Third Yearbook of the MCAS

The 2018 Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies has just been published. The articles and reports can be found here.

Issue 8.4 of IJSS

Issue 8.4 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism  is now out. It features a symposium on Bart Streumer's Unbelievable Errors (OUP, 2017) -- with contributions by Frank Jackson, Philip Stratton-Lake, Mark Schroeder, and Streumer -- and book reviews by Stéphane Marchand and Peter Fosl. It can be accessed here.

Believing Out of Need

A couple of days ago, I reread parts of Mark Rowlands's The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death & Happiness (Granta, 2008). At one point, Rowlands writes: “I once had a colleague who was unusual among philosophers in that he was a believer. He always used to tell his students: when the shit hits the fan, you will believe. Maybe that's what happens. When the shit hits the fan, people look for God. When the shit hits the fan, I remember a little wolf cub”. Due to several unfortunate events that have occurred over the year, for the past few days I've been thinking about the issue of believing out of need (or desire or desperation). Over the years, I've heard or read the kind of remark made by Rowlands's former colleague; it is something most people say when confronted with someone professing, e.g., some form of radical skepticism. Even though I do understand the “logic” of such a stance, it appears to me that, in the end, it all comes down to each person's temperament. Once or twice in the course of my life, I felt the need to believe in something that is religious or metaphysical in nature, but after a few seconds, I told myself that as a matter of fact I didn't, the reason being that I couldn't hold religious or metaphysical beliefs simply because I needed to. Of course, this issue has to do with whether one can hold beliefs only on the basis of evidence of some sort or whether one can also hold beliefs out of need. In other words, do we always need epistemic reasons or are we also able to hold beliefs merely on the basis of pragmatic reasons? In my experience, it seems that quite a number of people can start believing in God, the afterlife, the soul, or what have you after having been confronted with extreme situations, but it is also clear that even when the shit hits the fan, some who would love to find solace in such beliefs are as a matter of fact unable to hold them -- for them pragmatic reasons are not enough. I'm considering the issue from a psychological point of view (is it psychologically possible for us to hold beliefs only because it is useful for us to do so?) and leaving aside the normative question of whether one should believe in x only on the basis of pragmatic reasons.

CFP for Special Issue of Theoria

There's a call for papers for a special issue of the Swedish journal Theoria devoted to medieval skepticism. Complete information below:

Guest Editor: Henrik Lagerlund (Stockholm University), henrik.lagerlund@philosophy.su.se.

Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2019

Description: The high point of scholarly debate on the history of skepticism was the 1970’s and the 1980’s. It was Ancient and Early Modern skepticism that was debated then, and some groundbreaking books and articles were produced as a result. After that intense debate the interest waned somewhat and the history of skepticism does not attract as much interest anymore. Scholarly debate on Medieval skepticism has never reached such a highpoint, in fact, there has been relatively little interest in skeptical debates and skepticism in the Middle Ages. By devoting a special issue of Theoria to Medieval skepticism, we hope to change this and interest a new generation of scholars in questions about the role skepticism and skeptical arguments played in the Middle Ages. In this context, we define Medieval philosophy broadly to include philosophy and philosophical theology between the time of Augustine and Francisco Suárez, that is, roughly between 400 and 1600 CE. We also welcome articles dealing with skepticism in any of the four language traditions, that is, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek. Our hope is to present skepticism in the Middle Ages in a new light, and with such breadth and depth that Medieval skepticism can finally take its place in a comprehensive history of skepticism alongside Ancient and Modern.

All submitted articles should be written in English and will be subject to double blind review. To find out more about the journal and how to submit your article please go to: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17552567

Uncertainty

On November 9-10, the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 will host the conference “L’incertitude chez les Anciens et les Modernes”, which is organized by Anastasios Brenner and Brigitte Pérez-Jean. The presentation and the program in French are below, and the conference's webpage can be found here.

