Richard Popkin

Richard Popkin's scholarly interest in Judaism appears relatively late in his academic career, following what he described as an "overpowering religious experience" that took place in 1956. His contributions to Jewish history are prevalently focused on the role of Marrano thinkers in early modern scepticism and in Christian messianism and millenarianism. Therefore, recent scholarship on Jewish scepticism has rightly stressed that Popkin's multifarious oeuvre lacks any serious consideration of a specifically Jewish current within the sceptical tradition, which is independent from the converso encounter with classical philosophy and Christian theology. However, in his correspondence and autobiographical writings, Popkin did acknowledge the importance of his Jewish identity in shaping his intellectual interests and directing his research on scepticism. In view of the forthcoming publication of Popkin's correspondence with Judah Goldin edited by Giuseppe Veltri, Jeremy Popkin, and Asher Salah, this conference aims to further our understanding of how Popkin's strong commitment to Judaism affected his perception of Jewish history and Jewish philosophy.

Este trabajo presenta el origen, evolución y motivos principales del escepticismo moderno a partir del co-mentario y ampliación de La historia del escepticismo desde Erasmo hasta Spino-za (1960), de Richard H. Popkins, con el objetivo de profundizar la lectura de las obras literarias de los siglos XVI y XVII.
Abstract: This work presents the origin, evolution and main motifs of modern skepticism from the commentary and expansion of The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (1960), by Richard H. Popkins, with the aim of deepening the reading of the 16th and 17th centuries literature.

After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, prophecies of an imminent destruction of Christian Spain circulated among Jews and Conversos in the Iberian peninsula. In this presentation I will investigate the connection and the exchange of prophetic and messianic themes among Christians and Jews in Early Modern Spain. I will use the prophecy of the divine punishment and destruction of Spain by the Muslims as a paradigmatic example of this interaction. Taking as a starting point the research of Marcel Bataillon, Alain Milhou, Richard Popkin and David Ruderman, I will show the Jewish messianic meaning of this prophecy in the 15th and 16th centuries. Moreover, I will point out the centrality of this prophecy in the so-called Jewish-Indian Theory, a widespread belief in the Christian orbit that claimed that the American Indians were of Jewish origins and came from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

Este trabajo presenta el origen, evolución y motivos principales del escepticismo moderno a partir del comentario y ampliación de La historia del escepticismo desde Erasmo hasta Spinoza (1960), de Richard H. Popkins, con el objetivo de profundizar la lectura de las obras literarias de los siglos XVI y XVII. This work presents the origin, evolution and main motifs of modern skepticism from the commentary and expansion of The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (1960), by Richard H. Popkins, with the aim of deepening the reading of the 16th and 17th centuries literature.

Descartes a adopté envers le scepticisme une attitude que d’aucuns parmi ses adversaires ont jugée ambiguë voire coupable. Il a recouru à des arguments sceptiques pour mettre en œuvre son célèbre doute qu’il concevait néanmoins comme l’acte inaugural d’une philosophie en quête de certitude scientifique. Descartes rejetait ainsi la fin poursuivie par les sceptiques et entendait user du doute contre le doute. Cette stratégie fondée sur un scepticisme des moyens pour combattre la fin et l’esprit même du scepticisme s’est-elle révélée pertinente? Richard Popkin a pensé que non, dans son histoire du scepticisme, et conclu à l’échec d’un Descartes « sceptique malgré lui ». Je me propose de nuancer cette thèse de manière significative, suggérant que Descartes, sceptique à un second degré, était bien conscient de la finitude de l’esprit humain et des limites assignables à la recherche de la vérité des choses telles qu’elles sont en soi.


Descartes has chosen a relationship with the skepticism that some of his opponents have found ambiguous and even guilty. He has adopted arguments borrowed from the skeptics in the implementation of his famous doubt understood as the inaugural act of a philosophy in search of scientific certainty. Therefore, he has rejected the end pursued by the skeptics since it is a question of fighting doubt by doubt in order to reach the firm ground of certainty. Now, is this skepticism of the means, put at the service of an anti-skeptic purpose, relevant? This is what Richard Popkin challenged in his History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza concluding that Descartes, “skeptical in spite of himself”’ has failed. I shall discuss this thesis to significantly nuance it, suggesting that Descartes, skeptic in the second degree, was well aware of the finitude of the human mind and of the limits of his undertaking to seek the truth of things as they are out of our thought.

