Veres, Máté
Junior Fellow: January–August 2017 and September–December 2018
Research Project: Scepticism and religion in the Hellenistic age and beyond
Ancient Greek sceptics insisted that one should not hastily accept philosophical tenets in place of customary beliefs and practices, since restructuring one’s life around philosophical dogma would lead to a deplorable life of the mind and to an unappealing way of living. Instead, one should continue to investigate in the hope of eventually getting it right, and base one’s actions, until the results are in, on the customs and laws of one’s land. In his dissertation, Máté Veres examined the role of such sceptical arguments concerning theology in selected works of Cicero and Sextus Empiricus. After providing a close reading of relevant passages, Veres situated their position in the broader context of the purpose and methodology of sceptical argumentation. In Hamburg, Veres will prepare papers based on his results, and broaden the scope of the sources discussed. He hopes that his stay will contribute to the preparation of a monograph on the role of scepticism in Hellenistic theological debates. Furthermore, Veres will return to a topic that partly motivated him to take up his research: David Hume’s philosophy of religion and the influence of classical scepticism on his philosophical outlook. Veres aims to argue in a paper that Hume engages with, and eventually transforms, the ancient sceptical legacy.
Máté Veres is a PostDoc candidate from the Central European University. During his studies, he was a visiting student at the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a Fulbright visiting graduate researcher at the Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, a junior bursary recipient at the Hardt Foundation, and a junior fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.