HoP 494 Tell the Truth While Laughing: The French Moralists

Pierre Bayle argues that religious disagreements should be tolerated and that there are powerful arguments against monotheism, even as some contemporaries embrace outright atheism.

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Is Pierre Bayle’s pioneering reference work, the Historical and Critical Dictionary, a monument to skepticism or to fideism?

The “Quietists” Jeanne Guyon and François Fénelon argue that self-love can be overcome by cultivating a “pure love” for God. Their reward: to be accused of heresy.

How the “neo-classical” tragedies of Racine explore the battle between passion and reason.

Molière’s famous comedies scandalize Paris and dramatize themes from French moralism, especially the danger of hypocrisy.

La Rochefoucauld and other “moralists” offer a penetrating and witty critique of human pride, selfishness, and hypocrisy. Is this just cynicism, or does it support a positive ethic?

How the French formal garden embodied both Cartesian philosophy and the political ideology of the French monarchy.

How philosophy at the universities evolved in response to Cartesianism and the “new science.”

Arnauld’s attack on Malebranche’s theory of the “vision in God” leads to a nuanced debate over the nature of ideas.