Works Cited
Primary sources:
Bush, Craig B., editor and translator. The Selected Works of Pierre Gassendi. New —York City, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1972.
Bush provides a compilation of many translated and edited works of Gassendi throughout his career. The selected works include Gassendi’s refutations of Aristotle and Descartes, the logic and physics within his final work Syntagma Philosophicum, and Gassendi’s take on Isaac Newton’s De Motu. The variety of works Bush has chosen allows the reader to experience and analyze Gassendi’s views on multiple types of philosophies; moral, scientific, and metaphysical.
Gassendi, Pierre. “The History of Philosophy, the Third and Last Volume.” —Translated by Thomas Stanley. Internet Archive, 1660, —archive.org/details/StanleyThomasHistoryOfPhilosophyVol3EpicurusByGasse ndi/page/n6/mode/2up. Accessed 11 Oct. 2022.
Thomas Stanley published his final volume of The History of Philosophy, which contains much of Gassendi’s original work, including his biography on Epicurus and Syntagma Philosophicum, which was published posthumously in 1658. In Syntagma Philosophicum, Gassendi argues that one can find sufficient knowledge of the natural world and make predictions through sense-experience and appearances.
“Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty.” 1699. Text Creation —Partnership, U of Michigan, quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx? —c=eebo2;idno=A42442.0001.001. Accessed 11 Oct. 2022.
In his book Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty, which was published posthumously in 1699, Gassendi digs into the basis of his moral philosophy. He discusses human relationships, good and evil, and destiny. Throughout the book he comments on the ideas of Epicurus and Aristotle, in regards to the topics discussed in the book, constantly objecting the ideas of Aristotle and seldom objecting those of Epicurus.
Secondary sources:
Bennett, Johnathan, translator. “Objections to the Meditations, and Descartes’ —Replies, 1642.” Early Modern Texts, edited by Johnathan Bennett, 2017, —www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/descartes1642_3.pdf. Accessed —11 Oct. 2022.
Bennett provides a translated and modified version of Gassendi’s objections to Descartes’ Meditations and Descartes’ replies to Gassendi. Gassendi mainly disputes Descartes’ argument of the cogito and asserts that empiricism is a more valid belief system than Cartesianism. He also heavily opposes Descartes’ sudden realization on the idea of imagination, citing that he has no evidence of the matter.
Brett, George Sidney. “The Philosophy of Gassendi.” 1908. Internet Archive, —archive.org/details/philosophyofgass00bret/page/n21/mode/2up. —Accessed 11 Oct. 2022.
G.S. Brett analyzes Gassendi’s philosophy and theories in knowledge in his book The Philosophy of Gassendi. Brett writes about Gassendi’s take on ethical dilemmas, logic, principles of life, and discusses his writings that were published up until 1658. Brett concludes that Gassendi was the first to establish an atomistic philosophical system, but at the time it was too late to make a substantial mark on modern philosophy and philosophers.
Fisher, Saul, “Pierre Gassendi”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy —(Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = —<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/gassendi/>
In a vast overview of Gassendi, Fisher summarizes his key philosophical beliefs, theories of knowledge, and describes his objections to popular works from Aristotle and Descartes. Gassendi was an empiricist, a believer of the scientific method, and implicated his thoughts through the core of his philosophy, which was the atomist matter theory; Gassendi’s views became popular among many physicists and doctors. Fisher news ends with highlighting commentary on Gassendi, emphasizing the link between his philosophy and science.
Pav, Peter Anton. “Gassendi’s Statement of the Principle of Inertia.” Isis, vol. 57, —no. 1, 1966, pp. 24–34. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/228688. Accessed —11 Oct. 2022.
Pav reviews Gassendi’s statement on inertia and provides many comparisons of that view to the theories of Aristotle and Galileo. Pav dicusesses Gassendi’s ideas of motion and gravity, and other astronomical principles in relation to the atomist theory that he derived many of his philosophical theories from. Pav critiques Gassendi’s approach to philosophy, citing that his approach was static and he could not internalize new theories and ideas well.
Sack, Harald. “Pierre Gassendi and his Trials to reconcile Epicurean Atomism —with Christianity.” SciHi Blog, 22 Jan. 2022, scihi.org/pierre-gassendi —epicurean-atomism/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2022.
Sack emphasizes how Gassendi’s religious beliefs and morals impact his philosophy and his writings. Gassendi was a priest and his writings heavily reflect the bible and lessons he learned in the church. Sack also highlights Gassendi’s admiration of Epicurus and his theory of atomism. While there was controversy between Gassendi’s scientific philosophy and practices of the church, he went to great lengths to provide explanations of their compatibility.