DOUBTANDITSNAMES

Doubt and Its Names

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'This project deals with a root of Western culture: doubt. Its chief aim is produce a history of Renaissance doubt by comparing the professional philosophers’ treatment of doubt to a wider range of contemporary sceptical attitudes. It will single out a select group of concepts of sceptical interest – such as doubt, uncertainty, conjecture, and so on – from well-known Renaissance sources that belong to an eminently ‘conjectural’ discipline such as philology, or more precisely textual criticism. The proposed research aims at identifying the sceptical elements within philology by shedding new light on humanist editorial practices (e.g., critical apparatus, running commentaries, etc.). It will focus on the exact conditions which led outstanding Renaissance philologists such as Angelo Poliziano and Erasmus of Rotterdam, Lorenzo Valla and Beatus Rhenanus, to name only a few, to suspend judgment about a controversial text. This project embraces a strongly interdisciplinary method. Besides textual criticism, it will explore doubt in other non-philosophical domains, such as medicine, law, and history, in order to point out both theoretical connections and historical interactions between these disciplines, and map out doubt and its names in the early modern period. The concrete aim of the project is to produce a monograph entitled ‘Doubt and its names’.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

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.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

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.