Soñé un camino en la vida. René Descartes y la prehistoria del psicoanálisis. "Decidí abandonar el mundo de las letras para dirigirme al Libro del Mundo, no buscando otra ciencia que la que pudiera hallar en mí mismo." René Descartes, Discurso del Método, 1637 ‫יהוה‬ "Soy El que Soy" dice La Voz, tras la zarza ardiente, cuando Moisés pregunta a Eso que le habla cuál es Su Nombre. Los eruditos que estudian la Torá saben-porque en hebreo no existe el verbo "ser" en tiempo presente-que la traducción que acabo de escribir no es correcta, y que entonces lo que en realidad responde Eso o Ese (que luego será aludido como "Dios") es que se llama "Seré lo que Seré". Las letras hebreas del verbo que da sentido a la sentencia son las mismas que constituyen, en el texto bíblico, el Tetragrama impronunciable (que titula este apartado) del Nombre de Dios. "Ser" es, según lo que La Voz comunica en ese momento y por la eternidad del tiempo, una potestad divina. El pueblo hebreo, que había nacido como tal a partir de este diálogo plasmado en el Éxodo bíblico, engendró una bifurcación en Jesús de Nazaret. El cristianismo de mártires de los primeros siglos de nuestra era se institucionalizó, y la Institución generó díscolos, que devinieron herejes. En 1517 un monje alemán, Martín Lutero, clavó 95 tesis en la catedral de Wittenberg y la Cristiandad occidental crujió como nunca. La Iglesia y el Imperio le exigieron a Lutero que abjurase, pero él no podía abjurar: "Mi conciencia es cautiva de la palabra de Dios-dijo ante ellos-así que no sería bueno ir contra mi conciencia; por eso no puedo ni quiero retractarme de nada, ¡que Dios me ayude, amén!" Aquello que se había pronunciado ante Moisés ahora habitaba en la conciencia del monje alemán. ¿Quién afirma la sentencia? El mismo fraile. Fe en Dios que deviene fe en mi conciencia. El cristiano se autoriza a sí mismo a interpretar la Escrituras. Cisma, corte: no hay vuelta atrás. Un siglo después cierto joven francés buscará, también, la verdad en sí mismo, hasta parafrasear al divino Interlocutor de Moisés, pero-como Lutero-desde una intimidad radical: no puede haber duda alguna-anota en sus Meditaciones-de que, cada vez que la formule (o bien "mientras la pronuncie o la conciba"), la proposición "Yo soy, yo existo", es necesariamente verdadera. El Dios bíblico enuncia Su verdad (verdad del mundo, arrojada a un tiempo ilimitado) como aquella que "será lo que será"; René Descartes encuentra la primera certeza sobre el mundo en el fundamento indubitable de su propio "soy", también arrojado al devenir del tiempo.

link: http://purl.stanford.edu/ms571wr3930

ABSTRACT:

Ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism purports to offer philosophical therapy: Philosophical dogmatism is a disease which perpetuates disturbance. Pyrrhonism is a cure which brings tranquility. Through—or in—suspension of judgment, the Pyrrhonist claims to come to overcome the problems of the dogmatists, and live well just in accordance with appearances.

But perhaps Pyrrhonism is bunk: Its professed end of freedom from disturbance—ataraxia—appears insubstantial. The professed means of the attainment of this Pyrrhonian tranquility—suspension of belief—appears degenerate, if not impossible.
For example, it seems we could not live rational human lives without believing.

To explore these complaints, this work attempts, first, to construct Pyrrhonism as a pedagogy towards a radical skepticism in which the thinker may experience appearance unadulterated by dogma. And second, it attempts to bring us to undergo the pedagogy we construct. We attempt the latter, because if the Pyrrhonist is a radical skeptic, she has no theory whose factual correctness could overcome the complaints against it. Then, to appreciate the viability of Pyrrhonism, we would not look for its superior capacity to produce facts, but for its therapeutic power to produce unadulterated appearance.

In this effort at constructing an ancient skeptical pedagogy for the sake of undergoing it, we come to produce a Cartesian meditation. For example, we try, along with the Pyrrhonist, to subtract belief in the propositions of material perception and mathematical intuition for the sake of revealing appearance.

Since it seems that the Pyrrhonist could not put forward a pedagogy dogmatically, we try to be charitable, and see if we can construct, first, the Pyrrhonian pedagogy through ad hominem analysis of dogmatism, and, second, ad hominem analysis as unavoidable in rational interaction.

In the present work, the particular Pyrrhonian ad hominem analysis for a skeptical pedagogy is of Platonism: We attempt to construct Pyrrhonian suspension as a final movement in Platonic ascent towards vision. We analyze the Republic for a conception of the completion of Platonic ascent in contemplative and practical ataraxia. We go on to take seriously Socrates' suggestion in the Republic's Line and Cave that the philosopher, towards the end of her science, is given to apophasis.

In going on to examine such apophasis, we take as our exemplar the Neoplatonic remarks about the One in Plotinus' Ennead 5.3. In accordance with the pedagogy of the Republic, we pursue ascent through material and mathematical subtraction towards the principle. And in the end, we pursue analogy between Plotinian vision of the One in subtraction, and Pyrrhonian vision of appearances in suspension of belief.

The Pyrrhonists suffer an appearance of the shortcoming of language: Propositional thought appears temporally extended, but the thing we would affirm in believing it would, it seems, have to be entirely present. Likewise, for Plotinus, in the end, vision of the unified principle comes by way of a subtraction in the face of the problem of capturing simplicity in extended thought.

The Pyrrhonist claims that we may bring against our present certainty the consideration that we have come to change our minds about things we once thought obvious. Then, we should be open to the possibility that we come to disagree with ourselves in the future. Consideration of this should be enough to bring us to suspension. We pursue such skeptical consideration, and by this, understanding of how the Pyrrhonist, in subtractive vision, may act calmly and, though in suspension, still from rational activity.

We try to limn the Pyrrhonist as engaged in such activity through the Aenesidemean expression of both her lack of belief, and her lack of belief that she lacks belief, as she formulates, for the sake of subtraction towards appearance, what appear to be propositions, both in favor of the necessity and against the possibility of the proposition.

In this effort at subtraction through equipollence and suspension, we pursue appearance as it might reveal itself to the Pyrrhonist as ground in a reconstruction she might give of her practical activity of expressing herself in dialectic in this way. In turn, by pursuit of this appearance, we try to see how the Pyrrhonist's pedagogical—and so practical—activity of thinking, and speaking, and laying in the balance one thing against the other under norms against hypothesis, regress, and circularity, as well as her analysis of this activity, may be rational, in ease afforded by honesty, and yet without belief.