Skepticism
Posted on 26 February 2012
Peter turns to the final major Hellenistic school, the Skeptics, beginning with Pyrrho and the question of how ancient skepticism compares to modern skepticism.
5 comments
Posted on 4 March 2012
Under Arcesilaus and Carneades, Plato’s Academy took a skeptical turn, casting doubt on the possibility of knowledge. But was their skepticism skeptical enough?
11 comments
Posted on 11 March 2012
Cicero’s philosophical works are invaluable records of Hellenistic thought. But what kind of philosopher was Cicero himself?
7 comments
Posted on 18 March 2012
Peter talks to Raphael Woolf about the method and philosophical allegiance of Cicero, focusing on the work On Ends (De Finibus).
3 comments
Posted on 25 March 2012
Sextus Empiricus, the last great ancient skeptic, expounds a radical branch of the tradition called Pyrrhonism. Peter raises some doubts about how to interpret him.
4 comments
Posted on 29 September 2013
Al-Ghazālī’s search for truth leads him to philosophy, Ash'arite theology, and ultimately the mystical tradition of Ṣūfism.
18 comments
Posted on 17 August 2014
Ideas spread to Mughal India from Iran, and prince Dārā Shikūh seeks to unite the wisdom of the Upanishads with the Koran.
9 comments
Posted on 29 May 2016
Skeptical tendences in Indian thought and responses to skepticism from the Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta schools.
3 comments
Posted on 25 December 2016
Nyāya philosophers explain how perception can bring us knowledge.
0 comments
Posted on 26 March 2017
An interview with Susan Brower-Toland covering Ockham's views on cognition, consciousness, and memory.
0 comments
Posted on 2 April 2017
The Cārvāka or Lokāyata tradition rejects the efficacy of ritual and belief in the afterlife, and restricts knowledge to the realm of sense-perception.
0 comments
Posted on 11 June 2017
Nāgārjuna founds the Mādhyamaka (“middle way”) Buddhist tradition by “relinquishing all views” and arguing that everything is “empty.”
2 comments
Posted on 25 June 2017
Nāgārjuna applies his emptiness theory to motion, change, and cognition.
2 comments
Posted on 9 July 2017
Nāgārjuna’s four-fold argument scheme, the tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi).
10 comments
Posted on 23 July 2017
A discussion with Jan Westerhoff, an expert on the great Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna, dealing with the notion of emptiness, the tetralemma, and Nāgārjuna's reception in India and Tibet.
4 comments
Posted on 13 August 2017
The debate between Nicholas of Autrecourt and John Buridan on whether it is possible to achieve certain knowledge.
3 comments
Posted on 24 September 2017
The medievals were too firm in their beliefs to entertain skeptical worries, right? Don't be so sure, as Peter learns from Dominik Perler.
5 comments
Posted on 4 February 2018
Did Indian ideas play a role in shaping ancient Greek philosophy?
29 comments
Posted on 20 October 2019
The rediscovery of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Sextus Empiricus spreads challenging ideas about chance, atomism, and skepticism.
7 comments
Posted on 19 December 2021
Was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa a dark magician, a pious skeptic, or both?
4 comments
Posted on 6 November 2022
An interview on the nature of religious tolerance, and the forms it took during the Reformation and in the thought of early modern thinkers like Locke and Leibniz.
Maria Rosa Antognazza is Professor of Philosophy at King's College London.
4 comments
Posted on 29 January 2023
The sources and scope of the skepticism of Montaigne, Charron (pictured), and Sanches.
0 comments
Posted on 12 February 2023
No doubt that we're in good hands with interview guest Henrik Lagerlund, who brings his expertise in the history of skepticism to bear on the French Renaissance. Including a look ahead to Descartes!
1 comments
Posted on 26 February 2023
Marie le Jars de Gourney, the “adoptive daughter” of Montaigne, lays claim to his legacy and argues for the equality of the sexes.
5 comments
Posted on 16 January 2011
In this episode, Peter Adamson discusses the sophists, teachers of rhetoric in ancient Athens, looking especially at the contributions of Protagoras and Gorgias.
19 comments