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The ancient Greek philosophy of Pyrrhonian skepticism spread across a wide spectrum of disciplines in the 1600s, casting a shadow over the European learned world. The early modern skeptics expressed doubt concerning the existence of an objective reality independent of human perception. They also questioned long-standing philosophical assumptions and, at times, undermined the foundations of political, moral, and religious authorities. How did eighteenth-century scholars overcome this skeptical crisis of confidence to usher in the so-called Age of Reason? In The Specter of Skepticism in the Age of Enlightenment, Anton Matytsin describes how skeptical rhetoric forced philosophers to formulate the principles and assumptions that they found to be certain or, at the very least, highly probable. In attempting to answer the deep challenge of philosophical skepticism, these thinkers explicitly articulated the rules for attaining true and certain knowledge and defined the boundaries beyond which human understanding could not venture.

Rationalism. --- Skepticism --- Enlightenment. --- Knowledge, Theory of --- Religion --- Belief and doubt --- Deism --- Free thought --- Realism --- Scepticism --- Unbelief --- Agnosticism --- Aufklärung --- Eighteenth century --- Philosophy, Modern --- Rationalism --- History --- Aufklärung. --- Mouvement des Lumières. --- Rationalisme --- Rationalismus. --- Scepticisme --- Skepticism. --- 1700-1799.