Michael Williams on Ancient Pyrrhonism

Since I'm working on a couple of papers on Sextus' Pyrrhonism, I've reread Michael Williams' "Scepticism Without Theory", The Review of Metaphysics 41 (1988): 547-588. It's a fine article, so if you have access to that issue of the journal, I highly recommend that you take a look at it.

Williams argues that the Pyrrhonist has no theoretical or epistemological commitments, which explains why ancient Pyrrhonism, unlike modern and contemporary forms of skepticism, is not based upon a few general skeptical arguments, but applies the "method of opposition" to particular conflicts. This also explains why the Pyrrhonist restricts himself to reporting what has happened to him so far and goes on investigating, instead of claiming that knowledge or apprehension is impossible. Like myself, you will probably ask "What about the Modes of Agrippa? Aren't they general epistemological arguments?" According to Williams, the Agrippan Modes do not ground or explain the Pyrrhonian method of opposition but "instantiate it within epistemology" (p. 579). That is to say, the Pyrrhonist employs those Modes, not because he is committed to them, but only to counter the Dogmatists' epistemological theories, thereby inducing suspension of judgment. This is, of course, just a sketch of the paper, in which Williams also attempts to identify the reasons for the difference between Pyrrhonism and post-Cartesian skepticism.

Skeptical Meeting

Just a reminder: tomorrow begins the meeting of the Society for Skeptical Studies at the Eastern Division meeting of the APA. For information, click here.

Kant and Skepticism

Early next year, Princeton University Press will publish Michael Forster's book Kant and Skepticism. Forster's main thesis is that Pyrrhonism was the variety of skepticism which "first really shook Kant’s faith in the precritical discipline of metaphysics ... and thence eventually led to the reform of metaphysics undertaken by the critical philosophy, and which (like Humean skepticism) also remained at the heart of the mature motivation of the critical philosophy".

You can find information about the book here.

APA 2008 Pacific Division Meeting

At the next Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, there will be a colloquium on skepticism:

Wednesday, March 19

Colloquium: Skepticism
1:00-4:00 p.m., Location TBA

1:00-2:00
Chair: Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern University)
Speaker: Giovanni Mion (University of Cincinnati)
“Skepticism and Objective Contexts: A Critique of DeRose.”
Commentator: Richard Greene (Weber State University)

2:00-3:00
Chair: Helmut Wautischer (Sonoma State University)
Speaker: Daniel M. Johnson (Baylor University)
“Can Moore’s Proof Rationally Persuade Without Transmitting Warrant?”
Commentator: Tim Black (California State University–Northridge)

3:00-4:00
Chair: Diana Palmieri (University of Western Ontario)
Speaker: Nathan Ballantyne (University of Arizona)
“Variability and Skepticism.”
Commentator: Peter Murphy (University of Indianapolis)

The full program of the Pacific Division Meeting can be found here.

Conference on Pyrrhonism

The web page of the conference on Pyrrhonism and its influence on modern and contemporary philosophy that will take place in August 2008 has now been updated. It can be found here.

If you are interested in participating in this conference, you can contact me here.

Oxford Handbook of Skepticism

John Greco is editing The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism, which will be published by Oxford University Press next year. So far I know that it will include the following contributions:

Robert Audi, “Skepticism About the A Priori: Self-Evidence, Defeasibility, and Cogito Propositions”.

Michael Bergmann, “Externalist Responses to Skepticism".

Terence Cuneo, “Moral Realism, Quasi-realism, and Skepticism”.

Bryan Frances, “Live Skeptical Hypotheses”.

John Greco, “Skepticism about the External World”.

Mark Kaplan, “Austin's Way with Skepticism”.

Peter Klein, “Contemporary Responses to Agrippa's Trilemma”.

Jonathan Kvanvig, “Closure and Alternative Possibilities”.

Paul Moser, “Religious Skepticism”.

Duncan Pritchard, “Sensitivity, Safety, and Anti-Luck Epistemology”.

Greco's Paper on External World Skepticism

John Greco (Saint Louis University) has recently published an interesting article entitled "External World Skepticism" in Philosophy Compass. You'll find it here.

Mutschmann's edition of the Pyrroneioi Hypotyposeis

Here you can download Mutschmann's edition of Sextus Empiricus' Pyrroneioi Hypotyposeis. I haven't done it yet because my main computer is kaputt. However, I know that James Warren could do it; It was precisely in his blog where I found the link.

List of Specialists Updated

I've been updating the list of specialists on skepticism, so you'll find a couple of new links to pages of important scholars. I'll been adding more in the next days.

NYU Skepticism Conference

I've just found out that the New York University Philosophy Department is going to hold the conference "Skepticism: Ancient, Modern, Contemporary" next June at the NYU's Florence villa "La Pietra". The web page is here.

Meeting Society for Skeptical Studies

The next meeting of the SSS will take place next December at the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association. For information about the program, go here.

Published in 2006 - First Part

An important book that appeared in 2006 is Joëlle Delattre (ed.), Sur le Contre les professeurs de Sextus Empiricus (Lille: Presses de l’Université de Charles-de-Gaulle–Lille 3). This collective volume is devoted to Sextus Empiricus' least-known work, namely, his Adversus Mathematicos.

In my view, Richard Bett's "La double ‘schizophrénie’ de M. I–VI et ses origines historiques" is by far the best essay in this volume. He maintains that the tensions detectable in Adversus Mathematicos are to be explained by Sextus’ drawing on different Pyrrhonian sources and by his failure to adapt fully earlier skeptical arguments to his later version of Pyrrhonism. These arguments would have the same origin as the negative arguments found in the fifth book of Sextus' Adversus Dogmaticos.

More information about the book can be found here.

Encyclopedia Entries - Second Part

Highly recommended is also Walter Sinnott-Armstrong's entry on Moral Skepticism from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Other entries worth reading are those on Ancient Greek Skepticism (Harald Thorsrud) and Contemporary Skepticism (Duncan Pritchard) from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Encyclopedia Entries - First Part

The following entries on ancient skeptics from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are highly recommended, since they've written by leading specialists:

Pyrrho and Timon by Richard Bett.

Arcesilaus and Philo of Larissa by Charles Brittain.

Carneades by James Allen.

I hope there will be entries on Aenesidemus and Sextus Empiricus.