This project aims at establishing and exploring the relation between scepticism (both as an attitude and as a tradition) and political conservatism from a philosophical standpoint. Though the historical consideration and analysis of both attitudes and traditions (and, of course, of their convergence) is fundamental to understand the nature of that relation, we are far from restricting our purpose in this project to it. For we aim mainly at determining the modalities of existence of that relation in contemporary times and at reflecting upon them and their implications. As this project concerns the intersection of two lines of research, there are two important aspects of it that must be highlighted. One is that it concerns the study of what we believe is a relevant dimension of the philosophical identity of a main contemporary political current, conservatism. The second aspect is that this project, in a way, inserts itself in a relatively recent albeit not too prolific tradition in philosophical studies, the one bearing upon the relation of scepticism and political thought.
The team will in the first place narrow the list of specific theories and philosophers pertaining to either tradition to be studied, taking into account the specificity of their link to the traditions of scepticism and conservatism, thus trying to cover a comprehensive consideration of the main types of one and the other in modern thought. In a second phase the team will establish a list of notions, problems and positions concerning the aforementioned issues. After the confrontation of the results thus obtained, the team will develop the analysis of those notions and problems. It will eventually determine the interplaying of scepticism and conservatism in regard to the studied issues, trying to assess the philosophical implications of that interplaying.