise. In his reply, Huet cites Suarez, who, according to him, agrees with his view that faith renders the non-revealed premise and therefore the conclusion of the theological argument more certain than human certainty provided by reason.139
The fourth and last added objection, also raised by Le Valois and initially also shared by De la Rue,140 is that Huet’s skepticism eliminated the grounds of credibility—established by reason—of the mysteries that lie above reason.141 Huet replies with the authority of Gabriel Biel according to whom these motives need not be certain but only probable.142 De la Rue helped Huet to respond these objections by consulting the books, not available in Aunay, of the Church authorities in the Parisian libraries and copying passages that supported Huet’s position. In a letter to Huet from 10 December 1685—that is, when Huet is revising the manuscript and replying to the criticisms of Du Hamel’s and Le Valois’s, De la Rue writes:
It is unlikely that Le Valois and Du Hamel were convinced.I wished you had edited the theological notebook so that it could be added at the head of the objections. For it seems to me that it responds to all the difficulties posed by the theologians. As far as I am concerned I assure you that I am of your opinion and the idea alone of a very great probability for me takes the place of all natural certainty. That’s my thought, what I tell you and write to you. I am more convinced now than I was when I began the research I’ve done and will tell this to Father Le Valois at the first occasion.143
The disclosure of Du Hamel’s as Huet’s interlocutor in the original version of the Traité sheds light on some further passages of the text worth considering.
In the beginning of the third book, the Provençal recalls that it was Théocrite who asked him to present his own positive views (book II) after the exposition of the skeptical arguments in book I.144 Actually, as the preface of published Quaestiones indicates (it partially preserves the original preface), the whole Alnetanae Quaestiones would be the occasion—asked by Du Hamel (replaced by Théocrite in the published version of the text) in the first day of conversation—for Huet (replaced by the Provençal in the last version) to explain his paradoxical claim in the preface of Demonstratio that of all ancient philosophies, the skeptical one was the most consistent with the Christian religion. This first chapter of book III is one of the most modified ones in 6682, not only with the exclusion of Du Hamel’s name but also of a passage which in 11,443, fol. 95, crossed over in 6682, fol. 70, appeared right after the following: “I can assure you, Sir, said I to him”,145 “that you have done me a great and a sensible pleasure, for you have dived into such learned enquiries, as have agreeably instructed me” (Weakness, 171/Traité, 228). Du Hamel’s original talk included his avowal that though he was aware of Huet’s philosophical interests—they were friends after all—he was surprised that Huet had spent so much time and work in philosophy.146 Later, in a letter from 24 July 1689, Du Hamel reports to Huet the first reception of Censura by his acquaintances: “they are surprised that you have dedicated so much … to the study of philosophy, in which you seem to have spent a considerable part of your life.”147 Huet was at the time known as an erudite, philologist, apologist for Christianity after the fashion of the Greek fathers, totally alien to recent philosophy.
In the original version, Huet concludes the book saying that Du Hamel’s approbation of his system would be a major incentive for him, in particular because, as he said in the original manuscript when he compared his philosophical system with that of the Eclectic, “that free and disinterested method of reasoning which you make profession of, which runs through all Sciences and Sects without adhering to any, sufficiently shows that you have some inclinations for our party” (Weakness, 224/ Traité, 295–296). In this original version, Du Hamel replies saying not that he was moved, as in the French version, but that Huet did challenge the traditional view that skepticism is contrary to Christianity. However, mainly theological difficulties preclude him from agreeing with Huet.148 Huet concludes by exalting their friendship and “the strict union, and uniformity both of life and studies, which is between us” (Weakness, 224/ Traité, 296), which matches Huet’s and Du Hamel’s real lives. The last paragraph in the Traité, in which Théocrite says that the conversation was remarkable and that he was “shaken” replaces the original talk of Huet’s saying that the first day of conversation is over and they should go indoors to have dinner.149
3.4 Synthesis of the Major Modifications in the Latin Manuscripts
