Moral Skepticism

The latest issue of Ratio features Robert Stern's "Moral Scepticism and Agency: Kant and Korsgaard". To access the paper, click here.

Call for Papers

University of Edinburgh, Graduate Epistemology Conference: We invite submissions of papers from graduate students to the Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology Conference, which will take place on the 18-19 March 2011. Essays within any area of epistemology are welcome. Essays should be approximately 4000 words. The submission deadline for the conference is 10 January 2011. Although conference attendance is free, you must register for the conference if you plan on attending. Space is limited, so please register as early as possible.

Keynote Speakers:

- Ernest Sosa (Rutgers)

- Richard Swinburne (Oxford)

This graduate conference will be unique in that graduate presentations will have respondents from the faculty at Edinburgh and other neighbouring universities.

Please send the following to uofe.epistemology@gmail.com in .doc, .rtf, or .pdf format:

1) A cover letter containing

a) the author’s name and institutional affiliation

b) the author’s contact information

c) word count

d) the area(s) of epistemology the paper deals with.

2) The paper itself, including the title and a short abstract (no more than 200 words).

For further information, please visit email Tony Bolos at A.Bolos@sms.ed.ac.uk.

Edition of Montaigne's Essays

I've just found out about this very recent French edition of Montaigne's Essays:

Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais, edited by E. Naya, D. Reguig-Naya, and A. Tarrête. Paris: Gallimard, 2009. Collection "Folio classique," 3 volumes, 2182 pages, € 21,10. This new edition is based on the Exemplaire de Bordeaux.

Garner's Beyond Morality

In 1994, Richard Garner published Beyond Morality (Temple University Press), where he defends a form of ethical skepticism. He is now working on the revision of this book. The revised versions of eleven of the twelve chapters can be found here.

The Epistemic Renegade

Bryan Frances' "The Reflective Epistemic Renegade," which in part discusses a form of radical skepticism, has recently been published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. To access the paper, go here.

Epistemology Conference in Sweden

The European Epistemology Network (EEN) provides a platform for cooperation and exchange among epistemologists and those interested in the theory of knowledge in Europe. The 2011 meeting is held in Lund, Sweden, from Thu 17th to Sat 19th of March.

To contribute, please prepare a max. 500 word abstract for blind review. Send it to frank.zenker@fil.lu.se on or before NOV 30, 2010. Expect a letter of acceptance within two weeks.

Speakers

- Igor Douven (University of Groningen)

- Pascal Engel (University of Geneva)

- Stephan Hartmann (University of Tilburg)

- Klemens Kappel (University of Copenhagen)

- Erik Olsson (University of Lund)

- Duncan Pritchard (University of Edinburgh)

- Rene van Woudenberg (University of Amsterdam)

- Claudine Tiercelin (College de France, Paris)

Links

http://www.fil.lu.se/conferences/conference.asp?id=44&lang=se

http://epistemologynetwork.com/

Roundtable Reminder

Just a reminder: next Friday, a roundtable discussion of two recent books on ancient skepticism will take place at the Centre Léon Robin in Paris. For more information, look at this previous post.

Volume on Disagreement

The collective volume Disagreement, edited by R. Feldman and T. A. Warfield and published by OUP, has just come out. For information, go here. Needless to say, the book will appeal to those interested in the skeptical discussion of disagreement in both ethics and epistemology.

Purdue Summer Seminar

Recent PhDs and ABD graduate students in philosophy, theology, psychology, or cognitive science are invited to apply for the 2011 Purdue Summer Seminar on Perceptual, Moral, and Religious Skepticism to be held at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN from June 8th to June 24th, 2011. The seminar will be directed by Michael Bergmann (Purdue) and the guest speakers will be Justin Barrett (Oxford) and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke).

