Prestiges of quackery

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Abstract

This year's lecture, devoted to the figure of the charlatan, is part of a wider reflection on the changes in public space in the XVIII^thcentury, on the ambivalence of the relationship to knowledge and on the paradoxes of the Enlightenment public, called upon both to assert its critical autonomy and to place its trust in learned authorities. The starting point is the omnipresence of the figure of the charlatan and the denunciation of charlatanism in Enlightenment thought. Our starting point is Condorcet's memorable phrase : " Any society that is not enlightened by philosophers is deceived by charlatans ". What is expressed is the utopia of the Enlightenment and the founding scene of modern consciousness : on the one hand, disinterested scientists who enlighten the people ; on the other, " charlatans skillful " who aim to deceive them. The autonomy of science, emancipation through education and democratic government are thus firmly linked. The gesture, however, implies distinguishing " a class of men ", philosophers and scholars, destined to " direct opinion " to protect it from " prestiges du charlatanisme ". However, things are less straightforward, partly because the boundaries between empiricists and doctors in the field of social practice are sometimes more uncertain, and partly because, in intellectual and political debate, " charlatan ! " is first and foremost a denunciation liable to be turned against its opponents, in the way Jean-Paul Marat, in 1791, denounced the academicians of science as the " charlatans modernes ".

We therefore need both to understand the social function of charlatans, from their appearance in Italy in the XVI^thcentury, at the crossroads of the history of medicine and the history of entertainment, and to study the intellectual and political controversies that this figure arouses, in the tradition of Grete de Francesco's great book, Die Macht des Charlatans (1937).

By way of a preliminary definition, we propose to retain four features to circumscribe the protean figure of the charlatan : the claim to possess secret knowledge, seductive eloquence, deception, and finally the theatricality of self-staging. The lecture will focus on the XVIII^thcentury, but will also take into account the more ancient history of charlatanism, as well as its contemporary avatars. It will be a reflection on the very nature of " scientific authority ", guided by the hypothesis of an epistemological and political anxiety about " public ", lodged at the heart of modern thought stemming from the Enlightenment.

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