This workshop examines skepticism’s crucial yet underexplored role in Enlightenment moral and political thought. We bring together historians, philosopher and political theorists to stimulate a renewal of scholarship. Our discussions are structured around, but not limited to, Elena Zeng’s book manuscript The Politics of Belief in Enlightenment Skepticism. The manuscript traces how Hume synthesized British and French skeptical traditions to develop a distinctive approach that has wider applications to religious, moral and political issues.

The manuscript’s central argument is that Hume was the first to associate skepticism with political stability through his commitment to pluralism. Rather than viewing Humean skepticism as merely destructive, the manuscript reveals how it constructed an approach to stabilizing politics by educating public opinion and advocating institutional checks and balances.

The study makes three key interventions: it reconceptualizes the relationship between Humean skepticism and naturalism through historical contextualization; it challenges the binary Pyrrhonian-Academic categorization of skepticism; and it recovers British and French debates that reveal skepticism as multivalent strategies rather than a monolithic tradition.

By examining how skepticism coordinated faith, science, and philosophy to counteract dogmatism, Elena’s work offers new perspectives on the epistemological foundation of modern liberal politics and expands our understanding of skepticism beyond philosophy into political theory.

Registration is required.

Organizer and Author Information

Elena Yi-Jia Zeng, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Political Theory, UCHV

The Politics of Belief won Cambridge University’s 2024 Prince Consort & Thirlwall Prize and Seeley Medal for the best history dissertation of the year.

Schedule

Manuscript will be pre-circulated. Each speaker will have 25–30 minutes for their presentation, followed by Q&A.

1:30–2:30 pm: Lunch (All welcome)

2:30–4:00 pm: “The Intellectual Crisis in Enlightenment Europe”

This session will discuss Chapters 1, 2 and 6 regarding the challenge of skepticism in Britain, France and Germany. The British and French debates laid an essential foundation for Hume’s skepticism, which subsequently caused a profound impact on the development of German Idealism.

Speakers:

• Kathryn Tabb (Bard College) 
• Andrew Chignell (Princeton) 

4:00–4:20 pm: Coffee/Tea Break

4:20–6:00 pm: “Skepticism as a Pre-Condition for Free States”

This session will discuss Chapters 3–5, focusing on the role of skepticism in Hume’s criticism of religion, morality and politics.

Speakers:

• Jacqueline Taylor (University of San Francisco)
• Danielle Charette James (UNC Chapel Hill)
• Ryan Patrick Hanley (Boston College)