Pierre Gassendi: Humanism, Science, and the Birth of Modern Philosophy

Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
	Notes
	Bibliography
Part I: Gassendi’s Epicurean Project, Its Genesis, and Its Sources
	Chapter 1: The Life and Work of Pierre Gassendi
		1.1 The Problem with the Biography of a Philosopher
		1.2 The Sources
		1.3 Gassendi’s Life and Work
		1.4 Gassendi’s Friends
		1.5 Elaborating an Œuvre Within Various Intellectual Networks
		1.6 Conclusion
		Acknowledgments
		Notes
		Bibliography
			Manuscript Sources
				Grenoble, Bibliothèque Municipale:
			Printed Sources
	Chapter 2: Gassendi’s Exercitationes Paradoxicae Adversus Aristoteleos : An Intellectual Biography
		2.1 Introduction
		2.2 Gassendi’s Project to Refute Aristotelianism in 1624
		2.3 The Exercitationes : From Conception to Birth
		2.4 To Grenoble, Paris, and Back
		2.5 The Exercitationes from 1625 to 1642: From a Project Postponed to a Project Abandoned
		2.6 The Exercitationes in Gassendi’s Last Years
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 3: Gassendi’s Interplay between Skepticism and Empiricism
		3.1 Introduction: Ancient and Modern Skepticism—Gassendi’s New Context
		3.2 Gassendi and Late Renaissance Skepticism
		3.3 Appearance and Opinion: Gassendi’s Eclectic Skepticism
		3.4 An Apology for Skepticism
		3.5 Limiting Knowledge and Practicing Science—The “Craftsman’s Science”
		3.6 Use and Abuse of Skepticism: Gassendi vs. Descartes
		3.7 Reassessing the Theory of Signs
		3.8 Skeptical Modes, Suppositions, and the Matter Theory
		3.9 The Interplay between Skepticism and Empiricism
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 4: Gassendi and Epicureanism
		4.1 Introduction
		4.2 Epicurean Thought
			4.2.1 Ethics
			4.2.2 Physics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology
		4.3 Epicureanism and the Early Modern Philosophical Landscape
		4.4 Gassendi’s Epicurean Trajectory
		4.5 Gassendi’s Resemblances to, and Differences from, Epicureanism
			4.5.1 Tranquility Through Philosophy
			4.5.2 The Physical World
			4.5.3 The Soul and Free Will
			4.5.4 What We Know and How We Know It
			4.5.5 Ethical and Political Theories
			4.5.6 Rhetoric as a Philosophical Strategy
		4.6 Gassendi’s Sort of Epicureanism, If Any
			4.6.1 The ‘Baptismal’ Strategy
			4.6.2 Countervailing Ancient Philosophical Commitments (Aristotelianism, Stoicism)
			4.6.3 Depth of Commitment to Epicureanism: Reform, Critique, or Rejection?
		4.7 Reception and Legacy of Gassendi’s Epicureanism
		4.8 Conclusion
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 5: Tranquility as the Highest Good: Gassendi between Epicurus and Cicero
		5.1 Introduction
		5.2 The “Idea of Philosophy”
		5.3 Happiness as the Highest Good
		5.4 Honestum and the Value of Virtue
		Notes
		Bibliography
Part II: Gassendi the Polemist
	Chapter 6: Gassendi in the Philosophical Debate: Stakes of the Essay Concerning the Principles of Robert Fludd’s Philosophy (1630)
		6.1 Introduction
		6.2 Political and Scientific Background of the Controversy
		6.3 The Fortune of Gassendi’s Observations
		6.4 Theological Implications of the Galileo Affair, 1629–1630
		6.5 A Crucial Encounter: Isaac Beeckman
		6.6 Metaphysical and Epistemological Neutrality
		6.7 Conclusion
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 7: Gassendi’s Critique of Descartes
		7.1 Introduction
		7.2 Clear and Distinct Perception
		7.3 Skepticism and the Reasons for Doubt Outlined in the First Meditation
		7.4 Innate Ideas and the Eternal Truths
		7.5 The Immaterial Intellect
		7.6 The Cogito, the Essence of Mind, and the Essence of Body
		7.7 The Real Distinction Argument
		7.8 God and the Cartesian Circle
		Notes
		Bibliography
Part III: Gassendi’s Science and Philosophy in Context
	Chapter 8: Gassendi’s Logic
		8.1 Introduction
		8.2 The Critique of Aristotelian Dialectics in the Exercitationes (1624)
		8.3 The Carpentras Manuscript ( circa 1636)
		8.4 Logic in the Syntagma Philosophicum and the Institutio Logica (1658)
		8.5 The Institutio Logica
		8.6 Influence and Reception
		Acknowledgments
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 9: Gassendi’s Theory of Space and Time
		9.1 Introduction
		9.2 A New Ontology of Space and Time
		9.3 Space and the Void
		9.4 Time: The “Twin-Brother of Space”
		9.5 God in Space and Time: Immensity and Eternity
		9.6 Conclusion
		Acknowledgments
		Notes
		Bibliography
			Manuscript Sources
				Tours, Bibliothèque Municipale:
			Printed Sources
	Chapter 10: Pierre Gassendi and the New Science of Motion
		10.1 Introduction
		10.2 Gassendi’s Engagement with Galileo’s Mechanics and Cosmology: from the De Motu to the Syntagma Philosophicum
		10.3 Free Fall and Projectile Motion
		10.4 The Principle of Inertia
		10.5 The Phenomenon of the Tides
		10.6 Conclusion
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 11: Astronomy, Cosmology, and the Limit of Empiricism in Gassendi’s Thought
		11.1 Introduction
		11.2 Astronomy as a Paradigm of the Sciences
		11.3 Criticism of Astrology
		11.4 Inaugural Oration in 1645
		11.5 Copernicanism as a Hypothesis
		11.6 Cosmogony, Gravity, and Extraterrestrial Life
		11.7 Conclusion
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 12: Gassendi’s Theory of Living Beings
		12.1 Introduction
		12.2 Living Beings as Complex Corporeal Entities
		12.3 Mechanism and the Teleological Analysis of Living Bodies
		12.4 Seeds and Animal Souls
		12.5 The Theory of Generation
		12.6 Conclusion
		Notes
		Bibliography
	Chapter 13: “The Best Philosopher in France”: The Reception of Gassendi’s Natural Philosophy in England
		13.1 Introduction
		13.2 Empiricism and Skepticism: The Quarrel with Fludd and Herbert
		13.3 Gassendi, the British Émigrés in Paris, and the Hartlib Circle
		13.4 Gassendi’s Impact at Oxford and Cambridge
		13.5 Hobbes and Gassendi
		13.6 Gassendi and the English Atomists
		13.7 Robert Boyle
		13.8 A Newtonian Epilogue
		13.9 Conclusion
		Notes
		Bibliography
Bibliography
	Manuscript Sources of Gassendi’s Works
	Other Manuscript Sources
	Gassendi’s Printed Works
	Other Primary Sources
	Secondary Sources
	Notes
Index