THE RETURN OF SCEPTICISM

ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

184

THE RETURN OF SCEPTICISM edited by GIANNI PAGANINI

Founding Directors: P. Dibont (Paris) and R.H. Popkin (Washington University, St. Louis & UCLA) Director: Sarah Hutton (Middlesex University, United Kingdom) Associate-Directors: lE. Force (Lexington); J.C. Laursen (Riverside) Editorial Board: R. Allen (Los Angeles); A. Gabbey (New York); T. Gregory (Rome); 1 Henry (Edinburgh); lD. North (Oxford); 1 Popkin (Lexington); G.A.l Rogers (Keele); Th. Verbeek (Utrecht) Advisory Editorial Board: H. Gadamer (Heidelberg); H. Gouhier (Paris)

THE RETURN OF SCEPTICISM FROM HOBBES AND DESCARTES TO BAYLE

Edited by

GIANNI PAGANINI Universita del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy

Proceedings of the Vercelli Conference May 18th-20th, 2000

Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

A c.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-90-481-6315-1 ISBN 978-94-017-0131-0 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-94-017-0131-0

Printed all acidJree paper

All Rights Reserved © 2003 Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2003. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Gianni Paganini Introduction

IX

Richard H. Popkin For a revised history of scepticism

XXI

1. THE ENGLISH CONTEXT: FROM HOBBES TO LOCKE

Gianni Paganini Hobbes among ancient and modern sceptics: phenomena and bodies G .AJ. Rogers John Locke and the sceptics

3

37

Francesco Tomasoni

'Conjecture', 'conceivability " 'existence' between Henry More and Ralph Cudworth

55

2. DESCARTES AND HIS CONTEXT

Jose R. Maia Neto Charron's epoche and Descartes' cogito: the sceptical base of Descartes' refutation of scepticism

81

Jean-Pierre Cavaille Scepticisme, tromperie et mensonge chez La Mothe Le Vayer et Descartes

115

v

VI

3. POST-CARTESIAN RAMIFICATIONS Antonella Del Prete

Against Descartes: Marten Schoock's De Scepticismo

135

Thomas M. Lennon

Huet, Malebranche and the birth of skepticism

149

Giulia Belgioioso

Arnauld's posthumous defense of the "philosophie humaine" against heretics and sceptics

167

Emanuela Scribano

Foucher and the dilemmas of representation: a 'modern' problem?

197

Carlo Borghero

Scepticism and analysis: Villemandy as a critic of Descartes

213

Maria Teresa Marcialis

Sceptical readings of Cartesian evidence in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy

231

4. POLITICS AND RELIGION Antony McKenna

Scepticism at Port-Royal: the perversion of Pyrrhonian doubt

249

Lorenzo Bianchi

Sorbiere's scepticism: between naturalism and absolutism

267

Luisa Simonutti

Scepticism and the theory of toleration: human fallibility and 'adiaphora'

283

Vll

5. SCEPTICISM AND SCIENCES John Christian Laursen Medicine and skepticism: Martin Martinez (1684-1734)

305

Maurizio Torrini From Galileo to Vico. The uncertainty and arrogance of knowledge

327

Gerda Hassler Scepticism and semantic theory: from Locke to Du Marsais

343

Chantal Grell Le vertige du pyrrhonisme: Hardouin face

363

aI 'histoire

6. BAYLE'S AGE Frederic Brahami Theories sceptiques de la politique: Montaigne et Bayle

377

Gianluca Mori Pierre Bayle on scepticism and "common notions"

393

Fabrizio Lomonaco Religious truth and freedom of conscience in Noodt and Barbeyrac: the confrontation with Bayle

415

7. AFTER BAYLE: SCEPTICISM AND ANTI-SCEPTICISM Maria-Cristina Pitassi De la controverse anti-romaine a la theologie naturelle: parcours anti-sceptiques de Jean-Alphonse Turrettini

431

Jens Haseler Formey et Crousaz, ou commentfaUait-il combattre Ie scepticisme?

449

Miguel Benitez Jean Meslier, Ie doute methodique et Ie materialisme

463

INDEX

475

Vlll

"INVESTIGATIONE. Donna can l'ali alia testa, it cui vestimento sia tulto sparso diformiche, tenga if braccio destro, e it dito indice della medesima mana alto, mostrando con esso una Grue, che voli per aria, e col dito indice della sinistra, un Cane, if quale stia con la testa bassa per terra in alto di cercare la jiera. L 'ale, che porta in capo, significano I 'elevatione dell'Intelletto, perche alzandosi egli per I 'acquisto della Gloria, dell 'honore e dell'immortalita viene in cognitione delle cose alte, e celesti. Diamo a questa jigura it vestimento pieno di formiche, perche gli Egittij per esse significavano I'investigatione, essendo questi animali diligentissimi investigatori di quanto fa bisogno al viver loro. Mostra la Grue, che vola, perche gli Egiltij volevano, che cia fosse dimostratione d 'huomo curioso, e investigatore delle cose alte, e sublimi, e di quelle che sono remote della terra, percia che questo uccello vola molto in alto con velocita, e scorge molto da lontano. Del significato del Cane, Sesto Pirhonese Fitosofo nel primo lib. cap. 14 dice, che if cane, nella guisa, che dicemo, denota investigatione, percia che quando seguita una jiera, & arrivato ad un luogo dove sono tre strade, e non havendo veduto per quale via sia andata, esso, hodorata ch 'abbia la prima strada, odora la seconda, e se in ness una di esse sente, che sia andata, non odora la terza, ma, risoluto corre argomentando che necessariamente sia andata per essa. " Ripa, Cesare, Iconologia, II ed. Roma: 1603. Illustrated by Giuseppe Cesari, also known as Cavalier d 'Arpino.

INTRODUCTION

On les a nommes Sceptiques, Zetetiques, Ephectiques, Aporetiques, c 'est-a-dire

examinateurs, inquisiteurs, suspendants, doutants. Tout cela montre qu'ils supposaient qll'il etait possible de trollver la verite, et qll'ils ne decidaient pas qll 'elle etait incomprehensible. Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, art. Pyrrhon, rem. A.

