Talk on Sextus

On January 30, at the École Normale Supérieure (45, rue d’Ulm, Paris), Emidio Spinelli will deliver the paper "Contre l’art du bien parler: pour une réflexion critique sur la rhétorique dans Sextus Empiricus". The meeting will take place at 14.30h at the "Salle Cavaillès". For more information, click here.

Table of Contents

I haven't been able to post anything lately because I'm working on a couple of projects which are very time consuming. At the moment, I'm trying to get information about the contents of two collections of essays on skepticism: Burnyeat's The Skeptical Tradition (University of California Press, 1983) and Sihvola's Ancient Scepticism and the Sceptical Tradition (Acta Philosophica Fennica 66, 2000). I have offprints of some of the papers, but I need to take a look at the table of contents. So any help is most welcome.

Update: I've gotten the information about the two collections. Thanks for your help with this.

The Regress Problem

Michael Rescorla (UCSB) is the author of two very recent papers dealing, directly or indirectly, with the so-called regress problem: 'Shifting the Burden of Proof?', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (2009), and 'Epistemic and Dialectical Regress', The Philosophical Quarterly 59 (2009). These papers are available online here and here, respectively.

Skepticism in Medieval Philosophy

For those interested in the presence and discussion of skepticism in medieval philosphy, I recommend the following two papers by Christophe Grellard (Université Paris I): "Comment peut-on se fier à l'expérience? Esquisse d'une typologie des réponses médiévales au scepticisme", Quaestio 4 (2004), and "Scepticism, Demonstration and the Infinite Regress Argument (Nicholas of Autrecourt and John Buridan)", Vivarium 42/2-3 2007). The PDF files of the printed versions are available on his webpage.

Skepticism Conference

I've just found out that the Basic Knowledge Project at the Arché Research Centre at the St Andrews University will host a conference on skepticism on June, 13-14.

The keynote speakers will be: Anthony Brueckner (UC Santa Barbara), Stewart Cohen (Arizona), Ernest Sosa (Rutgers), Jonathan Vogel (Amherst), Brian Weatherson (Rutgers/Arché), Roger White (MIT), and Crispin Wright (NYU/Arché).

There will be four 30 minute talks delivered by graduate students, followed by 20 minutes for questions. You must send your paper via e-mail to dd40@st-andrews.ac.uk by 15 March, 2009. Papers should be made suitable for blind refereeing. You will be notified of acceptance by 15 April.

Students whose papers are accepted will have their accommodation covered. It might also be possible to cover the cost of travel, depending on the outcome various grant applications and other financial contingencies.

The webpage of the conference is here, but there is no information posted there yet.

For more information, you can contact Dylan Dodd (dd40@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Elia Zardini (ez4@st-andrews.ac.uk).

Ethical Skepticism

Richard Joyce's interesting critical discussion ("The Skeptic's Tale") of Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism has just appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78/1 (2009). You can find it here.

Bilan

This has been an important year for skeptical studies. Here is a short bilan:

First, there were four conferences on skepticism, held in Edinburgh (May-June), Florence (June), Buenos Aires (August), and New York (November). There were also the talks on skepticism organized by the Society of Skeptical Studies at the APA meetings, and a few other individual talks given in Paris, Cambridge, Venice, and Rio de Janeiro.

Second, a number of important books and special issues of journals were published:

John Greco, The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism (OUP).

Harald Thorsrud, Ancient Scepticism (Acumen Publishing).

Carlos Lévy, Les scepticismes (Presses Universitaires de France).

Karel Janáček, Studien zu Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius und zur pyrrhonischen Skepsis (Walter de Gruyter).

Michael Forster, Kant and Skepticism (Princeton University Press).

Jeremy Popkin (ed.), The Legacies of Richard Popkin (Springer), which deals in part with skepticism.

José Maia Neto and Gianni Paganini (eds.), Renaissance Scepticisms (Springer).

La rationalité sceptique, issue of the Cahiers Philosophiques 115/3.

Le scepticisme à l'âge classique, issue of Philosophiques 35/1.

Third, a few articles appeared in journals or collective volumes:

Filip Grgic, “Sextus Empiricus on the Possibility of Inquiry”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 89/4.

Richard Bett, "What Kind of Self Can a Greek Sceptic Have?", in Ancient Philosophy of the Self (Springer), edited by Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola.

Otávio Bueno, “Relativism and Skepticism”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 16.

Machuca, “Sextus Empiricus: His Outlook, Works, and Legacy”, Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 55.

Finally, we started a new association, the International Society for the Study of Skepticism, which hopefully will become a serious forum for discussion of skepticism.

Cahiers Philosophiques

I've just received a copy of the latest issue of the Cahiers Philosophiques (115, October 2008), which is devoted to 'la rationalité sceptique'. Stéphane Marchand was in charge of this issue. Given that the table of contents is not available online yet, I copy it here:

Sylvie Perceau: "Homère, le premier des sceptiques".

Emidio Spinelli: "Sextus Empiricus, l'expérience sceptique et l'horizon de l'éthique".

Anne Gabrielle Wersinger: "Le scepticisme à l'épreuve de la logique".

Julie Giovacchini: "Sextus et Galien à la recherche d'une médecine sceptique".

Among other things, there is also an interview with Jonathan Barnes about the interpretation of ancient Pyrrhonism.

Skepticism and Relativism

Post moved to the top (originally posted on April 23) because there's a new comment:

An interesting paper by Otávio Bueno entitled "Relativism and Scepticism" has just appeared in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies. It forms part of a book symposium on Steven Hales' Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy. I think that Otávio's interpretation of the dialectical character of Pyrrhonism is entirely correct. You can find his paper here.

India

This might be the best place to ask the following question, since some readers of this blog are from India. There is a (remote) possibility that I'll be in New Delhi for a few weeks in February or March. I know there is the University of Delhi, but I don't know anything about its department of philosophy and the areas of research of its members. Does any one of you know whether there's anyone working on skepticism in that department?

New Article

Volume 142/1 (January 2009) of Philosophical Studies features the papers presented at the first annual Midwest Epistemology Workshop, which was held at Northwestern University in November 2007. This issue, which is already available online, contains a paper by Baron Reed (Nothwestern University) entitled “A New Argument for Skepticism”. The link to this paper is found here.

SSS Meeting

The next meeting of the Society for Skeptical Studies will take place next Sunday at the Eastern Division Meeting of the APA. For information about the program, go here.

List of Specialists Updated

I've just updated the List of Specialists on the right side of the blog. I've added new names and corrected the links that were out of date. Some specialists' names are missing because they don't (seem to) have webpages.

Socrates and Skepticism

I've just found out that Richard Bett contributed a paper entitled "Socrates and Skepticism" to A Companion to Socrates (Blackwell, 2006), edited by Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar. You should be able to download the PDF file of the printed version here.