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Gassendi’s Attack on Dogmatic Science

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Abstract

The examination of Gassendi’s first work, The Paradoxical Exercises Against the Aristotelians, in particular its first book published in 1624, shows that it develops Charron’s view of dogmatic science as one of the four enemies of Academic skeptical wisdom. The support of philosophical freedom against the authority of Aristotle in the schools is based on the Academic skeptics’ concept of intellectual integrity, which is foundational in Charron’s conception of wisdom. Gassendi’s epistemological development of Charron’s skeptical wisdom is related to La Mothe Le Vayer’s mainly moral and religious development (examined in Chap. 4) and contrasted to Descartes’s (examined in Chap. 5).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Gassendi thanks Faur de Pibrac in a letter written from Aix-en-Provence in 8 April 1621 for sending him Charron’s Discours chrétiens: “j’ai dévoré ces opuscules avec une avidité certaine: tu as parfaitement deviné que le tempérament et le talent de cet auteur me plairaient; quoique, pour te dire sincèrement ce que je pense, tous ses opuscules me ravissent, aucun ne me sourit autant que la Sagesse elle-même dont il a attesté dans la préface qu’il l’avait mise comme couronnement à ses études. Tu a raison de me conseiller d’emporter cet auteur avec moi dans la solitude; de fait, la philosophie se contente de peu de juges et évite délibérément la multitude. Mais existe-t-il un juge plus sain que Charron? surtout s’il a à ses côtés ceux avec l’aide desquels il a avancé lui-même, Montaigne, Juste Lipse, Sénèque, Plutarque, Cicéron. C’est ceux-là surtout et quelques en petit nombre que je me donne comme compagnons” (Gassendi 2004, vol. I, 2). Gassendi’s friend and disciple, Samuel Sorbière, also attests Gassendi’s great admiration for “Charron et Montaigne” (cf. Berr 1960, 113n).

  2. 2.

    Gassendi (1658), Vol I, Book 2, chapter 5, p. 79.

  3. 3.

    Secondary literature about the Exercitationes has considered the work either as plainly skeptical, though favorable to a non-dogmatic model of an experimental science based on the phenomena (Popkin 2003, 92–95; Berr 1960, 46–59; Paganini 1991, 40, 54–59); as skeptical only against Aristotelianism (Brundell 1987, 26–27), or has wavered among these two interpretations (LoLordo 2007, 11, 60–61).

  4. 4.

    See Berr (1960, 60–70) and Popkin (2003, 121–127).

  5. 5.

    In the letter to Pibrac just cited, he adds Montaigne, Erasmus and Justus Lipsius. On Ramé, see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.2.

  6. 6.

    “Haerebat tamen lethalis arundo generalis praejudicii, quo videbam Ordines omnes probare Aristotelem. Verum mihi animos adjecit, timoremque omnem depulit et Vivis, et mei Charronii lectio, ex qua visus sum non injuria suspicari Sectam illam non esse penitus probandam, quod probaretur quam plurimis” (Ex, 7). On Vives’ Academic skepticism, see Casini (2009).

  7. 7.

    Cf. Bernard Rochot in Gassendi (1959, VIIIn).

  8. 8.

    “sic istud non omittere candoris fuit ingenui, quod assensus cohibendi vera exinde ratio pararetur” (Ex, 9).

  9. 9.

    “non debuisse me quidpiam in publicum emittere ex iis, quae sunt a me pro Aristotele disputata: cum ecce Mundum jam compleant, quae ab Aristoteleis proferuntur volumina” (Ex, 9).

  10. 10.

    I do not examine here the cogency of Gassendi’s many criticisms of Aristotle’s philosophy and of the Aristotelians of his time. With respect to Gassendi’s main objection to the latter that I do discuss, namely, their disrespect for intellectual integrity and blind submission to Aristotle, I think that Gassendi probably exaggerates this feature to make his point stronger. On scholastic teaching at the time, see Dear (1988).

