Abstract

In the second edition of Bayle's "Dictionnaire" (1701) a series of items on ancient philosophy introduces a new point of view about the relations between God and the physical world. Till this moment, Bayle had looked at the problem in the light of Malebranche's occasionalism. Now, a decidedly anti-teleological attitude has grown. Following an atheistical interpretation of the Cartesian "fable of the world" and probably discussing Leibniz's positions, Bayle tries to show the possibility of an autonomous organization of matter, transforming itself in the passage from chaos to cosmos. Later, in "Continuation des Pensées diverses" and in "Réponse aux questions d'un provincial", he will show the plausibility of a necessitarianism very close to Spinoza's. That means also a way of looking at the relations between God and man which is different from the anthropocentric view implied by anti-theodicy.