Sextus and Aristotle

On Saturday 2, the Université Paris-Sorbonne (1 rue Victor Cousin, Salle D. 690) will hold the conference "Permanence et mutations de l'aristotélisme dans les philosophies hellénistiques". At 14h30-15h30, Emidio Spinelli (Roma) will give the talk "Sextus Empiricus et l'ombre longue d'Aristote".

New Paper on Ancient Pyrrhonism

Angela Longo and Davide Del Forno recently edited Argument from Hypothesis in Ancient Philosophy, Elenchos 59 (Napoli: Bibliopolis, 2011). The volume contains Lorenzo Corti's "Scepticism and Hypothetical Method."

Pause

For various reasons, I won't be able to post on the blog for at least a while. I will try to check my email regularly and reply to work-related emails as soon as possible.

Norris on Skepticism

The latest issue of The Philosophical Forum features Christopher Norris' "How Not to Defeat Skepticism: Why Antirealism Won't Do the Trick". The paper can be found here.

New Issue of IJSS

A new issue of the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism is now available online. You can check it out here.

Beginning next year, the number of issues per volume will increase from two to four.

Skepticism and Politics

A couple of days ago, I received information about the upcoming conference "Skepticism and Politics in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," which will take place at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in LA, on May 11-12. The conference is organized by Gianni Paganini (University of Piedmont) and John Christian Laursen, (University of California, Riverside).

This conference starts from the point that much of our thinking in both philosophy and politics today is an inheritance from the encounters by major philosophers such as Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Smith, and Kant with the skeptical traditions. Their work, in turn, influenced a host of minor figures such as the libertines of the seventeenth century and the political activists of the time of the French Revolution. The skeptical foundations of Hobbesian political philosophy, Cartesianism, and the clandestine writers of the seventeenth century fed into the Humean empiricism, Smithian cosmopolitanism, and Kantian political idealism of the Enlightenment. Along the way, literature and historical writing tried to make sense of the implications of skepticism for political life. All put together, we will try to bring out the political implications of philosophical skepticism in the early modern period as the foundation for understanding its continuing political implications today. 

Registration Deadline: May 8, 2012. Registration Fees: $20 per person; UC faculty & staff, students with ID: no charge.

All students, UC faculty and staff may register via e-mail by sending their name, affiliation and phone number to c1718cs@humnet.ucla.

The registration form as well as the program can be found here.

Pyrrhonism and Inquiry

I'd like to let you know about the latest paper on Sextan Pyrrhonism by Filip Grgić (Zagreb): "Investigative and Suspensive Scepticism," European Journal of Philosophy. The article hasn't appeared in print yet, but it has already been published online here. If you're interested in Pyrrhonism, you should definitely read it.

Skepticism and Disagreement

This morning I arrived in Miami. On Tuesday, I'm giving a talk at UM in which I argue that radical skepticism is illegitimately dismissed out of hand in the current epistemological discussions of peer disagreement.

Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume

A couple of days ago, I received information about a new paper by Brian Ribeiro: "Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Exercises in Skeptical Cartography," The Modern Schoolman 87 (2009): 7-34. The paper can be found here. If you don't have institutional access, you can contact the author for a copy.

Space in Hellenistic Philosophy

On April 12-14, the Universitá degli Studi di Napoli Federico II will hold the workshop "Space in Hellenistic Philosophy" (some papers will deal with modern philosophy, though). Richard Bett and Emidio Spinelli will talk about Pyrrhonian skepticism. For complete information, click on the image below.

Ancient Skepticism, Voluntarism, and Science

As I said back in January, on May 11th the University of Notre Dame will hold the workshop "Ancient Skepticism, Voluntarism, and Science". Speakers include Richard Bett, Otávio Bueno, Anjan Chakravartty, Casey Perin, and Michael Williams. If you are in the area, you should definitely attend. Complete information can be found by clicking on the image below (it will be better if you open it in a new window). Alternatively, send me an email and I'll send you the PDF file.

Dream Skepticism

Kristoffer Ahlstrom (Copenhagen) recently published "Dream Skepticism and the Conditionality Problem," Erkenntnis 75 (2011): 45-60. The paper, which critically discusses Sosa's arguments against dream skepticism, can be found here.

Talk on Sextan Pyrrhonism

The next meeting of the Northern Association for Ancient Philosophy will take place on 31st March-1st April 2012 at the University of Glasgow (Bridie Library, Glasgow University Union, 32 University Avenue). On Sunday, at 3.30-4.30, Mark Wildish (Durham) will present his “Sextus on Nature, Second Nature, and Subsistent Nature.” Here's the abstract:

The primary objection to the phenomenological reading of Sextan Pyrrhonism is that it appears to forgo any claim to a condition of rational constraint on experience imposed by a natural order independent of that experience. Conversely, if nature is to exercise a rational constraint on experience, then nature must be already rationally accessible to experience through impressions with intelligible content and therefore itself subject to a condition of rational constraint connatural to experience. From a Pyrrhonian perspective, then, the first question is whether anything at all can be made intelligible by phenomenal impressions on the one hand or subsistent nature on the other independent of the manner of their apprehension through everyday observance and common concepts. The answers to both questions, I suggest, are that both phenomenal experience and subsistent nature are subject to rational constraint through learned habitual competences which constitute acquired second nature, which qua nature is not itself subject to a further condition of independent justification.

Logos & Episteme

Two recent issues of Logos & Episteme feature papers on skepticism:

Vol. 2, Issue 2: Vincent Hendricks and John Symons, "Limiting Skepticism."

Vol. 2, Issue 3: Hamid Vahid, "Skepticism and Varieties of Transcendental Argument." In this issue, there is also a review of Scott Aikin's Epistemology and the Regress Problem.

These papers can be accessed for free here.