9791221502664_08.pdf

This essay explores the reciprocal contamination of the notions of error and erring at the beginning of the early modern time in Latin and Romance languages, through the example of the concept of “erroneous conscience”. This concept, for Pierre Bayle and those who followed him at least on this point, allows for the decriminalization of religious beliefs, and even those that challenge religion(s), by recognizing the “rights of the erroneous conscience”. This right is a right to error and to erring/wandering limited to religious convictions and apparently aimed solely at “tolerance” (supporting and excusing erroneous/wandering opinions). However, it did not escape contemporaries that it radically challenged the very idea that a universal truth could be universally known and established in this field.