Is Buddhism’s attitude towards accepted forms of knowledge sceptical? Are Pyrrhonian scepticism and classical Buddhist scholasticism related in their respective applications and expressions of doubt? In what way and to what degree is Critical Buddhism an offshoot of modern scepticism? Questions such as these as well as related issues are explored in the present collection, which brings together examinations of systematic doubt in the traditions of Buddhism from a variety of perspectives. What results from the perceptive observations and profound analytical (...) insights of the seven essays is a rich and multi-faceted picture of two families of philosophical systems—scepticism and Buddhism—that seem both akin and at odds, both related and distant at the same time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Montaigne and the Coherence of EclecticismPierre ForceSince the publication of Pierre Hadot's essays on ancient philosophy by Arnold Davidson in 1995,2 Michel Foucault's late work on "the care of the self"3 has appeared in a new light. We now know that Hadot's work was familiar to Foucault as early as the 1950s.4 It is also clear that Foucault's notion of "techniques of the self" is very close to what (...) Hadot calls "spiritual exercises." At the same time, there are important differences between the views of these two philosophers, and Hadot has often expressed his regret that Foucault's untimely death prevented them from exploring these differences.5 One important point of disagreement was the status of eclecticism. In Foucault's interpretation of ancient philosophy, the "constitution of the self" implied a personal choice among disparate philosophical references: "Writing as a personal exercise done by the self and for the self, is an art of disparate truth."6 In a 1989 article Hadot argued from a historical point of view that, so far as Stoicism and Epicureanism were concerned, [End Page 523] eclecticism had no place in a mature practice of philosophy. Foucault's favorite example, Seneca's Letters to Lucilius, in which Stoic arguments were invoked along with Epicurean arguments, was a work for beginners. In a mature practice of Stoicism, one would stick to the arguments of the Stoic school, choose them for their coherence, and instead of trying to forge a spiritual identity for oneself through writing, one would "liberate oneself from one's individuality in order to raise oneself up to universality."7 Hadot added that "it is only in the New Academy—in the person of Cicero, for instance—that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment."8 This discussion of Foucault may give the impression that Hadot was somewhat dismissive of eclecticism. Yet in a 2001 interview Hadot claimed that he had always admired Cicero's intellectual independence, and he proposed a reappraisal "of an attitude that has always had a bad reputation: eclecticism."9Something very similar is a stake in the work of Alexander Nehamas, as Lanier Anderson and Joshua Landy showed in their study of his Art of Living. In the conception of philosophy as a "way of life" (Hadot) or "care of the self" (Foucault) or "self-fashioning" (Nehamas), a central issue is the relationship between theoretical coherence and the coherence of the person who theorizes. Elaborating on Nehamas's chapter on Montaigne, Anderson and Landy argue that there is a move in Montaigne away from doctrinal coherence and towards a coherence of the self. As they put it, "the harmonious whole Montaigne commends [... ] is not a coherent body of fact or theory; it is the unified self of the theorizer."10 Anderson and Landy show that this brings up all kinds of difficulties: can this unified self be other than a fiction? If that is the case, how can philosophy be a way of life? Nehamas's answer is very much in the spirit of the late Foucault: there is a coherence of the self in Montaigne, and this coherence is the product of writing as a philosophical activity. The self is fashioned through writing.Because Montaigne writes in the ancient tradition of philosophy as a way of life, one may recall Hadot's suggestion that Foucault's notion of [End Page 524] "writing the self" is an intriguing but historically inaccurate description of ancient philosophical practice. But perhaps Hadot agrees with Foucault after all, since in his most recent interviews, he speaks favorably of eclecticism, a notion that is central to Foucault's analysis of self-fashioning through writing. The case of Montaigne is particularly interesting for these purposes, not only because the Essays seem to be the prototypical example of "writing the self," but also because eclecticism is both discussed and practiced throughout the Essays. I propose to take a fresh look at this issue by investigating the status of eclecticism in Montaigne's Essays. This must start with an examination of the philosophical tradition most closely associated with... (shrink)

Atheism is skeptical towards gods, and atheology advances philosophical positions defending the reasonableness of that rejection. The history of philosophy encompasses many unorthodox and irreligious movements of thought, and these varieties of unbelief deserve more exegesis and analysis than presently available. Going back to philosophy’s origins, two primary types of atheology have dominated the advancement of atheism, yet they have not cooperated very well. Materialist philosophies assemble cosmologies that leave nothing for gods to do, while skeptical philosophies find conceptions of (...) god to be too unintelligible or unsupported by evidence to warrant credibility. The origins and genealogies of these two atheologies are sketched and compared over many centuries down to present-day atheism, which still displays signs of this internecine divide between confident naturalists and agnostic skeptics. (shrink)

RESUMEN Los estudios actuales sobre la mentira priman su lado epistémico y desatienden los aspectos morales. Tal distinción es clara en los intentos de diferenciar la mentira de la intención de engañar, y tienen como contrapartida una concepción de la verdad realista. Por ello, las interpretaciones que cuestionan o minimizan la existencia de la Verdad tienden a ser rechazadas, y parece que tampoco podrían abordar satisfactoriamente la mentira. En este artículo cuestionaremos dicha asunción, mostrando cómo un autor del Renacimiento, Michel (...) de Montaigne, sostiene una perspectiva "negadora" de la verdad y critica la mentira, precisamente destacando su dimensión moral. ABSTRACT Current studies on lying emphasize its epistemic side and neglect the moral aspects. Such a distinction is clear in the attempts to distinguish lying from the intention to deceive and has as a counterpart a realistic conception of truth. Therefore, interpretations that question the existence of truth, or that minimize it, tend to be rejected, and it seems that they could not satisfactorily address the lie either. In this article we will question this assumption, showing how a Renaissance author, Michel de Montaigne, maintains a "denying" perspective of truth while criticizing the lie, precisely by highlighting its moral dimension. (shrink)

Resumen En las siguientes páginas adoptaremos la perspectiva que concibe la reforma de las ciencias de Francis Bacon como un método terapéutico del cultivo de las facultades intelectuales. Ampliaremos la perspectiva de esta línea de investigación del pensamiento baconiano con la distinción de tres terapias renacentistas del alma : la terapia de Eros, sostenida por filósofos platónicos del Renacimiento; la terapia del escepticismo, propuesta por Michel de Montaigne, y la terapia del propio Bacon, tal y como se encuentra en su (...) The Advancement of Learning y en el libro I del Novum organum. Describiremos cada una de estas teorías, expondremos sus principales propuestas filosóficas y exploraremos cómo se oponen entre sí. Por último, con la comparación de estas tres terapias renacentistas del alma buscamos lograr una mejor comprensión del nuevo método de Bacon para el conocimiento humano, dentro de sus propios contextos intelectuales.In the following pages we view Francis Bacon's Reform of sciences as a therapeutic method for the improvement of the intellectual faculties. We broaden the scope of this interpretive line of Bacon's thought by distinguishing three competing therapies of the soul during the Renaissance : the Therapy of Eros, maintained by Renaissance platonic philosophers; the Therapy of skepticism, proposed by Michel de Montaigne, and the Therapy of Bacon himself, as stated in his The Advancement of Learning as well as in the Novum organum, Book I. We describe each of these theories, showing their main philosophical tenets and how they oppose to each other. Finally, by comparing these three Renaissance therapies of the soul we aim to achieve a better comprehension of Bacon's new method for human knowledge in its own intellectual contexts. (shrink)