Huet made numerous modifications in the original text of the Traité. The major ones were effected in Ms. Lat. 6682 in relation to Ms. Lat. 11,443. 6682 exhibits two layers of modifications: a first one is made in a text similar to 11,443 in order to adapt it to become the projected Fourth Aunay Question. The same manuscript (6682) was further modified in order to be published as it was by Du Sauzet in 1738 as an anonymous treatise with no apparent connection to Huet’s life and works. Disregarding the various minor revisions of the text, we can relate major modifications of three kinds: (3.4.1) those few voluntary ones made to improve parts of the text; (3.4.2) those forced by the decisions, first to exclude original book I and attempt to publish it as a fourth Quaestiones in France, and then the decision—once the failure of the latter—to publish it anonymously in the Netherlands; (3.4.3) those motivated by the objections of the friends who read the text: mainly Du Hamel but also the Jesuits Le Valois and De la Rue.150
3.4.1 Major Voluntary Modifications
There are many small voluntary modifications such as change of words, inclusion of an illustrative citation of Euripides’ in Greek,151 but only two major ones. One is the addition of a new proof to the original twelve of the weakness of human understanding, the one concerning the petitio principii involved in any attempt to prove, by reason, that reason is trustworthy. This new proof is the very short chapter 11 of book I.152 The second is the addition of four new thinkers in the long historical proof, that “the law of doubting has been established by many excellent philosophers” (Weakness, 72/Traité, 95). Huet adds Theodosius of Bithynia, the satirist Lucian of Samosata, Ptolomy of Alexandria, and Maimonides.153
3.4.2 Major Modifications to Hide Authorship
The first to be noted is the modification of the names of the characters throughout the text. In the original version, first Quaestiones in Ms. Lat. 11,443, Huet reports to Du Hamel his own skeptical system in the gardens of his abbey in Aunay. In a first layer of correction of Lat. 6682, which prepared the original text to be published as a fourth Aunay Question, since three were published in 1690, Du Hamel reports to Gautruche the skeptical system held by an erudite politician from Aix-en-Provence exiled in Caen, still in Huet’s abbey.154 In a second correction of 6682, in which Huet prepares the manuscript to an anonymous publication in the Netherlands, this erudite politician is still from Aix-en-Provence but exiled in Padua (not in Caen), where he meets and reports his skeptical system to an anonymous author.155 This new context is the same as in the French Traité, except that Lat. 6682 and the published Latin text give no indication that this author is Théocrite de Pluvignac, Seigneur de la Roche, pseudonym created by Huet to appear in a planned—but left unfinished—reply to Régis’s response to the Censura, present in the two known autograph manuscript copies of the French text.156
The preface of the fourth Aunay Question—published later by Sallengre (1726, 485–493)—is risked and a new one, containing the fiction of the Provençal and its personal route to skepticism, brings to the preface a substantial part of original twelve proof based on “the dissensions among the various Sects of dogmatists,”157 in which, now the Provençal, originally Huet himself, describes his journey towards his skeptical system: 1/ his disappointment, as a young student, at the uncertainty produced by philosophical diaphonia; 2/ his fascination with Cartesianism still in school; 3/ the verification that Cartesianism did not eliminate diaphonia; 4/ his interest in Platonism, but deception because it delivered only probable and no certain knowledge158; and finally 5/ discovery in Diogenes Laertius’s Lives the doctrines of “Arcesilaus, Carneades, and Pyrro,” which provided the main source “of my own System” (Weakness, 7/Traité, 8). This trajectory towards a personal kind of skepticism fills most of the Preface and of the original chapter based on disagreement. It matches Huet’s description of his intellectual evolution in his autobiography. It includes the original souvenir present in Lat. 11,443, absent from Lat. 6682, that Descartes’s works were read “in Scholis.”159
- (a)
A talk by (originally) Du Hamel’s in the beginning of book III, after the exposition by (originally) Huet’s skeptical arguments in book I and the principles of his system in book II, saying that although he knew about his friends’ philosophical interests he was surprised at the much laboris et temporis Huet had dedicated to purely philosophical topics.
- (b)
In the reply to the second objection that the skeptics deprived themselves of science, the long poignant reaction to Malebranche’s (not named in the passage) attack on Bochart and erudition, a passage which was transferred to Censura.
3.4.3 Major Modifications to Address Criticisms
- (a)
Mitigation of the skeptical thesis supported in the book: in Ms. Lat. 11,443 the thesis is that we can attain no certain (certo) knowledge through our natural faculties. After Du Hamel’s request that Huet moderate his skepticism, the thesis becomes that we cannot have a “firmissime clarissimeque” (“parfaite & entière certitude”) perception of the truth by natural means.
