Glanvill, Joseph(1636–1680)
Joseph Glanvill was a skeptic, a prominent defender of the experimental research of the early Royal Society, a liberal rationalistic Anglican theologian and preacher, and a staunch and influential believer in witchcraft. He studied at Cambridge, where he came under the influence of Henry More. On first learning of René Descartes's work Glanvill became an advocate of Cartesianism but was quickly led to cast doubt on it as a metaphysical theory because of More's objections. He then treated Cartesianism as a working hypothesis and began analyzing how much certitude anyone could have about what is going on in the world. He came into contact with John Wilkins, the bishop of Chester, and began developing his case in terms of the categories employed by him.
Glanvill's first work, The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), was soon revised into the larger Scepsis Scientifica (1665), and began with a most laudatory "Address to the Royal Society," which led to Glanvill being elected as a fellow.
Glanvill and Skepticism
Glanvill saw the skeptical problem as one that could not be so easily set aside. He saw the reliability of one's faculties as central for avoiding any ultimate and overwhelming skepticism. But Glanvill saw that the kind of certainty one would need to be absolutely sure of one's faculties ("infallible certainty," in which one is assured, "'tis impossible things should be otherwise than we conceive them or affirm them") is unattainable—"for it may not be absolutely impossible, but that our Faculties may be so construed, as always to deceive us in the things we judg most certain and assured."
One may not be able to attain infallible certitude, but one can attain indubitable certitude that one's faculties are true.
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