Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of Early Modern Philosophy

A comprehensive treatment of the seventeenth-century philosopher Pierre Gassendi.

Antonia LoLordo (Author)

9780521122689, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 November 2009

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

Review of the hardback: 'This is a sympathetic and engaging account of a thinker who, like many philosophical midwives of the modern age, still has much to teach us.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

This book offers a comprehensive treatment of the philosophical system of the seventeenth-century philosopher Pierre Gassendi. Gassendi's importance is widely recognized and is essential for understanding early modern philosophers and scientists such as Locke, Leibniz and Newton. Offering a systematic overview of his contributions, LoLordo situates Gassendi's views within the context of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century natural philosophy as represented by a variety of intellectual traditions, including scholastic Aristotelianism, Renaissance Neo-Platonism, and the emerging mechanical philosophy. LoLordo's work will be essential reading for historians of early modern philosophy and science.

Introduction
1. Gassendi's life and times
2. Gassendi's philosophical opponents
3. Skepticism, perception and the truth of the appearances
4. Cognition, knowledge and the theory of signs
5. Space and time
6. Atoms and causes
7. Bodies and motion
8. Generation, life and the corporeal soul
9. The metaphysics of body
10. Faith, reason and the immaterial soul.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], History of ideas [JFCX], Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600 [HPCB]