Attila Németh, the research fellow of the Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre for the Humanities, has published recently his latest research in the The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy (title of the study: Epicureans on Teleology and Freedom) and in the Atomism in Philosophy: A History from Antiquity to the Present (title of the study: Atoms and Universals in Epicurus).

Please find the short summaries of the studies below:

Epicureans on Teleology and Freedom scrutinises the Epicureans’ arguments against divine providence and their solution to the tension between their material explanation of the universe and freedom. In part I, the paper focuses on the philosophical background against which Epicurus (part II) and his followers (part III) developed their anti-teleological arguments, and in part IV, it turns to the questions and tensions involved in Epicurus’ conception of freedom.

Atoms and Universals in Epicurus investigates the role of perception in the context of Epicurus’ atomism. How we come to know things was a main strand in Epicurus’ epistemology and this paper explains how perceptual knowledge is to be obtained in a world of atoms in a three-stage process, where prolēpsis plays a unifying role in the epistemological process, such as the one postulated by Epicurus. As a result it appears how Epicurus managed to provide a case for knowledge in an atomistic world, overcoming the scepticism that appears to be inherent to Democritus’ atomism, and to address the vexed question of universals from an original perspective.