Public Defense of Máté Veres on Sceptical Argumentation And Philosophical Theology: Topics In Hellenistic Philosophy

The Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to the Public Defense of the PhD Dissertation
by
Máté Veres
on
SCEPTICAL ARGUMENTATION AND PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY:
TOPICS IN HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY

Supervisor: Gábor Betegh
Members of the Defense Committee:
David Sedley, Cambridge University (by video-conferencing)
Tad Brennan, Cornell University (by video-conferencing)

Chair: István Bodnár, CEU

Abstract
Hellenistic scepticism was a reaction to the philosophical practice of the age. In response to thinkers who would revise or discard our pre-theoretical beliefs, yet failed to deliver on the promise of rational persuasion, sceptics urged suspension of judgement about the matters at hand, coupled with ongoing inquiry and a conformist stance in leading one's life. This provisional outcome was presented as the best one available for the philosophically inclined, since those who adopt it can avoid commitment to rationally unsubstantiated views and to highly demanding but intellectually unsatisfactory philosophical outlooks. The alternative, they argued, would be to restructure one's life around hastily accepted philosophical tenets, which would in turn lead to a deplorable life of the mind and to an unappealing way of living.
Given the prevalence of religious diversity and philosophical reflection in the ancient pagan world, it is hardly surprising that religious dogmatism proved to be a prime target for scepticism. My thesis offers a case-study of the sceptics' suspensive-conformist stance as it applies to the domain of religion, focusing on selected works by Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book III and Against the Physicists, Book I) and Marcus Tullius Cicero (De Natura Deorum). This specific case and its comparative potential, though occasionally noted in secondary literature, has not yet received the scholarly attention it deserves. The main contribution of my thesis is that it lays the groundwork for a comprehensive examination of this material, proposes answers to some of the main interpretive quandaries, and offers a detailed analysis of sceptical argumentative strategies.