Wittgenstein and Skepticism

The 6th Annual Conference of the British Wittgenstein Society (BWS), titled "Wittgenstein and Epistemology," will take place at the University of Edinburgh on June 5-6, 2014. Quite a few of the papers will deal with skepticism. Information can be found here. (At this point, click on "Confirmed Speakers" to get information about the papers.)

New Site for Sképsis

The Brazilian journal Sképsis has a new site.

Pyrrhonism Past and Present

Next week (May 13, 14 & 16), I will give a lecture series titled "Pyrrhonism Past and Present" at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). The lecture series will consist of three talks on Sextus Empiricus's Pyrrhonism, Robert Fogelin's neo-Pyrrhonism, and Oswaldo Porchat's neo-Pyrrhonism. I'm grateful to Plínio Junqueira Smith for the invitation, which will give me the opportunity to discuss both my interpretation of Pyrrhonism and my own Pyrrhonian stance.

The Dream Argument

On May 16th, Walter Cavini (Bologna) will give the talk, "Rêve et aporie: l’argument sceptique du rêve de Platon à Wittgenstein," at the Centre Atlantique de Philosophie (Université de Nantes). For complete information, go here.

Review of Disagreement and Skepticism

The latest issue of Mind (122, Oct. 2013) includes Stephen Wright’s review of Disagreement and Skepticism (Routledge 2013), which I edited. I’d like to say something about the reviewer’s main concern (something I told him before the review was published). He says: “Given the book’s aim to differentiate itself from other collections on disagreement by tightly focusing on the relationship between disagreement and skepticism, one might question the inclusion of the significance of disagreement for a debate that is about anti-realism rather than skepticism.” He then adds: “In the same way that a traditional skeptic would not want to suggest that we lack knowledge of the external world because there are no suitably external facts to be known, a moral skeptic might thus also be reluctant to hold that the reason that we lack moral knowledge is because there are no moral facts.” And at the end of the review, he states: “Including the significance of disagreement for the dispute between moral realists and moral anti-realists, given the volume’s stated theme, thus remains surprising.”

Although I perfectly understand the reviewer’s point, we should remember that the label ‘moral skepticism’ is sometimes used to describe moral anti-realism or moral nihilism. The clearest example is John Leslie Mackie’s ‘moral error theory’, which claims that, though moral judgments are truth-apt, they area all false because there are no objective moral values, properties, or facts (see, e.g., p. 10 of the “Editor’s Introduction”). In his famous 1977 book, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (which I cite in the “Editor’s Introduction” and in my own chapter, and which is also cited in Tersman’s and Adams’s chapters), Mackie calls his view ‘moral skepticism’. Note also that this kind of position is referred to by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong as a variety of moral skepticism both in his book Moral Skepticisms (OUP, 2006) and in his entry on moral skepticism in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He calls this variety of skepticism ‘skepticism about moral reality’. For those involved in the discussion of skepticism in metaethics, calling such a view ‘skepticism’ is not odd at all. That view is considered skeptical because it undermines people’s beliefs about morality by claiming either that all of our positive moral beliefs are false because there are no objective moral properties (Mackie) or that they are all neither true nor false because the moral facts they presuppose do not exist (Richard Joyce). I admit that some might be reluctant to call the position in question ‘skepticism’, but it is a fact that it is called that way in the literature, and I think it makes perfect sense to call that way. (In this regard, let me point out that, as I make clear in the volume, from the perspective of Pyrrhonian skepticism, several views we call ‘skepticism’ are not as a matter of fact skeptical: e.g., contemporary external world skepticism is not really skepticism because it asserts that we lack knowledge of the external world.) I therefore do not think that discussion of the implications of disagreement for the moral realism/anti-realism debate is a surprising inclusion at all.

HowTheLightGetsIn - The World's Largest Philosophy Festival

I was asked to post information about the HowTheLightGetsIn philosophy festival, which will take place in the Welsh town Hay-on-Wye this summer from May 22 to June 1. The full program can be found here, but below are some highlights.

24th May - The Limits of Logic

Logicians don’t rule the world or get the most done. Could it be that a logically-consistent world view is neither desirable nor achievable? Would abandoning the straightjacket of rationality lead to a more exciting future, or simply to madness? With Simon Blackburn, Iain McGilchrist, and Beatrix Campbell.

27th May - New Gods

Evidence and reason are supposedly the basis of our beliefs. Yet religion continues to flourish, and new gods conquer even the most rational minds. Is unjustified, groundless belief an essential part of human nature? Or can we banish faith forever? American anthropologist Scott Atran, Cambridge philosopher Simon Blackburn, and human rights advocate Peter Tatchell examine the foundations of thought.