Le concept d'incertitude paraît curieusement négligé. Les principaux dictionnaires et encyclopédies philosophiques l’omettent de leur répertoire. Pourtant ce concept a fait l'objet de débats intenses dans l'Antiquité. Les sceptiques mettaient en avant l’incertitude ou l’obscurité des raisonnements des dogmatiques, afin de justifier la suspension du jugement ou epochè. À l’aube des temps modernes, le scepticisme a connu un regain d’intérêt. Il a semblé fournir une réponse face à une situation de foisonnement et d’instabilité, provoquée par les grandes découvertes, les guerres de religion et la renaissance du modèle antique. Mais l’attitude sceptique n’a pas tardé à susciter une réaction en sens opposé: les fondateurs de la science moderne se sont servi du doute pour établir leur méthode dans la recherche de la vérité. Plusieurs historiens des idées sont venus souligner le rôle du scepticisme dans l’élaboration de la modernité. Il reste à prendre toute la mesure de cette lecture, sans négliger les résurgences ultérieures de ce courant. La science contemporaine est une longue déconstruction de la science classique dans ses notions fondamentales: espace, temps et matière. Elle tient désormais compte de l’approché, du relatif et du provisoire. Il s’agira dans ce colloque de croiser les regards de spécialistes de différentes disciplines sur l’incertitude et ses différentes formes.

Vendredi 9 novembre 2018, Site Saint-Charles (Rue du Professeur Henri Serre)

9h15: Ouverture: Anastasios Brenner. Présidence: Sabine Luciani.

9h30: Lorenzo Corti (Université de Lorraine): “Sextus Empiricus: scepticisme et incertitude”.

10h20: Sylvia Giocanti (Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès): “La modernité de la philosophie de l’incertitude: Les Essais de Montaigne”.

11h10: Pause 

11h25: Olivier Tinland (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3): “Les transformations du scepticisme dans l’idéalisme allemand: Kant, Schulze, Fichte, Hegel”.

12h15: Discussion générale. Présidence: Jean-François Thomas.

14h30: Sabine Luciani (Aix-Marseille Université): “In diem uiuere: Cicéron et l'expérience de l'incertitude”. 

15h20: Denis Kambouchner (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): “Descartes et les limites de la certitude”.

16h10: Pause 

16h25: Delphine Bellis (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3): “Doute, incertitude et probabilisme dans la philosophie de Gassendi”.

17h15: Discussion générale 

Samedi 10 novembre 2018. Présidence: Delphine Bellis.

9h30: Brigitte Pérez-Jean (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3): “La relation entre scepticisme et ‘philosophies voisines’ chez Sextus Empiricus”. 

10h20: Thierry Martin (Université de Franche Comté): “Pascal et l'émergence de la ‘géométrie du hasard’”. 

11h10: Pause 

11h25: Anastasios Brenner (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3): “L’incertitude des temps présents: la science entre scepticisme et dogmatisme”.

12h15: Discussion générale 

12h30: Clôture: Brigitte Pérez-Jean

Annual Lecture at MCAS

The Annual Lecture at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies (Hamburg University) will be given by Julie Klein (Villanova University) on October 30. The lecture's title is “Scepticism in Spinoza and the Project of Critique”. For more information, click here.

Suspension of Belief

On October, 26–27, the University of Mannheim will host the workshop “Suspension of Belief”. Here's the workshop's presentation:

We often suspend belief. Some questions we haven’t considered yet, others are still under investigation, and yet others seem to allow for no definite answer. We often withhold belief and, more importantly, we do so rationally. Despite its core role in our doxastic everyday life, suspension of belief has not received much attention in the epistemological literature, which has mainly focused on positive belief alone. The workshop will fill this lacuna and investigate the nature and rational profile of suspension of belief.

Confirmed speakers include Wolfgang Freitag, Tim Kraft, Sven Lauer, Errol Lord, Sven Rosenkranz, Hans Rott, Miriam Schoenfield, Marc Andree Weber, Nadja-Mira Yolcu. The program and abstracts can be found here.

