Ethical Skepticism

Richard Joyce's interesting critical discussion ("The Skeptic's Tale") of Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism has just appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78/1 (2009). You can find it here.

Bilan

This has been an important year for skeptical studies. Here is a short bilan:

First, there were four conferences on skepticism, held in Edinburgh (May-June), Florence (June), Buenos Aires (August), and New York (November). There were also the talks on skepticism organized by the Society of Skeptical Studies at the APA meetings, and a few other individual talks given in Paris, Cambridge, Venice, and Rio de Janeiro.

Second, a number of important books and special issues of journals were published:

John Greco, The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism (OUP).

Harald Thorsrud, Ancient Scepticism (Acumen Publishing).

Carlos Lévy, Les scepticismes (Presses Universitaires de France).

Karel Janáček, Studien zu Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius und zur pyrrhonischen Skepsis (Walter de Gruyter).

Michael Forster, Kant and Skepticism (Princeton University Press).

Jeremy Popkin (ed.), The Legacies of Richard Popkin (Springer), which deals in part with skepticism.

José Maia Neto and Gianni Paganini (eds.), Renaissance Scepticisms (Springer).

La rationalité sceptique, issue of the Cahiers Philosophiques 115/3.

Le scepticisme à l'âge classique, issue of Philosophiques 35/1.

Third, a few articles appeared in journals or collective volumes:

Filip Grgic, “Sextus Empiricus on the Possibility of Inquiry”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89/4.

Richard Bett, "What Kind of Self Can a Greek Sceptic Have?", in Ancient Philosophy of the Self (Springer), edited by Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola.

Otávio Bueno, “Relativism and Skepticism”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 16.

Machuca, “Sextus Empiricus: His Outlook, Works, and Legacy”, Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 55.

Finally, we started a new association, the International Society for the Study of Skepticism, which hopefully will become a serious forum for discussion of skepticism.

Cahiers Philosophiques

I've just received a copy of the latest issue of the Cahiers Philosophiques (115, October 2008), which is devoted to 'la rationalité sceptique'. Stéphane Marchand was in charge of this issue. Given that the table of contents is not available online yet, I copy it here:

Sylvie Perceau: "Homère, le premier des sceptiques".

Emidio Spinelli: "Sextus Empiricus, l'expérience sceptique et l'horizon de l'éthique".

Anne Gabrielle Wersinger: "Le scepticisme à l'épreuve de la logique".

Julie Giovacchini: "Sextus et Galien à la recherche d'une médecine sceptique".

Among other things, there is also an interview with Jonathan Barnes about the interpretation of ancient Pyrrhonism.

Skepticism and Relativism

Post moved to the top (originally posted on April 23) because there's a new comment:

An interesting paper by Otávio Bueno entitled "Relativism and Scepticism" has just appeared in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies. It forms part of a book symposium on Steven Hales' Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy. I think that Otávio's interpretation of the dialectical character of Pyrrhonism is entirely correct. You can find his paper here.

India

This might be the best place to ask the following question, since some readers of this blog are from India. There is a (remote) possibility that I'll be in New Delhi for a few weeks in February or March. I know there is the University of Delhi, but I don't know anything about its department of philosophy and the areas of research of its members. Does any one of you know whether there's anyone working on skepticism in that department?

New Article

Volume 142/1 (January 2009) of Philosophical Studies features the papers presented at the first annual Midwest Epistemology Workshop, which was held at Northwestern University in November 2007. This issue, which is already available online, contains a paper by Baron Reed (Nothwestern University) entitled “A New Argument for Skepticism”. The link to this paper is found here.

SSS Meeting

The next meeting of the Society for Skeptical Studies will take place next Sunday at the Eastern Division Meeting of the APA. For information about the program, go here.

List of Specialists Updated

I've just updated the List of Specialists on the right side of the blog. I've added new names and corrected the links that were out of date. Some specialists' names are missing because they don't (seem to) have webpages.

Socrates and Skepticism

I've just found out that Richard Bett contributed a paper entitled "Socrates and Skepticism" to A Companion to Socrates (Blackwell, 2006), edited by Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar. You should be able to download the PDF file of the printed version here.

New Book on Ancient Skepticism

Hal Thorsrud's Ancient Scepticism (Acumen Publishing) has just appeared in print. The book will also be published by the University of California Press at the beginning of 2009.

Two Books

Two collective volumes on Renaissance and early modern skepticism to which I referred in previous posts are now available online. These books are (i) The Legacies of Richard Popkin (edited by Jeremy Popkin), which deals in part with skepticism, and (ii) Renaissance Scepticisms (edited by José Maia Neto and Gianni Paganini). It seems that these two volumes will appear in print next year. To see the online contents, click here and here, respectively. I assume that some of you will have the required access through your university network.

Edit December 13: I was wrong, since the two books have already appeared in print. Thanks to Gianni Paganini for pointing this out.

Conference on Socrates

Although the following information doesn't have to do with skepticism, I think that it might be of interest to some of you. On December 18, there will be a conference on Socrates organized by the Chair of the History Ancient Philosophy of the Università di Roma "La Sapienza".

Biblioteca di Lingue (ex aula III)
Villa Mirafiori -Via Carlo Fea, 2

Chair: Anna Maria Ioppolo

10.00 Introduction

10.30 ENRICO BERTI, Socrate e la scienza dei contrari secondo Aristotele

11.15 Coffee break

11.30 DAVID N. SEDLEY, Socrates’ place in the history of teleology

Discussion

Chair: Bruno Centrone

15.30 ALDO BRANCACCI, Le concezioni di Socrate nei capitoli teologici dei Memorabili

16.15 Coffee break

16.30 CHRISTOPH HORN, Socrates and political thought

Discussion

New Paper on Sextus

Filip Grgic's paper "Sextus Empiricus on the Possibility of Inquiry" has just appeared in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. You can find the article here.

New Book

Gianni Paganini's Skepsis: Le débat des modernes sur le scepticisme. Montaigne–Le Vayer–Campanella–Hobbes–Descartes–Bayle has just been published by Vrin. You can find some information on Vrin's webpage. Below I copy the table of contents:

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 le 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