Title: Scepticism and literature
Description: "'The more we enquire, the less we can resolve, ' wrote Johnson. Scepticism - a reasoned emphasis on the severe limitations of rationality - would seem to undermine the grounds of belief and action. But in some of the best eighteenth-century literature, a theoretically paralysing critique of the pretensions of reason, precept, and language went hand in hand with a vigorous intellectual, moral, and linguistic confidence. To realize philosophical scepticism as literature was effectively to transform it. Dr. Parker traces the presence of this life-giving irony in works by Pope, Hume, Sterne, and Johnson, discusses its source in Locke and its inspiration in Montaigne, and relates it more broadly to the social self-consciousness of eighteenth-century culture. The argument serves as a reminder that radical scepticism is not the invention of the late twentieth century, and that its strategies and implications have never been more interestingly explored than in the eighteenth."--Jacket.
Subjects: English literature, History, History and criticism, Intellectual life, Philosophy, Skepticism, Skepticism in literature, Pope, alexander, 1688-1744, Hume, david, 1711-1776, Sterne, laurence, 1713-1768, Johnson, samuel, 1709-1784, English literature, history and criticism, 18th century
Places: Great Britain
People: Alexander Pope (1688-1744), David Hume (1711-1776), Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Time periods: 18th century