The topics of the seminar are:

EPISTEMOLOGY: The epistemology of perceptual, moral, and religious belief

SKEPTICISM: Responses to skepticism about perceptual, moral, and religious belief

DISAGREEMENT: Moral and religious disagreement as grounds for unbelief

EVOLUTION: Evolutionary accounts of moral and religious belief as reasons for skepticism

Participants will receive a stipend of $5,000 from which they will pay for their travel, food, and lodging. The deadline for receipt of applications is December 1, 2010. For more information, including information on how to apply, go to: http://www.knowinginreligionandmorality.com/seminar.html.

Research Fellowship

The Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame announces up to four one-year residential Research Fellowships on the topic of 'Evil and Skeptical Theism', open rank, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. (Skeptical theism is an increasingly widely discussed strategy for responding to the problem of evil.) Fellows will be expected to spend the year in residence at the University of Notre Dame. Each successful applicant will receive a total fellowship award of $55,000 to $85,000. Stipend will depend on rank and circumstances of the applicant, and up to $15,000 of each award may be received as reimbursement for travel, re-location, or research-related expenses.

In addition, there will be funding available to invite outside scholars of interest to the fellows for brief visits during the 2011–2012 academic year. There will also be funding available for a workshop on the theme of skeptical theism in late spring of 2012. (Details of the workshop are still to be determined. Applicants who are interested in helping to organize the workshop should indicate as much in their cover letter.)

For further details, including a brief characterization of skeptical theism and information about appropriate topics of research, please visit http://www.evilandtheodicy.com/ and follow the “Fellowships” and "Skeptical Theism" links.

To apply, please submit the following materials electronically, if possible, to cpreligion@nd.edu, or by mail to Michael Rea, Director, Center for Philosophy of Religion, 418 Malloy Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556:

• A complete curriculum vitae.

• Three letters of recommendation.

• A project abstract of no more than 150 words.

• A project description of no more than 1200 words.

• One published or unpublished paper.

All application materials must be received by January 15, 2011 to assure full consideration. Questions may be addressed to Michael Rea at cpreligion@nd.edu.

Dretske in Brazil

On November 11-12, at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre), Fred Dretske (Duke University) will deliver two papers, one of them on skepticism:

Thursday 11, at 15:30h: "What We See: The Texture of Conscious Experience".

Friday 12, at 14h: "I Think I Think, Therefore I Am . . . I Think: Skeptical Doubts About Self Knowledge".

Cicero's Academica

A new French translation (with facing Latin text) of Cicero's Academica has just come out:

Cicéron, Les Académiques/Academica. Translation by José Kany-Turpin, introduction by Pierre Pellegrin (GF Flammarion, 2010).

For more information, go here.

Online Submission New Journal

Manuscripts for consideration in the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism must now be submitted online through Editorial Manager. The link to this online manuscript submission system can be found on the journal's website, where you can also find the instructions for authors and the list of members of the editorial board.

Pyrrhonism and Doubt

Lorenzo Corti has recently published his paper "Sextus Empiricus: scepticisme sans doute" in the collective volume "Quid est veritas?" Hommage à Jonathan Barnes (Napoli: Bibliopolis, 2010), pp. 157-177. Corti claims that the Pyrrhonist's suspension of judgment is not the same as the state of doubt. This view was already defended by Benson Mates (and also by Ezequiel de Olaso), but Corti holds it for a different reason. He compares the so-called 'Cartesian' skeptic and the Pyrrhonist, and concludes (i) that the former does not believe that P or not-P, whereas the latter does not judge that P or not-P, and (ii) that belief is a state, whereas judgment is an act. Now, one may be in a given state without having performed an act of judgment: I may believe that P without having judged that P. So the only beliefs the Pyrrhonist eschews are those which are based on judgments (pp. 172-6).

I'm not convinced by this view, because the distinction in question seems somehow artificial. Sextus does attack the very holding of dogmata and doxai, and it is not at all clear that the beliefs and opinions targeted are only those based on judgments. Also, contrary to what Corti suggests (p. 175), there's no textual evidence for the view that what disturbed the proto-skeptic was, not the beliefs he held, but the judgments he formed. If a person believes that an object X is good by nature, he is disturbed if he does not have it and, if he does, he is disturbed because he is afraid of losing it. And this is so even if the belief in question is not based on a judgment.