Even if specific pieces of research (on the sources or on individual authors, such as Pico, Agrippa, Erasmus, Montaigne, Sanches etc.) have given and are still producing significant results on Renaissance scepticism, an overall synthesis comprising the entire period has not been achieved yet. No predetermined idea of that complex historical subject that is Renaissance scepticism underlies this book, and even less we want to sacrifice the complexity of movements, personalities, tendencies and interpretations to any sort of a priori unity of theme. We acknowledge unhesitatingly that we had always thought of "scepticisms" in the plural, and believe that the different contexts (philosophical, religious, cultural) in which these forms grew up must also be taken into account. Furthermore, given the transversal nature and provocative character of the sceptical challenge, this book contains essays also on philosophers who, without being sceptics and sometimes engaged in fighting scepticism, nevertheless took up its challenge.

The main authors considered in this book are: Vives, Castellio, Agrippa, Pedro de Valencia, Pico, Sanchez, Montaigne, Charron, Bruno, Bacon, and Campanella. The various essays in the book show the relevance of the philosophical thought of authors little known by the general public and put in new perspective important aspects of the thought of some of the great thinkers of the Renaissance.

Autorentext

Gianni Paganini is currently Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Piedmont (Vercelli), he studied Bayle's thought, history of modern scepticism, libertinism and Hobbes's philosophy. Editor of: La filosofia della seconda metà del Novecento (Piccin/Vallardi 1998); The Return of Scepticism. From Hobbes and Descartes to Bayle (Kluwer, 2003). Author of: Pierre Bayle (La Nuova Italia, 1981), Theophrastus redivivus (with G. Canziani, La Nuova Italia, 2 vols., 1981-82), Les philosophies clandestines à l'âge classique (PUF 2005), Skepsis. Le Débat des modernes sur le scepticisme (Vrin, forthcoming).

José R. Maia Neto received his MA in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in 1987, and his Ph.D in Philosophy from Washington University in Saint Louis in 1991. Currently he is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Author of Machado de Assis, the Brazilian Pyrrhonian (Purdue U. P., 1994), The Christianization of Pyrrhonism (International Archives for Intellectual History, Kluwer, 1995), and co-editor, with Richard H. Popkin, of Skepticism: An Anthology (Prometheus, 2007).

Inhalt
Before Reading Sextus.- Renaissance Pyrrhonism: A Relative Phenomenon.- Self-Knowledge, Scepticism and the Quest for A New Method: Juan Luis Vives on Cognition and the Impossibility of Perfect Knowledge.- Scepticism, Reformation and Counter-Reformation.- The Issue of Reformation Scepticism Revisited: What Erasmus and Sebastian Castellio Did or Did Not Know.- Tutius Ignorare Quam Scire: Cornelius Agrippa and Scepticism.- Pedro De Valencia'S Academica and Scepticism in Late Renaissance Spain.- Four Renaissance Sceptics.- Inter Alias Philosophorum Gentium Sectas, Et Humani, Et Mites: Gianfrancesco Pico and the Sceptics.- Humanus Animus Nusquam Consistit: Doctor Sanchez'S Diagnosis of the Incurable Human Unrest and Ignorance.- Montaigne and Plutarch: A Scepticism that Conquers the Mind.- Charron's Academic Sceptical Wisdom.- Three Reactions to Scepticism.- Giordano Bruno on Scepticism.- The Sceptical Evaluation of Technê and Baconian Science.- Tommaso Campanella: The Reappraisal and Refutation of Scepticism.