Popkin and Skepticism

The following book on Richard Popkin has just been released:

Jeremy Popkin, Asher Salah, and Giuseppe Veltri (eds.), A Sceptical Jew. Richard H. Popkin’s Private Republic of Letters. Maimonides Library for Philosophy and Religion, Volume: 8. Brill, 2025.

Richard H. Popkin (1923–2005) was a pioneer in the field of Jewish studies. His numerous books and articles broke new ground in the study of Jewish-Christian relations in the early modern period and in the exploration of the impact of Jews and Judaism on philosophy and religious thought. A Sceptical Jew: Richard H. Popkin’s Private Republic of Letters brings together selections from Popkin’s private correspondence and other documents to illuminate the sources of his interests and the nature of his contributions to the fields in which he worked.

For more information, click here.

Skepticism in the 16th Century

There's a new book by Emmanuel Naya (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon):

Lire le scepticisme au xvie siècle: Le phénomène pyrrhonien. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2024.

“How did skeptical thinking emerge during the Renaissance? This cannot be understood in the light of modern studies on such an ancient current. Scholars of the sixteenth century were readers dependent on the interpretation of printer-booksellers, whose key role is studied here.”

For more information, click here.

Error Theory and Fictionalism

There's a new book by Richard Joyce on moral error theory and moral fictionalism:

Richard Joyce, From Error to Fiction. Oxford University Press, 2024.

This is a topic on which he has published extensively, and so I'm curious to see what new insights he has to offer in this work. For further information, visit here.

Book on Disagreement

My short book, Disagreement (CUP, 2024), has just been released and is available for free download for the next four weeks. While it focuses primarily on the skeptical implications of disagreement, it also touches on other related themes.

Translation of The Modes of Scepticism

A few months ago, a French translation by Dimitri Cunty of the classic book on the Ten Modes of Aenesidemus, The Modes of Scepticism (CUP, 1985) by  J. Annas & J. Barnes's, was published. For more information, go here.

Issue 14.3 of IJSS

Issue 14.3 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism has now been published. The contents can be found here.

Book on the Skeptical Criterion

I've just discovered this French collective volume on ancient and modern skepticism:

Enzo Godinot et Lucas Pétuaud-Létang (eds.), Le Critère sceptique: Approches anciennes et modernes. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2024.

More information can be found here.

Conference "The Significance of Skepticism"

This week, from the 21st to the 24th of July, the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies is hosting the conference (related to the summer school) “The Significance of Scepticism in Philosophy, Judaism, and Culture.” The full program can be found here.

Summer School “The Significance of Scepticism”

This week, from the 16th to the 19th of July, the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies (Hamburg University) will host the summer school “The Significance of Scepticism in Philosophy, Judaism, and Culture.” Complete information, including the full program, can be found here.

Call for Papers - Society for Skeptical Studies

The Society for Skeptical Studies will host a 2-hour session on the group program of the 2025 Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, which will be held Jan. 8-11 at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel (811 7th Avenue 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019, USA), in midtown Manhattan.

The session will consist of two 55-minute slots (no commentators) in which researchers can present their latest work on any topic pertaining to skepticism (very broadly construed). All presenters must register for the APA conference. Remote presentation or participation will not be possible.

Please submit your paper (preferred) or extended abstract (allowable) to James Beebe at jbeebe2@buffalo.edu by July 5, 2024.

Please do not submit a paper or abstract if you will not commit to participating, should your submission be accepted. In the past, the society has encountered difficulties when people see if their submission gets accepted, use the acceptance to apply for travel funding, and then decide whether they will attend only long after the deadline for making changes to the APA program.

Luzzatto's Skepticism

The following book has just been published:

Giuseppe Veltri & Michela Torbidoni (eds.), Simone Luzzatto’s Scepticism in the Context of Early Modern Thought. Leiden: Brill, 2024.

More information can be found here.

Moral and Religious Fictionalism

New book about the “Now what?” problem facing those who endorse certain kinds of moral and religious skepticism.

Richard Joyce and Stuart Brock (eds.), Moral Fictionalism and Religious Fictionalism. OUP, 2024.

Atheism is a familiar kind of skepticism about religion. Moral error theory is an analogous kind of skepticism about morality, though less well known outside academic circles. Both kinds of skeptic face a “what next?” question: If we have decided that the subject matter (religion/morality) is mistaken, then what should we do with this way of talking and thinking? The natural assumption is that we should abolish the mistaken topic, just as we previously eliminated talk of, say, bodily humors and unicorns. The fictionalist, however, offers a less obvious recommendation. According to the fictionalist, engaging in the topic in question provides pragmatic benefits that do not depend on its truth-in a way roughly analogous to engaging with a novel or a movie. The religious fictionalist maintains that even if we were atheists, we should carry on talking, thinking, and acting as if religion were true. The moral fictionalist maintains a similar view regarding moral talk, thought, and action.

Both forms of fictionalism face serious challenges. Some challenges can be levelled at either form of fictionalism (or at any form of fictionalism), whereas others are problems unique to moral fictionalism or to religious fictionalism. There are important questions to be asked about the relationship between these two kinds of fictionalism. Could moral fictionalism be plausible even if religious fictionalism is not (or vice versa)? This is a volume of thirteen previously unpublished papers on the topics of religious fictionalism, moral fictionalism, and the relation between these views.

Issue 14.2 of IJSS

Issue 14.2 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism has now been published. The contents can be found here.

Issue 14.1 of IJSS

Issue 14.1 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. The contents can be found here.

Taking Skepticism Seriously

The following book has just been published:

Adam Leite, How to Take Skepticism Seriously. Oxford University Press, 2024.

Ever since Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, epistemology has been haunted by external world skepticism, the view that no one knows or even has reason to believe anything about the world around us. Generations of epistemologists have responded by attempting to develop theories about the nature of knowledge and our epistemological relation to the world. How to Take Skepticism Seriously resolutely takes a different tack. A tradition of twentieth century philosophy, initiated by G. E. Moore and including J. L. Austin, maintained that at least some central philosophical problems can be satisfactorily resolved without the development of philosophical theory: the materials already present in ordinary life are enough. Following their lead, Adam Leite argues that skepticism is false, and that it is false for straightforward reasons that we can all appreciate when we reflectively work from within our everyday practices, procedures, and commitments. He thus offers a resolution to a problem that has plagued philosophy for centuries, implements and defends a neglected methodological approach, and elucidates the tradition of Moore and Austin. To make the case, prominent contemporary work and central epistemological issues are addressed, including epistemic circularity, epistemic asymmetry, epistemic priority relations, regress problems, closure and transmission principles, and the epistemological significance of perception. What emerges is a shift in our understanding of what philosophical illumination might look like in relation to core epistemological issues.

More information here.

Augustine on Academic Skepticism

Scott Aikin (Vanderbilt University) has just published:

“The Academic at the Crossroads: A Dialectical Assessment of Augustinian Pragmatic Anti-Skepticism,” Synthese 202 (2023): 170.

The article can be found here.

Against the Arithmeticians

Lorenzo Corti (Université de Lorraine) has just published a new translation of, and commentary on, the fourth book of Sextus's Adversus Mathematicos:

L. Corti, Sextus Empiricus: Against the Arithmeticians. Translated with an Introduction and Commentary. Philosophia Antiqua 167. Leiden: Brill, 2024. More information here. 

CFA for Summer School on Skepticism

There's a call for applications for the Summer School “The Significance of Scepticism in Philosophy, Judaism, and Culture,” which will take place at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg University, on July 16th-19th, 2024. Complete information can be found here.