Customer Reviews

The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This little book tells the story of the most important turning point in the history of Western thinking. That it is full of surprises, shows how widely misunderstood is the subject it treats. One of the most important things it demonstrates, without necessarily meaning to, is how radical skepticism has historically been an ally, rather than an enemy, of religion, and an enemy, rather than an ally, of science.

Popkin is the undisputed master of this subject, and this book is filled with summaries and precious exerpts of works no longer accessible to most of us, and is worth buying for that reason alone.

Mr. Hennessey finds fault in Popkin's candor. Better that we read him under illusion? There can be no certain neutral position in these matters, given their very nature. That said, and as a sceptic, I find myself returning to Popkin whom I first read (without much comprehension) in 1968. I was 14, in a boarding school run by Dominican fathers, and found the original Popkin text (Erasmus to Descarte) in a public library. Those were different times. My copy of the hardcover, long out of print, still bears my marginalia- perhaps juvenalia. I do know that Popkin's exposition of Descarte's Devil Hypothesis changed my life. I came to find the following volumes Popkin promised in his preface of 1963. I believe the Savanrola to Bayle is the successor volume?

I agree with earlier reviewers that it is difficult to understand the last 500 years of Western tradition without at least a cursory understanding of the challenge and crises posed by scepticism. We live in an age of false faith; emotional declarations, tearful epiphanies in the oews- or rolling on the floors. If this is faith.....

Richard Popkin's book is obviously the definitive word on the subject in the English language. It is massively researched and well written. For me, it provides a gold mine of information in trying to trace the beginning of the enlightenment, which led to the french revolution, and has undermined Western culture ever since.

However, I am concerned about Popkin's bias, which he freely admits to in the Introduction, on page xxiii. He says: "Like the sceptics who will considered here, i believe that doubts can be cast on any such dogmatic claims and that such claims ultimately rest on some element of faith rather than evidence." This, too, is a dogmatic statement; therefore, doubt can be cast on it, and it ultimately rests on an act of faith.

Popkin goes on: "My sympathies are on the side of the sceptics i have been studying." Professor Popkin is to be congratulated for his candor, but these "sympathies" color the whole book, whether consciously or subconsciously.