Abstract

Skepticism has always been a part of the history of Western philosophy. If one were to look at current works focusing on the history of skepticism in philosophy, however, one would get the impression that skepticism disappeared from the philosophical landscape after the work of Sextus Empiricus, only to reappear with the methodological skepticism of Descartes. Yet, did skepticism, which had thus been so prevalent in the ancient period, disappear so completely during the middle Ages? The resounding answer that this dissertation proposes to give to this question is no. To that end, the main focus will be on Nicolaus of Autrecourt, a figure in the waning High Middle Ages who revived skepticism within a peculiarly Christian context. In the first three chapters of the dissertation, the skepticism of Nicolaus of Autrecourt will be studied. Starting in the first chapter with a study of Nicolaus's life and the skeptical elements of his correspondence, the second chapter will continue to look for these same skeptical elements in his Exigit ordo, while the third chapter will look for possible influences on Nicolaus's skepticism. The fourth and fifth chapter will present views similar to Nicolaus's in the works of the Muslim thinker al-Ghazali and the more well-known David Hume concerning the skepticism of causal necessity. In the sixth and final chapter, a major difference between the doctrines of Nicolaus and al-Ghazali on the one hand and Hume on the other concerning the issue of miracles will be examined. From this point, a simplified genealogy of skepticism shall be offered, and it will be contended that the skepticisms of Nicolaus and al-Ghazali deserve a place in that genealogy. By allowing Nicolaus's and al-Ghazali's type of skepticism into this genealogy, the main conclusion shall be that skepticism is in fact a double-edged sword that can be used against religion by attempting to destroy the ability of reason to come to any definitive conclusions about God or against atheistic philosophy in leaving room for faith in the omnipotence of God