  11. 11.

    Aristoteles … Adolescentes in Thesi, non ad hunc morem Philosophorum tenuiter disserendi; sed ad copiam Rhetorum in utramque partem, ut ornatius et uberius dici posset, exercuit” (Ex, 9). See Cicero. Tusc disp. II.9 and De finibus V.9–10.

  12. 12.

    See also Jardine (1983).

  13. 13.

    See Aristotle’s Topics, I–II, 100a–101b.

  14. 14.

    “Hac ratione videlicet Auditores admonebantur, ne quid temere pronunciarent: cum nullam esse adeo receptam, speciosamque propositionem et opinionem viderent, cujus non posset opposita ostendi aeque probabilis, vel ut plurimum etiam probabilior” (Ex, 9).

  15. 15.

    Gassendi thus appears in this vein as an heir of Omer Talon, a close associate of Ramus, cited as one of his sources in the Preface. According to Schmitt (1972, 79–91), Talon revived Academic skepticism as a pedagogic method that should replace the scholastic one, promoting the practice of free inquiry in opposition to submission to authority. For more details on Talon, see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.2.

  16. 16.

    The title of Exercitatio II is “Quod immerito Aristotelei libertatem sibi philosophandi ademerint.”

  17. 17.

    Article 1: “Ignava prorsus diffidentia occupavit Aristoteleos.” Article 3: “Ut et ipsi penitus facti sint dedititii.”

  18. 18.

    Cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives IV.42. In Cicero’s Nat deo, Cotta says that as a student of Philo’s the latter suggested that he attend an Epicurean’s class (I.59).

  19. 19.

    In article 3, Gassendi rehearses the Academic view of Socrates’ (see Theaetetus, 172c–177c) opposition between the philosopher and the advocate. When the Aristotelians examine other philosophical views, they do it “quasi affectati desperatae causae Patroni, qui semper illi deferunt, vitia graviora dissimulantes. Neque enim Judices, disceptatoresque legitimos agunt” (Ex, I, II, 3, 53).

  20. 20.

    “(quemadmodum M. Tullius suis temporibus querebatur) ad quamcumque disciplinam sunt, quasi tempestate, delati, ad eam, tanquam ad Saxum adhaerescant; utque sententiam antecessorum, quam semel adamaverunt, pugnacissime defendere malint, quam quid constantissime dicatur, exquirere” (Ex, I, II, 4, 53–55).

  21. 21.

    According to Cicero, this is Arcesilaus’ view of the wise man (see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.1). If Cicero is Gassendi’s main ancient source, Charron is his main modern source. One of the main differences between the wise and the vulgar man is the autonomy of the former in contraposition to the latter, “nez pour obeir … et étre menés” (S, I, 291). Descartes shares this same view which he also, like Gassendi, took from Charron (see Chap. 5).

  22. 22.

    “Un honneste homme n’est pas obligé d’avoir veu tous les livres, ni d’avoir appris soigneusement tout ce qui s’enseigne dans les escholes; & mesme ce seroit une espece de deffaut en son education, s’il avoit trop employé de temps en l’exercice des lettres” (Descartes, Recherche de la vérité, AT, X, 495).

  23. 23.

    “Quippe cum fere apud me constet multos plurimum potuisse ad detegendam veritatem, nisi se illam penitus arripuisse credidissent: enitendum duxi, quantum in me esset, retundere hujus tantae credulitatis aciem, probaturus num simul quidpiam ex turgid illa Aristoteleorum praesumptione detraherem” (Ex, 9). It follows that this work of Gassendi’s may be seen as a preparation to doctrinaire philosophical tasks. The Exercitationes may thus be reconciled with Gassendi’s constructive corpuscular philosophy, which he develops in the 30s.

  24. 24.

    Though Gassendi does not mention which work of Charron’s encouraged him, the letter to Pibrac cited above (note 1) and the context make quite clear that it is De la Sagesse.

