Volume 238

International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées

Editor-in-Chief

Guido Giglioni

University of Macerata, Civitanova Marche, Italy

Editorial Board

Sarah Hutton

Dept of Philosophy, University of York, YORK, UK

Koen Vermeir

Paris Diderot University, Paris, France

José R. Maia Neto

University of Belo Horizonte, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Michael J. B. Allen

University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

Jean-Robert Armogathe

École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, France

Stephen Clucas

Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

Peter Harrison

The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

John Henry

Science Studies Unit, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Martin Mulsow

Universität Erfurt, Gotha, Germany

Gianni Paganini

University of Eastern Piedmont, Vercelli, Italy

Jeremy Popkin

University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

John Robertson

Clare College, Cambridge, UK

G. A. J. Rogers

Keele University, Keele, UK

Javier Fernández Sebastian

Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Vizcaya, Spain

Ann Thomson

European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy

Theo Verbeek

Universiteit Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Associate Editor

John Christian Laursen

University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

International Archives of the History of Ideas/Archives internationales d’histoire des idées is a series which publishes scholarly works on the history of ideas in the widest sense of the word. It covers history of philosophy, science, political and religious thought and other areas in the domain of intellectual history. The chronological scope of the series extends from the Renaissance to the Post-Enlightenment. Founded in 1963 by R.H. Popkin and Paul Dibon, the International Archives of the History of Ideas/Archives internationales d’histoire des idées publishes, edits and translates sources that have been either unknown hitherto, or unavailable, and publishes new research in intellectual history, and new approaches within the field. The range of recent volumes in the series includes studies on skepticism, astrobiology in the early modern period, as well as translations and editions of original texts, such as the Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Diseases (1730) by Bernard Mandeville.

All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before final acceptance.

José R. Maia Neto

Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721) and the Skeptics of his Time

José R. Maia Neto

Philosophy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

ISSN 0066-6610e-ISSN 2215-0307

International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées

ISBN 978-3-030-94715-6e-ISBN 978-3-030-94716-3

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94716-3

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Dedication

“I usually called [chemistry] the breviary of nature; for the same wonderful effects which she operates in this world of ours, the art of the chemist exhibits in a narrow compass before the eyes of the spectators.” (Huet, Memoirs, IV, 23)

To Elene Pereira Maia, my beloved chemist, whose art made me a spectator of the wonderful effects of life.

“A vast amount of [Huet’s] writing and correspondence still remains unpublished. It shows that he was a central figure in the republic of letters of the time, who deserves much more attention than he has been given.” (R. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle, p. 281)

In memory of Richard H. Popkin (1923–2005).

Acknowledgements

This book is the main result of long research on early modern skepticism started in 1991 in Paris. It required, since then, many travels to that city to work on the books and papers which belonged to Huet preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. I thank all institutions which supported this research, the library to begin with. My first research in Paris was funded by the International Society for Intellectual History. I thank (in memory) Constance Blackwell who was its founder and director at the time. I also thank the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in particular my colleagues in the Department who granted me sabbatical leaves, first to develop the research in Paris and more recently to write the book. The Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPQ); the agreement CAPES (Brazil)/COFECUB (France); the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE-SSR), in particular professors Jean-Robert Armogathe and Hubert Bost; and the Università Degli Studi Del Piemonte Orientale “A. Avogrado,” Professor Gianni Paganini in particular, also provided funds for my research in Paris and Caen. I thank Richard Popkin (in memory), April Shelford, and Alison Howell for sending me personal research materials. This book would not be possible without the research on Huet previously done by Léon Tolmer, Richard Popkin, Elena Rapetti, April Shelford, and Thomas Lennon. I thank all scholars with whom I discussed Huet and who sent me published materials on Huet: Thomas Lennon (with whom I had the privilege to give a course on Huet at UFMG), Richard Popkin and Richard Watson (in memory), April Shelford, Elena Rapetti, Gianni Paganini, Jean-Robert Armogathe, Vincent Carraud, Gilles Olivo, and Sébastien Charles. I also thank my former graduate students Flávio Loque, Bruna Martins, and Ana Cláudia Teodoro, and my wife Elene Pereira Maia for continuous support and incentive. Finally, I thank two Springer reviewers for many helpful suggestions and one of them in particular for editing the whole manuscript.

A summary comparison between Huet’s skepticism and the skepticisms exhibited in works by Montaigne, La Mothe Le Vayer, Pascal, Foucher, and Bayle was published in French in Les Etudes Philosophiques 85 (2008): 209–222. Chapter 4 develops in much more detail, adding new facts and analyses, an interpretation of Huet’s skepticism as basically influenced by Descartes which I first published in French in Philosophiques 35:1 (2008): 223–239. The part on Montaigne in Sect. 2.5 of Chap. 2 appeared first in the article “Huet’s Interpretation of the Essays of Montaigne,” Intellectual History Review 26:1 (2016): 43–48. Finally, Sects. 5.1 (on Huet and Pascal) and 5.3 (on Huet and Bayle) are much extended developments of interpretations I first published in Portuguese in Kriterion, issues 114 (2006) and 120 (2009), respectively. I thank the editors and reviewers for criticisms and suggestions made on these occasions.

Citations in footnotes are given in their original language. Citations in the body of the chapters are translated to English except when the original is relevant in my analysis. When there were published translations available, I cited them, when not, I translated them myself. French quotes were modernized except when quoted from secondary literature.

Abbreviations

Ac: Cicero, Academica
Against: Huet, Against Cartesian Philosophy
AT: Descartes, Œuvres, 11 vols., eds. Ch. Adam and P. Tannery
B: Bayle, Dictionary, tr. R. Popkin, art. Pyrrho, note B
BNF: Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Censura: Huet, Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae
Censure: Huet, Censure de la philosophie de Descartes
Commentarius: Huet, Commentarius de Rebus ad eum Pertinentibus
CSM: Descartes, Philosophical Writings, 2 vols., tr. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch
Demonstratio: Huet, Demonstratio Evangelica
Dictionary: Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary
Dissertations: Huet, Dissertations sur diverses matières de religion et de philologie, 2 vols., ed. l’abbé de Tilladet
History: Huet, The History of Romances
Huetiana: Huet, Huetiana ou pensées diverses de M. Huet
Imbecillitate: Huet, De Imbecillitate Mentis Humanae
La: Pascal, Pensées, ed. L. Lafuma
Memoirs: Huet, Memoirs of the Life of Peter Daniel Huet
Nat Deo: Cicero, De Natura Deorum
PH: Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism
Quaestiones: Huet, Alnetanae Quaestiones
Teet: Plato, Theaetetus
Traité: Huet, Traité philosophique de la faiblesse de l’esprit humain
Tusc disp: Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes
Weakness: Huet, The Weakness of Human Understanding