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1 Skepticism in the Philosophical Tradition Leonie Pawlita Staging Doubt Leonie Pawlita Staging Doubt Skepticism in Early Modern European Drama This book is published in cooperation with the project DramaNet, funded by the European Research Council ISBN 978-3-11-066055-5 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-066058-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-066054-8 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019945619 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de © 2019 Leonie Pawlita, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com. Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck Cover illustration: photodeedooo/iStock/Thinkstock www.degruyter.com In memory of my father Acknowledgments This book is the revised and translated version of my doctoral dissertation, Skeptizismus im europäischen Drama der Frühen Neuzeit: Untersuchungen zu Dramentexten von Shakespeare, Calderón, Lope de Vega, Rotrou und Cervantes, which was accepted at Freie Universität Berlin in 2015 and written within the framework of the European Research Council Advanced Grant Project “Early Modern European Drama and the Cultural Net (DramaNet)” at Freie Universität Berlin. I am thankful to the European Research Council for its financial support. My deep gratitude goes to my doctoral advisors, Prof. Joachim Küpper and Prof. Susanne Zepp. Their unwavering support, encouragement, and confidence in my work, alongside their academic sharpness and enthusiasm, inspiring criti- cism, and fruitful advice, have accompanied and helped shape my academic ca- reer and research for many years. I am thoroughly thankful to them. Prof. Stephanie Bung, Dr. Sven Thorsten Kilian, and Prof. Claudia Olk partici- pated in the examining committee, for which I am very thankful, too. Their questions and discussion have greatly enriched this book. I would also like to thank my former colleagues in the DramaNet research team as well as the par- ticipants in the research colloquium at the Institute for Romance Languages and Literatures at Freie Universität Berlin for stimulating discussions. At the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I am enjoying an inspiring, vibrant, and supportive research environment, for which I am likewise very grateful. I owe particular gratitude to the society’s former director, Prof. Ruth HaCohen, as well as its current one, Prof. Yigal Bronner. My great thanks are also due to many of the Buber fellows for both horizon-broadening conversations and aca- demic exchange, as well as for a great deal of support and friendship. In addition, I wish to express my deep thanks to Prof. Ruth Fine, who gener- ously welcomed me at the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the Hebrew University and who has mentored and in so many ways sup- ported me ever since. This book has benefited greatly from Fray Hochstein’s thorough editing of the English translation. I am very grateful for her incisive and stimulating work and support. My sincere thanks also go to De Gruyter Publishing. I am very thankful to my parents who have always given me their support. My most profound thanks go to my partner, family, and friends for their pa- tience, backing, and love. Finally, a very special credit to a very special cast in my life for always enriching it, in order of their appearance: Frida, Luk, Telmo, Tim, Bruno, Bele, Mauro. Open Access. © 2019 Leonie Pawlita, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110660586-201 Contents Acknowledgments VII Introduction 1 1 Skepticism in the Philosophical Tradition 7 1.1 On Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism 7 1.2 Skepticism in the Early Modern Period 21 1.2.1 Michel de Montaigne 25 1.2.2 Francisco Sánchez’ Quod nihil scitur 36 1.2.3 René Descartes and Skeptical Philosophy 50 2 On Skepticism in Shakespeare’s Hamlet 72 3 Aspects of Skepticism in Calderón’s La vida es sueño 102 3.1 Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s comedia La vida es sueño (1636) 102 3.2 On Calderón’s auto sacramental La vida es sueño 151 4 Aspects of Skepticism in the Genesius Plays by Lope de Vega and Jean de Rotrou 176 4.1 Lope de Vega, Lo fingido verdadero (c. 1608/1621) 176 4.2 Jean de Rotrou, Le Véritable Saint Genest (1645–46/1647) 252 4.3 Desfontaines, L’Illustre Comédien ou le Martyre de Saint Genest (1645) 285 5 Cervantes, Entremés del Retablo de las maravillas 311 Conclusions 362 References 365 Introduction The resurgence of ancient skepticism in the 16th and 17th centuries is one of the most striking and influential phenomena in the cultural history of the Early Modern era. The re-emergence of this school of thought during this period stemmed not only from a humanist fascination with ancient literature and philos- ophy, but also must be understood against the background of a time marked by