  25. 25.

    “ad exuendos tot habitus, quos ex vulgi contagione ab infantia jam contraxissem; ad excutiendum ignobile jugum tam inveteratae hujus, quam generalis praeoccupationis” (Ex, 11), emphasis added. See also Ex, I, I, 2, 25: “Sic solent pulcherrima quaeque, eademque sanctissima, contagionem vulgi declinare: quando nihil sic pretiosum est, quod non popularium manuum attrectatione sordescat.”

  26. 26.

    Charron’s probable source is Montaigne’s “De la solitude,” which is recommended because “[A] la contagion est tres-dangereuse en la presse” (E, I, 39, 238).

  27. 27.

    See Chap. 2, Sect. 2.1.

  28. 28.

    The Aristotelians “ejecerunt” “graves omnes Authores e Scholis suis.” He names Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch “and others” (Ex, I, I, 5, 29).

  29. 29.

    The title of Ex 1 reads: “Quod homines Aristotelei ex germane Philosophia Sophisticen effecerint.” Art 2: “Non veram enim, sed spuriam agnoscunt Sapientiae speciem.”

  30. 30.

    “PARADOXICAS, quod Paradoxa contineant, seu opiniones praeter vulgi captum. Quanquam vulgus hic intelligo non plebeiorum hominum … sed Philosophorum communium, quibus ingenium est ita vulgare, ut vulgi instar Barbariem inclament quicquid praeconceptis semel opinionibus adversatur” (Ex, 11–13, emphasis added).

  31. 31.

    I show in Chaps. 5 and 6 the role played by this passage of Charron’s on, respectively, Descartes’s preambulae of methodical doubt and on Pascal’s apologetic strategy.

  32. 32.

    Charron’s source is Montaigne’s “Apology for Raymond Sebond”: “Vrayement c’estoit bien raison que cette bride et contrainte de la liberté de nos jugements, et cette tyrannie de nos creances, s’estandit jusques aux escholes et aux arts. Le Dieu de la science scholastique, c’est Aristote; c’est religion de debatre de ses ordonnances” (E, II, 12, 539).

  33. 33.

    “Cum autem viderem Aristoteleos et numero, et pertinacia caeteros omnes longe superare: ratio profecto in promptu est, cur negotium mihi sumpserim ADVERSUS ARISTOTELEOS” (Ex, 13).

  34. 34.

    “Quod si quis piam forte ex me quaerat, quamobrem inscripserim adversus Aristoteleos, non adversus Aristotelem, cujus tamem doctrinam videor ex professo impugnare, noverit me potissimum tribus adductum argumentis. Primum quod opera illa, quae hic persequor, non tam ex rei veritate credam esse Aristotelis, quam ex opinione Aristoteleorum. Major quippe, meo judicio, Aristoteles vir fuit, quam ut ipsi adscribi debeant tam indigna opera. Alterum, quod isti non tam Aristotelis, quam suam, et expressae menti Aristotelis repugnantem saepe defendant sententiam … Postremum, quod quisquilias, gerrasque quaestionum conglobent in dies, quae Aristoteli in mentem non potuerunt occurrere” (Ex, 13).

  35. 35.

    Of course Gassendi also wants to show that Aristotle’s philosophy is wrong in a number of topics. But the main occasion for arguing this will be Gassendi’s proposition of his own Christianized Epicureanism in the Syntagma and other works. For Gassendi’ Epicureanism, see Bloch (1971, 172–282) who claims that this Christianization lies only on the surface; Joy (1987), Brundel (1987, 48–82), Osler (1985), Fisher (2005, 192–339), LoLordo (2007, 130–169). For Epicureanism in early modern philosophy in general, see Wilson (2008).

  36. 36.

