Skepticism in Renaissance and Post-Renaissance Thought: New Interpretations

This second volume in the Journal of the History of Philosophy book series is devoted to the resurgence of scepticism in the Renaissance and after. It contains eight original essays by historians of early modern philosophy from Europe and North and South America, with remarks by Richard H Popkin, who reviews fifty years of scholarship on the history of early modern scepticism and evaluates its present stage. Essays by Jean-Robert Armogathe, Harry M. Bracken, Luciano Floridi, Sarah Hutton, John Christian Laursen, Thomas M. Lennon, Jose R. Maia Neto, and Gianni Paganini uncover new interpretations of the nature, role, and influence of skepticism from Montaigne to Berkeley. The contributors discuss such important figures as Michel de Montaigne, Thomas Hobbes, Pierre Bayle, Henry More, Rene Descartes, Pierre-Daniel Huet, Pierre Gassendi, and George Berkeley. The essays in this important new volume will contribute to discussions in epistemology and metaphysics. Questions about the reliability of our knowledge and the criterion of true knowledge are dealt with as well as questions about whether our knowledge is subjective, whether we can have knowledge of an external world, the mind-body problem, and the limits of human understanding.