Fogelin's New Book Project

Robert Fogelin is working on a new book: Pyrrhonian Reflections on Meaning and Truth. It will be the companion to his well-known Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification (OUP, 1994), in which he examines how the argumentative strategies found in Sextus Empiricus’ works can be applied to present-day epistemological debates. He claims that the contemporary epistemological theories he considers – namely, foundationalism and coherentism – cannot meet the challenge posed by the Modes of Agrippa. As you probably know, Fogelin describes his own outlook as neo-Pyrrhonian.

Paganini's Forthcoming Book

Next October Vrin will publish Gianni Paganini's Skepsis: Le débat des modernes sur le scepticisme: Montaigne – Le Vayer – Campanella - Hobbes – Descartes – Bayle. As a preview, I copy the contents - which to the best of my knowledge can't be found on the web:

Chap. I
La redécouverte du phénomène
Montaigne vs Sanches

1. « Qu’il n’y a point de science » : Montaigne contre Sanches
2. Deux critiques de la connaissance sensible
3. L’aristotélisme « implicite » de Sanches et le paradigme de la « normalité »
4. Montaigne: l’abandon de la species et la découverte du problème sceptique
5. L’invention de l’apparence. Montaigne et le commentaire des Hypotyposes par Estienne
6. Le phénomène comme mixte
7. L’introduction du doute dans la modernité

Chap. II
Le scepticisme des anciens et des modernes
La Mothe Le Vayer et le “Pyrrhonisme tout pur”

1. Sources antiques, problèmes modernes
2. L’ “obstinée varieté” de la nature: le douteur et le “joueur de marionettes”
3. Le sceptique et les “novateurs”
4. « Les phénomènes de notre douteuse éthique »
5. Scepticisme et critique de l’imposture: l’ “illusion” du prodige
6. “Parallèles” insidieux
7. La damnation de Pyrrhon et l’athéisme de Sexte

Chap. III
Le scepticisme et la “métaphysique nouvelle”
Tommaso Campanella, Marin Mersenne et René Descartes

1. Campanella et les doutes du scepticisme
2. Rêve et veille, sagesse et folie
3: Le dépassement du scepticisme : perception de la passion et qualités premières de l’être
4. Scientia modica et exilis
5. Toujours la connaissance est connaissance de soi
6. L’influence cachée : Mersenne
7. L’influence niée : Descartes
8. Autour du cogito
9. La primauté du sentir et l’expérience de soi

Chap. IV
Phénomènes et corps
Thomas Hobbes, le scepticisme continental et la réforme de la “philosophie première”

1. Apparitions unto us et world without us
2. La scène primitive du scepticisme
3. Lectures anciennes et modernes
4. Unica vera basis rerum : “fantasmes” et corps en mouvement
5. Hobbes et le scepticisme de la première Méditation
6. Protagoras, Théétète et la doctrine des phénomènes
7. Les choses “occultes” et leurs signes : Hobbes et Gassendi
8. Aller au delà des “fantasmes” : la fonction de la causalité
9. Songe et veille : fantasmes sans corps et corps sans fantasmes
10. Accidents, phénomènes et conjectures rationnelles : la solution du De corpore

Chap. V
Du bon usage du doute
Descartes et les sceptiques modernes

1. Le scepticisme des anciens : une “soupe rechauffée” ?
2. Descartes, “les sceptiques d’aujourd’hui” et la méthode des “apparences”
3. Le modèle des “athées sceptiques”
4. “Ces sceptiques qui vont au-delà de toutes les limites du douter” : doute cartésien et doute libertin
5. “Irrésolution” libertine, “résolution” cartésienne
6. Le doute dans les Regulae : Socrate sceptique
7. “L’ignorance de Socrate ou l’incertitude des Pyrrhoniens” : le “doute universel” dans la Recherche de la vérité
8. La logique du doute
9. Descartes et Sanches : scepticisme et connaissance de soi
10. Interroger le contexte

Chap. VI
Après Descartes
Scepticisme, véracité et omnipotence divines chez Bayle

1. Les origines du scepticisme: la “mauvaise chute” de Xénophane
2. L’existence idéale des objets mathématiques
3. La réduction aux phénomènes : Bayle, Foucher, Leibniz
4. Omnipotence et tromperie: origines médiévales et débats calvinistes
5. Le contexte cartésien : le problème de la garantie de la véracité divine
6. Le contexte post-cartésien : Bayle et le débat entre Malebranche et Arnauld sur l’existence des corps
7. L’impossibilité de la théodicée de l’erreur

Epistemology Conference

Juan Comesaña is organizing the Wisconsin Epistemology Conference, which will be held next May. The speakers include Earl Conee, Richard Feldman, Alvin Goldman, Ernest Sosa, and Timothy Williamson. You can find the conference website here.