    “non debere esse adstrictum cujusquam sententiae: sed libertatem permittere sibi investigandi veri similiorem” (Ex, I, II, 6, 57). Gassendi rehearsals Cicero’s Academica: “neque nostrae disputationes quidquam aliud agunt nisi ut in utramque partem dicendo eliciant et tamquam exprimant aliquid quod aut verum sit au ad id quam proxime accedat” (Ac II.7).

  37. 37.

    Gassendi’s defense of Aristotle’s own way of philosophizing (not Aristotle’s doctrines) may also be merely dialectical, designed to embarrass Aristotle’s contemporary disciples.

  38. 38.

    “Profecto si viveret ipse, videretque in verba sua ita religiose jurari, ut quae olim habuisset incerta, admitti jam cerneret tanquam prorsus indubita: O quam damnaret hujusmodi effoeminatam inertiam!” (Ex, I, II, 6, 57).

  39. 39.

    This may be one reason why Plato’s doctrine was not taught in the New Academy. See Cicero, Ac II. 60.

  40. 40.

    The plan of the work mentions a seventh book on moral philosophy which would support Epicurus’ view. A letter to Van de Putte from 24 March 1628 confirms this plan. However, I agree with Howard Jones (1981, 27) that Gassendi’s aim at this occasion was not yet to rehabilitate Epicureanism but to combat Aristotelianism, presenting an opposing view on morals. Jones dates the former project between the late 1628 and the early 1629, when Gassendi met Isaac Beeckmann in The Netherlands.

  41. 41.

    The methodic use of skeptical views will also be Descartes’s strategy. This is probably the main consequence of the influence of Charron’s on the two most influential seventeenth century French philosophers. But an important difference, so I argue in Chap. 5, is that Descartes radically transforms the skeptical doubt, both on what concerns its arguments (he introduces hyperbolic arguments that doubt the existence of the external material world) and on what concerns its aims (Descartes uses doubt to make a radical ontological distinction between the mind and the body). These differences did not remain unnoticed by Gassendi (see his objections to Descartes’s First Meditation and his replies to Descartes’s replies in Gassendi 1962, 31–59). Uses of skeptical doubt closer to Gassendi’s are those of Glanvill’s and Locke’s. The latter, contrasting himself with Boyle, Newton “and some others” who have given outstanding contributions to natural philosophy, considers himself “an Under-Labourer in clearing Ground a little, and remove some of the Rubbish, that lies in the way to knowledge” (Locke 1975, 10). Glanvill employs almost the same language in the dedication to the Royal Society of his Scepsis Scientifica, whose subtitle—Confest Ignorance, the way to Science—already indicates the propaedeutic role of the skepsis: “In order to the Furtherance (according to my poor measure) of which great and worthy purposes [held by the Royal Society], these Papers were first intended. For perceiving that several ingenious persons whose assistance might be conducive to the Advance of real and useful Knowledge, lay under the prejudices of Education and Customary Belief; I thought that the enlarging them to a state of more generous Freedom by striking at the root of Pedantry and opinionative Assurance would be no hinderance to the Worlds improvement. … If therefore this Discourse … may tend to the removal of any accidental disadvantages from capable Ingenuities, and the preparing them for inquiry…” (Glanvill 1978, preface not paginated). The Charronian language used by Glanvill (the fight against attachment to opinion and pedant learning, the emancipation of the mind which recovers intellectual integrity and freedom) reveals a direct influence—see the Introduction to this book. Glanvill seems not aware of the different propaedeutic uses of doubt by Gassendi and Descartes to the extent that he takes the latter’s use as basically similar to his own.

  42. 42.

    Bayle, Dictionaire, article “Pyrrhon,” remark B, note 10: “Dans son Livre Fine Logicae, cap. III, à la page 72 et suiv. du 1er. volume de ses Oeuvres, edition de Lyon, 1658.”

  43. 43.

