Sales Vilalta, Guillem
Junior Fellow: October 2023–September 2024
Research Project: An Unknown Source of Scepticism? The Influence of Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) on Moses Mendelssohn’s Philosophische Gespräche (1755) and Its Religious Implications
The goal of this project is to argue (i) that Moses Mendelssohn’s Philosophische Gespräche (1755) is driven by a sceptical attitude that is mainly indebted to Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique-critique (1697) and (ii) that this sceptical attitude can be seen as a rhetorical tool for facing religious oppression in both Bayle’s and Mendelssohn’s case. This project will fill a gap by shedding light on an as yet unexplored philosophical relation. This relation is very interesting from a social and religious point of view given that both authors belonged to religious minorities suffering from political oppression. The exploration of how a sceptical philosophical attitude fits into a context of social discrimination is linked to the following questions: How is scepticism manifested in literary sources and how is it employed to convey meaning and messages to the audience? How exactly and with respect to which sources is it harnessed as a tool to challenge an opponent or authority in politics and social discourse?
Guillem Sales Vilalta is currently a Research Collaborator at the University of Barcelona.