Medieval and Early Modern Epistemology After Certainty (Volume 17

This author-meets-critics volume about Robert Pasnau’s After Certainty treats the history of epistemology, from Aristotle to the present. Pasnau presents this history as a gradual lowering of expectations regarding certain knowledge, the culmination of a sea change dating to the early-modern rejection of Aristotelian essentialism. The result, he concludes, is that contemporary epistemology is, more than any other branch of philosophy, estranged from its tradition. Pasnau’s After Certainty draws conclusions that are not just historical, but also systematic, an effort that led to a 2018 Parisian symposium to evaluate the text, collected here as a volume that stands alone as an intriguing work on the history of epistemology or together with After Certainty as an invaluable companion piece.