Dictionnaire des philosophes français du XVIIe siècle: acteurs et réseaux du savoir de Luc Foisneau (review)

This dictionary started life as a Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century French Philosophers (2 vols (London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2008)) edited by Luc Foisneau and reviewed by Alain Viala in this journal (French Studies, 65 (2011), 528). It now appears in what its editor describes as the 'version de référence' (p. 32). This is no French translation of the initial Dictionary, most of the 585 entries for which were in fact initially written in French and have been revised in the Dictionnaire, which has meanwhile expanded to include 108 new entries, eight thematic introductions, and an 'index historique et raisonné' of more than 300 pages. The international cast of 167 contributors, led by their General Editor, are to be congratulated on an extraordinary achievement. This is a reference work that ought to find a place in every research library. It is still more deserving of the praise Viala offered in 2011 when he described the Dictionary as 'ambitious' (for its proper inclusion of French thinkers across the entire spectrum of thought that the term philosophie covers in early modern French and France) and 'impressive' (for its wealth of information and analysis, its scholarly rigour, and its clarity of presentation). In all of these respects, the Dictionnaire goes still further: it substantially expands its earlier treatment of women philosophers, political thinkers, and philosophical poets; and, as if in emulation of the great dictionaries and encyclopaedias of the early modern period, to which it owes much in inspiration and organization, the Dictionnaire opens up new pathways for navigating between its many entries. The thematic introductions and the index have an important role to play in this regard: they suggest connections between the 690 historical actors, canonical and marginal, whose lives and works are the subject of the entries; and it is principally these connections that serve in turn to reveal the 'networks of knowledge' mentioned in the work's subtitle. While the index is uniformly rich and informative, the thematic introductions are a mixed bag, proving more illuminating when they survey comparatively under-studied intellectual traditions of the period (for example, scholastic philosophy and theology) than when they rehearse familiar grand narratives of intellectual or aesthetic evolution. Readers with a specialist interest in the areas of thought covered—from scholastic philosophy and its various 'new' alternatives to science, literature, the arts, and politics—are bound to differ with certain assumptions made or interpretations advanced in the course of the Dictionnaire: this is the price such a project will inevitably pay for its laudable ambition. One could only wish to see it published in due course in an accessible, online version, so that it has the chance to reach as many students of early modern French thought as possible.