Empirical History and the Transformation of Political Criticism in France from Bodin to Bayle

Bibliographic Data

ID4906562
AuthorsJacob Soll (corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume64
Issue2
Pages297-316
Publication date2003-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jhi.2003.0030
OpenAlexW2033252955
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited26

This article shows how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century arguments about historical evidence and elite humanist traditions of textual criticism and historical method evolved into the secular political theory of the eighteenth century. It shows how the French crown sponsored scholars who worked on empirical, source-based history as a tool for political prudence, but as this critical historical methodology became public, the crown realized it could be used against its interests, as in the case of the Affaire de Thou. In the mid-seventeenth century, Colbert sought to suppress the old royal humanist historical tradition; however a number of political critics such as Amelot de La Houssaye and Pierre Bayle worked to publicize the tools of historical, political criticism, setting the stage for Enlightenment critics of absolutism such as Durey de Meinières and ultimately Montesquieu and Gibbon

Criticism · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Transformation (genetics) · Chemistry · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Renaissance Literature and Culture

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