Pierre Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) was a major figure in seventeenth-century philoso- phy and science and his works contributed to shaping Western intellectual iden- tity. Among “new philosophers,” he was considered Descartes’ main rival, and he belonged to the first rank of those attempting to carve out an alternative to Aristotelian philosophy. In his writings, he promoted a revival of atomism and Epicureanism within a Christian framework, and advocated an empiricist and probabilistic epistemology which was to have a major impact on later thinkers such as Locke and Newton. He is moreover important for his astronomical work, his defense of Galileo’s mechanics and cosmology, and activity as a biographer. Given the importance of Gassendi for the history of science and philosophy, it is surprising to see that he has been largely ignored in the Anglophone world. This collection of essays constitutes the first book on Gassendi in the English language that covers his biography, bibliography, and all aspects of his work. The book is divided into three parts. Part I offers a reconstruction of the genesis of Gassendi’s Epicurean project, an overview of his biography, and analyses of Gassendi’s early attacks on Aristotle, his advocacy of Epicurean philosophy, and his relation to the skeptical tradition and Cicero’s thought. Part II addresses Gassendi as a partici- pant in seventeenth-century philosophical and scientific debates, focusing espe- cially on his controversies with Descartes and Fludd. Part III explores Gassendi’s contributions to logic, theories of space and time, mechanics, astronomy, cosmol- ogy, and the study of living beings, and presents the reception of Gassendi’s thought in England. This book is an essential resource for scholars and upper-level students of early modern philosophy, intellectual history, and the history of science who want to get acquainted with Pierre Gassendi as a major philosopher and intellectual figure of the early modern period. Delphine Bellis is Assistant Professor in History and Philosophy of Science at Paul Valéry University, Montpellier, France. She edited, together with Frederik A. Bakker and Carla Rita Palmerino, Space, Imagination and the Cosmos from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (2018). Daniel Garber is the A. Watson Armour III University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University (USA), with additional appointments in History of Science and Politics. Garber is the author of Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics (1992) and Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad (2009), as well as numerous articles. Carla Rita Palmerino is Professor in the History of Modern Philosophy, and Director of the Center for the History of Philosophy and Science, at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In 1998, she discovered the last missing piece of Gassendi’s manuscript De vita et doctrina Epicuri in the library of the British Museum. Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy 18 Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy Edited by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey 19 Mind, Body, and Morality New Perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza Edited by Martina Reuter and Frans Svensson 20 Locke’s Ideas of Mind and Body Han-Kyul Kim 21 Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy Edited by Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender 22 Leibniz’s Legacy and Impact Edited by Julia Weckend and Lloyd Strickland 23 Freedom, Action, and Motivation in Spinoza’s Ethics Edited by Noa Naaman-Zauderer 24 The Cartesian Semantics of the Port Royal Logic John N. Martin 25 Locke’s Twilight of Probability An Epistemology of Rational Assent Mark Boespflug 26 Pierre Gassendi Humanism, Science, and the Birth of Modern Philosophy Edited by Delphine Bellis, Daniel Garber, and Carla Rita Palmerino For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Seventeenth-Century-Philosophy/ book-series/SE0420 Pierre Gassendi Humanism, Science, and the Birth of Modern Philosophy Edited by Delphine Bellis, Daniel Garber, and Carla Rita Palmerino First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Taylor & Francis The right of Delphine Bellis, Daniel Garber, and Carla Rita Palmerino to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechani- cal, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trade- marks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifica- tion and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-138-69745-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-48043-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-52173-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781315521732 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive) Contents Notes on Contributors vii Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations x Introduction 1 DELPHINE BELLIS AND CARLA RITA PALMERINO PART I Gassendi’s Epicurean Project, Its Genesis, and