Aporia

Ancient Skepticism and the Self

2008-10-08T19:39:00.004-02:00

The book Ancient Philosophy of the Self (Springer, 2008), edited by Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola, features Richard Bett's "What Kind of Self Can a Greek Sceptic Have?". The online version of all the papers can be found here. I suppose that some of you may have access through your university network.

SSS Meeting

2008-10-06T13:26:00.000-02:00

The program for the Society for Skeptical Studies meeting at the 2008 Eastern Division meeting of the APA is already available (go here). The speakers will be Otávio Bueno, Brian Ribeiro, and Joel Buenting.

ANPOF Congress

2008-10-02T17:40:00.001-03:00

On October 6-10 will take place the “XIII Encontro Nacional de Filosofia” organized by the Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação em Filosofia (ANPOF) of Brazil. There will be many talks on skepticism, both from a historical and from a systematic perspective. You can find out about the talks in the program, which can be found here.

Isn't Something Missing?

2008-09-28T00:30:00.004-03:00

A couple of weeks ago I read a review of the following book at BMCR:

Richard Sorabji & Robert W. Sharples (edd.), Greek and Roman Philosophy 100 BC-200 AD. 2 vols. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement 94. London: Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, 2007.

I was really surprised by the absence of one or more chapters on Pyrrhonism as well as by the fact that the reviewer didn't say anything about this. Perhaps Sorabji provides an explanation in his introduction? But what could possibly be the reason for not including at least a chapter on Pyrrhonism?

Sinnott-Armstrong's Moral Skepticism

2008-09-24T14:38:00.004-03:00

The latest issue of The Philosophical Quarterly features a critical discussion of Walter Sinnott-Armstrong's Moral Skepticisms (OUP, 2006). Its author is Garrett Cullity (University of Adelaide). You can find the article here (if the link doesn't work, please let me know).

Handbook of Skepticism

2008-09-16T15:57:00.006-03:00

The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism is finally available. Its price is U$S150, but at the moment it is possible to buy it at U$S120. For information, go here.

Forthcoming Book on Ancient Skepticism

2008-09-15T17:06:00.005-03:00

Next November Acumen will publish Harald Thorsrud's Ancient Scepticism, which provides an introduction to the subject. You can find information about the book here.

Hal is Assistant Professor at Agnes Scott College (Georgia). He has published a couple of fine papers on ancient skepticism:

"Is the Examined Life Worth Living? A Pyrrhonian Alternative," Apeiron 36 (2003): 229-249.

"Cicero on His Academic Predecessors: the Fallibilism of Arcesilaus and Carneades," Journal of the History of Philosophy 40 (2002): 1-18.

Conference in Venice

2008-09-10T14:01:00.005-03:00

On September 23-24, at the Dipartimento di Filosofia e Teoria delle Scienze of the Università Ca’ Foscari-Venezia, Carlo Natali and Stefano Maso will organize the conference "La filosofia antica e i suoi metodi". There will be two papers on skepticism: Franco Trabattoni's "Lo scetticismo antico: la posizione di Platone" and Anna Maria Ioppolo's "Elenchos socratico e genesi della strategia argomentativa dell'Academia scettica". For more information, click here.

Talk on Favorinus

2008-09-07T14:49:00.003-03:00

Carlos Lévy (Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne) is going to deliver the paper "Le scepticisme de Favorinus, entre Académie et néopyrrhonisme" at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro on September 11 at 15.30. For more information, go here.

Méthexis

2008-09-03T13:06:00.012-03:00

From now on the ancient philosophy journal Méthexis will be edited by Franco Trabattoni (Università degli Studi di Milano) in collaboration with Mauro Bonazzi. This way there will be two ancient philosophy journals edited in Italy, namely, Méthexis and Elenchos.

The journal was founded by Conrado Eggers Lan (Universidad de Buenos Aires) and until now it has always been edited by Argentinian scholars. I don't really know why Marcelo Boeri and Alejandro Vigo are no longer the editors.

A couple of papers on skepticism have been published in Méthexis:

Richard Bett, "Reactions to Aristotle in the Greek Sceptical Tradition", Méthexis 12 (1999): 17-34.

Gail Fine, "Sceptical Dogmata: Outlines of Pyrrhonism I 13", Méthexis 13 (2000): 81-105

Anna-Maria Ioppolo, "Gli Accademici neoteroi nel secondo secolo d. C.", Méthexis 15 (2002): 45-70.

As far as I know, the papers published in Méthexis are not available online.

Paper on Pyrrhonism

2008-09-01T00:45:00.001-03:00

I would like to recommend the following paper by Stéphane Marchand: "Y a-t-il une écriture sceptique?", in C. Denat (ed.) Au-delà des textes: la question de l'écriture philosophique (Presses Universitaires de Reims 2007). Stéphane works at the Université de Paris X-Nanterre and is finishing his PhD dissertation ("Évolution historique et identité philosophique du pyrrhonisme ancien").

DeRose's Book Project

2008-08-30T00:39:00.003-03:00

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

2008-08-27T20:44:00.002-03:00

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 information about the work, go here.

A Companion to Descartes

2008-08-22T00:32:00.002-03:00

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

2008-08-20T18:11:00.003-03:00

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

2008-08-12T12:01:00.003-03:00

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

2008-08-10T10:14:00.004-03:00

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

2008-08-07T00:48:00.001-03:00

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

2008-08-01T17:44:00.003-03:00

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

Moral Psychology

2008-07-30T02:23:00.002-03:00

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

2008-07-22T13:10:00.002-03:00

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

2008-07-19T14:56:00.003-03:00

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

2008-07-15T15:06:00.003-03:00

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

2008-07-14T13:44:00.004-03:00

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 "Plutach on the Difference between the Academics and Pyrrhonists".

Review of "Kant and Skepticism"

2008-07-09T16:44:00.003-03:00

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