DeRose's Book Project

As some of you may know, Keith DeRose (Yale University) is working on Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context. From what I've seen on this page, this will be a most interesting book.

Pyrrhonism and Buddhism

I've just found this new book: Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Lexington Books, 2008). Its author, Adrian Kuzminski, is supposed to be a research scholar in philosophy at Hartwick College (Oneonta, New York). Honestly, I don't know anything about him or this book, so this is not a recommendation. For more information, go here.

A Companion to Descartes

Last year Blackwell published A Companion to Descartes, edited by Janet Broughton and John Carriero. Among the contributions, there's a paper by Casey Perin entitled "Descartes and the Legacy of Ancient Skepticism" and a paper by David Owens entitled "Descartes's Use of Doubt". Casey's paper can be found on his webpage (see the list of specialists on the right). For the table of contents, go here.

Forthcoming Book

Next year Luca Castagnoli (Durham University) is going to publish, at Cambridge University Press, The Logic of Ancient Self-Refutation: From Democritus to Augustine. I've taken a look at a very recent draft of the book and its third chapter is devoted to skepticism and self-refutation. This chapter, which I think is excellent, is a considerably revised and expanded version of Luca's "Self-bracketing Pyrrhonism", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2000) 18: 263-328.

Books on Skepticism

The books Renaissance Scepticisms (edited by Paganini and Maia Neto) and The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism (edited by Greco) will not be published in August, as I said in previous posts. The latter will appear in September and the former in October.

Conference: Days 2 and 3

The conference ended on Friday but I didn't have much time to post. I'm happy with the results and the invited speakers told me so as well. They did a terrific job with their talks and the way they discussed the historical and philosophical issues at issue. Given that in Bs. As. I don't have the opportunity to discuss with specialists in Pyrrhonism, I found the experience fascinating and learned a lot. Also, this gave me the opportunity to meet some very cool people. Although the organization of the conference was exhausting, I hope I'll be able to organize another one in the future.

Conference: Day 1

The first day of the conference on Pyrrhonism was devoted to the ancient period. I think that the papers and the discussion were excellent. What was particularly interesting was that we not only discussed historical and textual issues, but also the philosophical problems raised by the Pyrrhonian outlook.

Pyrrhonian Conference

To those interested in the conference on Pyrrhonism: ten papers have already been uploaded here.

Moral Psychology

Lately I haven't had much time to post. Now that I have a few minutes I'd like to recommend a work in three volumes entitled Moral Psychology, edited by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and published by the MIT Press in 2007-2008. The volumes are (i) The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness, (ii) The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity, (iii) The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and Development. The reason I recommend this work is that some of the contributions deal directly or indirectly with moral skepticism. For information about the three volumes, click here, here and here, respectively.

Richard Popkin

Edited by Richard Popkin's son, next September Springer will publish The Legacies of Richard Popkin (International Archives of the History of Ideas 198). The book will be divided into five parts, the second of which will deal with Popkin and the skeptical tradition. For information, go here.

Conference Program

The program for the conference on Pyrrhonism to be held on August 6-8 in Buenos Aires is now complete. You can find it here or here. Some of the papers have already been uploaded.

Religious Skepticism

Last year J. L. Schellenberg (Mount Saint Vincent University) published The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Cornell University Press). You can find information about the book here. There is also a review by Stephen Wykstra and Timothy Perrine which has just appeared in Notre Dame Philosphical Reviews.

Conference on Plutarch

Today and tomorrow there is in Oxford a conference on Plutarch entitled "Plutarch and Philosophy - scholarship and/or dilettantism?" (the webpage is here). Mauro Bonazzi is going to deliver the paper "Plutarch on the Difference between the Academics and Pyrrhonists".

Review of "Kant and Skepticism"

Anthony Brueckner's quite critical review of Michael Forster's Kant and Skepticism has just appeared in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.