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.