Morality, Evolution, Disgust

The following two books will be of interest to those studying the "evolution of morality" and its possible skeptical implications:

Peter Singer, The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress, with a new afterword by the author (Princeton University Press, 2011). More information can be found here.

Daniel Kelly, Yuck! The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust (MIT Press, 2011). For information, go here.

Nietzsche's Political Skepticism

I recently found out about Tamsin Shaw's Nietzsche's Political Skepticism (Princeton University Press, 2007). For more information, click here. A positive review of this book was published in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Argument from Possible Disagreement

A paper of mine, "The Pyrrhonian Argument from Possible Disagreement," has just been published in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. In case you're interested, you can check it out here. In this paper, I deal with an argument based on the possibility of disagreement that is used in five passages of Sextus's Pyrrhonian Outlines. The argument has been examined in a couple of books and articles, but only briefly.

Review of The Demands of Reason

Last week, a new review of Casey Perin's learned book, The Demands of Reason (OUP, 2010), by Eleni Kaklamanou, was published in Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

New Paper on Sextus

Shaul Tor (Cambridge) recently published an insightful article on Sextus: “Argument and Signification in Sextus Empiricus: Against the Mathematicians VIII 289-290,” Rhizai 7/1 (2010): 63-90. Articles published in this journal are available online here, but unfortunately the last two issues have not been uploaded.

Call for Papers

Stéphane Marchand has let me know about the following call for papers.

Papers are invited for presentation on the topic “Academic Skepticism: Philosophical Reflections on Knowledge and Rhetoric,” for a two-day workshop in the frame of the 13th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI). This will take place at University of Cyprus, Nicosia, on July 2-6, 2012. The workshop will be devoted on one day to Ancient Academic Skepticism and on the other day to Modern Academic Skepticism.

Please submit an abstract (one page) by January 1st, 2012 to Luiz Eva, in charge of the workshop on Ancient Academic Skepticism, at luizeva@ufpr.br, or to Sébastien Charles, in charge of the workshop on Modern Academic Skepticism, at sebastien.charles@usherbrooke.ca.

Speakers will have 20 to 30 minutes to present their papers in English or French (exact length to be confirmed, depending on the number of papers accepted).

Pyrrho in Cicero

The latest issue of Vita Latina (183-4, 2011) features François Prost's "Pyrrhon chez Cicéron". Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the specific content of the paper or its author (but Brigitte Pérez has now let me know that he teaches at the Sorbonne University). There's not much information on the journal's website.

Reviews of the Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism

Harold Tarrant's review of The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism (CUP, 2010) was recently published in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Some time ago, I too wrote a review of this volume, which has just appeared in British Journal for the History of Philosophy. You can check it out here.