- (b)
Emphasis on the fact that his system differs from classic skepticism. This complies with Du Hamel’s suggestion and explains two additions in the text. First Huet adds the following provision at the point in the Preface where he says that ancient skepticism was the philosophy which most pleased him: “though I could not in every respect approve their notions; but having rejected several of them, I became the author of my own System.”161 The same disclaimer is introduced in the beginning of book II when he says that the fact that vulgar men reject ancient skepticism did not dissuade him from holding the Hellenistic school—he adds in Lat. 6682: “or rather my own … For I would have you to understand, that in matters of philosophy I will be entirely free, and follow my own sentiments, and be of no Sect but my own.”162 Huet never considered himself a classic Pyrrhonian or Academic. First because he was doubtless aware of the tremendous influence of Cartesian skepticism in his system. And second because the original version already contained chapters 7 and 11 of book II, respectively, that “we ought not to be fond of any author’s opinion” (Weakness, 159/Traité, 213) and “since we must not adhere either to the Academic, Sceptic, Eclectic, or to any other Sect; we ought to stick close to our own” (Weakness, 168/ Traité, 224). Although the skeptics’ is the philosophical school closest to his system, he points out in this chapter two major differences. The first is that while Pyrrhonians and Academics (Huet sees no major difference among them) do not claim, in order to avoid dogmatism, that we cannot have certain knowledge, Huet does sustain this claim, though in probabilistic fashion in philosophy, and with a superior certainty given by Revelation.163 The second is the rejection of ataraxia as the end of philosophical inquiry: “we make the end of happiness to consist in shunning error, obstinacy and ignorance, and in preparing our minds for the reception of faith.”164 This connection with religion leads to the two other major modifications motivated by criticism.
- (c)
Detachment from Descartes’s doubt of the deceiver God.165
- (d)
Provision of Church authorities who would contest Du Hamel’s claim that skepticism is contrary to Christian faith. If (a), (b) and (c) show Huet’s compromise, probably in view of having his system published in France, with (d) he confronts Du Hamel. He replies to citations of Augustine’s and Tertullian’s which according to Du Hamel show they considered skepticism a threat to Christianity and adds authorities, indicated above, according to whom a mitigated skepticism would be the philosophical position sustained in Scripture. Huet also adds a new chapter in the second book, that “Faith does supply the defects of reason, and makes those things to become most certain, which were less so from reason” (Weakness, 136/Traité, 182). This new chapter, besides strengthening Huet’s compatibility thesis, fills in the absence of book IV of planned Quaestiones (book I of published Quaestiones).
3.5 The History of the Manuscripts of the Traité After Separation from Quaestiones
These modifications, mitigating the skepticism of his system on the one hand, and strengthening the theological authorities and the mitigated fideism on the other, did not make the text acceptable to the Sorbonne censor Pirot. After eulogizing the first book for pointing out man’s weakness and for displaying Huet’s knowledge of Pyrrhonism, he says that the two others “did not strike him with the same strength.” The criticism of reason affects theology and faith. “That is what leads me,” Pirot continues, “to say that the seventh … objection166 you raise in your third chapter is unanswerable, and that we cannot defy reason to the point of claiming that it cannot attain certainty without compromising faith.”167 Pirot’s conclusion probably dissuaded Huet from trying to publish his system in France.
Apparently, after Pirot’s refusal to give his permission to publish Fourth Aunay Question,169 Huet gave up the project of publishing his skeptical system in France, under his real name and in Latin, language which could denounce the real author. He then translated it into French and decided to publish it in the Netherlands. We have the reaction by one of the first readers of the French manuscript.This is, I tell you frankly Sr, all that I think. … I know that the book that you have titled the Fourth of the Aunay Questions is nothing but an intellectual play [jeu d’esprit] which you never wanted to publish and in which you worked only to exercise yourself in the subject, for you see that the consequences of its publication would be to be feared and could be abused. As to the rest, nothing is better made-up and supported by more specious reasons.168
From this point onwards the manuscript copies of the text are no longer in Latin but in French and no longer in Huet’s papers preserved at BNF. Huet decided to publish his skeptical book in the Netherlands where censorship was much milder than in France and no previous permission to publish by religious authorities was required.171 So Huet translated it to French (for the real author would be more easily discovered in a Latin known and praised by many scholars) and employed the pseudonym Théocrite de Pluvignac, Seigneur de la Roche, Gentilhomme de Périgord. As pointed out by Huet scholars, this pseudonym was easily identifiable by those who knew Greek and Hebrew, that is, by those members of the Republic of Letters who had a level of erudition close to that of Huet’s himself.172 Huet probably thought that scholars with such a high level of erudition would not be shocked by his skepticism and consequently would not change their high regard of him.It seems to me that there will be no risk if it is published without the author’s name; for the reason pointed out by the Jesuit who read this work in your abbey in Aunay, namely that the style unmasks the author, this consideration, I say, which is quite right for the Latin text, vanishes with respect to the edition of the book in French.170
The sole known extant French manuscript of the Traité, autograph, was discovered by Popkin in Rotterdam.173 Rapetti published sections of letters by Olivet which shed light on the Dutch history of the work. Huet probably had his translation ready by 1707, for Olivet tells Le Clerc in 1720 that he saw the manuscript “more than ten years ago.”174 Although Olivet tells Le Clerc that Huet did not intend to publish the work, in a letter to Bouhier he says—demanding secrecy—that Huet had sent the manuscript to Bayle’s publisher, Rainer Leers, in Rotterdam. Rappeti suspects that a letter by Leers to Huet from 11 December 1707 concerns the publication of the Traité. Leers says he “would be quite happy to print the work you told me about” and gives detailed instructions of two possible routes through which the manuscript could arrive safely in Rotterdam.175 However, Huet still could not see his philosophical system in print. Leers died in 1714 before he could publish it—we do not know how long it took for Huet to send the manuscript to Leers—and the manuscript was acquired by a Dutch businessman from this city.176 This is most likely the autograph manuscript Popkin discovered in the collection of the Remonstrantskerk in the Municipal Library of Rotterdam.
