The History of Scepticism From Savonarola to Bayle

by Popkin, Richard H.

• ISBN13: 9780195107685
• ISBN10: 0195107683
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work has generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historicalresearch. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of the theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars andstudents of early modern history now as much as ever.

Author Biography

Richard H. Popkin is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, Adjunct Professor f History and Philosophy at UCLA, and editor of the Columbia History of Western Philosophy.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xvii
The Intellectual Crisis of the Reformation	3	(14)
The Revival of Greek Scepticism in the Sixteenth Century	17	(27)
Michel de Montaigne and the Nouveaux Pyrrhoniens	44	(20)
The Influence of the New Pyrrhonism	64	(16)
The Libertins Erudits	80	(19)
The Counterattack Begins	99	(13)
Constructive or Mitigated Scepticism	112	(16)
Herbert of Cherbury and Jean de Silhon	128	(15)
Descartes: Conqueror of Scepticism	143	(15)
Descartes: Sceptique Malgre Lui	158	(16)
Some Spiritual and Religious Answers to Scepticism and Descartes: Henry More, Blaise Pascal, and Quietists	174	(15)
Political and Practical Answers to Scepticism: Thomas Hobbes	189	(19)
Philosophers of the Royal Society: Wilkins, Boyle, and Glanvill	208	(11)
Biblical Criticism and the Beginning of Religious Scepticism	219	(20)
Spinoza's Scepticism and Antiscepticism	239	(15)
Scepticism and Late Seventeenth-Century Metaphysics	254	(20)
The New Sceptics: Simon Foucher and Pierre-Daniel Huet	274	(9)
Pierre Bayle: Superscepticism and the Beginnings of Enlightenment Dogmatism	283	(20)
Notes	303	(76)
Bibliography	379	(30)
Index	409