2017 SSS Meeting

James Beebe (Buffalo) is organizing a group session (or two) for the Society for Skeptical Studies at next year's Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (Jan 4-7, 2017, in Baltimore, MD). If you have a paper that deals with philosophical skepticism that you would like to have considered for inclusion in the SSS session(s), please send your submission to Beebe at jbeebe2@buffalo.edu by May 1, 2016.

Skepticism in Latin America

The entry “Skepticism in Latin America,” by Plínio Junqueira Smith and Otávio Bueno, has just been published in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Go here.

Neo-Pyrrhonism and the Epistemology of Disagreement

Since I don't know when the paper will be included in an issue of Synthese, I prefer to let you know now that my paper “A Neo-Pyrrhonian Response to the Disagreeing about Disagreement Argument” has just been published online. It can be found here. This is another recent paper in which I try to discuss skepticism from a point of view that is systematic rather than historico-exegetical.

Hume's Skepticism about Minds

The latest issue of The Philosophical Review (124/4) contains Jonathan Cottrell's “Minds, Composition, and Hume's Skepticism in the Appendix.” You can find it here.

Pyrrhonian Rhetoric

On January 20th (17h-19h), Emidio Spinelli (Rome) will give the following talk at the l'Université Lille 3, Campus Pont de Bois, in room Danielle Corbin (B1.661): “Rhétorique anti-rhétorique: la communication du scepticisme chez Sextus Empiricus”.

Pyrrhonism and Disagreement

After three years, my paper “Agrippan Pyrrhonism and the Challenge of Disagreement” has finally been included in an issue of Journal of Philosophical Research. You can find it here. If you don't have access and would like to have a copy, let me know.

Suspending Judgment

In this last post of the year, I would like to let you know about this early-view paper by Jane Friedman forthcoming in Noûs: “Why Suspending Judgment.” Interestingly, she defends a view remarkably similar to Sextus's. It can be found here.

Moore's Proof

The latest issue of the Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy features Kevin Morris and Consuelo Preti's paper “How to Read Moore’s ‘Proof of an External World’.” It can be accessed for free here.

Skepticism about Skepticism

The latest issue of Philosophy contains Nick Zangwill's "Scepticism about Scepticism," which you can find here. I haven't read it yet, but needless to say I regard any attack on skepticism as sacrilegious.

Pyrrhonian Relativism

In case you’re interested, my paper “Pyrrhonian Relativism” has just been published in Elenchos 36 (2015): 89-114. It can be found here -- if you don't have access and would like to have a copy, contact me. And here’s the abstract:

This paper argues that Sextus Empiricus’s Pyrrhonism is a form of relativism markedly different from the positions typically referred to by this term. The scholars who have explored the relativistic elements found in Sextus’s texts have claimed that his outlook is not actually a form of relativism, or that those elements are inconsistent with his account of Pyrrhonism, or that he is confusing skepticism with relativism. The reason for these views is twofold: first, when employing the term “relativism” one hardly has in mind the sort of relativistic stance adopted by the Pyrrhonist; and second, those scholars have misinterpreted Sextus’s relativistic remarks. The purpose of this paper is to show that he adopts a phenomenological kind of relativism that is compatible with his account of Pyrrhonism.

Issue 5.4 of IJSS

Issue 5.4 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. You can find it here.

Dossier on Pyrrhonism

The latest volume of the French journal Philosophie Antique (15, 2015) includes a dossier devoted to Pyrrhonian skepticism (in addition to several papers on other topics).

Carlos Lévy

"Philon d’Alexandrie est-il inutilisable pour connaître Énésidème ? Étude méthodologique."

Richard Bett

"Why Care Whether Scepticism is Different from Other Philosophies?"

Baptiste Bondu

"Le problème du critère sceptique."

Stéphane Marchand

"Sextus Empiricus, scepticisme et philosophie de la vie quotidienne."

Lorenzo Corti

"Scepticism, Number and Appearances : The ἀριθμητικὴ τέχνη and Sextus Empiricus’ targets in M I-VI."

Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies

In previous posts, I referred to the recently founded Maimonides Centre for Advances Studies at the University of Hamburg, whose central aim is the study of Jewish skepticism. The center has now a website.

French Translation of Against the Ethicists

I've just found out about what I think is the first French translation of Sextus Empiricus's Against the Ethicists:

Sextus Empiricus, Contre les moralistes (Adv. Math. XI). Traduit, présenté et annoté par Olivier D'Jeranian. Manucius: 2015.

I cannot recommend this translation because I haven't seen it yet and I don't know the translator, but you can find more information here.