Pierre-Daniel Huet (Huetius, 1630–1721), a scholar of immense erudition, died 300 years ago. Huet wrote many works on philosophy, theology, history and literature. At his time Huet was best known for his fierce criticism of Cartesianism. From an empiricist and sceptical standpoints, he attacked the position of the arrogance of reason in epistemology and the credibility of rational proofs of God in theology. But it was Huet’s scepticism, developing the arguments of the ancient sceptics and insisting on the principal weakness of human mind to achieve true and certain knowledge, that had the biggest impact on the development of early-modern philosophy. I analyze Huet’s scepticism in the context of the revival of the ancient sceptical tradition in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and promote a relatively new interpretation of the formation of early-modern philosophy, in which scepticism is supposed to play a constitutive role.
CS
Pierre-Daniel Huet, významný učenec, který se zabýval filosofií, teologií, historií i literaturou, zemřel právě před 300 lety. Své současníky Huet nejvíce zaujal ostrou kritikou kartezianismu. Ze stanoviska empirismu a skepticismu odmítl pozici arogance rozumu v epistemologii a důvěryhodnost racionálních důkazů Boha v teologii. Největší vliv na vývoj novověké filosofie měl však jeho skepticismus, ve kterém Huet rozvíjel myšlenky antických skeptiků především s důrazem na nemohoucnost lidské mysli dospět k pravdivému či jistému poznání. V článku rozvíjím analýzu Huetova skepticismu v širším kontextu znovuoživení antické skeptické tradice v západní Evropě v 16. a 17. století a propaguji relativně novou interpretaci formování novověké filosofie, v níž hraje tato tradice klíčovou roli.
The first part of 1683 De optimo genere interpretandi sets the scene for Huet’s dialogue and introduces its participants: Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) is comissioned to lay out his principles of translation, while Fronton du Duc (1558–1624) and Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553–1617) are meant to evaluate his views and ask questions regarding Casaubon’s theses. Casaubon’s lecture begins with a definition of interpretatio as sermo lingua notiore expressus, sermonem lingua minus nota expressum referens ac repraesentans (“a discourse in expressed in a better known language, referring to and representing a discourse in a lesser known language”), which is then followed by remarks separating interpretatio from such terms as aemulatio and paraphrasis. The speakers then discuss the principles of “the best kind of translation” in regard to Casaubon’s notion that the strict semantic, lexical and stylistic accuracy should be preffered by the translators over “appropriating” (convertere) the ancient authors to suit the tastes of the contemporaries. After those basic principles are given, Casaubon, de Thou and du Duc reflect on problems posed by the Casaubon’s approach to translation: mainly, the differences between particular languages, the lexical discrepancies and the difficulties regarding use of Casaubon’s method to different categories of texts (e.g. How important is it to represent the style of the original in the case of scientific texts?).
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