The history of modern scepticism is an active and on-going research-inprogress. Respectively forty-two and thirty years have passed since the two great works that laid the foundations for this research first saw the light (History of Scepticism by Richard H. Popkin and Cicero scepticus by Charles B. Schmitt) and interest in this field has not yet run its course. Quite the reverse: studies, congresses, collective works on the subject are multiplying, while historical reconstruction extends to include new personalities, new periods, new sources. This is not the place for even a brief overview of these many and varied activities. Suffice it to say that over the last twenty years Popkin has promoted a series of congresses that have expanded the horizons to include the 18 th and 19th centuries in the history of

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© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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scepticism, as well as many aspects of the contemporary age. l He has also extended the field of research to include irreligion, religious scepticism, freethinking, prophetism and mysticism? Over recent years a series of monographic studies have also examined the themes of modern scepticism or some of its fundamental points,3 and collective works have taken different perspectives on many other aspects of this history, attenuating the significance of the religious links that did accompany it during certain 1

2

3

Popkin, Richard H. and Schmitt, Charles B., eds., Scepticism from Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1987; Popkin, R.H., The Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought. Leiden-New York-Kobenhavn-Koln: Brill, 1992; Popkin, R.H., ed., Scepticism in the History of Philosophy. A Pan-American Dialogue. DordrechtBoston-London: Kluwer, 1996; Popkin, R.H., de Olaso, E., Tonelli, G., eds., Scepticism in the Enlightenment. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer, 1997; van der Zande, J., and Popkin, R.H., eds., The Skeptical Tradition around 1800. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer, 1998. To these works we should add the collection of essays by Popkin himself: The High Road to Pyrrhonism. San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1980, and works that have been dedicated to him: Watson, R.A. and Force, J.E., eds., The Sceptical Mode in Modern Philosophy. Essays in Honor of Richard H. Popkin. Dordrecht-Boston-Lancaster: Nijhoff, 1988; Force, lE., and Katz, D.S., eds., Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin. Essays in His Honor. Leiden-Boston-Koln: Brill, 1999. The Proceedings of the recent Los Angeles Congress are also forthcoming as: Popkin, R.H. and Maia Neto, lR., eds., Scepticism as a Force in Renaissance and Post-Renaissance Thought. Amherst: Prometheus Press, 2003. Popkin, R.H. and Vanderjagt, A., eds., Scepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Leiden-New York-Koln; Brill, 1993; Popkin, R.H., Berti, S. and Charles-Daubert, F., eds., Heterodoxy, Spino:::ism, and Free-Thought in Early-EighteenthCentury Europe. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer, 1996. Suffice it to mention the works published over the last decade: Paganini, Gianni, Scepsi moderna. Interpreta::ioni dello scetticismo da Charron a Hume. Cosenza: Busento, 1991; Laursen, John Christian, The Politics of Skepticism in the Ancients, Montaigne, Hume, and Kant. Leiden-New York-Koln: EJ. Brill, 1992; Taranto, Domenico, Pirronismo ed assolutismo nella Francia del '600. Studi Sill pensiero politico dello scetticismo da Montaigne a Bayle (J 580-1697). Milano: Franco Angeli, 1994; Maia Neto, Jose R., The Christiani:::ation of Pyrrhonism. Scepticism and Faith in Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Shestov. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer, 1995; Mori, Gianluca, Bayle philosophe. Paris: Champion, 1999; Gregory, Tullio, Genese de la raison classique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000; Brahami, Frederic, Le Travail du scepticisme. Montaigne, Bayle, HI/me. Paris: Puf 200 I; Giocanti, Sylvia, Penser I'irresolution. Alontaigne, Pascal La Mothe Le Vayer. Trois itineraires sceptiques. Paris: Champion 2001; Foucault, D. and Cavaille, J.-P., eds., Sources antiques de l'irreligion moderne: Ie relais italien. XV-XV! siecles. Toulouse-Le Mirail: Collection de I'E.C.R.I.T., n. 6, 2001; Floridi, Luciano, Sextus Empiricus. The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. See also the collection Libertinage et philosophie au XVI! siecle, ed. by Antony McKenna and Pierre-Franc;ois Moreau, of which the first five volumes have already been published: Publications de l'Universite de Saint-Etienne 1996 - 200 I, and the extensive thesis by Emmanuel Naya, Le Phenomene pyrrhonien: lire Ie scepticisme all XV! siecle (Doctoral Thesis: Universite Stendhal Grenoble-III. 2000).

Introduction

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phases. 4 In-depth studies of erudite libertinism and the publication of 1ih_ and 18 th -century clandestine philosophical manuscripts have also corrected the overemphasised identification of the history of scepticism with fidei sm. They have brought to light in its stead the critical, anti-religious contribution made by sceptical schools of thought. Many were the results produced by modern scepticism: not only the leap to faith or the opening to super-rational dimensions, but also atheist negation, the critique of positive religions, the critical history of revelations, the elaboration of deism and the doctrine of natural religion. 5 From this research process, modern scepticism emerges in an increasingly complex and interconnected form; it is interwoven with the most innovative scientific, political, religious, and cultural experiences of Europe in the 16 th _18 th centuries. Its unitary characteristics are of course easily recognisable, in that it relates to a well-defined corpus of ancient works (first and foremost the writings of Sextus Empiricus, but also those of Cicero, the doxographies of Diogenes Laertius, the anti-sceptical polemics of the Church Fathers, among whom Lactantius and Augustine clearly stand

4

5

Kreimendhal, Lothar, Aujkliirung und Skepsis. Studien zur Philosophie und Geistesgeschichte des 17. und 18. lahrhunderts (Festschrift G. Gawlick). Stuttgart: FrommannHolzboog, 1995; Moreau, P.-F., ed., Le Scepticisme au XV! et au XVI! siecles. Paris: A. Michel, 2001; Paganini, G., BenItez, M., Dybikowski, l., eds., Scepticisme, Clandestinite et Libre Pensee I Scepticism, Clandestinity and Free-Thinking. Paris: Champion, 2002. For an overview: Paganini, Gianni, Haupttendenzen der clandestinen Philosophie, in Ueberwegs Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, Die Philosophie des 17. lahrhunderts, Band I. Hrsg. v. lean-Pierre Schobinger. Teil I "Allgemeine Themen", Basel: Schwabe, 1998, pp. 121-196 (with a complete bibliography). In recent years, two collections have been created to publish texts and studies: the first "Libre pensee et Iitterature clandestine" (edited by Antony McKenna), at the Voltaire Foundation and then at Champion (Paris); the second, "Philosophische Clandestina der deutschen Autklarung", directed by Winfried Schroder, at Frommann-Holzboog (Stuttgart). See in the first collection the recent work by Sorbiere, Samuel, Discours sceptiques, critical edition by Sophie Gouverneur. Paris: Champion, 2002. The specialised journal, La Lettre clandestine, has reached no. \0 (200 I), significantly dedicated to the theme Le doute philosophique: philosophie classique et litterature clandestine. The role of scepticism in the birth of modem atheism is amply covered by Winfried Schroder (Urspriinge des Atheismus. Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. lahrhunderts. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998) and for the early eighteenth century in Germany by Martin Mulsow (Moderne aus dem Untergrund. Radikale Friihaujkliirung in Deutschland 1680-1720. Hamburg: Meiner, 2002). For the French scenario see the large-scale historical reconstruction by Antony McKenna: De Pascal a Voltaire. Le ro1e des 'Pensees' de Pasca1 dans I 'histoire des idees entre 1670 et 1734, 2 vols. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1990 and the recent volume by lean-Pierre Cavaille: Dislsimu1ations. Religion, mora1e et politique au XVI! siecle. Paris: Champion, 2002. See also: BenItez, M., McKenna, A., Paganini. G., Salem, 1., eds., Materia actuosa. Antiquite, Age classique, Lumieres. Paris: Champion, 2000.

