1. Pierre Gassendi was an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631.
27 Facts About Pierre Gassendi
1. 2.
Pierre Gassendi wrote numerous philosophical works, and some of the positions he worked out are considered significant, finding a way between skepticism and dogmatism.
3.
Richard Popkin indicates that Gassendi was one of the first thinkers to formulate the modern "scientific outlook", of moderated skepticism and empiricism.
4.
Pierre Gassendi clashed with his contemporary Descartes on the possibility of certain knowledge.
5.
Pierre Gassendi's best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity.
6.
Pierre Gassendi was born at Champtercier, near Digne, in France to Antoine Gassend and Francoise Fabry.
7.
Pierre Gassendi lectured principally on the Aristotelian philosophy, conforming as far as possible to the traditional methods while he followed with interest the discoveries of Galileo and Kepler.
8.
Pierre Gassendi came into contact with the astronomer Joseph Gaultier de la Vallette, the Grand Vicar of the Archbishopric of Aix.
9.
Pierre Gassendi travelled to Grenoble on behalf of the Chapter of Digne for a lawsuit, most reluctantly, since he was working on his project on Aristotle's paradoxes.
10.
Pierre Gassendi spent some time with his patron Nicolas Peiresc.
11.
Pierre Gassendi held the Provostship until his death in 1655.
12.
Pierre Gassendi then spent some years travelling through Provence with the duke of Angouleme, governor of the region.
13.
Pierre Gassendi returned to Paris in 1641, where he met Thomas Hobbes.
14.
Pierre Gassendi gave some informal philosophy classes, gaining pupils or disciples; according to the biographer Grimarest, these included Moliere, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean Hesnault and Claude-Emmanuel Chapelle, son of Lullier.
15.
Ruar replied at length that he had already read Pierre Gassendi but was in favour of leaving science to science not to the church.
16.
Pierre Gassendi travelled in the south of France in the company of his protege, aide and secretary Francois Bernier, another pupil from Paris.
17.
Pierre Gassendi spent nearly two years at Toulon, where the climate suited him.
18.
Pierre Gassendi addressed the issue of free fall in De motu and De proportione qua gravia decidentia accelerantur.
19.
The first part contains the specially empirical positions which Pierre Gassendi afterwards neglects or leaves out of account.
20.
Pierre Gassendi holds that the true method of research is the analytic, rising from lower to higher notions; yet he sees and admits that inductive reasoning, as conceived by Francis Bacon, rests on a general proposition not itself proved by induction.
21.
Friedrich Albert Lange claimed that all this portion of Pierre Gassendi's system contains nothing of his own opinions, but is introduced solely from motives of self-defence.
22.
Pierre Gassendi wrote against the magical animism of Robert Fludd, and judicial astrology.
23.
Pierre Gassendi became dissatisfied with the Peripatetic system, the orthodox approach to natural philosophy based on the writings of Aristotle.
24.
Pierre Gassendi contributed to the objections against Aristotelian philosophy, but waited to publish his own thoughts.
25.
Pierre Gassendi acknowledged that while the complete realisation of the continual pursuit of ultimate pleasure through communion with God might not occur in one's lifetime, he argued against the consumption of meat, considering it a significant obstacle to achieving a divine vision.
26.
Pierre Gassendi supported his case for vegetarianism with arguments from medicine, history, and scripture.
27.
Pierre Gassendi admired the historical virtue of vegetarian practitioners and urged scholars to extract and follow the best ideas from throughout history, asserting that, especially among humanists, a vegetarian lifestyle should be embraced.