Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung

Sébastien Charles is full Professor of History of Philosophy at the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), where he is the director of the Laboratoire de recherche sur la pensée moderne. He has published numerous books and articles on early modern French philosophers, from Descartes to Fouchet and Huet, on Berkeley and the French Enlightenment, and on the history of scepticism. Plínio Junqueira Smith is professor at Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil. He was educadet at Universidade de São Paulo, was head of the Graduate Programm at the Universidade São Judas Tadeu, and a visiting scholar at Wolfson College, Oxford. He has published works on Hume, modern philosophy from Montaigne to Kant, contemporary scepticism and the history of scepticism.

• Introduction, S. Charles, P. Smith.- What is Enlightenment Scepticism? A Critical Rereading of Richard Popkin, S. Charles.- Bayle and Pyrrhonism: Antinomy, Method, and History, P. Smith.- Fideism, Scepticism, or Free-Thought? The Dispute between Lamy and Saint-Laurens about Metaphysical Knowledge, S. Malinowski-Charles.- Leibniz’s Anti-Scepticism, A. Pelletier.- The Protestant Critics of Bayle at the Dawn of the Enlightenment, A. Matytsin.- The ‘Wise Pyrrhonism’ of the Académie Royale des Sciences of Paris: Natural Light and Obscurity of Nature according to Fontenelle, L. Peterschmitt.- Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Moral Scepticisms, P. Kail.- A New Source for Hume’s Treatise: Bayle and the First Half of the Section ‘Of the immateriality of the Soul’, G. Paganini.- Hume’s Reply to Baylean Scepticism, T. Ryan.- How Can we Know if Scepticism is Right or Wrong? Hume and Reid’s Epistemological Answers, C. Etchegaray.- Enfield’s Brucker and Christian Anti-scepticism in Enlightenment Historiography of Philosophy, J.- C. Laursen.- Reasonable Scepticism in the French Enlightenment: some connections between Jean-Baptiste Boyer d’Argens, Louis de Beausobre and Voltaire, N. Correard.- Forms and Aims in Voltairean Scepticism, S. Pujol.- D'un scepticisme involontaire à un scepticisme existentiel. Un parcours philosophique dans l'œuvre de Rousseau, M.-A. Nadeau.- An Uneasy Relationship:  Atheism and Scepticism in the Late French Enlightenment, A. Kors.- From universal Pyrrhonism to Revolutionary Scepticism: Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, S. Charles.- Kant’s Criticism and the Legacy of Modern Scepticism, P. Smith.- Maimon, scepticisme et Lumières, I. Radrizzani.- Scepticisme et dialectique des Lumières chez le jeune Hegel, I. Testa.- Hegel on Scepticism and Irony, M. Biscuso.- Fichte et Schopenhauer face au scepticisme de Schulze, E. Brandão.- Building without a Foundation: On the Equating of Enlightenment with Scepticism in Post-Revolutionary French Thought, F. Brahami.- Scepticisme et Lumières selon Lamennais, P. Knee.

"This volume is another instance of the enduring influence of Richard Popkin's pioneering work on the history of modern skepticism. ... the volume as a whole is a welcome addition to the literature on modern skepticism. ... The present collection is clear proof that scholarship on the history and philosophical significance of modern skepticism is as vigorous as ever." (Diego E. Machuca, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 53 (3), July, 2015)