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out, to mention only the principal names). Nevertheless, modern scepticism presents a wide variety of approaches and solutions that are profoundly conditioned by the different cultural and philosophical strategies in which it developed. Almost never found in a "pure" state, scepticism blended with many other elements of the intellectual scene and took on many different values depending on the different constellations it entered into. Rather than an isolated element, we should speak of so many molecular aggregations, in which the common characteristics are compensated and blurred by deep specific differences. Rather than a single genus defined by an impossible essential unity, we should speak in the plural of scepticisms. Rather than concentrating on an essence that, as such, has never existed, we should instead stick to the concrete nature and variety of historical processes. This book is an exploration of the plurality of forms that scepticism has taken on in the modern age; it comprises the Proceedings of the International Conference held at the University of Eastern Piedmont at Vercelli (May 18 th _ 20 th , 2000). The period examined ranges from the early 1i h century, when scepticism was already affirmed as one of the fundamental components of the philosophical scene, to the time of Bayle (with some extensions into the first half of the 18 th century, when the debate on scepticism was profoundly influenced by Bayle's approach). In his "Opening Address", which was read at the beginning of the Conference, Richard H. Popkin (who was unable to be present for reasons of health) traced the agenda of his studies and listed a series of desiderata for the history of scepticism. After retracing the outlines of the revision he has been working on in preparation for the third edition of his History, he indicated some lines of research that still remain to be explored. These include the influence on sceptical themes of theological conceptions such as the idea of divine omnipotence (a scepticism that starts in heaven, "in contrast to the Pyrrhonian scepticism that began and flourished on earth"), the relationships between learned scepticism and popular scepticism, the various forms of "mystic" scepticism, the methodological problems raised by a reconstruction that is chiefly contextual or belonging to the "history of ideas". The book is subdivided into seven sections. The first section ("The English Context: from Hobbes to Locke") looks at the British scene. There is a tendency among historians to present Descartes's interpretation and solution of sceptical doubt as the dominant one, or in any case the most significant one in modern thought. As often happens in history, it is the adversary who speaks for his antagonist and thus fixes his shape for posterity, especially when he proclaims himself the true or presumed winner. Thus it was for the history of heresy and religious sects, but the same happened to those other "sects", no less pugnacious and quarrelsome: the

Introduction

Xlll

philosophical schools. As Descartes's version imposed itself, scepticism was reduced to an epistemological obstacle to be overcome in the light of scientific and metaphysical certainty. But we have only to change context, from Descartes's France to anti-Cartesian England, and the scene radically changes with regard to the vulgata. Ways of treating and utilising scepticism that were profoundly different from those proposed by the author of Meditationes were not only possible, they were practised. The cases studied in this section are emblematic. Hobbes's phenomenalistic interpretation (examined in the essay by Gianni Paganini) is rooted in an interpretation of the Pyrrhonian "phenomenon" as defined by Sextus and taken up again by Montaigne, yet it also distances itself from Descartes's metaphysical-substantialistic approach. It is however clear that Hobbes's reading is compatible with his "philosophia prima". Some particular features of Sextus's tropology (in particular the trope of mixture) were joined in this blend together with the interpretation of the sensible phenomenon contained in Plato's Theaetetus. Hobbes's philosophy thus also takes up the challenge of sceptical doubt, but his solution to it moves in the opposite direction to that taken by Descartes: he redefines the notion of essence, breaks down the body into the sum of its accidents and limits himself to distinguishing between those that are durable and those that are transient. The essay by G.A.J. Rogers fills another important gap in the history of scepticism: the role played by John Locke who - like the Pyrrhonians - began from phenomena, calling them ideas, and considered it a natural and foregone conclusion that important areas of knowledge are not susceptible to certainty. Although Locke never quotes Pyrrho, he made a concrete contribution to creating a vision of man's place in the universe that takes into account his limited understanding of reality. Despite their proud aversion to scepticism, More and Cudworth also made use of it to achieve a subtler subdivision of the levels and planes of knowledge, distinguishing between existence and conceivability and pointing out the role of conjecture. The essay by Francesco Tomasoni, centred around the Cambridge Platonists, examines this hypothetical knowledge (very different from that of Hobbes, though he, too, utilised the notion of hypothesis). With the second section ("Descartes and his context") emphasis returns to the continent. However, the interpretation of scepticism that emerges reveals one of its original values: not simply a test to pass so as to reach the foundation of metaphysics, or a temporary guide for the philosopher (above all in morality and politics) before he can achieve the desired certainty, but rather a primary source of precise Cartesian arguments. Thus Jose R. Maia Neto shows that the cogito may be seen as a metaphysical interpretation of Charron's epoche resulting from Cartesian hyperbolic doubt and that it is Charron's Academic version of scepticism (and not Montaigne's "que sais-

