L'iperbole del dubbio. Lo scetticismo cartesiano nella filosofia inglese tra Sei e Settecento

"L’iperbole del dubbio. Lo scetticismo cartesiano nella filosofia inglese tra Sei e Settecento" reconstructs the debates on Descartes’ hyperbolical doubt in the British philosophy from Hobbes’ Third Objections to Hume’s Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. This monograph documents the reactions to Cartesian scepticism by a long sequence of authors of major or minor relevance: this survey deals with well known thinkers such as Hobbes, Glanvill, the Cambridge Platonists, Locke, Shaftesbury, Norris, Berkeley and Hume, while encompassing also less studied authors such as Samuel Parker, Antoine Le Grand, John Sergeant, Edward Stillingfleet, Edward Howard e Andrew Baxter. The work’s method combines an accurate analysis of the texts to a theoretical assessment of the arguments proposed by the British philosophers which faced the Cartesian challenge. This research aimed to clarify the conceptual issues involved in the Cartesian attempt at eliminating radical scepticism and at founding scientific certainty. These issues mainly concern the nexus between metaphysics and theory of knowledge, but they include also theological aspects such as, for instance, the discussion on God’s veracity and on the relation between human intellect and God’s Mind. This monograph contributes to the studies on the diffusion both of scepticism and of Cartesianism in early modern philosophy and is the first general recognition of the various ways pursued by English thinkers to refute, neutralize or avoid radical doubt in order to guarantee knowledge’s certainty and reliability.