Genia Schönbaumsfeld’s €2.5m (UKRI funded) ERC Advanced grant project seeks to break new ground by bringing Kierkegaard’s existential conception of doubt into dialogue with the contemporary mainstream, focussing on the relation between the intellectual vices, such as a lack of intellectual courage, and various forms of scepticism, both inside and outside of academia.
Doubt is thought’s despair; despair is personality’s doubt.
Genia Schönbaumsfeld and Cæcilie Varslev-Pedersen are guest editing a special issue of Philosophies on the topic of Kierkegaard, Doubt, and Virtue in a Time of Crisis! More info here:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies/special_issues/UXEDU37X30
@SotonPhilosophy
At the 2025 @HTLGIFestival @IAI_TV, Genia Schönbaumsfeld gave a fascinating talk on Wittgenstein, science, and religious belief. Watch it here: https://iai.tv/video/after-science-has-spoken?_auid=2020
We're delighted to be hosting a two-day conference from 16-17 September 2026 entitled "Radical Scepticism, Intellectual Courage, and Conspiracy Theory". You can find more information about our speakers and the event here: https://philevents.org/event/show/143398
While the ancient sceptics regarded scepticism about knowledge as a way of life, philosophers from Descartes to the present day have viewed it primarily as an intellectual problem that requires only a theoretical solution. This project intends to challenge this common assumption by focussing on a figure almost entirely overlooked by mainstream epistemology, Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard.
in particular in respect to the relation between the intellectual vices, such as a lack of intellectual courage, and various forms of scepticism. Although virtue epistemology is currently a booming topic, the connection between intellectual courage and knowledge remains unexplored, both within epistemology itself as well as in wider cultural debates.
Since radical scepticism is taken very seriously in epistemology, while conspiracy theories tend to be dismissed, this raises the questions: If something is wrong with global conspiracy theories, is something equally wrong with radical scepticism? Conversely, if we cannot dismiss radical scepticism, can we similarly not dismiss global conspiracy theories?
Never has such an investigation been more pressing than in the current pandemic, which has given rise to an unprecedented surge in conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’.
It takes courage to will to be sound, honestly and sincerely to will the true.
The €2.5 million (UKRI funded) ERC Advanced grant project (ID EP/Y029569/1), led by Prof. Genia Schönbaumsfeld and hosted by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Southampton, will run for five years and deliver ground-breaking results along three dimensions: historical (Kierkegaard’s existential response to doubt), theoretical (the relation between intellectual vice and scepticism), and applied (the relation between intellectual courage and knowledge scepticism in the wider culture).
This website is a gateway to information and news about the project, the members of the project team, workshops and major conferences, as well as to resources for researchers, students and interested members of the public.
Meet the project team
Research project outputs & selected publications by team members
Press coverage about the project