Its Sources 19 1 The Life and Work of Pierre Gassendi 21 SYLVIE TAUSSIG 2 Gassendi’s Exercitationes Paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos: An Intellectual Biography 41 DANIEL GARBER 3 Gassendi’s Interplay between Skepticism and Empiricism 75 GIANNI PAGANINI 4 Gassendi and Epicureanism 106 SAUL FISHER 5 Tranquility as the Highest Good: Gassendi between Epicurus and Cicero 144 DONALD RUTHERFORD PART II Gassendi the Polemist 167 6 Gassendi in the Philosophical Debate: Stakes of the Essay Concerning the Principles of Robert Fludd’s Philosophy (1630) 169 ÉDOUARD MEHL 7 Gassendi’s Critique of Descartes 193 ANTONIA LOLORDO PART III Gassendi’s Science and Philosophy in Context 213 8 Gassendi’s Logic 215 RODOLFO GARAU 9 Gassendi’s Theory of Space and Time 241 DELPHINE BELLIS 10 Pierre Gassendi and the New Science of Motion 266 CARLA RITA PALMERINO 11 Astronomy, Cosmology, and the Limit of Empiricism in Gassendi’s Thought 292 KUNI SAKAMOTO 12 Gassendi’s Theory of Living Beings 312 FRANÇOIS DUCHESNEAU 13 “The Best Philosopher in France”: The Reception of Gassendi’s Natural Philosophy in England 334 ANTONIO CLERICUZIO Bibliography 377 Index 406 Contributors Antonio Clericuzio is Professor of History of Science at Roma Tre University, Italy. He has published extensively on Boyle and early mod- ern chemistry, medicine, and matter theory. He is the author of Elements, Principles and Atoms. A Study of Chemistry and Corpuscular Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century (2001). François Duchesneau is Emeritus Professor in History and Philosophy of Science at Université de Montréal, Canada. He recently published Organisme et corps organique de Leibniz à Kant (2018). Saul Fisher is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Provost at Mercy College, New York, USA. He is the author of Pierre Gassendi’s Philosophy and Science (2005) and “Pierre Gassendi,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008). Rodolfo Garau is researcher at the University of Hamburg, Germany. With Pietro Omodeo, he edited Contingency and Natural Order in Early Modern Science (2019). More recently, Garau edited, with Doina Rusu, the special issue of Early Science and Medicine “Action at a Distance in Pre-Newtonian Natural Philosophy” 27/5 (2022). Antonia LoLordo is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia, USA. Her publications include Mary Shepherd’s Essays on the Percep- tion of an External Universe (Oxford, 2020), Locke’s Moral Man (2012), and Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of Early Modern Philosophy (2007), plus papers on a variety of topics. Édouard Mehl is Professor in History of Early Modern Philosophy at the University of Strasbourg, France, and a Fellow at USIAS (University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Studies). He is the author of several books on Descartes and the rise of Copernican revolution (recently: Descartes et la fabrique du monde, 2019). viii Contributors Gianni Paganini is Professor Emeritus of History of Philosophy at Piedmont University, Vercelli, Italy, and Fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome. He published Skepsis. Le Débat des modernes sur le scepticisme (2008), which was awarded the Prix La Bruyère by the Académie Française. Donald Rutherford is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, USA. He is the author of Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (1995), and many other publications on the history of early modern philosophy and the reception of ancient phi- losophy in the period. Kuni Sakamoto (PhD 2012) is Associate Professor at the School of Arts and Letters, Meiji University, Japan. The main focus of his research is on early modern Aristotelianism and Cartesianism. His works include Julius Caesar Scaliger, Renaissance Reformer of Aristotelianism: A Study of His Exotericae Exercitationes (2016). Sylvie Taussig is Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France. She is the author of Pierre Gassendi (1592– 1655): Introduction à la vie savante (2003) and the French translator of several of Gassendi’s works and his Latin Letters. Acknowledgments We would like to acknowledge the financial support we received for the preparation of this book from the correction subsidy fund of the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies at Radboud University; the Center for the History of Philosophy and Science; and the GASSENDI project funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (PI Delphine Bellis, project number ANR-19-CE27-0004). We would also like to express our gratitude to Manon Lambooij for preparing the index of names, to Omar Hraoui for his precious help with the bibliography, and Brian Clarke for the care and proficiency with which he conducted the copy-editing of the volume. The idea for this book was first suggested to us by Mihnea Dobre (University of Bucharest). We would like to thank him for having prompted us to realize this project and hope that the result will meet his expectations.