Skepticism and Clandestine Literature: Doutes des Pyrrhoniens

Abstract

The latest studies on clandestine philosophical literature reveal the importance of this corpus to understand how skeptical tropes and lexicon were modified during the Modern Age. We will try to show it by means of an anonymous text written surely after 1711 and entitled Doutes des pyrrhoniens. First, we will present the manuscript in its most important arguments; second, we will concentrate in the eighth chapter and specially in the relationship between religion and politics; finally, we will take into account a differentiation that the author establishes between "moderate pyrrhonism" and "furious pyrrhonism" to consider its importance. Our main argument will be that the difference between these two forms of pyrrhonism is political, not epistemological. Indeed, both forms coincide in that religion is a fact of power that has nothing to do with an alleged divine revelation. The question is no longer about the truth of religion, but about whether or not it is convenient to abandon it as a regulatory component of society.