    An emblematic case is Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Examan vanitatis doctrinae gentium et veritatis christianae disciplinae (Mirandola: Bundenius, 1520). For the originality of Montaigne’s and Charron’s receptions, which prepare the way to Gassendi’s, see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.2.

  44. 44.

    See AT, VI, 3, 22, 27.

  45. 45.

    Gassendi says that “cum Adolescens imbuerer Peripatetica Philosophia, probe memini illam mihi undequaque non arrisisse: Qui me enim ad Philosophiam applicandum decreveram … Ubi mei factus sum juris, coepique rem totam scrutari profundiore indagine, visus sum brevi deprehendere, quam vana esset, ac inutilis foelicitati consequendae” (Ex, 7).

  46. 46.

    “Haerebat tamen lethalis arundo generalis praejudicii, quo videbam Ordines omnes probare Aristotelem. Verum mihi animos adjecit, timoremque omnem depulit et Vivis, et mei Charronii lectio” (Ex, 7).

  47. 47.

    “Et qu’ils ne pensent me battre d’authorité, de multitude, d’allegation d’autray, car tout cela a fort peu de credit en mon endroit” (S, 42). In Chap. 5, I show how De la Sagesse was crucial for Descartes’s emancipation from all his previous opinions and for the establishment of his new philosophy.

  48. 48.

    We find skeptical diaphonia in all skeptics of the time (for instance, in Charron’s Sagesse, II, 2, 407–408) and in Descartes’s Discours de la Méthode (AT, VI, 8).

  49. 49.

    See Exercitatio II, in particular art 3, where this point is explicit, and 4, when he contrasts it with Ciceronian intellectual integrity (Gassendi cites the crucial passage Ac II.8). Genuine philosophy consists not in membership to a school or holding a set of doctrines. Philosophy is love of wisdom, search after the truth in the Montaignian and Charronian vein, this search being more essential than the attainment of the truth. The truth is a desideratum which motivates the search.

  50. 50.

    See Exercitatio II, art. I, where Gassendi recovers the meaning of skepticos (free inquirer) as given in PH I.1 and Montaigne’s view of the Pyrrhonians, Socrates and the Academics (see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.4).

  51. 51.

    “levitatis, et arrogantiae Dogmaticorum Philosophorum, qui et glorientur se arripuisse, et tam severe profiteantur naturalium rerum scientiam” (Ex, 7).

  52. 52.

    “Sapientus … qui ut vanitatem simul et incertitudinem humanae scientiae demonstrarent, ita sese comparabant, ut possent tam adversus omnia, quam pro omnibus dicere” (Ex, 7).

  53. 53.

    “Quia vero non tam absolute, quam comparate hîc philosophor” (Ex, I, 17). “Certe nisi philosophari cum hac mihi libertate leceat, malim ego nullam penitus Philosophiam consectari” (Ex, I, 17).

  54. 54.

    See Charron, Sagesse, I, 13, 128 and I, 14, 133.

  55. 55.

    “quam qui semel adepti sunt, in asylum adeo tutum sese receperunt. Certe illi jam non sudant amplius in propugnandis, quae prius placuerant, opinionibus: cum tam parati, ac praesto sint quascumque deserere, quam compressam manum explicare. Nôrunt quippe eam esse imbecillitatem humani ingenii, ut cum res ipsas vere non cognoscat, probabiles solum conjecturas circa illas moliatur. Ex hoc est, quod nihil severe, ac superciliose defendunt, neque existimant Aristotelem minus errare potuisse, quam Pythagoram, aut Platonem: etsi interea taciti, et sine ulla animi perturbatione cogitent quaenam ex oppositis Dogmaticorum opinionibus magis accedat ad veritatem. Caeteros sinunt torquere sese: ipsi vero non sine ingenti animi laetitia experiuntur, ac sentiunt emersisse se ex illis procellis, quibus tam multos jactari conspiciunt” (I, II, 7, 59).

  56. 56.

    See Chap. 2, Sect. 2.1.

  57. 57.

