Meslier, d'Holbach and the Conspiracy of "bon sens"

MANUEL TIZZIANI

Lyon

Seminario; Weekly Seminar; 2019

Collegium - Institut d?études avancées de Lyon

Jean Meslier (1664-1729), priest of Etrépigny, left at his death a manuscript in which he develops an atheistic and materialistic philosophy. In general, my current research concerns the genesis, meaning, and reception of Meslier's thought. In particular, I propose to offer an interpretation of Meslier's Mémoire des pensées et des sentiments (ca. 1729) from a specific perspective: the radical antagonism between the concepts of bon sens / droite raison and foi / créance aveugle. This antagonism seems to be of particular importance to understanding the genesis, the priest's work's argumentative structure, and his potential readers or recipients' delimitation. In this research, therefore, I seek: first, to develop our current knowledge on Meslier's philosophy, taking into a count a point of view usually overlooked by prominent critics; second: to expand our current knowledge about the genesis and the possible reception of his text and ideas in the second half of the eighteenth century. In a broader sense, I intend to contribute to investigations on Radical Enlightenment and clandestine philosophical manuscripts.