This Rotterdam manuscript was not, however, the autograph manuscript published by Du Sauzet.177 Olivet reports the existence of “three or four copies” of the manuscript, two of which are autographs (1726, 44ff). Given that the copy Du Sauzet used for his publication was also an autograph,178 no mystery remains for the two French autograph manuscripts. Olivet also reports that Huet showed it to some intimate friends (he names the Jesuit Fathers De la Rue and Martin) , who “had the leisure to read the work both in Latin and in French.” The letters from De la Rue to Huet dealing with the Traité show he read a Latin manuscript.179 As showed above, two other friends of Huet’s—the fathers Louis le Valois and Jean-Baptiste du Hamel—read the Latin version.
The manuscript I discovered corresponds to the copy commented on by Du Hamel. Huet refers to this copy as “the copy written by Sr. de Aunay.”180 According to Rapetti (1999, 243n), this is probably Huet’s nephew, Pierre-Daniel Piedoüe, Mr. de l’Aunay, a priest like his uncle and, according to her, the likely heir of Huet’s with whom Du Sauzet negotiated, after Huet’s death, two autograph manuscripts of the Traité, a French and a Latin one.181 These enabled Du Sauzet to publish, first, in 1723, the French version, and then, in 1738, the Latin version.
Du Sauzet says in the preface of the Latin edition that at the occasion he published Huet’s autobiography, the Comentarius de Rebus ad Eum Pertinentibus (1718), through the mediation of the Dutch scholar Sallengre,182 the latter also showed him an autograph manuscript of the Traité (in French) which Huet had given personally to Sallengre in France. Du Sauzet wanted to publish it too but Huet did not agree,183 what indicates that between 1707 and 1718 Huet changed his mind about publishing his system while still alive. He gave the manuscript to Sallengre to be published only after his death and under pseudonym.184 Huet died in 1721 and since Sallengre had died too, Du Sauzet negotiated another copy of the manuscript with Huet’s nephew, probably not Charsigné, who denied knowledge of the manuscript,185 but Pierre Daniel Piedoüe of Aunay, who exchanged it and a Latin manuscript for three copies of Bayle’s Dictionary,186 which valued a fortune in France where it was forbidden.187 Du Sauzet published the Traité under Huet’s name in 1723, causing scandal and controversy about its authenticity.188
3.6 Conclusions
- (a)
The Traité was the last published but the first written of the three philosophical works of Huet’s.189
- (b)
It was first written in Latin (Flottes had already proved this) by 1685 and much later (by 1707) translated to French by Huet himself.190
- (c)
It was considered by Huet the most important part (book I), containing his own philosophical system, the ground of both his rejection of Cartesianism and of his apology for the Christian religion, of what would be—if it had not been amputated of its most important part—his most important work after Demonstratio: Alnetarum Questionarum in five books.
- (d)
The skepticism of the French revised version is lighter than that of the original Latin one.
- (e)
The skeptical views of the Provençal are those of Huet’s, the views of the pseudonym Pluvignac are inspired in those of Du Hamel’s.191
- (f)
Huet’s anti-cartesianism is not an authority’s persecution of a philosophy persecuted at the time, nor his way to react to his inability to philosophy,192 but followed from his skepticism which required critical examination of the main dogmatic philosophy at the time.
- (g)
Huet was the most radical of the Cartesians for he radicalized Cartesian doubt with the result that no metaphysical doctrine could follow from doubt. His skepticism is more Cartesian than classical or Renaissance skepticism.193 Rather than persecutor,194 Huet was persecuted for holding Cartesian doubt.