Ateliê doutoral/pós-doutoral da Universidade de Paris IV-Sorbonne e Universidade Federal do Paraná

Skepticism and Politics in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Friday
May 
11th
&
Saturday
May
12th


A conference at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library 
—organized by Gianni Paganini, University of Piedmont, Vercelli and John Christian Laursen, University of California, Riverside

This conference starts from the point that much of our thinking in both philosophy and politics today is an inheritance from the encounters by major philosophers such as Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Smith, and Kant with the skeptical traditions. Their work, in turn, influenced a host of minor figures such as the libertines of the seventeenth century and the political activists of the time of the French Revolution. The skeptical foundations of Hobbesian political philosophy, Cartesianism, and the clandestine writers of the seventeenth century fed into the Humean empiricism, Smithian cosmopolitanism, and Kantian political idealism of the Enlightenment. Along the way, literature and historical writing tried to make sense of the implications of skepticism for political life. All put together, we will try to bring out the political implications of philosophical skepticism in the early modern period as the foundation for understanding its continuing political implications today

Friday,  May 11th	Program Schedule:
9:30 a.m.	Morning Coffee and Registration
10:00 a.m.	Gerald W. Cloud, University of California, Los Angeles Welcome John Christian Laursen, University of California, Riverside  Gianni Paganini, University of Piedmont, Vercelli Opening Remarks Session I  Chair: Gianni Paganini, University of Piedmont, Vercelli Daniel Brunstetter, University of California, Irvine  Itineraries of a Skeptic: From Sebond to La Mothe Le Vayer Jean-Charles Darmon, Université de Versailles-Ecole normale supérieure  Skeptical and Political Questionings of the Fable: Remarks on Some Experiences of Relativist Thought in the Classical Age
12:00 p.m.	Lunch
1:30 p.m.	Session II  Chair: Joshua Dienstag, University of California, Los Angeles Gianni Paganini, University of Piedmont, Vercelli  Hobbes and the French Skeptics Sylvia Giocanti, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail To Obey the Laws and Customs of One's Country: To Live in Disorder and Barbarity. The Powerlessness of Skeptical Politics According to Samuel Sorbière Andrew Sabl, University of California, Los Angeles  David Hume: Skepticism in Politics?
4:30 p.m.	Reception
Saturday, May 12th
9:30 a.m.	Morning Coffee
10:00 a.m.	Session III  Chair: Whitney Mannies, University of California, Riverside Pierre Force, Columbia University  Skepticism and Political Economy Rodrigo Brandão, Universidade Federal do Paraná  Can a Skeptic be a Reformer? Skepticism in Morals and Politics during the Enlightenment: The Case of Voltaire
12:00 p.m.	Lunch
1:30 p.m.	Session IV Chair: Sharon Lloyd, University of Southern California Sébastien Charles, Université de Sherbrooke General Skepticism and the Political Exception: The Strange Dogmatism of Brissot de Warville in the French Revolution Michael Forster, University of Chicago The Zetetic Method and Liberalism in Kant and Herder John Christian Laursen, University of California, Riverside Karl Friedrich Stäudlin’s Diagnosis of the Political Effects of Skepticism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany
4:00 p.m.	Program concludes