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je?") that can be constructed so as to lead to the cogito. Through a comparative analysis of texts by Descartes and La Mothe Le Vayer, JeanPierre Cavaille finds traces in both of arguments taken from a non-fideistic sceptical tradition, motivated by reflections on the role of phenomena that are widespread in human experience, such as deceit and falsehood. With these two essays, the novelty of Descartes's work is hardly attenuated, but it is placed clearly in a context of contemporary sources and authors with whom the French philosopher shared expectations and concerns. Far from being weakened, scepticism rose again with renewed energy in the context created by the application of Descartes's philosophical categories. The third section ("Post-Cartesian Ramifications") opens with Antonella Del Prete's essay: she shows that only two years after Descartes's death his chiefly epistemological interpretation of doubt, and the lack of attention he paid to the moral character of Pyrrhonian ataraxia, had already become distinctive features of modem scepticism. This is clear in M. Schoock's work. In other cases, scepticism was used as the most effective tool to fight metaphysical theories and dogmas that were potentially dangerous both for philosophy and for theology. This is the case of PierreDaniel Huet (here studied by Thomas M. Lennon) who reproached Descartes and Malebranche with the sins of pride, vanity and arrogance. Elsewhere, on the contrary, Cartesian philosophy was greeted as the only effective antidote against rival schools (that of Gassendi, or Aristotelianism, or even scepticism). The defence of Arnauld, examined by Giulia Belgioioso, is a case in point. The aporias of representation have sometimes been described as the crucial theme that reveals a crisis in Cartesianism and reopens the door to sceptical doubt. The essay by Emanuela Scribano shows that nevertheless Malebranche had drawn up a theory of ideas quite different from representationalism, whereas his adversaries (Foucher and Desgabets) remained implicated in Scholastic discussions of representation. In Villemandy's Scepticism us debellatus (examined by Carlo Borghero) we see at work a method to tackle sceptical themes that employs an eclectic synthesis of the theory of signs and Aristotle's doctrines on degrees of evidence, together with the precepts of Descartes's method (though considerably softened). This greatly attenuated the originality of Cartesian notions of analysis. The essay by Maria Teresa Marcialis is dedicated to the Italian scene in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. She chiefly examines the objections made by Michelangelo Fardella and Paolo Mattia Doria to the Cartesian criterion of evidence. Fardella, whom Berkeley defined as a sceptic, was rather a subjectivist, a critic of the Cartesian demonstration of the existence of bodies, whereas Doria interpreted Cartesian philosophy as a sort of masked empiricism, with more affinity to Locke than to Plato.

Introduction

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The fourth section ("Politics and Religion") places the spotlight on the contribution made by sceptical themes to the history of religious ideas (tolerance first and foremost) and of political doctrines. It is well known that the relation between Pyrrhonism, apologetics, and fideism is one of the central themes of the history of modern scepticism. The contribution by Antony McKenna demonstrates the historical misunderstanding that is concealed beneath the expression "Christian Pyrrhonism" used to indicate positions like that of Pascal; he reveals on the contrary the presence in Pascal's work of neo-Academic probabilism applied to the problem of historical testimony. Pascal subjected Montaigne's Pyrrhonism to the same neo-Academic reading that Saint-Cyran gave of Pierre Charron's Sagesse. Bayle was ultimately to denounce the contradictory nature of the so-called reasonable submission to mystery, and was thus to dissolve the ambiguous notion of Christian Pyrrhonism. Turning to the medical-political field, Lorenzo Bianchi's essay is dedicated to Samuel Sorbiere. This unusual sceptical physician, who also translated Hobbes, developed an original blend of the libertine conception of power and freedom with Hobbes's theories on the state of nature. With regard to religious controversy, the important contribution by Luisa Simonutti investigates the connection between scepticism and theories of tolerance. The extensive European context of her essay ranges from Aconcio and Castellion to Limborch's Holland, reaching as far as the France of d'Huisseau and Aubert de Verse, but with particular attention to England (Chillingworth, Locke, and the Latitude-Men). The theme of human fallibility opens the door to a distinction between adiaphora and essential doctrines, authorising a version of the credo minimum that was to become fundamental for all 1ih-century doctrines of religious freedom. The fifth section ("Scepticism and Sciences") opens with an essay by John Christian Laursen dedicated to the Spanish physician Martin Martinez, whose Medicina Sceptica (I 722) places him among those for whom sceptics were empiricists, and who therefore - owing more to Gassendi than to Descartes - saw profound agreement between the teachings of Sextus and the new science. From Laursen's article it emerges that Martinez represents a tradition of skeptical physicians whose use of tropes was subversive of Aristotelian and Galenic medicine, but not adverse to church or state. Martinez's work clearly belongs in the category of skepticism as a part of instruction in the arts and can be seen as an updating and continuation of Francisco Sanches's critique of Aristotelianism by a practicing physician who does not eschew medical knowledge based on experience. Martinez reiterated his reflections in Skeptical Philosophy (1730), whose strategy is still to defend the corpuscular philosophy by distinguishing theology from medicine and emphasizing his orthodoxy in religion. His works provided, for eighteenth century Spanish physicians, a guide to living with skepticism.

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Maurizio Torrini's essay brings to the fore the Italian scene, hitherto little investigated: the epochal crisis opened by the condemnation of Galilei led personalities like Redi, Magalotti, Dati, and the members of the "Accademia degl'Investiganti" to reflect on the difficult transition from science to reality. They accentuated the technical and operative nature of scientific knowledge, sometimes cutting it off from its theoretical implications. The essay by Gerda Hassler explores the field of linguistics, and in particular investigates the link between Locke's theory of meaning and the sceptical implications that were found in it. The semantic problem of scepticism was later renewed in the sphere of the theory of tropes, of which Du Marsais was the undisputed 18 th -century protagonist. Chantal Grell's essay relates the historical Pyrrhonism of Jean Hardouin, the extreme result of doubt over the value of historical testimony, to a wider cultural context: the abandonment of historically-framed apologetic theology, which had shown itself incapable of defending the Roman Catholic Church against Protestant attacks, and the Jesuits' choice of other methods of cultural hegemony (oratory and the art of persuasion, worldly history). Section six ("Bayle's Age") centres around the figure of the philosophe de Rotterdam and his legacy. Frederic Brahami shows that from the political perspective Bayle is deeply indebted to Montaigne's thought. For both of them scepticism is first and foremost anthropology, which sees conscience as the effect of experience, rejecting the split between nature and history, condemning the abstract approach to politics and in particular the theory of natural law. Like Montaigne and later Hume, Bayle is a thinker of instinct, remedy, force. As with medicine, politics for him is a conjectural science that must take circumstances into account and integrate chance. On the contrary, what emerges from Gianluca Mori's analysis is a less "sceptical" Bayle than we are used to, or at least a limited and constructive sceptic (in the tradition of Gassendi and Mersenne). Mori shows that for Bayle "common notions" (especially those of logic and morality) elude all possible doubt: he was not a Pyrrhonian in the strict sense, because as a philosopher he did not deny the existence of necessarily true evidence, such as to constitute a sort of minimum credo of humanity. Radical scepticism seemed to him rather the result of blind and irrational fideism, which he identified with the obligatory outcome of religious belief. Fabrizio Lomonaco's essay examines Bayle's controversial legacy in the 18 th century with regard to tolerance. Despite the obvious affinities between Bayle's Commentaire philosophique and Noodt's Dissertatio (1706), the impression remains of a deep split between the appeal to conscience as the source of moral value (which presupposes the impossibility of identifying conscience and ethical law) on one hand and, on the other hand, the affirmation of religious freedom as a right based on ethical and rational choice. Barbeyrac, too, was