31st May - The Ultimate Proof

We think evidence decides the matter. Yet even suicide bombers think they have evidence to support their cause. Should we see independent evidence as an illusion? Would this lead to a chaotic world without foundations or constraint? Or open us to the richness of reality? Laurie Taylor asks philosopher advisor Nancy Cartwright, Templeton Prize-winning cosmologist George Ellis, and American anthropologist Daniel Everett to consider the evidence.

Tony Brueckner (1953-2014)

As many of you already know, a couple of days ago Tony Brueckner (UCSB) passed away. I don't usually see the point of writing this kind of post because it makes no difference to the deceased. But upon reflection I thought I should say something because Tony was a member of the editorial board of both the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism and the recently launched Brill Studies in Skepticism book series. I never met him in person, but we've been in contact for the past four years because he was the most active member of the IJSS editorial board: he reviewed a couple of papers for us, encouraged some of his former grad students to submit their work to the journal, and above all he himself published two pieces in the journal and co-authored an article that will be published soon. I heard that he was having health problems because he couldn't write a chapter for a volume I'm co-editing with Baron Reed, but I didn't think it was something serious because a few weeks ago he sent me a new paper for consideration in the journal. Let me just add that he was always extremely friendly (it is everyone's opinion that he was an exceptional guy) and that he did groundbreaking work on epistemological skepticism--just take a look at his voluminous Essays on Skepticism (OUP 2010).

Special Issue on the Regress Problem

The latest issue of Metaphilosophy is devoted to the regress problem. You can find the articles here.

Workshop on Hume's Dialogues

On April 10th, 2014, there will be a workshop on Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion, entitled "Illuminismo, scienza newtoniana e religione nei Dialoghi di David Hume," at the Accademia dei Lincei, Palazzo Corsini, Via della Lungara 10, Roma. I've uploaded the file with the program here.

Conference on Voltaire

I was asked to let you know about the upcoming conference Voltaire philosophe, which will take place in Paris on May 21-24. Even though the talks won't deal with skepticism, I'm sure that many of you will be interested in this conference. Now, on the first two days there will be some security restrictions to access the Luxembourg Palace, so if you're going to attend bring your ID and write to either one of the organizers, who will warn the security service: Sébastien Charles (Sebastien.Charles@uqtr.ca) or Stéphance Pujol (stefpujol@yahoo.fr).

Issue 4/1 of IJSS

Issue 4/1 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. It includes three articles, one discussion note, and three book reviews. You can find it here.

Pyrrhonism and Persuasiveness

In a month or so, OUP will publish Strategies of Argument: Essays in Ancient Ethics, Epistemology, and Logic. Although it is not presented as such on the OUP webpage, the volume is a Festschrift for Gisela Striker. Now, the last paper is Svavar Svavarsson's "Sextus Empiricus on Persuasiveness and Equipollence." I look forward to reading it because I dealt with the same topic in a paper published in Méthexis a few years ago, and would like to see to what extent we disagree.

Hume's Dialogues in Italian

An Italian translation, with facing English text, of Hume's Dialogues has just been published: Dialoghi sulla religione naturale (BUR Rizzoli, 2013). Gianni Paganini is the author of the translation, the introduction, and the commentary. Complete information can be found here.

Epicureanism & Skepticism

The following volume has just been published despite its official publication date: Stéphane Marchand & Francesco Verde (éds.), Épicurisme et Scepticisme (Roma: Sapienza Università Editrice, 2013). This collection derives from a conference held in Lyon in November 2012 and organized by Marchand. More information can be found on this webpage, but not the table of contents, so here it is:

Préface

Pierre-Marie Morel & Emidio Spinelli

Introduction

Stéphane Marchand & Francesco Verde

PREMIÈRE PARTIE : PROXIMITÉS DU SCEPTICISME ET DE L'ÉPICURISME

Tranquility: Democritus and Pyrrho 

Svavar Svavarsson

Chain of Proof in Lucretius, Sextus, and Plato: Rhetorical Tradition and Philosophy 

Michael Erler

Scepticisme et thérapeutique : le cas de conscience du dogmatisme épicurien 

Julie Giovacchini

Le statut particulier de la philosophie épicurienne dans le néo-pyrrhonisme 

Stéphane Marchand

DEUXIÈME PARTIE : ÉPICURISME, CYRÉNAÏSME, SCEPTICISME

Epicureans and Cyrenaics on Pleasure as a Pathos

James Warren

La critique du critère de vérité épicurien chez Sextus Empiricus : un scepticisme sur le monde extérieur ?

Diego Machuca

TROISIÈME PARTIE : SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, SOURCE DE L'ÉPICURISME

Epicurean Attitude toward Geometry: The Sceptical Account 

Francesco Verde

Sextus Empiricus et le τέλoς épicurien : le plaisir est-il par nature digne d’être choisi ?

Emidio Spinelli