Reasonable Scepticism in the French Enlightenment: Some Connections Between Jean-Baptiste Boyer d’Argens, Louis de Beausobre, and Voltaire

Abstract

This chapter underlines the specificities of “reasonable scepticism” as advocated during the French Enlightenment by Boyer d’Argens (La philosophie du bon sens, 1736), Beausobre (Le pyrrhonisme raisonnable, 1755), and Voltaire (Le philosophe ignorant, 1767). Despite notable differences, those three thinkers inspired each other, shaping an influential discourse. Their sober use of doubt appears to be characterized by a modest and often probabilistic epistemology (against rationalist systems), by a complete rejection of metaphysical certainty (against Christian apologetics but also against atheism), and by their ambivalence towards the rise of new science (with complex relationships to empiricism and contemporary scientific discoveries).