ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role granted to experience in the eclectic philosophy developed by Jean-Bernard Merian between 1749 and 1797. Focusing on his two 1749 texts on apperception, his Discourse on Metaphysics (1765), and his essay On the Phenomenalism of David Hume (1793), it explores how Merian, building on Lockean and Newtonian insights, combined empiricist and speculative views in order to elaborate a middle path between dogmatic systems and radical empiricist and skeptical positions. More precisely, Prunea-Bretonnet analyzes Merian’s theory of apperception, his understanding of the relationship between metaphysics and natural philosophy, his reception of Hume’s views on skepticism, and his rejection of what he takes to be Hume’s generalized phenomenalism. Drawing on these elements, Prunea-Bretonnet shows how Merian countered Hume’s standpoint by defending the indubitable certainty provided by the apperception of the self as well as the foundational and guiding role played by metaphysics defined as a science of principles. In this way, the chapter provides a concrete case study of the eclectic approach exemplary of the philosophy at the Berlin Academy in the second half of the eighteenth century.
