Pierre Gassendi
| Pierre Gassendi | |
|---|---|
Pierre Gassendi
after Louis-Édouard Rioult. |
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| Born |
22 January 1592 Champtercier, Provence |
| Died | 24 October 1655 (aged 63) Paris |
| Alma mater | University of Aix-en-Provence |
| Era | 17th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School |
Empiricism Modern Epicureanism |
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Main interests
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Logic, physics, ethics |
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Influences
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Influenced
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Pierre Gassendi (French: [gasɑ̃di]; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631. The lunar crater Gassendi is named after him.
He wrote numerous philosophical works, and some of the positions he worked out are considered significant, finding a way between skepticism and dogmatism. Richard Popkin indicates that Gassendi was one of the first thinkers to formulate the modern "scientific outlook", of moderated skepticism and empiricism. He clashed with his contemporary Descartes on the possibility of certain knowledge. His best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity.
Gassendi was born at Champtercier, near Digne, in France to Antoine Gassend and Françoise Fabry. A youthful prodigy, at a very early age he showed academic potential and attended the college at Digne, where he displayed a particular aptitude for languages and mathematics. Soon afterwards he entered the University of Aix-en-Provence, to study philosophy under Philibert Fesaye. In 1612 the college of Digne called him to lecture on theology. Four years later he received the degree of Doctor of Theology at Avignon, and in 1617 he took holy orders. In the same year he answered a call to the chair of philosophy at Aix-en-Provence University, and seems gradually to have withdrawn from theology.
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