Taking Skepticism Seriously

The following book has just been published:

Adam Leite, How to Take Skepticism Seriously. Oxford University Press, 2024.

Ever since Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, epistemology has been haunted by external world skepticism, the view that no one knows or even has reason to believe anything about the world around us. Generations of epistemologists have responded by attempting to develop theories about the nature of knowledge and our epistemological relation to the world. How to Take Skepticism Seriously resolutely takes a different tack. A tradition of twentieth century philosophy, initiated by G. E. Moore and including J. L. Austin, maintained that at least some central philosophical problems can be satisfactorily resolved without the development of philosophical theory: the materials already present in ordinary life are enough. Following their lead, Adam Leite argues that skepticism is false, and that it is false for straightforward reasons that we can all appreciate when we reflectively work from within our everyday practices, procedures, and commitments. He thus offers a resolution to a problem that has plagued philosophy for centuries, implements and defends a neglected methodological approach, and elucidates the tradition of Moore and Austin. To make the case, prominent contemporary work and central epistemological issues are addressed, including epistemic circularity, epistemic asymmetry, epistemic priority relations, regress problems, closure and transmission principles, and the epistemological significance of perception. What emerges is a shift in our understanding of what philosophical illumination might look like in relation to core epistemological issues.

More information here.

Augustine on Academic Skepticism

Scott Aikin (Vanderbilt University) has just published:

“The Academic at the Crossroads: A Dialectical Assessment of Augustinian Pragmatic Anti-Skepticism,” Synthese 202 (2023): 170.

The article can be found here.

Against the Arithmeticians

Lorenzo Corti (Université de Lorraine) has just published a new translation of, and commentary on, the fourth book of Sextus's Adversus Mathematicos:

L. Corti, Sextus Empiricus: Against the Arithmeticians. Translated with an Introduction and Commentary. Philosophia Antiqua 167. Leiden: Brill, 2024. More information here. 

CFA for Summer School on Skepticism

There's a call for applications for the Summer School “The Significance of Scepticism in Philosophy, Judaism, and Culture,” which will take place at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies, Hamburg University, on July 16th-19th, 2024. Complete information can be found here.

Yuval Avnur's New Book

Another book devoted to skepticism was published this month, this time as part of Cambridge’s Elements in Epistemology:

Yuval Avnur, The Skeptic and the Veridicalist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Complete information can be found here. It can still be downloaded for free.

Mark Walker's New Book

A new book devoted to skepticism was published this month:

Mark Walker, Outlines of Skeptical-Dogmatism. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2023.

The ancient Pyrrhonians skeptics suspended judgment about all philosophical views. Their main opponents were the Dogmatists—those who believed their preferred philosophical views. In Outlines of Skeptical-Dogmatism: On Disbelieving Our Philosophical Views, Mark Walker argues, contra Pyrrhonians and Dogmatists, for a "darker" skepticism: we should disbelieve our philosophical views. On the question of political morality, for example, we should disbelieve libertarianism, conservativism, socialism, liberalism, and any alternative ideologies. Since most humans have beliefs about philosophical subject matter, such as beliefs about religious and political matters, humanity writ large should disbelieve their preferred philosophical views. Walker argues that Skeptical-Dogmatism permits a more realistic estimation of our epistemic powers. Dogmatists who believe their view is correct, while believing that two or more competitor views of their opponents are false, must—at least implicitly—take themselves to be “über epistemic superiors” to their disagreeing colleagues. Such a self-assessment is as implausible as it is hubristic. Skeptical-Dogmatism, in contrast, permits a more realistic and humbler epistemic self-conception. The author also shows that there are no insuperable practical difficulties in living as a Skeptical-Dogmatist.

Issue 13.4 of IJSS

Issue 13.4 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now out. It is devoted to a symposium on John Pittard’s Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment (OUP, 2019), with contributions by Tomás Bogardus & Michael Burton, Joshua Thurow, and John Kvanvig. The pieces can be found here: here.

Moral Skepticism

A new book on moral skepticism has just been published:

Shelly Kagan, Answering Moral Skepticism. Oxford University Press, 2023.

You can find more information here.

Issue 13.3 of IJSS

A new issue (13.3) of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism has been published. It contains articles by Refik Güremen and Mark Satta, critical notices by Dimitri Cunty and Daniel DeNicola, and book reviews by Tyler Wark and Anna Boncompagni. You can find it here.

Why We Doubt

The following book can already be bought in its electronic version and the hard copy will be out in a couple of weeks:

Ángel Pinillos, Why We Doubt: A Cognitive Account of Our Skeptical Inclinations (OUP, 2023).

More info can be found here. We are organizing a book symposium for the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism.

Conference on Skepticism and Naturalism

On September 3-5, 2023, the University of Oxford will host the conference “Scepticism and Naturalism: Hume, Wittgenstein, Strawson.” The aim of the conference is to advance our understanding of naturalism in the work of Hume, Wittgenstein, and P. F. Strawson, especially in these philosophers’ responses to skepticism. While there is no lack of interest in Strawson’s response to free will skepticism in “Freedom and Resentment,” there have been relatively few discussions of the broad vision which lies behind this response. This vision, which also guides Strawson’s treatments of perception and induction, focuses on general features of human nature that make skepticism of various kinds impossible to believe. Similarly, there has been insufficient inquiry into Strawson’s idea that Hume and Wittgenstein share his anti-skeptical naturalism. 

This international conference will bring together established and early career philosophers to explore these issues across two-and-a-half days. It is the closing conference of the five-year Roots of Responsibility ERC project, directed by Professor John Hyman.

Registration and further information are available here. Travel bursaries are available for students and others whose financial circumstances would prevent them from attending the conference.

Recent Work on Skepticism

You might be interested in this critical survey of recent work on radical skepticism in epistemology that has just been published:

Chris Ranalli, “Recent Work on Skepticism in Epistemology,” American Philosophical Quarterly (2023) 60 (3): 257–273.

The article can be found here.

Issue 13.2 of IJSS

Issue 13.2 of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism has now been published. It is devoted to a symposium on Michael Bergmann’s Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition (OUP, 2021). Below is the ToC and you can find the papers here.

M. Bergman: “Précis of Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition.”

E. Chudnoff: “Skepticism Is Wrong for General Reasons.”

N. Lemos: “Seemings and the Response to Radical Skepticism.”

K. McCain: “Explaining Epistemic Intuitions: From Intuitionist Particularism to Intuitionist Explanationism.”

M. Bergmann: “Replies to Chudnoff, Lemos, and McCain.”

Religious Skepticism

While in Hamburg, I discovered two books on religious skepticism published a few years ago by the German academic publisher Mohr Siebeck:

Lance Ashdown, Anonymous Skeptics: Swinburne, Hick, and Alston. 2002. More info here.

Ingolf Dalferth and Michael Rodgers (eds.), Skeptical Faith. 2012. More info here.