Exuberant Skepticism

Shook is vice president for education and research at the Center for Inquiry/Transnational, which Kurtz (emeritus philosophy, State U. of New York-Buffalo) founded. Here he gathers 17 essays by Kurtz focusing on skepticism to illuminate his commitment to secular humanism and ethical and exuberant life. They are arranged in sections on reasons to be skeptical, skepticism and the non-natural, skepticism in the human world, and the once and future skeptical movement. Among specific topics are scientific method and rational skepticism, skepticism and religion, skepticism and ethical inquiry, and summing up 30 years of the Skeptical Inquirer. There is no index. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was the author or editor of more than fifty books, including The Transcendental Temptation, The Courage to Become, and Embracing the Power of Humanism, plus nine hundred articles and reviews. He was the founder and chairman of the Center for Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He appeared on many major television and radio talk shows and has lectured at universities worldwide.

John R. Shook (Amherst, NY) is vice president for education and research and a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York. He is the author of Dewey’s Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. He is the editor of Pragmatic Naturalism and Realism and, with Hugh McDonald, of F. C. S. Schiller on Pragmatism and Humanism: Selected Writings, 1891–1939, among other works.