From Pyrrho to Sextus Empiricus: The Philosophical Roots of Postmodern Political Theory in Ancient Greek Skepticism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My overall inmpression is that the text is well written and its style is adequate. However, there are some tiny modification I would suggest. At line 76, you are writing: "Ultimately, the ultimate point..." which is a tautology, please avoid it. Lines 93-95: 'Perhaps the most important task of postmodern reason is precisely this: ...As Richard Rorty, who does not hesitate to describe himself as a “postmodernist,” puts it, “doubting the masters of doubt.” (1983: 585)' - why do you use 3 points before the word "As"? I suggest you to delete them. Lines 202-203: 'At this point, the Pyrrhonian philosopher’s advice is to achieve "ataraxia" (a state of tranquility or peace of mind) through "epoché" (the suspension of judgment) (Empiricus, 1955: 6-8)': I would suggest the use of the original Greek alphabet in both cases. Line 246: " (Empiricus,1955: 17 and 20)" - a space is missing between Empiricus and 1955. Line 263: erroneus typing of Feyerabend's name ("Feyereband"). Line 267: "– I could list them indefinitely." - I would suggest the omission of that part of the full phrase. Line 396: a tab space should be changed into a normal space. 

As for the context, the article is clear and well argumented. With these really minor modifications I think you have done an excellent job.

Author Response

Comment1: At line 76, you are writing: "Ultimately, the ultimate point..." which is a tautology, please avoid it. 

Response1:  Corrected in the context of the sentence's semantic integrity.

Comment 2: Lines 93-95: 'Perhaps the most important task of postmodern reason is precisely this: ...As Richard Rorty, who does not hesitate to describe himself as a “postmodernist,” puts it, “doubting the masters of doubt.” - why do you use 3 points before the word "As"? I suggest you to delete them.

Response 2: Three dots were deleted.

Comment3: Lines 202-203: 'At this point, the Pyrrhonian philosopher’s advice is to achieve "ataraxia" (a state of tranquility or peace of mind) through "epoché" (the suspension of judgment) (Empiricus, 1955: 6-8)': I would suggest the use of the original Greek alphabet in both cases. 

Response 3: The Greek originals of the words were added.

Comment4:  Line 246: " (Empiricus,1955: 17 and 20)" - a space is missing between Empiricus and 1955. 

Response 4: The relevant correction has been made.

Comment5: Line 263: erroneus typing of Feyerabend's name ("Feyereband").

Response5: The relevant correction has been made.

Comment6: Line 267: "– I could list them indefinitely." - I would suggest the omission of that part of the full phrase.

Response6: The relevant section was omitted from the sentence.

Comment 7: Line 396: a tab space should be changed into a normal space. 

Response7: The relevant correction has been made.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Article title: From Pyrrho to Sextus Empiricus: The Philosophical Roots of 2 Postmodern Political Theory in Ancient Greek Skepticism

What is it about?

This is a well-structured article. It argues that Skepticism, and in particular Pyrrhonism, manifests itself in postmodern political theory as reflected in Chantal Mouffe’s radical democracy project and Ulrich Beck’s art of doubt.

Some ideas for improvement:

1. In page 3: Lyotard, cited by Best and Kellner, 1991: 177-178. If Lyotard is cited through a secondary source, the authors must specify which source Best and Kellner used (a text -which one?, an interview, etc.)
2. Titles in quotation marks? ("Answer to the Question: What is Postmodernism?", "The Postmodern Condition", Glenn Ward's book "Postmodernism", Robert Nisbet, in his comprehensive book "A History of the Idea of Progress", and so on.) Many book titles appear in quotation marks instead of being written in italics, as is customary. This is unconventional. In fact, the authors use them inconsistently throughout the article. In the section on politics, books appear in italics (for example, Mouffe and Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy). This requires revision.
3. It seems that the author/authors are using a translated version of Lyotard, Return to Posmodernity, 2017 (neither the original nor the English version), but the translator is not indicated. If the paragraphs have been translated into English by the authors themselves, perhaps they should specify this (e.g., “The translation is mine/ours”).
4. Typos:

Page 4. “The Sceptics, then, were constantly engaged e in overthrowing the dogmas of all schools, but enuntiated none themselves”.  

Page 9. “living” “corpse”… These two words are a single expression, so why are they separated by different quotation marks?

Page 13. Nietzsche’s quote: “great intellects are sceptieal.”

5. In page 6: When presenting Empiricus' arguments against dogmatism, the authors use bullet points and then copy and paste literal quotes from the reference. (2.1. Differences in the Animal Kingdom. And the same with 2.4. Situations (Conditions), and 2.5. Locations, Distances and Places, 2.6. Mixtures, 2.7. Quantity and Quality, 2.8. Relativity, 2.9. Frequency or Rarity, 2.10. Myths, Traditions, Customs, Laws, etc.) Copying and pasting is not valid here. Authors are supposed to summarize if the complete list of arguments against dogmatism is necessary for the article's line of thought, which I do not believe to be the case. They could highlight the most prominent and relevant arguments for the article's topic.
6. I don’t see the need for so many quotes with bullet points, like in page 11:

• “We will fight against his ideas but we will not question his right to defend them” (Mouffe, 1993: 4).
• “Democratic consensus can be envisaged only as a conflictual consensus. Democratic debate is not a deliberation aimed at reaching the one rational solution to be accepted by all, but a confrontation among adversaries. (…) Democratic consensus can be envisaged only as a conflictual consensus. Democratic debate is not a deliberation aimed at reaching the one rational solution to 475 be accepted by all, but a confrontation among adversaries." (Mouffe, 1999: 5).