    Gassendi shares with Descartes the rejection of what they consider the prevalent use of reason in the schools. “Et ie n’ay iamais remarqué non plus, que, par le moyen des disputes qui se pratiquent dans les escholes, on ait découuert aucune verité qu’on ignorast auparauant; car, pendant que chascun tasche de vaincre, on s’exerce bien plus a faire valoir la vraysemblance, qu’a peser les raisons de part & d’autre; & ceux qui ont esté long tems bons auocats, ne sont pas pour cela, par aprés, meilleurs iuges” (AT, VI, 69).

  58. 58.

    As remarked in Chap. 2, in Charron’s view of the foundation of wisdom, assent to nothing is the condition for examining everything and vice-versa, since only épochè allows an endless inquiry not interested in proving views previously held. This open inquiry is the one able to establish equipollence.

  59. 59.

    Cf Cicero, Tusc disp II.5, IV.47, V.33; De Officiis II.7–8, III.20; De finibus V.76; Ac II.7.

  60. 60.

    “then [Zeno] pressed his fingers closely together and made a fist, and said that that was comprehension (and from this illustration he gave to that process the actual name of catalepsis, which it had not had before); but then he used to apply his left hand to his right fist and squeeze it tightly and forcibly, and then say that such was knowledge [scientiam]” (Ac II.145).

  61. 61.

    “[Le sage] ne s’aheurte, ne jure, ne se lie, ou s’oblige à aucune [chose], se tenant tousjours prest à receveoir le vray ou plus vray semblable qui luy apparoitra” (S, II, 2, 399). Se alsto the Petit Traité: “la verité n’est point de nostre acquest, invention ny prise, quand elle se rendroit entre nos mains, nous n’avons dequoy nous la vendiquer, nous en asseurer et la posseder” (PTS, 839).

  62. 62.

    Almost the same passage appears in the Petit Traité, 839. Charron’s source is probably Montaigne: “car la vraye raison et essentielle, de qui nous desrobons le mon à fauces enseignes, elle loge dans le sein de Dieu” (E, II, 12, 541).

  63. 63.

    I develop this issue in connection to La Mothe Le Vayer’s épochè in Chap. 4, Sect. 4.1.

  64. 64.

    See also Montaigne: “C’est grand cas que les choses en soyent là en nostre siecle, que la philosophie, ce soit, jusques aux gens d’entendement, un nom vain et fantastique, qui se treuve de nul usage et de nul pris … [A] Je croy que ces ergotismes en sont cause, qui ont saisi ses avenues. On a grand tort de la peindre inaccessible aux enfans, et d’un visage renfroigné, sourcilleux et terrible. Qui me l’a masquée de ce faux visage, pasle et hideux?” (E, I, 26, 160).

  65. 65.

    Montaigne cites this passage of Cicero’s in E, II, 12, 504.

  66. 66.

    “tanquam in profundum gurgitem ex improviso delapsus, ita turbatus sum, ut nec possim in imo pedem figere, nec enatare ad summum” (AT, VII, 23–24).

  67. 67.

    In his objection to the First Meditation, Gassendi criticizes Descartes for taking as false what is probable (AT, VII, 257–258).

  68. 68.

    “Quod rationes nullae sint, quibus Secta Aristotelis videri possit praeferenda.”

  69. 69.

    “Ie ne diray rien de la Philosophie, sinon que, voyant qu’elle a esté cultiuée par les plus excellens esprits qui ayent vescu depuis plusieurs siecles, & que neanmoins il ne s’y trouue encore aucune chose dont on ne dispute, & par consequent qui ne soit douteuse…” (AT, VI, 8). I show in Chap. 5 the influences of Montaigne’s and Charron’s in this diagnosis.

  70. 70.

    It appeared in Gassendi’s Opera published in Lyon in 1658. According to Jones (1981, 21–22), although this second book was already written when the first was published in 1624, Gassendi decided not to publish it fearing persecution.