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to react against the opposition that Bayle had established between religion and reason, to affirm on the contrary the need for a morality based on certain laws. The seventh section ("After Bayle: Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism") offers a sample of the strategies developed in the early 18 th century to combat scepticism. Although chronologically they post-date Bayle, the authors and the arguments considered here show his profound influence on the philosophical debate. The case of Jean-Alphonse Turrettini (studied in depth by Maria-Cristina Pitassi) reveals a significant use of ethical argument for the purpose of confuting scepticism, be it the appeal to happiness (that in any case could not be frustrated by the desperation of doubt) or invoking the implicit equation between ethical error and untruth. Behind the positions held by Turrettini a parallel with classical Protestant doctrine may be glimpsed, according to which any lack of clarity in the Scriptures would in no way affect what is truly necessary for salvation. Jens Haseler writes on the debate between Formey and Crousaz, which saw a fundamental turningpoint with the publication of Formey's Belle Wolffienne. Their interaction also revealed important relationships between Cartesian and Reformed doctrines, held by Crousaz until the 1740s, and the rationalist and eclectic position typical of "philosophical" theologians like Formey. The latter went so far as to distinguish three types of sceptics: religious sceptics, antireligious sceptics, and anti-dogmatic sceptics. Lastly, the position held by Jean Meslier (examined by Miguel Benitez) is decidedly anti-sceptical. Moulded on a form of materialistic realism, it shrinks both from the phenomenalism of Sextus and from the hyperbolic doubt of Descartes. Nevertheless, even in stating the existence of the material reality of he who thinks, the author of Testament had to take the Cartesian argument of universal doubt into account, if only to counter against it what was for him the incontestable nature of the world of matter and movements. Among the various denominations of sceptical philosophy introduced by Sextus at the beginning of Pyrrhonianae Hypotyposes (1, 7), alongside "Ephectic" or suspensive ("from the state of mind introduced in the inquirer after his search") and "Aporetic" or dubitative, for the habit of doubting, there is another particularly apt name: that of "Zetetic [Zrl1:lluK1l] from its activity in investigation and inquiry". And Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Pyrrho, stressed the fact that "zetetic philosophy continually seeks for the truth" (IX, 70). Nevertheless, this third appellation has not been the most fortunate in the history of scepticism. When it has re-emerged it has been for extrinsic reasons and rather as the equivalent of the more general term 'Skeptic' [IKEltUK1l]. Thus, to make up for the fact that Cicero had not provided a Latin equivalent (scepticus) of the Greek term to indicate the

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sceptic, Aulus Gellius proposed designating "pyrrhonios philosophos" as "quaesitores" (investigators), a term that in fact indicates the Zetetics (this last term was not taken up by Gellius: Noctes Atticae XI, v). With the rebirth of scepticism in the modem age, reference to epoche dominates and imposes the appellation "Ephectics". Even Montaigne, who in Apologie de Raimond Sebond made a fundamental contribution to reinstalling authentic Pyrrhonian themes and terminology in modem thought, chiefly referred to "Pyrrho et autres Skeptiques ou Epechistes", ignoring the name "Zetetics", although the concept underlying the term was very clear to him. 6 The author of Essais correctly distinguished the Pyrrhonians as those who "are still always looking for the truth", separating them from forms of dogmatic scepticism of the negative or academic type. This may be just a small lexical problem, probably caused by the singular nature of the Greek term in question. Nevertheless it is partly due to the neglect of scepticism's investigative, that is zetetic, side that in the modem age Pyrrhonism took on the features of negative acatalexy, and that it lost the original openness to investigation that separated it from any dogmatic end to inquiry, whether affirmative or negative. Some highly 'acatalectic' affirmations, like those that close book I of Hume's Treatise, are perhaps also partly explained in this way. Among contemporary interpreters there are also those who - certainly because of an excess of philology or a lack of philosophy - have ended up by changing the shape of Pyrrhonian scepticism, neglecting or cutting away the aspect of continual investigation. Thus Karel Janacek reached the conclusion that the sceptical follower of Pyrrho does not after all continue to search and that he stops searching when he reaches epoche. 7 Though perhaps not among all sceptical philosophers, certainly among historians of scepticism this original 'zetetic' spirit has however been maintained,8 starting from the first and greatest, from Pierre Bayle, who, in commenting on the passage by Aulus Gellius (and in referring the reader to Montaigne, Michel de, Essais. II, xii, ed. by Pierre Villey. Paris: PUF, 1999, vol. II, p. 502: "Pyrrho et autres Skeptiques ou Epechistes [ ... ] disent qu'ils sont encore en cherche de la verite. Ceux-cy jugent que ceux qui pensent l'avoir trouvee, se trompent infiniment; et qu'il y a encore de la vanite trop hardie en ce second degre qui asseure que les forces humaines ne sont pas capables d'y atteindre. Car cela, d'establir la mesure de nostre puissance, de connoistre et juger la difficulte des choses, c'est une grande et extreme science, de laquelle ils doubtent que l'homme soit capable". 7 Cfr. Janacek, Karel, Sextlls Empiriclls' Sceptical Methods. Prague: Universita Karlova, 1972, pp. 28-29. Contra: Mates. Benson, The Skeptic Way. New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1996, p. 226, and Naya, Emmanuel, Le Vocabulaire des sceptiques. Paris: Ellipse, 2002, pp. 44-46. 8 See, for example, Popkin, R.H. and Stroll, Avrum, Skeptical Philosophy for Everyone. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2002, pp. 53-58; the authors subtly distinguish between assertive and nonassertive skepticism, between radical and mitigated skepticism.

