The concept of criticism in the works of Pierre Bayle

Pierre Bayle has accomplished a triple operation on the concept of criticism: 1. he has generalised criticism; 2. he has given it the character of a trial which establishes the truth; 3. he has thus made it into a special tribunal with its own law and procedures. This triple operation is itself based on two actions. The first is to do with the bringing together of two meanings of criticism: philological criticism and public criticism. The second concerns the extension of the field of truth and certainty to the realm of fact, and no longer simply that of reason. Pierre Bayle thus extends Cartesian method to apply it to history. This heterodox extension of Cartesianism plays a significant role, on the one hand in the application of notions of truth and certainty to the realm of fact, and on the other hand in the identification of notions of reason and criticism. Bayle's two actions constitute a new space: the intellectual space as the location of criticism, in other words, a space which is the republic of letters.