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Content archived on 2024-06-18

Doubt and Its Names

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Exploring doubt, then and now

An EU-funded project explored the concept of Renaissance doubt and its treatment by professional philosophers in comparison to contemporary sceptical attitudes. The study also explored doubt in non-philosophical domains, such as law, medicine and history.

Considering a sequence of contexts extending beyond continental Renaissance, the 'Doubt and its names' (DOUBTANDITSNAMES) project compared the national traditions of classical scholarship from the 18th to the 20th century. It took an interdisciplinary approach, researching beyond geographical and chronological boundaries and broadening sociological assumptions. Researchers placed the problem of scepticism against a background of philology. This helped connect the question of doubt and uncertainty in classical scholarship with the emergence of an antagonistic yet charismatic type of scholar. This typology can be related to the ancient tradition of divination and the rise of the modern academic profession. This link may shed light on how subjectivity came to be regarded as an authoritative source on textual and editorial matters. The project reviewed the emergence in classical scholarship of diverse and competing views of the dialectic between method and intuition, and procedure and talent. This was compared to other treatments of certainty and evidence, at the same time, in scientific and philosophical studies. Other project activities included attendance at seminars, workshops and lectures, and interactions with scholars and students conducting research in the field of humanities. A project-administered course on 'Early Modern Scepticism: Trends, Dissemination, Criticism' contributed to the completion of a monograph 'Doubt and Its Names'. DOUBTANDITSNAMES offered a new perspective on humanist editorial practices, and helped better identify sceptical elements within philology.

Keywords

Doubt, Renaissance, classical scholarship, scepticism, philology

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