JEAN-FR´EDÉRIC BERNARD:

TRACES OF A CRITIC OF INTOLERANCE

Abstract

This article examines Jean-Frédéric Bernard’s role in the formation and dissemination of Enlightenment critical thought, emphasizing the philosophical significance of his editorial activity. It proceeds from the hypothesis that his contribution to the critique of religious intolerance lies not primarily in his own treatises, but in the strategies he employed in composing, translating, editing, and commenting on the works of others. The analysis focuses on two editorial projects: Recueil de voyages au Nord (1715–1738) and Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1728–1743). The first is examined in terms of the principle of the utility of travel as a means of understanding the diversity of customs and relativizing one’s own cultural assumptions. The second is analyzed with regard to the use of comparative descriptions of religious rites and discreet interventions in the critical apparatus to question claims of confessional superiority. The article argues that Bernard developed an indirect form of philosophical intervention in which the selection and arrangement of texts, together with notes and commentaries, guided readers toward a critique that was never fully stated explicitly. His editorial practice thus reveals the importance of strategies of disguised erudition in the clandestine circulation of ideas and highlights the editor’s role as an intellectual agent of religious criticism and Enlightenment philosophical culture.