God & Evil

I've just read this claim made by Trent Dougherty: 

“The greater one's sense of solidarity with the human community, the greater one will feel the problem of evil. Yet, at the same time, the value of that solidarity provides greater scope for understanding why it is permissible for God to allow humans to suffer.”

I must first of all say that, unlike Trent, I'm not an expert in theodicy, so I may be missing something here. This said, I cannot help feeling that theodical explanations are forced. And this happens as soon as one combines in a single being (or Being!) so many attributes, some of which seem to be nonsensical when applied to someone/something: God is all-powerful, omniscient, all-wise, eternal, infinite, and also just, merciful, and the summum bonum (I'm talking in general, since in the quoted text, there's no reference to possible attributes). It appears to me that, once one accepts the existence of such an fantastic being, everything gets messy and one needs to come up with seemingly absurd explanations. I'm not asserting that the claim in question (“God is all-powerful, omniscient...”) is false, but only that the second conjunct (“and also just, merciful...”) strikes me as highly problematic and that I myself don't understand in the slightest how it is permissible (or possible or obligatory or whatever) for such a being to allow humans (and animals) to suffer so much. It looks like a game with some very abstract concepts: let's assume there's this guy with such and such attributes; what follows? and how can we combine them so as to make them compatible? Mutatis mutandis, this reminds me of those situations in which the nerds from The Big Bang Theory wonder, as though they were real, whether, e.g., The Hulk could kick The Thing's ass or Wolverine Batman's, or whether The Hulk could lift Thor's hammer (they actually discuss much more subtle questions about superheros and their powers). Positions like this one are those which are so mercilessly attacked in Sextus Empiricus's works. In the end, none of this makes much sense to me, but this may be due to my intellectual limitations and my lack of faith.

Skepticism in Cicero's Academica

The volume Cicero’s Practical Philosophy (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), edited by W. Nicgorski, contains Hal Thorsrud's "Radical and Mitigated Skepticism in Cicero’s Academica".

Cartesian Skepticism

The latest issue of Analysis contains Jessica Wilson's "The Regress Argument against Cartesian Skepticism," Analysis 72 (2012): 668-673. It can be found here.

SSS 2012 APA Meeting

Here's the program for the session of the Society for Skeptical Studies at the APA meeting in Atlanta:

Friday evening (Dec. 28th), 5:15-7:15 p.m.

Chair: Peter Fosl (Transylvania University)

Speaker: Otávio Bueno (University of Miami): "Skepticism, Naturalism, and Second Philosophy."

Pyrrhonism and Eudaimonia

It probably went unnoticed that Richard Bett recently published "Can an Ancient Greek Sceptic Be Eudaimôn (or Happy)? And What Difference Does the Answer Make to Us?" in the online Brazilian journal Journal of Ancient Philosophy. The paper can be accessed for free here.

Critical Notice of Volume on Pyrrhonism

Those who can read Dutch might be interested to know that Jan Willem Wieland recently wrote a critical notice of the volume Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy (Springer, 2011) for Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 74 (2012).

Camus and Skepticism

A couple of days ago, I read this very nice paper by Carlos Lévy: "Albert Camus entre scepticisme et humanisme", Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé 2002: 352-362. Lévy compares the outlooks of Camus and Pyrrho. His interpretation of the latter's philosophy is heavily influenced by the interpretation defended by Marcel Conche in Pyrrhon et l'apparence (PUF, 2nd ed. 1994). What I like the most in this paper is the analysis of how the main characters of L'étranger, La peste, La Chute, and Caligula deal with the recognition of the absurdity of life.

Skepticism and Disagreement

I'm pleased to announce the publication of the volume Disagreement and Skepticism (Routledge).  Here's the blurb:

Disagreement is a pervasive feature of human life whose skeptical implications have been emphasized particularly by the ancient Pyrrhonists and by contemporary moral skeptics. Although the connection between disagreement and skepticism is also a focus of analysis in the emerging and burgeoning area of epistemology concerned with the significance of controversy, it has arguably not received the full attention it deserves. The present volume explores for the first time the possible skeptical consequences of disagreement in different areas and from different perspectives, with an emphasis in the current debate over the epistemic impact of disagreement. The thirteen new essays collected here examine the Pyrrhonian approach to disagreement and its relevance to the present epistemological discussions of the topic; the relationship between disagreement and moral realism and antirealism; disagreement-based skeptical arguments in contemporary epistemology; and disagreement and the possibility of philosophical knowledge and justified belief. Given the ever-growing interest in both the significance of disagreement and the challenge of skepticism, this volume makes a new contribution by conjugating two important trends in current philosophical research.

Skepticism about Reason

In his recent book, In Praise of Reason (MIT Press, 2012), Michael Lynch defends the practical value of reason against skepticism. From what I've been able to see thus far, the book is highly recommended. More information can be found here.

Skepticism and Epistemic Closure

The latest issue of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (85/3, 2012) contains Sven Rosenkranz's "Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Closure," which can be found here.

Issue 2/2 of IJSS

Issue 2/2 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now available online here.

I take this opportunity to remind you that, as of next year, each volume will consist of four issues instead of two, which will allow us to deal with our backlog of accepted papers. And with the new volume, we will also  start publishing special issues; some of these will be devoted to ethical skepticism; hinge epistemology; Thompson Clarke; and Pyrrhonism, voluntarism & science.

Sextus and Aristotle

The latest issue of the French journal Philosophie antique (12, 2012) contains Emidio Spinelli's "Sextus Empiricus et l'ombre longue d'Aristote". Here's the abstract in French:

"Cet article s’intéresse en premier lieu à quelques passages des Esquisses pyrrhoniennes de Sextus (I 1-3 ; 8-10 ; III 119-122). Ces « études de cas » permettent d’examiner la relation dialectique entre Sextus et Aristote. Le Stagirite y est représenté à la fois comme une sorte de primus inter dogmaticos pares, et par conséquent comme une cible privilégiée des attaques pyrrhoniennes contre les dogmatismes, et, de façon indirecte, comme une sorte d’« ombre » se profilant derrière l’attitude critique de Sextus. Parallèlement, la stratégie de Sextus consiste à utiliser le matériel aristotélicien à l’appui soit de l’attitude propre à l’agoge sceptique, soit de la construction d’une diaphonia spécifique. En second lieu, la section finale de l’article examine en outre un passage difficile du Contre les moralistes (XI 77-78), proposant une correction qui permettrait, en éliminant le nom d’Aristote, d’y voir une citation d’Ariston."

Conference at the ENS de Lyon

Yesterday I arrived in Lyon where I'll stay until Thursday. Tomorrow begins the conference on Skepticism and Epicureanism organized at the ENS by Stéphane Marchand and Pierre-Marie Morel. I'm glad I could see again people with whom I'm in frequent contact but only via email.

Skepticism and Reliabilism

A couple of months ago, the following book came out:

José Zalabardo, Scepticism and Reliable  Belief (OUP, 2012).

Complete information can be found here.