The Return of Scepticism

by Paganini, Gianni; Vercelli Conference (2000 Vercelli, Italy)

• ISBN13: 9781402013775
• ISBN10: 1402013779
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

The theme of scepticism has been central in the study of the history of ideas in modern times since Richard Popkin's and Charles Schmitt's works. After them, the assumption connected with the philosophical notion of scepticism was broadened so as to define the critical use of reason and doubt concerning the truth of religion, the function of politics, the aims of science, thus becoming a central intellectual issue in the making of modernity. In this collection of articles (in fact the proceedings of an international conference held in Vercelli) special care is dedicated to placing the theme of scepticism within its philosophical tradition. Moreover, in comparison with other historical studies, the English philosophical thinkers appear here in the foreground, with a number of contributions on Hobbes, Locke, Cambridge Platonists and the Latitude-Men. The French Context also, ranging from Descartes to Malebranche, from Arnauld and Port-Royal to Huet, Bayle and his followers, is explored in depth. Some articles deal with Italian major figures (Vico and Galilei above all) and Spanish culture. Special care is dedicated to the relationships between history of philosophical ideas and the problems rising from the history of sciences (medicine, physics, linguistics, historical scholarship) in the 17th and the 18th centuries. Level of readership or target groups: University Courses, University Libraries, Specialized scholars.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Gianni Paganini
For a revised history of scepticism	xxi
Richard H. Popkin
The English Context: From Hobbes to Locke
Hobbes among ancient and modern sceptics: phenomena and bodies	3	(34)
Gianni Paganini
John Locke and the sceptics	37	(18)
G.A.J. Rogers
`Conjecture', `conceivability', `existence' between Henry More and Ralph Cudworth	55	(26)
Francesco Tomasoni
Descartes and His Context
Charron's epoche and Descartes' cogito: the sceptical base of Descartes' refutation of scepticism	81	(34)
Jose R. Maia Neto
Scepticisme, tromperie et mensonge chez La Mothe Le Vayer et Descartes	115	(20)
Jean-Pierre Cavaille
Post-Cartesian Ramifications
Against Descartes: Marten Schoock's De Scepticismo	135	(14)
Antonella Del Prete
Huet, Malebranche and the birth of skepticism	149	(18)
Thomas M. Lennon
Arnauld's posthumous defense of the ``philosophie humaine'' against heretics and sceptics	167	(30)
Giulia Belgioioso
Foucher and the dilemmas of representation: a `modern' problem?	197	(16)
Emanuela Scribano
Scepticism and analysis: Villemandy as a critic of Descartes	213	(18)
Carlo Borghero
Sceptical readings of Cartesian evidence in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy	231	(18)
Maria Teresa Marcialis
Politics and Religion
Scepticism at Port-Royal: the perversion of Pyrrhonian doubt	249	(18)
Antony McKenna
Sorbiere's scepticism: between naturalism and absolutism	267	(16)
Lorenzo Bianchi
Scepticism and the theory of toleration: human fallibility and `adiaphora'	283	(22)
Luisa Simonutti
Scepticism and Sciences
Medicine and skepticism: Martin Martinez (1684-1734)	305	(22)
John Christian Laursen
From Galileo to Vico. The uncertainty and arrogance of knowledge	327	(16)
Maurizio Torrini
Scepticism and semantic theory: from Locke to Du Marsais	343	(20)
Gerda Hassler
Le vertige du pyrrhonisme: Hardouin face a l'histoire	363	(14)
Chantal Grell
Bayle's Age
Theories sceptiques de la politique: Montaigne et Bayle	377	(16)
Frederic Brahami
Pierre Bayle on scepticism and ``common notions''	393	(22)
Gianluca Mori
Religious truth and freedom of conscience in Noodt and Barbeyrac: the confrontation with Bayle	415	(16)
Fabrizio Lomonaco
After Bayle: Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism
De la controverse anti-romaine a la theologie naturelle: parcours anti-sceptiques de Jean-Alphonse Turrettini	431	(18)
Maria-Cristina Pitassi
Formey et Crousaz, ou comment fallait-il combattre le scepticisme?	449	(14)
Jens Haseler
Jean Meslier, le doute methodique et le materialisme	463	(12)
Miguel Benitez
Index	475