massive change and the loss of hitherto valid certainties. Above all, the discovery of new continents that began in 1492 shook the very foundations of what Europeans knew about the world. They were confronted with previously un- known lands populated by people with unfamiliar cultures, knowledge, and be- liefs. In the physical realm, the discovery of America and the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation (1519–1522) of the globe, followed by the theories and findings of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, proving that the earth was round and did not occupy the center of the universe, led to fundamental doubts about the reliability of sensory perception and toppled Aristotelian epistemology. It is this question- ing of the reliability of the senses that is one of the main pillars of skepticism. In the spiritual realm, the Reformation, with its questioning of ecclesiastical author- ity and ‘religious truth,’ dislodged the authority of the Church as a mediator of certainty – an authority that had been monumentally, solidly, unchallenged for centuries. Once shaken, the cracks continued to expand, growing ever wider with the humanist rediscovery of the diversity of ancient thought and the expan- sion of philosophical discourse in the 16th century. Aristotle was joined by Plato and Neo-Platonism, as well as the Hellenistic schools of philosophy of the Stoa and of Epicurus. All became important points of reference in Renaissance thought. Although skepticism is not an isolated phenomenon in this discursive field, it became the dominant and influential trend from the 16th well into the 17th century. In the face of a developing plurality in the fields of science, philoso- phy, and religion, especially in light of the continuous and ongoing new discov- eries taken place at the time, the arguments of the skeptics appear to be a way of countering the uncertainty of the period. The dissemination of Pyrrhonism in Early Modern Europe began with the pub- lication in 1562 of a Latin translation of Greek physician and philosopher Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism. A complete Latin edition of his works was pub- lished seven years later, in 1569, giving a further boost to its reception. However, discussions on skepticism in the second half of the 16th century differ markedly fromthoseofthe17thcentury.Theescalationofeconomic,social,ideological, and power-political conflicts, as well as the wider crisis with the Aristotelian con- cept of science, spurred anti-skeptic discourses. In his fundamental study, The Open Access. © 2019 Leonie Pawlita, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110660586-001 2 Introduction History of Scepticism (first published in 1960), Richard H. Popkin, an eminent his- torian of philosophy, states that during the early 17th century there was a comprehensive “crise pyrrhonienne.”1 During this period wars of faith were rag- ing throughout Europe, and most states were experiencing profound internal po- litical unrest and economic decay. The urge for discursive renovation intensified, and discussions refuting skepticism and providing an answer to the question of certainty became increasingly virulent. René Descartes’ (1596–1650) epistemologi- cal model, which, along with Francis Bacon’s(1561–1626) empiricism, is regarded as the cornerstone of philosophical modernity, was to become the most powerful enterprise for ‘overcoming the skeptical crisis.’ Ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism was ubiquitous in Early Modern culture, a phenomenon prevalent in almost all discourses, throughout the whole of 1 Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle, 3rd ed., Oxford/ New York 2003, p. 43 and passim. Popkin laid the foundation for modern research into Early Modern skepticism and identified the important role played by the resurgence of Pyrrhonian skepticism in the development of European philosophy. Popkin’s text generated great interest and scholarly debate and has engendered numerous articles and papers on skepticism and the history of philosophical skepticism. The numerous recent publications on the topic attest to the continuing interest it arouses. As representatives, the following volumes published in the last decade shall be mentioned here (and with regard to further relevant literature, see the subse- quent chapter of this work on skepticism): Gianni Paganini/José R. Maia Neto (eds.), Renaissance Scepticisms, Dordrecht 2009; J. Maia Neto/G. Paganini/John Christian Laursen (eds.), Skepticism in the Modern Age: Building on the Work of Richard Popkin,Leiden/Boston 2009; Carlos Spoerhase/Dirk Werle/Markus Wild (eds.), Unsicheres Wissen: Skeptizismus und Wahrscheinlichkeit 1550–1850, Berlin/New York 2009; Diego Machuca (ed.), Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy, Dordrecht 2011.
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