Plato and Irrationality

Yesterday I came back from Colombia, where I gave two talks on ancient skepticism. There I met the members of the research group Peiras, some of whom are now working in this area. I also got a copy of  this interesting new book: Platón y la irracionalidad, edited by Andrea Lozano. More information can be found here.

New Paper on Disagreement

The latest issue of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research contains Nathan King's "Disagreement: What's the Problem? or A Good Peer is Hard to Find." It can be found here. I read this paper a while ago and I highly recommend it.

New Reviews

Two new reviews of books dealing with ancient Pyrrhonism are available online:

L. Castagnoli, Ancient Self-Refutation (CUP, 2010), reviewed by Stéphane Marchand in Aitia 2 (2012).

D. Machuca (ed.), New Essays on Ancient Pyrrhonism (Brill, 2011), reviewed by Clifford Roberts in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.09.36.

Job Market

For the past year, I’ve been thinking more seriously about the possibility of moving to the US (or perhaps Europe), even though I have tenure here. Some friends and colleagues have confirmed something I’d already heard about: the job market in the US has been terrible for the past couple of years. If anyone has any insights about this topic, feel free to post a comment or (better) send me an email.

(Thanks to everyone for the emails.)

Victorinus' and Augustin's Interpretations of Skepticism

A recent issue of Les Études Philosophiques (101/2, 2012) features the article "Deux interprétations du scepticisme: Marius Victorinus et Augustine" by Anne-Isabelle Bouton-Touboulic. More info can be found here.

Five Years

On August 24th, Aporia turned five years old. It's been a long road and we'll see if we're still around five years from now.

Review of Scepticisme et Langage

Richard Bett's review of Lorenzo Corti's Scepticisme et langage (Vrin, 2009) has just been published in Ancient Philosophy 32 (2012): 217-23. This journal can be accessed through Philosophy Documentation Center.

Free Will Skepticism

The latest issue of The Philosophical Quarterly contains Benjamin Vilhauer's "Taking Free Will Skepticism Seriously". The paper can be accessed here.

Hegel and Pyrrhonian Skepticism

A book on Hegel and Pyrrhonism I heard about some time ago has just come out:

Ioannis Trisokkas, Pyrrhonian Scepticism and Hegel’s Theory of Judgement (Brill, 2012).

Complete information can be found here.

Meeting on Disagreement

International Summer School 2012: "Disagreement". August 19-25, 2012, Casa Santo Stefano, Miglieglia (TI), Switzerland.

The aim of the summer school is to explore the nature and significance of disagreement. Invited speakers, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students will present recent work on different aspects of disagreement. Attendance of the summer school is free. Accommodation and meals from Sunday evening to Saturday morning will amount to about 750 Swiss Francs (790 US Dollars/625 Euros/500 British Pounds).

The complete program can be found here.

New Research Center

Eidyn: The Edinburgh Centre for Epistemology, Mind and Normativity (www.eidyn.org), School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh.

This new philosophical research centre draws on past success in Edinburgh in the fields of epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind and cognitive science. The centre will be home to a number of funded and pilot research projects within these fields, such as the recently awarded major AHRC project on "Extended Knowledge". The goal of the centre is to make a profound and long-lasting contribution to philosophical scholarship, and in the process to provide a dedicated training environment for postgraduate students and early career academics.

Inquiries about Eidyn should be directed to the Centre Director, Prof. Duncan Pritchard (duncan.pritchard@ed.ac.uk).

Review of Truth and Skepticism

A review of Robert Almeder's Truth and Skepticism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010) by John Capps was recently published in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Workshop in Salvador da Bahia

On August 8-10, the Universidade Federal da Bahia will hold the workshop "Compromissos ontológicos," with the participation of Agustín Rayo, Eduardo Barrio, and Marco Ruffino. For more information, go here.

Conference on the Epistemology of Moral and Religious Belief

On September 6-8, 2012, Purdue University will host an interdisciplinary conference entitled “Challenges to Religious and Moral Belief: Disagreement and Evolution”. The conference will focus on three main challenges to religious and moral beliefs:

1. Widespread interpersonal disagreement among intellectual peers on religious and on moral topics provides reason to doubt these beliefs;

2. Belief-source disagreement on moral issues between commonsense moral intuitions and religious belief sources raises doubts about both methods of belief formation;

3. Evolutionary accounts of the origins of our religious and moral beliefs create doubts about these beliefs by undermining our confidence in the reliability of their sources.

For more information, go here.