Showing papers on "Pyrrhonism published in 1998"

The bibliographic bases of hume's understanding of sextus empiricus and pyrrhonism

Abstract: L'A. mesure l'influence du scepticisme ancien sur la pensee de Hume a travers la lecture des sources bibliographiques de la reception de Sextus Empiricus au XVIII e siecle dans le commentaire de l'article de L. Groarke et G. Solomon realise par R. H. Popkin (in «Journal of the history of ideas», 1993). Examinant les differentes editions et traductions de l'oeuvre de Sextus Empiricus, ainsi que les references faites par Hume au representant du pyrrhonisme, l'A. souligne l'importance des travaux hermeneutiques qui permettent de considerer la pensee humeenne comme heritiere du pyrrhonisme

Mathematical Skepticism: A Sketch with Historian in Foreground

Abstract: We know very little about mathematical skepticism in modem times.2 Imre Lakatos once remarked that “in discussing modem efforts to establish foundations for mathematical knowledge one tends to forget that these are but a chapter in the great effort to overcome skepticism by establishing foundations for knowledge in general. ”3 And in a sense he was clearly right: modem thought—with its new discoveries in mathematical sciences, the mathematization of physics, the spreading of Pyrrhonist doctrines, the centrality of epistemological foundationalism and the diffusion of the geometrical method in philosophy— was the most natural arena in which skepticism and mathematics could confront each other.4 The problem remains, however, that no investigation of the whole topic has yet been attempted. Thus, as far as we know, mathematical certainties should have clashed with skeptical doubts, but whether and to what extent there was indeed a historical debate on mathematical skepticism in modern thought remains to be ascertained.