Roundtable on Ancient Skepticism

The Centre Léon Robin at the Université Paris Sorbonne has organized a roundtable discussion of two recent books on ancient skepticism:

Anna-Maria Ioppolo, La testimonianza di Sesto Empirico sull'Accademia scettica (Napoli: Bibliopolis, 2009), which will be discussed by Thomas Bénatouïl.

Lorenzo Corti, Scepticisme et langage (Paris: Vrin, 2009), which will be discussed by Stéphane Marchand.

The event will take place on November 12 (from 15h to 17h30) at the École Normale Supérieure, Salle de Conférence, 46 rue d'Ulm (Paris).

Leite's Paper

Volume 148/1 of Philosophical Studies features Adam Leite's "How to Take Skepticism Seriously". Here's the link to the paper.

Review of Clayman

Stéphane Marchand's review of Dee Clayman's Timon of Phlius: Pyrrhonism into Poetry (Walter de Gruyter, 2009) has just appeared in Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Click here to read it.

Second-Order Skepticism

The last issue of Philosophical Investigations features Alexander Harper's "Fallibilism, Contextualism and Second-Order Skepticism". To access the paper, go here.

Brueckner's Essays

Tony Brueckner's Essays on Skepticism has just been published by OUP. You'll find more information by clicking here.

Review of Perin's Book

A review of Casey Perin's The Demands of Reason: An Essay on Pyrrhonian Scepticism has just appeared in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. The author is Filip Grgić (Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb), a specialist on Sextus. To access the review, go here.

Possible Skepticism Journal Covers

Here are three possible covers for our new skepticism journal (there's a fourth but neither Duncan nor I like it). I'd like to know your opinion about them, so please post your comments.

New Issue of Sképsis

A new issue of the Brazilian journal Sképsis has been published. To access it, click here. As you may already know, the papers can be downloaded for free.

Journal's Website

The website of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism can be found here. Contributions will be submitted online, but since the system is not available at the moment, we are currently accepting submissions by email.

Special Issue of The European Legacy

Next year, Sébastien Charles is going to publish a special issue of The European Legacy devoted to Skepticism in Early Modern Philosophy. Even though the participants of the issue are already chosen, there will be some space for two review essays of around 2,500 words and a large number of book reviews of 600-800 words. Those interested in publishing a review essay or a book review connected with the theme of this issue have to contact Sébastien Charles as soon as possible (Sebastien.Charles@USherbrooke.ca) and to send him the essay or book review before November 1, 2010.

Cavell and Skepticism

I've just realized that, in 2007, Ashgate published Ludger Viefhues-Bailey's Beyond the Philosopher's Fear: A Cavellian Reading of Gender, Origin and Religion in Modern Skepticism. Information about the book can be found here. A review by Berislav Marušić has just appeared in the European Journal of Philosophy, for which go here.

Skepticism Conference

Here's the program (in Portuguese) for the conference on skepticism which has been organized by Waldomiro Silva and which will take place in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) on August 23-25.

III International Meeting on Skepticism & XIII Colóquio Nacional sobre Ceticismo

Dia 23 de agosto de 2010

Manhã:

9:00 – 10:00 Conferência de Abertura

"The Pyrrhonist's Dilemma: How to Write Philosophy without Becoming a Philosopher" - Richard Bett (Johns Hopkins University, EUA)

10:00 – 11:00 Conferência

“Pyrrhonian Relativism” - Diego Machuca (CONICET, Argentina)

11:00 – 12:00 Conferência

"Epokhé e Lógos no Pirronismo Grego" - Vitor Hirschbruch Schvartz (USP)

Tarde:

14:30 – 15:30 Conferência

“Skepticism and Metaphysics” - Lorenzo Corti (Swiss National Foundation/Cambridge University)

15:30 – 16:30 Conferência

“Critique de la morale dogmatique et vie sans croyances: Montaigne lecteur de Sextus” - Luiz Eva (UFPRN

Dia 24 de agosto

Manhã:

10:00 – 11:00 Reunião técnica

Reunião das Coordenações do GT-Ceticismo e do GT-História do Ceticismo

11:00 – 12:00 Reunião técnica

Reunião da Comissão de Organização da Internacional Society for the Study of skepticism

Tarde:

14:00 – 15:00 Conferência

“Early Modern Skepticism and the Variety of Certainties” – Dario Perinetti (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canadá)

15:00 – 16:00 Conferência

“Ceticismo e o Novo Mundo” - Danilo Marcondes (PUC-RJ)

16:30 – 17:30 Conferência

"Como um Filósofo Pode se Tornar Um Cético? O Caso de Hume" - Plínio Smith (UNIFESP)

16:45 – 18:00 Conferência

“Skepticism and Cartesianism in Pierre Bayle” - Todd Ryan (Trinity College, Estados Unidos)

Dia 25 de agosto

Manhã:

9:00 – 10:00 Conferência

“Unsafe Reasoning” - Paulo Faria (UFRGS)

10:00 – 11:00 Conferência

“Skepticism and finitude: notes on Stanley Cavell's philosophy” – Jônadas Techio (UFRGS)

11:00 – 12:00 Conferência

“Skepticism and Meaning: Between Kripkestein and Wittgenstein” – Glenda Satne (CONICET, Argentina)

Tarde:

14:30 – 15:30 Conferência

"How to Win a Battle Against the Skeptic: A Contextualist Guide” - André Abath (UFPB)

15:30 – 16:30 Conferência

“Descartes Contra a Probabilidade” - José Raimundo Maia Neto (UFMG)

16:30 – 17:30 Conferência

"Skepticism, theism and atheism in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" – Gianni Paganini (Università del Piemonte Orientale, Itália).

Wittgenstein

I've been reading Ray Monk's Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. The main strength of this biography is that it was written by someone who studied philosophy at York and Oxford and is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton (where, by the way, there are several specialists in Wittgenstein). So the author approaches Wittgenstein's life from a philosophical perspective, which makes the book appealing to those interested in the latter's thought. I'm enjoying it very much as I enjoyed reading a French translation of Norman Malcolm's excellent memoir while I was living in Fribourg eight years ago (I remember borrowing the book from a Swiss philosophy student that lived on the same floor).

Someone recommended me Monk's book last year in the UK and I decided to buy it because I had always been kind of puzzled and fascinated by what I knew about Wittgenstein's life and personality. It seems to me that he's an excellent example of how one's philosophical work may be intimately related to one's life. It reminds me that I decided to study philosophy when I was at high school because I was impressed by Camus' "existentialist" literature (as some of you may know, Camus had a degree in philosophy). But it also reminds me of the gap that exists between my academic work and the questions and problems that interest and puzzle me the most. I know that my interest in skepticism is due to my own Weltaunschauung, so to speak, which is characterized by a state of deep ignorance and puzzlement. Still, my work on skepticism does not reflect this, except for a couple of paragraphs here and there. Unfortunately, I only discuss some of those issues when I come accross certain people at conferences or talks. I remember that last year, in Durham, I had an interesting conversation late at night at a pub with a couple of guys after delivering a paper on the Modes of Agrippa. One of them was an Italian graduate history student and the other had studied philosophy at Oxford in the eighties and was deeply influenced by Wittgenstein and (to a lesser degree) by Michael Frede's "urbane" interpretation of Sextus' Pyrrhonism. I suppose we are taught to separate the two things, and I don't think this is something that happens only to those of us who work primarily on the history of philosophy, but also to e.g. present-day epistemologists: we do our job and usually this has little (or nothing) to do with our own philosophical outlook.

Wittgenstein and Skepticism

The other day someone told me about a collective volume entitled Wittgenstein and Scepticism (Routledge, 2004), edited by Denis McManus. For information, go here. I haven't taken a look at the book yet, but I'm sure it must be most interesing, since it includes contributions by, among others, Akeel Bilgrami, Stanley Cavell, James Conant, Maria McGinn, Crispin Wright, and Michael Williams.