6

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"Liber Proemial is de Philosophia Universe" of Gassendi's Syntagma philosophicum) grouped together appellations and approaches that were to take different paths, and insisted they had in common the tendency to seek, although their seeking was destined never to end: "On les a nommes [Ies Pyrrhoniens] Sceptiques, Zetetiques, Ephectiques, Aporetiques, c'est-a-dire examinateurs, inquisiteurs, suspendants, doutants". The author of Dictionnaire historique et critique added that all this indicated that they supposed it possible to find the truth: "Tout cela montre qu'ils supposaient qu'il eta it possible de trouver la verite, et qu'ils ne decidaient pas qu'elle etait incomprehensible" (art. "Pyrrhon", rem. A). From its modem precursor to its most authoritative contemporary interpreter (Richard H. Popkin) this zetetic spirit has always held firm, and it is not by chance that Popkin himself generously and enthusiastically agreed to support and share the project for this conference, knowing full well that not only new research, but also historical interpretations and reconstructions different from his own, sometimes even rival ones, would thereby be brought to light. It is in appropriate recognition of the man and of the zetesis that he has always kept alive among historians of scepticism that this book is dedicated to him.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book contains the Proceedings of the Conference on "The Return of Scepticism" held in Vercelli on May 18 th _20 th , 2000 and sponsored by the Universita del Piemonte Orientale (Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia). We thank the "Rettore" of the University and the Director of the "Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici". The conference was also supported by the Municipal Government of Vercelli (Department of Cultural Policies) and by the Piedmont Regional Government, to whom our recognition goes. The conference and many researchers who took part were supported by contributions from the Italian Ministry for the University and Scientific Research (National Research Project on "Descartes and the Cartesian legacy"). Particular thanks go to the Secretariat of the Department, to Anna Rigolone and Laura Ansaldi for their very efficient and courteous help. Planning and organisation of the conference, and preparation of the proceedings, would not have been possible without the decisive contribution ofGianluca Mori and Francesco Tomasoni. Gianni Paganini May 30th , 2002 Universita del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli

FOR A REVISED HISTORY OF SCEPTICISM Opening address by

RICHARD H. POPKIN University of California, Los Angeles

I am very sorry to be unable to present my remarks in person. And I am extremely sad to be unable to hear the variety of interesting and exciting papers that are to be presented, and to be unable to take part in discussions of them. Finally I regret greatly not being able to meet you all, old friends and new, and to hold informal interchanges with aU of you about our common interest in the history of scepticism. Alas, illness has made long range travel out of the question at the present time. So let me present some remarks second hand through my good friend and co-worker, Chris Laursen. Originally when asked by Gianni Paganini for a title, I had proposed "Intimations of post-modernism in 1i h and 18th century scepticism". I had some ideas about how the developing scepticism with regard to reason in Bayle, Hume and Condorcet foreshadowed some formulations of recent post modernist thinkers. However to do justice to the topic, I would have had to read quite a few texts, and, unfortunately, one of my pressing health problems is that I am losing my vision. Reading, in the normal sense, is no longer an option for me. Texts have to be read to me, or be scanned into my computer which then reads them to me. This is time consuming, and as yet has not allowed for the kind of research that I am used to. It seemed to me in view of my situation, and my immediate scholarly plans, that a better topic might be "Plans for a revised History of Scepticism", I should like to give you my thoughts on the subject, and I

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(g 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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would appreciate any thoughts or comments you might be willing to share with me. The History of Scepticism which I wrote in the late 1950's and which was first published in 1960, and in a revised and enlarged edition in 1979, covers, as you know, the period from the rediscovery of the texts of Sextus Empiricus in the mid 16 th century up to Descartes's attempt to refute scepticism. The 1979 enlargement carried the theme to the scepticism involved in early Biblical criticism in La Peyrere and Spinoza, the rise of anti-religious scepticism, and Spinoza's answer to scepticism. So much has been written on early modem scepticism since 1979 by many many scholars in Europe, North and South America, Israel and Australia that has enlarged our understanding of our intellectual past. I felt that I should undertake a new and more drastic revision of my book to incorporate new findings and interpretations, and to answer criticisms that have been made. 1 In the last decades I profited greatly in my understanding of the material from three close friends, now deceased, Giorgio Tonelli, Charles B. Schmitt, and Ezequiel de Olaso. And I will dedicate my next volume to their memory. I have profited greatly from discussions with former students, colleagues, and fellow scholars such as those present here. Having said this, the problem has been growing in my mind - how to approach the task of the revision. The material side was quickly resolved. My present English language publisher, the University of California Press, said in no uncertain terms that they were not interested in printing revisions of books. So I asked Oxford University Press, which expressed great interest in an enlarged volume, enlarged by about 50% in size. In an outline I gave them I said that I would start back in the late 15 th century when Savonarola had proposed publishing the work of Sextus Empiricus in Latin as a way of destroying gentile philosophy. There were five Greek manucripts of Sextus's texts in the Convent of San Marco at the time, more copies than existed in any other library in Europe at the time. Savonarola proposed that two of his monks prepare the translation. However, due to the arrest of Savonarola and the destruction of his movement in 1498, the Latin edition did not appear. It is only through his disciple Gianfrancesco Pico's work of 1520 that we can see how Sextus's sceptical arguments could be used to destroy philosophy in order to get intellectuals to tum to revelation. This mystical scepticism, which does not appear in the present volume, is in many ways different from the philosophical scepticism set forth by Montaigne from his reading of Sextus. Mystical scepticism has a history of its own running at least into the 18 th century in the thought of the 1

Popkin, R.H., The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle. Revised and expanded edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. forthcoming (2003).

