Abstract
Philosophical skepticism takes two distinct forms in the ancient Greek and Roman tradition, but only one of those forms has an afterlife in the Renaissance. Renaissance skepticism refers primarily to the revitalization of dogmatic skeptical argumentation in the service of religious truth, on the one hand, and the disavowal of a less assertive form of classical skepticism, on the other. Ancient philosophical skepticism inspired Renaissance thinkers who had already accepted religious truth on the basis of a fundamental faith in divine revelation, including Jewish rabbis preaching in Italy and Christian authors battling scholastic Aristotelianism in France. Ancient skeptical argumentation became grist for the religious mill of proclaiming the superiority of religious truth over the doctrines of philosophy.
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Snyder, C.E. (2018). Skepticism, Renaissance. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1129-1
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Skepticism in the Renaissance: Short Overview- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1129-2
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Skepticism, Renaissance- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1129-1