Tenth Symposium Hellenisticum

Good news: the Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium Hellenisticum have been published.

A.M. Ioppolo and D.N. Sedley (eds.), Pyrrhonists, Praticians, Platonizers. Hellenistic philosophy in the period 155–86 BC. Tenth Symposium Hellenisticum. Elenchos 47. Napoli: Bibliopolis, 2007.

Among the contributions bearing directly or indirectly upon skepticism, we find:

Julia Annas, "Carneades’ Classification of Ethical Theories".

Anna Maria Ioppolo, "L'assenso nella filosofia di Clitomaco: un problema di linguaggio?"

Malcolm Schofield, "Aenesidemus: Pyrrhonist and «Heraclitean»".

For more information, click here.

NYU Conference

It has proved very difficult to obtain more detailed information about the NYU conference on skepticism that will take place in Florence next June. So, if anyone knows something about the speakers and their talks, please let me know by writing a comment or sending me an e-mail.

APA: Pyrrhonism in Latin America

I've found this special session in the 2008 Pacific Division Meeting Program:

Special Session Arranged by the APA Committee on Hispanics
9:00-Noon, Location TBA

Topic: Pyrrhonism in Latin America

Speakers:

Robert Fogelin (Dartmouth College)
“Inapprehensibility”

Otávio Bueno (University of Miami)
“Pyrrhonism: Old and New”

Michael Williams (Johns Hopkins University)
“Two Forms of Skepticism”

New Book

Roberto Bolzani has informed me that last year Oswaldo Porchat Pereira published Rumo ao Ceticismo, a volume which collects his papers on skepticism from 1969 to 2005. Porchat is a Brazilian scholar responsible for the current serious interest in skepticism among a large number of Brazilian researchers. He describes his own position as neo-Pyrrhonian. Information about the book can be found here.

Society for Skeptical Studies Meeting

The next meeting of the Society for Skeptical Studies will be held next March at the Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association. The speakers will be James Beebe, Joe Ulatowski, Otávio Bueno, and Richard Greene. For information about the program, go here.

Pyrrhonian Conference

So far there are ten confirmed speakers for the conference on Pyrrhonism that will take place in Buenos Aires. In alphabetical order, they are: Richard Bett, Juan Comesaña, Sylvia Giaconti, Plínio Junqueira Smith, Peter Klein, Diego Machuca, Roberto Polito, Ernesto Sosa, Svavar Svavarsson, and Michael Williams.

The conference will be held August 6-8. However, if the number of speakers increases, I might have to add another day. We'll see...

Festschrift for Myles Burnyeat

I've just seen that back in December Oxford University Press published Maieusis: Essays in Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat. This information is based upon the UK website; the US website indicates that it will be published January 28.

As most of you probably know, Burnyeat is one of the leading specialists in ancient Pyrrhonism, even though, to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't been working on skeptical philosophy lately.

One of the essays is Jonathan Barnes' "Sextan scepticism". I'm eager to read it, but I'll have to wait to get my hands on a copy. There's another essay, by Jim Hankinson, entitled "Self-refutation and the sorites". I assume that, in this paper, Jim in part deals with skepticism.

For information about the book, go here.

Conference Update

The website of the conference on Pyrrhonism has been updated. We now have the dates and the list of the confirmed speakers as of this point in January. Click here to see the page.

Sextus's Against the Logicians

At last my review of Richard Bett's translation of Sextus Empiricus' Against the Logicians has been published in Bryn Mawr Classical Review. If you are interested in reading it, just click here (you will probably have to change the Greek display to read some parts). Any criticisms of my arguments are welcome.

Another Conference on Skepticism

I've just read in Duncan Pritchard's blog that a conference on skepticism will be held May 31st-June 1st, 2008 at the University of Edinburgh. Information can be found here.

This seems to be a good year for skeptical studies, since there will be three conferences on skepticism: the one just mentioned, the New York University Conference that will be held in June in Florence, and the Conference on Pyrrhonism that will take place in August in Buenos Aires.

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.