These quotations, if necessary, should be merged with the author's words. The first quotation can easily be included in the previous paragraph. Or, at the very least, they should be reduced to a single quotation.

7. In page 13, the quote ("The treatises by Sextus, published at …) must be separated from the next paragrap (Thus, keeping the radical skepticism of postmodern political…)

Recommendation

This is a very interesting article. The topic is highly relevant to today's “multipolar world.” The article maintains a logical and coherent line of thought. I recommend its publication once the issues mentioned above have been addressed.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
We thank you for your positive feedback and criticism regarding our work. We have outlined the changes we have made in response to your suggestions below. We thank you very much and wish you all the best in your work. Best regards.

Comments 1: In page 3: Lyotard, cited by Best and Kellner, 1991: 177-178. If Lyotard is cited through a secondary source, the authors must specify which source Best and Kellner used (a text -which one?, an interview, etc.)

Response 1: Lyotard's relevant article was found and added as a footnote. However, it was not added to the bibliography.

Comments2: Titles in quotation marks? ("Answer to the Question: What is Postmodernism?", "The Postmodern Condition", Glenn Ward's book "Postmodernism", Robert Nisbet, in his comprehensive book "A History of the Idea of Progress", and so on.) Many book titles appear in quotation marks instead of being written in italics, as is customary. This is unconventional. In fact, the authors use them inconsistently throughout the article. In the section on politics, books appear in italics (for example, Mouffe and Laclau, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy). This requires revision.

Response2: The book names in the main text of the article have been corrected in italics.

Comment3: It seems that the author/authors are using a translated version of Lyotard, Return to Posmodernity, 2017 (neither the original nor the English version), but the translator is not indicated. If the paragraphs have been translated into English by the authors themselves, perhaps they should specify this (e.g., “The translation is mine/ours”).

Response3: The relevant book consists of compilations published in Turkish. In this book, an article by Lyotard titled Return to Postmodernism has been translated. However, we could not access the original article. The translation was done by us. We added this information in the sixth footnote. The link of the book is below.

https://www.kitapyurdu.com/kitap/modernizmin-seruveni-bir-temel-metinler-seckisi-18401990/382056.html&filter_name=enis+batur+modernizm

Comments4: 

Page 4. “The Sceptics, then, were constantly engaged e in overthrowing the dogmas of all schools, but enuntiated none themselves”.  

Page 9. “living” “corpse”… These two words are a single expression, so why are they separated by different quotation marks?

Page 13. Nietzsche’s quote: “great intellects are sceptieal.”

Response 4: The relevant corrections have been made.

Comments5: In page 6: When presenting Empiricus' arguments against dogmatism, the authors use bullet points and then copy and paste literal quotes from the reference. (2.1. Differences in the Animal Kingdom. And the same with 2.4. Situations (Conditions), and 2.5. Locations, Distances and Places, 2.6. Mixtures, 2.7. Quantity and Quality, 2.8. Relativity, 2.9. Frequency or Rarity, 2.10. Myths, Traditions, Customs, Laws, etc.) Copying and pasting is not valid here. Authors are supposed to summarize if the complete list of arguments against dogmatism is necessary for the article's line of thought, which I do not believe to be the case. They could highlight the most prominent and relevant arguments for the article's topic.

Response5: Since this is the only book by Empiricus Piron, we wanted the quotations to be predominant. If we remove these quotations, we see a risk of deviating from the logic of the work. Therefore, we did not make any changes in this section.

Comments6: I don’t see the need for so many quotes with bullet points, like in page 11:

• “We will fight against his ideas but we will not question his right to defend them” (Mouffe, 1993: 4).
• “Democratic consensus can be envisaged only as a conflictual consensus. Democratic debate is not a deliberation aimed at reaching the one rational solution to be accepted by all, but a confrontation among adversaries. (…) Democratic consensus can be envisaged only as a conflictual consensus. Democratic debate is not a deliberation aimed at reaching the one rational solution to 475 be accepted by all, but a confrontation among adversaries." (Mouffe, 1999: 5).

These quotations, if necessary, should be merged with the author's words. The first quotation can easily be included in the previous paragraph. Or, at the very least, they should be reduced to a single quotation.

Response6: We agree with you. However, sometimes it is necessary to increase the number of such quotations to give the article more weight. We kept it as it is because combining it with other comments could lead to a deviation from the topic.

Comments7: In page 13, the quote ("The treatises by Sextus, published at …) must be separated from the next paragrap (Thus, keeping the radical skepticism of postmodern political…)

Response7: The relevant correction has been made.