Pyrrhonian Skepticism

by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Editor)

Throughout the history of philosophy, skepticism has posed one of the central challenges of epistemology. Opponents of skepticism--including externalists, contextualists, foundationalists, and coherentists--have focussed largely on one particular variety of skepticism, often called Cartesian or Academic skepticism, which makes the radical claim that nobody can know anything. However, this version of skepticism is something of a straw man, since virtually no philosopher endorses this radical skeptical claim. The only skeptical view that has been truly held--by Sextus, Montaigne, Hume, Wittgenstein, and, most recently, Robert Fogelin--has been Pyrrohnian skepticism. Pyrrhonian skeptics do not assert Cartesian skepticism, but neither do they deny it. The Pyrrhonian skeptics' doubts run so deep that they suspend belief even about Cartesian skepticism and its denial. Nonetheless, some Pyrrhonians argue that they can still hold "common beliefs of everyday life" and can even claim to
know some truths in an everyday way.

This edited volume presents previously unpublished articles on this subject by a strikingly impressive group of philosophers, who engage with both historical and contemporary versions of Pyrrhonian skepticism. Among them are Gisela Striker, Janet Broughton, Don Garrett, Ken Winkler, Hans Sluga, Ernest Sosa, Michael Williams, Barry Stroud, Robert Fogelin, and Roy Sorensen. This volume is thematically unified and will interest a broad spectrum of scholars in epistemology and the history of philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (born 1955) is an American philosopher specializing in ethics, epistemology, neuroethics, the philosophy of law, and the philosophy of cognitive science. He is a Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

Reviews

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is just wrong, from the editorial blurb, and from what I've read of Sinnott-Armstrong elsewhere, and from the likes of Burnyeat's "The Skeptical Tradition."

First, it, as S-A does elsewhere, stands the Pyrrhonic-Academic differences, if not on their head, at least 90 degrees sideways.

Second and related, it's an ... iconoclastic? interpretation of Sextus.

Third, it's just wrong about Hume. S-A, if he's any sort of philosopher, KNOWS that Hume was attacked precisely for being a Pyrrhonist, which he WAS — in the Treatise he later repudiated. And, indeed, by philosophers like Popkin, and more directly at sites like the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it's understood that Hume in the Treatise was a Pyrrhonist AND that Pyrrhonism, if not more "dogmatic" precisely because it was more radical, was indeed more radical.

So, no matter how good this book is in spots, it can't be more than 2 stars, and S-A's writings on skepticism in general must be looked at ...

Pun intended ... highly intended ...

Skeptically.