  71. 71.

    “omnes paene veteres, qui nihil cognosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt” (Ac. I.44). (Emphasis added).

  72. 72.

    We cannot say that Gassendi had Le Vayer in view because he became a friend of him only after the publication of his book.

  73. 73.

    “qua si tres, vel quatuor, vel centum, vel multas etiam myriadas Europeorum hominum dumtaxat vidisses albo colore … conspectis nunquam Aethiopibus, collegisses haud dubie omnem hominem esse album” (Ex, II, V, 5, 415).

  74. 74.

    One of Charron’s modes to achieve épochè is “[c]e que nous avons apprins de la descouverte du monde nouveau, Indes Orientales et Occidentales” (S, II, 2, 408).

  75. 75.

    “Deinde vero et illud dari consequenter potest esse causas scientiae; at scientiae tamen experimentalis, et ut sic dicam apparentialis; siquidem Intellectus noster scit, cognoscitve experiundo multa apparentia” (Ex, II, VI, 7, 505).

  76. 76.

    This is an important instance of Gassendi’s influence on Locke, according to whom we can have science (certain knowledge) only of that which concerns our moral existence (of our own existence, of the existence of God, of our duty, and of the appearances which secure our survival).

  77. 77.

    This “grand habile homme” is Montaigne: “[La science] est un dangereux glaive, et qui empésche et offence son maistre, s’il est en main foible et qui n’en sçache l’usage” (E, I, 25, 140). “[A] Madame [Diane de Foix, who is pregnant, to whom Montaigne dedicates his essay on the education of children], c’est un grand ornement que la science, et un util de merveilleux service, notamment aux personnes élevées en tel degré de fortune, comme vous estes. A la verité, elle n’a point son vray usage en mains viles et basses” (E, I, 26, 149).

  78. 78.

    I show in Chap. 5 that this and another similar passage are the sources of Descartes’s opening paragraph of La Recherche de la Verité (AT, X, 495–496).

  79. 79.

    “siquidem aliam pepererunt et veriorem et utiliorem, puta experimentalem, rerumque apparentiam. Quocirca et maximae gratiae maximis Viris habendae sunt, quod quae vel experiendo, vel audiendo, vel ratiocinando observârunt, tradere nobis quasi per manus, atque etiam cum methodo, ordine-ve dignati sunt” (Ex, II, VI, 7, 505).

  80. 80.

    See Galen, Outlines of Empiricism, III.

  81. 81.

    Patrick Romanell has pointed out the close links between Gassendi’s epistemology and that of the ancient medical empiricists. Romanell argues persuasively that this is a major connection between Gassendi and Locke (Romanell 1991, 476–487).

  82. 82.

    Charron complains that his critics misunderstand the status of his claims in De la Sagesse, attributing to “resolution et determination ce qui n’est que proposé … problematiquement et academiquement” (S, 43).

  83. 83.

    “At cur non sit potius in illo eximius quidam veritatis amor, qui ut falli ipse non vult, ita nollet alios amplecti pro veritate fallaciam? Et verum quidem est plurimos arripere incunctanter multa dogmata quasi evidenter nota, et accurate demonstrata, ac proinde quae ipsi se scire certissime arbitrentur. Ille porro, qui considerans, attentiusque examinans omnia, viderit ipsos ex praeoccupatione quadam, veritatis specie decipi, cur censeatur temerarius, si ut ipsi illico assentiri renuat, ac illos etiam admoneat ut dilligentius singula expendant?” (Ex, II, 6, 6, 501).

  84. 84.

    The source of this episode is Baillet (1691, vol. I, 162). I discuss the relevance of this episode for Descartes’s philosophy in Maia Neto (2013).

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Neto, J.R.M. (2014). Gassendi’s Attack on Dogmatic Science. In: Academic Skepticism in Seventeenth-Century French Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 215. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07359-0_3

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