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Scottish mystic, the Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsey, who was David Hume's original patron. So I plan to add a chapter at the beginning, most of which has appeared in my essay on scepticism and prophecy. Beyond this, several possible ways of proceeding are now competing for approval in my mind. I want to include or refer to as much of recent scholarship as I can. I want to include discussions of as many figures who reacted to scepticism as I can. I wish to say something about the uses of, and reactions to, sceptical arguments by Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes, and what role these reactions played in their political philosophies. Grotius and Hobbes spent at least a decade in the circle in Paris that included Mersenne, Gassendi, La Mothe Le Vayer, Isaac La Peyrere among others. Next I would like to deal with the role Greek scepticism played in the philosophies of Cambridge Platonism, especially Henry More and Ralph Cudworth. Also I plan to discuss Pascal's place in the history of modern scepticism. In addition, I would like to deal with several kinds of scepticism that are hardly touched upon in the present volume, such as a kind of Aristotelian scepticism which seems to have appeared in the 16 th and I i h centuries, in which Aristotle's theory of knowledge was presented without essences. This was apparently taught in some Jesuit colleges in France such as La Fleche and Caen, and also appears in the works of Richard Hooker. Mersenne and Pierre-Daniel Huet were taught this modified Aristotelianism and used it in their discussions of scepticism. Another kind of scepticism that is only briefly touched on in the present volume is the mitigated scepticism developed by Anglican divines in the I i h century to defuse the theological controversies of the time, a sceptical method based on using Sextus's arguments to end the quest for infallible certainty. Instead a kind of indubitable certainty, certainty beyond all reasonable doubt, was presented. This view was further developed by the philosophers, theologians and scientists in the Royal Society of England in the latter part of the I i h century, and plays an important part in the modern scientific outlook. In addition three major sceptical writers are hardly mentioned in my present volume, since they were all active in the last quarter of the I i h centuries, Simon Foucher, Pierre-Daniel Huet and Pierre Bayle. They each in their own way make sceptical arguments of Sextus and Cicero most relevant to the philosophical discourse of the time, and they each were in contact with the leading dogmatic thinkers at the end of the 1i h century, Nicolas Malebranche, Gottfried W. Leibniz, and John Locke. In the writings of the three, scepticism is joined in a fight to the death with the then current new philosophies. So I hope to present each of these sceptical thinkers in his own right, and show them as battlers of ideas of the time. For better or worse th is

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will have to involve looking into the enemy camp and presenting the philosophies of Malebranche, Leibniz and Locke as attempts to deal with their sceptical adversaries. Leibniz was actually undertaking a refutation of Sextus, as well as arguing with Foucher, Huet and Bayle. Malebranche argued with Foucher, and worked with Bayle in presenting his views. Locke knew both Huet and Bayle personally. Locke's secretary, Pierre Coste, was a close friend of Bayle. And Coste's translation of Locke's Essay into French was worded so that the contents fit with ongoing French discussions of scepticism, its merits and demerits. In view of the monumental work on Bayle's thought over the last four decades, I had hoped to leave it to others like my late dear friend, Elisabeth Labrousse, to organize a unified view of Bayle's thought. For my purposes I want to show where Bayle fits in the history of modern scepticism. His attacks on dogmatic positions are not just Sextus-based, but incorporate a good deal of the dialectical dissection of views that he learned from the Jesuits in Toulouse, plus many other currents. Huet had a dim view of Bayle's work because he did not see Bayle as basing himself on Sextus, on classic Greek scepticism, and hence was not a good representative of the philosophia perennis, which for Huet was scepticism, which he found in the Bible, in ancient Greek wisdom, in Aristotle, Maimonides, and St. Thomas, among others! All three of these late 17th century sceptics carried on an intense war against Cartesian ism, and set forth new sceptical arguments that were to play important roles in the philosophies of George Berkeley, David Hume, and various French philosophes. Adding all of these discussions into the volume already seems to go way beyond the intended space limitations, that is a fifty per cent enlargement. I need to think through how much needs to be said about each of these thinkers. One of the most hostile criticisms I have received is from an English Jesuit who said in his review that it was ridiculous to try to say something about a thinker in a sentence or two, or even in a paragraph. He proposed that many of the characters I mentioned deserved a chapter or a book. No doubt, but how does one reconcile this with organizing a book on the central theme of the way philosophical scepticism developed in 16th and 17th century thought? So I foresee a struggle to include as many thinkers as possible, and still keep the volume in the 400-500 page range. Another form of scepticism that I did not deal with earlier is a scepticism developed because of the implications of divine omnipotence. My late colleague, Amos Funkenstein, kept raising issues about this to me. Only when I had to present a paper at a memorial to him in 1996 did I start to realize that a quite different kind of scepticism was involved, namely a scepticism that began in Heaven in contrast to the Pyrrhonian scepticism that

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began and flourished on earth in the fallibility and failings of mere mortal earth-bound men. This year I have been looking into the views of Jean de Mirecourt and some 14 th -century Scotists at Oxford. The former was condemned for holding that God can be a deceiver. The latter have been labelled "sceptics" in some recent studies because of their doubts about the possibility of reliable conceptual knowledge. Mirecourt and the Oxonians were not in the Pyrrhonian tradition, and show no signs of using Sextus-type arguments. But I am becoming convinced that their views were still alive at Descartes's time, hence the monumental concern on Descartes's part to establishing that God is not and cannot be a deceiver. A text recently found from a follower of Siger of Brabant bears great similarity to Sextus's examples. [In fact at a conference in 1990 when both Funkenstein and I were present, we heard this text being cited, and we both independently immediately cried out, that is from Sextus Empiricus!] At any rate I think that the possibility of late medieval knowledge of Sextus's text has to be re-evaluated. There are two extant Latin manuscripts, now in Spain, that may date from around 1300. They are in collections of Aristotelian texts with no mention of Sextus as the author. These texts may have played a role. But, in any case, I think that the sceptical puzzles emanating from exploring the consequences of God being completely and totally omnipotent were known in early modern times. Pierre Bayle was aware of the strange views of Gabriel Biel and Gregory of Rimini. Descartes may have come across such views from his contacts with the theologians at the Oratory. Two sceptical strains may have joined in Descartes's intellectual world so that the complete answer to Pyrrhonian scepticism rested upon a defiant rejection of Jean de Mirecourt's view that God can be a deceiver. Another kind of scepticism that I have not explored is popular scepticism, doubts of ordinary people about the claims of Church and State. There has been a fair amount of exciting research about popular questioning by untrained people. My colleague, Carlo Ginzburg, has led the way with his study of the miller who saw the world as a piece of cheese, and doubted everything else. Other studies have shown that a large number of victims of the Spanish Inquisition professed that they believed nothing of Christianity. Some have found great pockets of disbelief among soldiers in the English Civil War. As of the moment I do not see popular scepticism as having much relationship to the kinds of scepticism coming from the Pyrrhonian or Academic tradition or from extremes of medieval theology. There is as yet no evidence that intellectual scepticism inspired popular scepticism or vice versa. There should be some kind of connection in view of the great shifts of opinion that take place during the Enlightenment. And the development and

