Academic Scepticism in the Development of Early Modern Philosophy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxii

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2. The Philosophy of Francisco Sanches: Academic Scepticism and Conjectural Empiricism

   • Claudio Buccolini

   Pages 1-23

3. La réception des Académiques dans les Essais: une manière voisine et inavouée de faire usage du doute sceptique

   • Sébastien Prat

   Pages 25-44

4. La sagesse de Pierre Charron et le scepticisme académique

   • Fernando Bahr

   Pages 45-64

5. La Mothe Le Vayer et l’Académie sceptique

   • Sylvia Giocanti

   Pages 65-80

6. Reading Scepticism Historically. Scepticism, Acatalepsia and the Fall of Adam in Francis Bacon

   • Silvia Manzo

   Pages 81-102

7. Academic Scepticism and the Early Royal Society

   • Benjamin D. Hill

   Pages 103-124

8. Nos in Diem Vivimus: Gassendi’s Probabilism and Academic Philosophy from Day to Day

   • Delphine Bellis

   Pages 125-152

9. The Modes of Descartes’ First Meditation

   • Richard Davies

   Pages 153-180

10. Confusing Faith and Reason? Malebranche and Scepticism

    • Julie Walsh

    Pages 181-211

11. Pascal sur le pyrrhonisme de Montaigne dans l’Entretien avec M. de Sacy : doute pyrrhonien ou doute académique ?

    • Martine Pécharman

    Pages 213-243

12. Simon Foucher’s Academic Scepticism: Between Truth and Probability

    • Joël Boudreault, Sébastien Charles

    Pages 245-258

13. Pierre-Daniel Huet’s Readings in Scepticism

    • Sébastien Charles

    Pages 259-274

14. The Implications of Bayle’s Qualified Academic Scepticism for Moral Knowledge

    • Kristen Irwin

    Pages 275-292

15. Disagreement and Academic Scepticism in Bayle

    • Michael W. Hickson

    Pages 293-317

16. Academic Scepticism and Pyrrhonian Scepticism in Hume’s Dialogues

    • Todd Ryan

    Pages 319-343

17. Hume’s Academic Scepticism in Its French Context

    • Plínio Junqueira Smith

    Pages 345-364

18. Back Matter

    Pages 365-386

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This book explores how far some leading philosophers, from Montaigne to Hume, used Academic Scepticism to build their own brand of scepticism or took it as its main sceptical target. The book offers a detailed view of the main modern key figures, including Sanches, Charron, La Mothe Le Vayer, Bacon, Gassendi, Descartes, Malebranche, Pascal, Foucher, Huet, and Bayle. In addition, it provides a comprehensive assessment of the role of Academic Scepticism in Early Modern philosophy and a complete survey of the period. As a whole, the book offers a basis for a new, balanced assessment of the role played by scepticism in both its forms. Since Richard Popkin's works, there has been considerable interest in the role played by Pyrrhonian Scepticism in Early Modern Philosophy. Comparatively, Academic Scepticism was much neglected by scholars, despite some scattered important contributions. Furthermore, a general assessment of the presence of Academic Scepticism in Early Modern Philosophy is lacking. This book fills the void.

• Academic Scepticism
• Disagreement and Academic Skepticism
• Doubt and Belief
• Empiricism and Certainty
• Faith and Reason
• Mitigated Scepticism
• Moral Knowledge
• Probability and Knowledge
• Science and Cartesianism
• Suspension of Judgment

• Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Guarulhos, Brazil

  Plínio Junqueira Smith

• Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Canada

  Sébastien Charles

Plínio Junqueira Smith is professor of History of Modern Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge at Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Brazil). He has published many books on the history of scepticism, as well as many papers on scepticism, history of modern philosophy, and analytical theory of knowledge (both in international journals and collective works, including Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century. Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklarüng, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013 (with Sébastien Charles). He translated Malebranches’s De la recherche de la vérité into Portuguese. Sébastien Charles is the Dean of Research and Creativity at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Canada). His research deals with the history of early modern philosophy, with particular emphases on Berkeley and modern scepticism. His recent publications include: Pour et contre le scepticisme. Théories et pratiques de l’antiquité aux Lumières, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2014 (with Gianni Paganini); Hume et la religion, Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 2013; Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century. Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklarüng, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013 (with Plinio Junqueira Smith); Descartes et ses critiques, Québec, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2011 (with Syliane Malinowski-Charles).

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