Politics of Skepticism in the Ancients, Montaigne, Hume, and Kant

John Christian Laursen holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (1985), and is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of California, Riverside. He has published extensively on 17th and 18th century political thought.

"This erudite book is a major contribution to the impact of one of the most interesting aspects of philosophical thought on political theory and practice...like all extremely good scholarly work [it] goes beyond consolidating and analyzing and making its points clearly...It is both a monument of scholarship and a milestone on the road."BHR, 1993."...a scrupulous work of enormous intellectual ambition...admirable work of philosophically grounded history and historically sensitive political theory."E.j. Hundert, American Historical Review, 1994."...this is a very useful volume."Stephen Buckle, Australian Journal of Philosophy, 1995."Laurens Buch darf füglich als gelungenes Unterfangen bezeichnet werden... Es vermittelt ausgezeichnete synthetische Überblicke, aber auch eine Fülle von konkreten neuen und wegweisenden Einsichten zu einer immer noch zu wenig beachteten philosophischen Tradition. Hervorzuheben ist auch die äußert klare und verständliche, den Leser in der vollen Bedeutung des Wortes ansprechende Darstellung. Dies alles verrät einen großen Lehrer hinter dem Buchautor."Daniel Brühlmeier, Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger, 1995."It has long been my suspicion and hope that philosophical skepticism could be seen as a basis for liberal democratic ideals. Laursen, in this careful and provocative study, has made a most serious step in showing how this might be the case. His book deserves to be studied most carefully."Richard H. Popkin, International Studies in Philosophy, 1995.