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institutionalizing of "sceptical" practices, such as trial by jury, seeking evidence of guilt beyond all reasonable doubt, new technological aids to determine what "actually" happened in sporting events, etc., indicate that interaction takes place between intellectual or theoretical scepticism and popular scepticism. How, when, and why this happens needs much more exploration both on small scale events, such as whether a legitimate goal has been scored in a soccer match, and large-scale events such as rejection of a state religion in the U.S and in France. I am as of the moment thinking of leaving this topic of the role of popular scepticism for further study at a later time. Another aspect of this kind of problem is how much contextual background should be introduced to position the thinkers being discussed in their historical settings. Much suggestive material has been amassed in studies in the history of science and the history of religion about where Galileo, Kepler and others fitted in the contexts of their time. Philosophers rarely get such treatment, and are most often mainly compared and contrasted in terms of their ideas. Some of my critics, especially in France, have said that I am too much a part of "the history of ideas school". In my own mind I have not seen what I have been doing as part of any particular methodology or school of interpretation. I suppose I have been influenced by my teachers who worked on the history of philosophy, such as John Herman Randall, Paul Oskar Kristeller and Charles Hendel. I am sure I was influenced by people who encouraged me from the outset such as Alexandre Koyre, Henri Gouhier, Isaiah Berlin and many others. For better or worse I never sat back to assess what I was doing, how I was doing it, and what I thought it all proved. I have just kept doing what I consider proper historical research, and have left it to others to make what they will out of it. I was never concerned to master the historical situation in political and social terms beyond the broad outlines. In the United States this has been enough to brand me as more a "historian" than a "philosopher". As an excuse I would say my historical ignorance or naivete has allowed me to consider ideological possibilities outside the accepted mode of explanation. But, of course, if I knew much more about the historical scene, say of what was going on in the world in which Pierre Gassendi, Franc;ois de La Mothe Le Vayer or Isaac La Peyrere, operated, I might find grounds for other interpretations of their "real" motives. Within the historical framework I have constructed or accepted for telling my story, it does seem more plausible to see Gassendi as a pious Christian trying to find a via media between scepticism and dogmatism in philosophy, and a way of accepting Church doctrine and new scientific discoveries and teachings together. In La Peyrere's case I think seeing him as a Marrano theologian rather than a secret atheist makes the most sense of his writings and h is strange career.

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Of course, deeper research into what can be known about such figures leaves any evaluation open to revision. It may also help us in finding connections between learned doctrines and popular adaptations of them. Several people of the time say that just after La Peyrere's Men Before Adam was published in The Netherlands in 1655 there was a sect of people calling themselves "pre-Adamites". I haven't been able to find out who these people were and what they did. If the sect included young Spinoza, it might have been an avant-garde heretical group. If it included ordinary people who liked to see themselves as outside Judeo-Christianity, it might be the beginning of a form of popular atheism. Going back to what might be included in a new revised edition of my book, I think it necessary to add into the story the ways ancient and modern scepticism were understood in the emerging studies of the history of philosophy from the Renaissance encyclopedias to the history of philosophy by Jacob Brucker and others in the 18th century that have created our canon of what constitutes the philosophical tradition. Along with this I think a more detailed study is needed of how widespread was direct knowledge of the texts of Sextus, Cicero, Diogenes Laertius, from the mid 16th century to the end of the 17th century. Many inventories of personal libraries of scholars and theologians of the time show widespread ownership of these texts. They are cited by many authors. A study being completed on scepticism in England in the late 16th century by William Hamlin shows how it is possible to track down what copies of Sextus were available, and who might have had access to them. Studies on a much larger scale could presumably be done for France, Italy, The Netherlands, Germany and other countries which might give important data for assessing how widespread interest in ancient scepticism was at the time. My present plan is to end the revised volume, after adding in the above-mentioned material, with an examination of Bayle's article on Savonarola, which is one of the least sceptical articles in the Dictionnaire. Bayle knew that Savonarola was wrong, was a fake and a fraud, and deserved his fate. In this Bayle may be advancing a non-sceptical side in which certain moral teachings are regarded as certain. So, starting with Savonarola's desire to destroy philosophy by using the arguments in Sextus, Bayle perhaps wanted to end the century of scepticism by using Savonarola's destruction as a way of showing that there are some truths even a sceptic like himself can accept. This picture of the proposed contents of the new volume may seem to lack the unity of the original volume. I hope that I am not trying to get far too much into one study, and I hope that it will provide a clearer picture of how scepticism affected modern thought up to the end of the 17th century. I

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will be most grateful for any cntlques or suggestions from any of you concerning what I have said here. A last major aspect of the new volume is what to do about the amount of new bibliographical items that have been published in the last 21 years. A few years ago Jose Maia Neto published a detailed bibliography of items about scepticism published in just a couple of years in the 1990's. The number is great and is growing every year. From the one or two that appeared each year when I started publishing, one now has a wealth of new findings and thoughts about scepticism. I myself have become part of its history, as indicated by the title of the volume of the Revue de Synthese, "L'histoire du scepticisme de Sextus Empiricus aRichard H. Popkin". I would like to recognize all the new contributions as well as dealing with those that criticize my views. But as I think about it, if! added all of the new researches, the volume would become monstrous, and would read like a telephone book. I suggested to the future publisher that I would write a bibliographical essay, but I am not yet sure about that. Independent of what I do, I think it would help all of us interested in the history of scepticism if there could be a volume like Gregor Sebba's Bibliographia Cartesiana. A Bib/iographia sceptica that could be updated every year or so would be of great help to those of us working on the history of scepticism as well as to a much broader audience of intellectual and literary historians. So maybe some thought can be given as to how this research aid could be created and maintained. Once again let me express my regrets and my personal sadness at not being able to be present at the occasion of this wonderful conference on my favorite subject. Since I have been unable to come, I am currently working on creating a successor conference where [ am, in southern California, for one of the next few years. I hope if this can be arranged that I will be able to invite some of you to journey westward to carry on our discussions about the history of scepticism in modern times. Perhaps then I can present my views of the intimations of post-modernism in 1i h century scepticism, possibly as foreshadowed in Descartes's blunt and angry reply to Gassendi's objection of objections, namely that the possibility Gassendi had mentioned as Descartes's views leading to a complete subjectivism in which everything could be construed as just thoughts in the mind of Rene Descartes, that this would shut the door on reason. [n the critiques of logic in Bayle, Hume, and Condorcet [ see the movement of sceptical criticism beyond reason with perhaps the consequences Descartes envisaged. More on this at a later time, I hope. [ wish you all an exciting and rewarding conference and [ look forward eagerly to hearing about it.