Scoffing at Scepticism
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This chapter focuses on Hume's Aberdonian adversaries: Thomas Reid and James Beattie. These common sense philosophers took a keen interest in the psychology of laughter and were anxious to undermine Hobbes's argument that laughter was ultimately an expression of contempt. But they never disavowed ridicule in philosophical argumentation and public debate. On the contrary, Beattie in particular championed it as an antidote to scepticism, a philosophy he deemed both absurd (and hence immune to rational refutation) and dangerously persuasive. Far from being a frivolous or uncivil mode of speech, therefore, Reid and Beattie made ridicule into a shield for the common sense understandings that held society together.
2016 ◽
Vol 14
(1)
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pp. 51-67
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2015 ◽
pp. 404-452
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1990 ◽
Vol 41
(3)
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pp. 425-442
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1981 ◽
Vol 14
(2)
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pp. 109-132
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