Pierre Bayle 1647 – 1706

Pierre Bayle was a French Huguenot philosopher and encyclopedist who lived in exile in Rotterdam after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His Historical and Critical Dictionary, organized as a network of biographies with copious skeptical footnotes, became one of the most widely read and influential books of the late seventeenth century and a principal source for the philosophes of the next generation. He defended the rights of conscience and religious toleration even for atheists, and argued that morality is independent of religious belief. His sustained skepticism shaped Hume, Voltaire, and the Enlightenment.