Chapter I: Montaigne -- chapter II: Peter Ramus -- chapter III: Charron -- chapter IV: Sanchez -- chapter V: La Mothe-Le-Vayer -- chapter VI: Pascal -- Index to literary references -- Index to subjects

First published in 1904, this book forms part of a two-volume set examining the development of literature during the French Renaissance. Taken together, the volumes cover the period 1525 to 1605, incorporating detailed information on numerous works and key literary figures, beginning with Francis I and his court and moving through to Mathurin Régnier. Both volumes were written by the renowned Cambridge literary critic and classicist Arthur Tilley (1851-1942). These books will be of value to anyone with an interest in French literature and the Renaissance.

This book is the first systematic account of Pierre Charron’s influence among the major French philosophers in the period (1601-1662). It shows that Charron’s Wisdom was one of the main sources of inspiration of Pierre Gassendi’s first published book, the Exercitationes adversus aristoteleos. It sheds new light on La Mothe Le Vayer, who is usually viewed as a major free thinker. By showing that he was a follower of Charron, La Mothe emerges neither as a skeptical apologist nor as a disguised libertine, as combatting superstition but not as irreligious. The book shows the close presence of Charron in the preambles of Descartes’ philosophy and that the cogito is mainly based on the moral Academic self-assurance of Charron’s wise man. This interpretation reverses the standard view of Descartes’ relation to skepticism. Once this skepticism is recognized to be Charron’s Academic one, it is seen not as the target but as the source of the cogito. Pascal is the last major philosopher for whom Charron’s wisdom is crucially relevant. Montaigne and Descartes influenced, respectively, Pascal’s view of the Pyrrhonian skeptic and of the skeptical main arguments. The book shows that Charron’s Academic skeptical wise man is one of the main targets of his projected apology for Christianity, since he considered him as a threat and counter-example of the kind of Christian view of human beings he believed. By restoring the historical philosophical relevance of Charron in early modern philosophy and arguing for the relevance of Academic skepticism in the period, this book opens a new research program to early modern scholars and will be valuable for those interested in the history of philosophy, French literature and religion.

An examination of how Renaissance textual practices and new forms of knowledge transformed notions of sex and sexuality in France.

This book, first published in 1932, tells the progress of Manchester College, founded in Manchester in 1786, and since 1889 established at Oxford, as a postgraduate School of Theology and place of training for the ministry of religion. This title will be of interest to students of history and education.