During the summer of 1986 one of the co-editors was a fellow at the
Summer Institute in Epistemology held at the University of Colorado in
Boulder. It was there that the idea for this volume was born. It was
clear from the discussions taking place at the i Institute that works
such as Robert Nozick's Philosophical Explanations and Barry 2 Stroud's
The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism were beginning to have an
impact and it was also clear that the debate over the issues surrounding
skepticism had not gone away nor were they about to go away. Thinking
that a new crop might be ready for harvest, the co-editors sent out a
letter of inquiry to a long list of potential contributors. The letter
elicited an overwhelmingly positive response to our inquiry from
philosophers who were either writing something on skepticism at the time
or who were willing to write something specifically for our volume.
Still others told us that they had recently written something and if we
were to consider previously published manuscripts they would permit us
to consider their already published work. Out of all this material, the
co-editors have put together the present collection. We believe that
this anthology is not only suitable for graduate seminars but for
advanced undergraduate classes as well.