The title of this work is deliberately ambiguous reflecting the multiplelevels on which its argument is conducted. One aim is to indicate how a readingof Bayle ... » 

The title of this work is deliberately ambiguous reflecting the multiplelevels on which its argument is conducted. One aim is to indicate how a readingof Bayle might be made possible how the initial impenetrability of hiswritings and their world might be overcome. On another level the book offersan interpretation of Bayles writings. Finally it is a record of the authorsown thoughts upon reading Bayle what he finds himself thinking about as helooks into Bayle and his world.This work is a critical but sympathetic treatment of this neglected thinker. Itwill engage anyone interested in the history of modern philosophy the historyof ideas literary criticism and the history of seventeenthcentury Frenchculture. «