Huet (Huetius), Pierre-Daniel

HUET (Huetius), PIERRE-DANIEL. - French philosopher, theologian and scholar, b. at Caen on 8 February 1630, d. at Paris on 26 February 1721. Tutor of the Dauphin together with Bossuet, he edited the famous editions of the classics in usum Serenissimi Delfini. Ordained a priest in 1676 (he was the son of a Protestant father), he first held the abbey of Aulnay and subsequently that of Fontenay. From 1674 he was a member of the Académie Française.

H. was a polygraph: he dealt with literature (he also wrote elegant Latin and Greek verses), philosophy, religion, etc. A Cartesian in his youth, he later criticized Descartes's philosophy in the Censura philosophiae Cartesianae (Paris 1689), pointing out a kind of vicious circle between the cogito and evidence. Ultimately H. fought against excessive Cartesian rationalism, in the sense that, according to him, the human spirit is not capable, without divine Revelation, of attaining the truth (Demonstratio evangelica, ibid. 1679; Alnetanae [of Aulnay] quaestiones de concordia rationis et fidei, Caen 1690; Traité philosophique de la faiblesse de l'esprit humain [posthumous], Amsterdam 1772). Noteworthy from the historical point of view are the writings: Nouveaux mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du cartésianisme (Paris 1692); P. D. Hueti commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus (Amsterdam 1718), translated into French under the title Mémoires de D. H. by C. Nisard (Paris 1854).

Michele Federico Sciacca