Jean Barbeyrac editor of Gerard Noodt

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One of the interpretative proposals supporting this research is the various and complex discussions developed on the opposite, yet substantially equivalent risk of the dogmatic acceptance of all the religious `testimonies‘ and of the radical, corrosive destructive action of `historic Pyrrhonism‘. Examination of the polemic regarding the value of the fides historica has here taken its initiative from Gronovius‘ interventions as a symbolic moment wherein it is shown that among the main reasons inspiring the querelle the leading philosophical one is of the certainty of history, the definition, that is to say, of its value and limits, and the conditions which make knowledge of it possible. The study of the documented „fact“ (Lex Regia) obliges one to reject every abstract conceptual overlapping to confer a marked historical depth on erudite antiquary work which, as an essential component of theoretical-historiographical discourse, becomes the sign or the look-out post for a new combination of `philosophical history‘ and antiquary method, of erudition and philosophy, of reason and history.

Fabrizio Lomonaco is Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Naples „Federico II“. As a member of the editorial boards, he is involved with the following journals: „Archivio di storia della cultura“ (Naples), „Bollettino del Centro di studi vichiani“ (Rome), „The Low Countries Historical Review“ (Den Haag). He is the Director of „Civilt `a del Mediterraneo“ (Rome) and „Logos“ (Naples) and has written essays relating to the 17th-18th centuries Holland (Grotius and Perizonius, Gronov and Huber, Noodt and Barbeyrac) and Southern Italian thought (Caloprese and Gravina, Vico and Pagano, Metastasio and Spinelli).