Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens

Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, marquis d’Argens (1704–1771), was a French philosopher and writer whose works used skepticism and religious toleration to challenge dogma and intolerance.

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Pyrrhonism: An ancient skeptical tradition that suspends judgment when evidence does not settle a dispute. D’Argens used skeptical arguments to question claims presented as certain religious truth.
Lettres juives: A 1730 epistolary work by d’Argens presenting French society through letters attributed to foreign Jewish correspondents. This early book uses an outsider’s perspective to criticize customs and religious intolerance.
Frederick the Great: King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, known as a military ruler and patron of the arts and philosophy. D’Argens served at Frederick’s court in Potsdam for many years.
University of Aix-en-Provence: A historic university in southern France, founded in the fifteenth century and later incorporated into Aix-Marseille University. D’Argens studied law at Aix before abandoning a conventional legal career.
Religious skepticism: Doubt about claims of religious knowledge, revelation, or institutional authority. His books brought skeptical challenges to religious claims into popular literary forms.
Religious toleration: The principle that people should be free to hold and practice different religious beliefs. Toleration is a central political and moral concern in d’Argens’s writings.
Lettres cabalistiques: A multivolume epistolary work by d’Argens, published in the 1730s, mixing satire with religious and philosophical discussion. It extends his use of fictional correspondence to examine belief and social institutions.
Voltaire: A French Enlightenment writer whose works attacked religious intolerance and abuses of authority. Both writers became prominent critics of dogma, though their careers and arguments differed.
Ancien Régime: The political and social order of France before the Revolution of 1789. Its religious and social hierarchies formed the institutions his criticism confronted.
Anti-clericalism: Opposition to the political or social power of clergy and religious institutions. His criticism of religious authority contributed to the era’s wider anticlerical discourse.