Skepticism, Criticism, and the Making of the Catholic Enlightenment: Rethinking the Career of Jean Hardouin

This article evaluates the early career of the French Jesuit Jean Hardouin (1646-1729) and the impact that it had on other Jesuit scholars of the first decades of the eighteenth century. It argues that Hardouin's historical criticism-a response to skeptical critiques of the certainty of knowledge-pushed other Jesuit writers to consider new epistemological arguments and use new philosophical tools. In this way, Hardouin's career helped motivate French Jesuit engagement with the ideas and sensibilities of the Enlightenment.