David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism
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A01=Matt Prout
Author_Matt Prout
Category=DSBH
Category=DSBJ
Category=DSK
Category=QDTK
contemporary literature
David Foster Wallace
doubt
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
philosophy
Scepticism
trust
Product details
- ISBN 9781399527231
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jun 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism examines the role of scepticism and doubt in Wallace’s work, showing that they are of fundamental importance to his writing in its form and its themes. Wallace’s work articulates a deep ambivalence about the value of scepticism, on the one hand presenting practical and moral arguments for the value of conviction and belief, while on the other hand being committed to a sceptical project of opposing certainty and dogma. On a formal level, Wallace’s writing both solicits the reader’s trust and provokes the reader’s scepticism. This dynamic is responsible for the polarised responses of absolute trust and dissenting scepticism that characterise the work’s reception. By putting these responses into dialogue with the work’s internal treatment of the question of scepticism, this book illuminates the core philosophical investments that drive the work, and the dynamics that have so far governed its reception.
Matt Prout is an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin.