Systematic Skepticism

Next Friday (October 12th), from 10h45 to 12h45, Stéphane Marchand (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) will give the talk “Le scepticisme est-il systématique?” at the Université de Liège (Belgium), Place du 20-août, 7, Salle de l'Horloge. Then, from 14h to 17h, there will be a reading workshop on “Hume: scepticisme et système(s)” hosted by Éléonore Le Jallé (Université de Lille).

Brill Studies in Skepticism

The new series Brill Studies in Skepticism has now an updated website, which you can check here. The first two volumes will be published at the beginning of next year.

Skepticism in Medieval Jewish Philosophy

Just out: Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Thought, edited by R. Haliva (Walter de Gruyter, 2018). More information here.

Issue 8.3 of IJSS

Issue 8.3 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. It features articles by Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira and Kim Davies; a book symposium with contributions by Penelope Maddy, Barry Stroud, Annalisa Coliva, and Adam Leite; and book reviews by Mark Spencer and Ted Poston. It can be accessed here.

Jewish Averroism

On November 12-14, the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies (Hamburg University) will host the conference “Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in Jewish Averroism”. More information is found here.

Pyrrhonian Modes

On September 6-7, there will be a workshop on the different sets of Pyrrhonian modes at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg University. For more information, go here.

Moral Realism/Anti-Realism

In recent posts, I referred to new books dealing with moral skepticism. To this list, I should now add Thomas Pölzler's Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences (Routledge, 2018).

Book on Jewish Skepticism

Giuseppe Veltri's new book, Alienated Wisdom: Enquiry into Jewish Philosophy and Scepticism, has just been published by Walter de Gruyter. For more information, go here.

Pyrrhonian Argumentation

My paper “Pyrrhonian Argumentation: Therapy, Dialectic, and Inquiry” -- forthcoming in Apeiron -- is now available online ahead of print.

Debunking Arguments

Hanno Sauer's Debunking Arguments in Ethics has just been published by Cambridge University Press. I haven't been able to take a closer a look at it yet, but it looks like a fine addition to the growing literature on the topic.

Epistemology in Latin America

For what it's worth, my entry “Epistemology in Latin America” -- one of whose sections deals with skepticism -- has just been published in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

Sextus's Adversus Mathematicos

A new English translation of Sextus Empiricus's Adversus Mathematicos has just been published: Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the Disciplines, translated with introduction and notes by Richard Bett (OUP, 2018). For more information, go here.

New Book on Moral Error Theory

Over the past few years, a considerable number of new books and articles on moral error theory have appeared in print. To these one must now add Wouter Kalf's Moral Error Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). For detailed information, go here.

Augustine and Academic Skepticism

A few days ago, I came across a book that seems to have gone unnoticed, namely, Blake D. Dutton's Augustine and Academic Skepticism: A Philosophical Study (Cornell University Press, 2016). More information can be found here.

New Book on Ancient Skepticism

I'm glad to announce that the book Le scepticisme, by Stéphane Marchand, has just been published by Vrin. This is without a doubt an important addition to the scholarship on ancient skepticism in French. For more information, go here.

Early Modern (Anti-)Skepticism

On June 8, 2018, the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies will host the workshop “Early Modern (Anti-)Scepticism.” For complete information, click here.

Issue 8.2 of IJSS

Issue 8.2 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. It features articles by Ali Hasan and Chris Ranalli, and book reviews by Hal Thorsrud and Michael Hickson. It can be accessed here.

A History of Skepticism

I've just found out about this very recent book by Renata Zieminska (University of Szczecin, Poland): The History of Skepticism: In Search of Consistency (Peter Lang, 2017). Renata has published several papers on skepticism over the past few years, but I haven't had the chance to take a look at the book, so any comments on it will be welcome.

Sextus's Against the Grammarians

Stéphane Marchand has just called my attention to an annotated Portuguese translation, by Joseane Prezotto, of part of Sextus Empiricus's Against the Grammarians that has been published in the Brazilian journal Hypnos. It can be found here.

