Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries / / John Christian Laursen, Gianni Paganini.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2015
• HerausgeberIn: Laursen, John Christian,; Paganini, Gianni,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: UCLA Clark Memorial Library Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (304 p.) :; 1 figure

In this collection, thirteen distinguished contributors examine the influence of the ancient skeptical philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus on early modern political thought. Classical skepticism argues that in the absence of certainty one must either suspend judgment and live by habit or act on the basis of probability rather than certainty. In either case, one must reject dogmatic confidence in politics and philosophy.Surveying the use of skepticism in works by Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Smith, and Kant, among others, the essays in Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries demonstrate the pervasive impact of skepticism on the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe. This volume is not just an authoritative account of skepticism's importance from the Enlightenment to the French Revolution, it is also the basis for understanding skepticism's continuing political implications.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Neither Philosophy nor Politics? The Ancient Pyrrhonian Approach to Everday Life -- 2. La Mothe Le Vayer and Political Skepticism -- 3. Hobbes and the French Skeptics -- 4. Questionnnements sceptiques et politiques de la fable: les « autres mondes » du libertinage érudit -- 5. Obeying the Laws and Customs of the Country: Living in Disorder and Barbarity. The Powerlessness of Political Skepticism According to the Discours sceptiques (1657) of Samuel Sorbière -- 6. Bernard Mandeville's Skeptical Political Philosophy -- 7. David Hume: Skepticism in Politics? -- 8. Denis Diderot and the Politics of Materialist Skepticism -- 9. Rousseau: Philosophical and Religious Skepticism and Political Dogmatism -- 10. Skepticism and Political Economy: Smith, Hume, and Rousseau -- 11. Can a Skeptic Be a Reformer? Skepticism in Morals and Politics during the Enlightenment: The Case of Voltaire -- 12. From General Skepticism to Complete Dogmatism: Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville -- 13. Carl Friedrich Stäudlin's Diagnosis of the Political Effects of Skepticism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany -- Contributors -- Index