Elenchos

For those who have been wondering, the Italian journal Elenchos, which over the years has published quite a few articles on ancient skepticism, will now be published by Walter de Gruyter. First edited by Gabriele Giannantoni and then by Anna Maria Ioppolo, the journal will now be edited by Francesca Alesse, Riccardo Chiaradonna, and Emidio Spinelli. The new journal's webpage can be found here.

Three Lectures on Skepticism

Next May, there will be a series of three lectures on skepticism (“Conoscenza, Plausibilità, Scetticismo: Tre Lezione tra Ricostruzione Storica e Riflessione Teorica”) at the Sapienza Università di Roma, Villa Mirafiori, Via Carlo Fea 2, room XI “M. M. Olivetti”.

May 21, 12.30-14.30: Carlo Cellucci, “Vero e plausibile”.

May 23, 14.30-16.30: Anna Maria Ioppolo, “Arcesilao nella storia dell’Accademia di Cicerone”.

May 28, 12.30-14.30: Emidio Spinelli, “Scettici differenti: Pirroniani contro Accademici”.

A Dialogue on External World Skepticism

A peculiar book discussing arguments for and against external world skepticism was published a couple of months ago: Eli Hirsch, Radical Skepticism and the Shadow of Doubt: A Philosophical Dialogue (Bloomsbury, 2018). To get a precise idea of its approach and contents, you can read a very recent review by Samuel Lebens in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Contextualism and Skepticism

Nine years after the publication of the first volume of Keith DeRose's Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, the second is out: The Appearance of Ignorance (OUP, 2018).

Epistemic Contextualism

This relatively recent book will be of interest to those working on contextualism and skepticism: Peter Baumann, Epistemic Contextualism: A Defense (Oxford University Press, 2016).

New Book on Disagreement

A new book on disagreement has just been published: Casey Rebecca Johnson (ed.), Voicing Dissent: The Ethics and Epistemology of Making Disagreement Public (Routledge, 2018). Click here for more information.

Issue 8.1 of IJSS

Issue 8.1 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. It features articles by Thomas Lockhart and Jonathan Hill, a critical notice by John Greco, and book reviews by Chris Laursen and Jonas Olson. It can be accessed here.

Workshop on Haptic Skepticism

On March 27-28, the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies in Hamburg will host a workshop on skepticism about the reliability of the sense of touch. The program isn't available yet, but you can find more information here.

Bibliography on EDAs

My annotated bibliography on evolutionary debunking arguments in ethics has just been published in Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy. I wrote this while editing a volume on moral skepticism. Unfortunately, I think it will be a while until I work on that topic again.

Review of Moral Skepticism

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews has just published Matt Lutz's review of Moral Skepticism: New Essays (Routledge, 2018). It can be read here.

Maimonideanism and Skepticism

On March 12-15, the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies at Hamburg University will host the conference “Abulafia and the Early Maimonideans: Trends, Approaches, and Sceptical Strategies”. For complete information, click here.

Survey of the Entire History of Skepticism

The volume Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present (Bloomsbury Academic) is now officially out.

Epistemic Vice and Skepticism

On April 13th, 2018, the University of Southampton will host the conference “Epistemic Vice and Forms of Scepticism.” The speakers will be Quassim Cassam, Alison Hills, J. Adam Carter, Aidan McGlynn, and Genia Schönbaumsfeld. For more information, go here. 

Evolutionary Debunking of Morality

The latest issue of Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (vol. 98, issue S1, 2017) contains two papers dealing with evolutionary debunking arguments in ethics: Andrew Moore's “Debunking Morality: Lessons from the EAAN Literature” (here) and Michael Klenk's “Can Moral Realists Deflect Defeat Due to Evolutionary Explanations of Morality?” (here).

Conversion and Skepticism

The Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies has just published the first volume in the subseries Studies and Texts in Scepticism: D. Ruderman (ed.), Converts of Conviction: Faith and Scepticism in Nineteenth Century European Jewish Society (de Gruyter, 2018). The book is open access and can be found here.