Abstract
In “Nos in Diem Vivimus: Gassendi’s Probabilism and Academic Philosophy from Day to Day,” Delphine Bellis challenges Popkin’s twofold reading of Gassendi. On Popkin’s account, Gassendi was first a Pyrrhonian, and later in his career became a mitigated “sceptic” who tried to elaborate a specific epistemology in order to overcome the sceptical crisis of his time. Bellis shows that, beyond the role played by Pyrrhonian arguments in rebuking Aristotelian theses, Academic philosophy (in particular as conveyed by Cicero) played a much more constructive role in building Gassendi’s own philosophy right from its beginning. Academic philosophy offered to Gassendi a probabilist model of knowledge which, contrary to Pyrrhonism, opened the possibility of a natural philosophy conceived as a science of appearances, i.e. as based on experimentation on appearances, in the line of the Academic notion of “inspected” or “scrutinized” appearances. By showing the long-lasting permanence of Academic philosophy as a source of inspiration for Gassendi’s own philosophy, Bellis demonstrates how probabilism became central to his epistemology and natural philosophy. In addition to Gassendi’s erudite interest for Cicero and Charron, Academic probabilism suited Gassendi’s own practice as a natural philosopher in the realms of meteorology and astronomy. But first and foremost, Gassendi’s preference for Academic philosophy rather than for Pyrrhonism was motivated, early in his philosophical career, by ethical concerns: the importance of preserving his libertas philosophandi, combined with his personal incapacity not to incline toward one opinion or another, led him to formulate his epistemological probabilism and to claim the freedom to revise his opinions from day to day.
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- 1.
Popkin 1960.
- 2.
Popkin 2003, 15: “The quest for certainty was to dominate theology and philosophy for the next two centuries, and because of the terrible choice – certainty or total Pyrrhonism – various grandiose schemes of thought were to be constructed to overcome the sceptical crisis. The gradual failure of these monumental efforts was to see the quest for certainty lead to two other searches, the quest for faith – pure fideism – and the quest for reasonableness – or a ‘mitigated scepticism’.” Margaret Osler proposes the same interpretation when she writes: “The probabilism of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers of science had its roots in the skeptical crisis that convulsed European thought in the wake of the Reformation.” (Osler 1979, 10)
- 3.
Popkin 2003, 91–96.
- 4.
Popkin 2003, 120–127.
- 5.
Popkin 2003, xx: “Neither the presentations of Academic scepticism in Cicero and St. Augustine, nor the summaries of both types of scepticism – Academic and Pyrrhonian – in Diogenes Laertius were rich enough to satisfy those concerned with the sceptical crisis of the Renaissance and Reformation. Hence, thinkers like Michel Montaigne [sic], Marin Mersenne, and Pierre Gassendi turned to Sextus for materials to use in dealing with the issues of their age.” For a re-evaluation of the role Academic scepticism played in early modern philosophy, see Schmitt 1972; Giocanti 2013.
- 6.
- 7.
Bernier 1678, I, s. p.: “I will not tell you anything of those that want him held as a mere historian of philosophy, and even as being somewhat too skeptical…but one must only follow him to see that he does not stop there. And if he often uses the word Videtur, it is not that he does not sufficiently reveal his intention, and what appears to him as more probable.” (“Je ne vous dirai rien de ceux qui le veulent faire passer pour un simple Historien de la Philosophie, et même pour être un peu trop Sceptique…mais il ne faut que le suivre pour voir qu’il n’en demeure pas là. Et s’il se sert souvent de ce mot Videtur, ce n’est pas qu’il ne fasse assez connaître où il tend, et ce qui lui semble plus probable…”)
- 8.
Bloch has perfectly identified, in the Exercitationes, what he calls a “fake Pyrrhonism” (see Bloch 1971, 91–92). Brundell also identified the anti-Aristotelian, and thus instrumental, dimension of Gassendi’s so-called Pyrrhonism: see Brundell 1987, 27. But, contrary to Bloch, Brundell failed to identify the constructive contribution of Academic scepticism to the building of Gassendi’s own epistemology.
- 9.
- 10.
See Gassendi 1658, I, 13b.
- 11.
See Berr 1960, passim (in particular 77–78, 86).
- 12.
See Gregory 1961, 21, 26, 34, 47, 143.
- 13.
Joy 1987, passim.
- 14.
Popkin 2003, 94.
- 15.
Popkin 2003, 112 (my emphasis).
- 16.
See Exercitationes, II, v, 1, in Gassendi 1658, III, 182b. The examples of the broken stick and the square tower are to be found in Sextus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 14; the example of the boat in motion in his Against the Logicians, I (414).
- 17.
See Exercitationes, II, vi, 2, in Gassendi 1658, III, 193a–195a.
- 18.
See Exercitationes, II, i, 5, in Gassendi 1658, III, 152b–153a where he refers to Cicero considering the dialectician as unable to judge on subject matters of which he is no specialist (like geometry, music or philosophy).
- 19.
See Exercitationes, II, i, 8, in Gassendi 1658, III, 155b where he mentions Cicero’s criticisms against the Stoics’ dialectic as consisting in useless complications which can only lead anyone to remain silent.
- 20.
Jean-Charles Darmon identifies “two main types of Gassendian uses of Cicero, which are in perpetual interaction: a skeptical, probabilist use on one hand; a more strictly ‘Epicurean’ use on the other hand.”: see Darmon 1993. But whereas Darmon mainly explores the second use, I concentrate on the first one and try to evaluate the contribution of this source to the constitution of Gassendi’s own philosophy.
- 21.
- 22.
Glucker 1995, 133.
- 23.
See Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, V, iv, 11.
- 24.
See Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, II, iii, 9.
- 25.
Exercitationes, II, vi, 6 in Gassendi 1658, III, 204b–205a: “Sed et de ipso Platone quid dicam, cum non alius, sed idem sit ipsius ac Socratis sensus? Omitto proinde quam saepe jactabundos Sophistas confodiat, quamque saepe testetur sufficere si probabiles aliquas inter disserendum rationes attulerit, quippe cum veritas sit Diis, Deorumque filiis concedenda, hominibus autem una satis esse verisimilitudo debeat…Adjicio dumtaxat merito Platonem haberi Parentem totius Academiae; seu enim ejus Sectatores habebant omnia incomprehensibilia, suumque assensum aeque continebant ab omnibus, existimantes videlicet nullam esse Propositionem ratione suffultam, cujus opposita non posset pari ratione suffulciri, quod Arcesilai fuit institutum; sive aliqua admittebant prae aliis verosimilia, adeo ut etiam assensum ad illa inclinari patentur; cum certa tamen ac indubita minime concederent: quod Carneadis propositum fuit. Profecto hoc unum propositum ipsis fuit, Nihil sciri.”
- 26.
- 27.
See Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 1 [4].
- 28.
Gassendi defined it as follows: “But others consider and say that what is true is of such a kind that it can neither be discovered nor be perceived; hence they are called Acataleptics because they consider that all the things are ἀkατάληπτα incomprehensible.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 13b: “Alii autem existimant, pronuntiantque Verum eiusmodi esse, ut nec inveniri, nec percipi possit; unde et dicuntur Acataleptici, quod existiment omnia esse ἀkατάληπτα incomprehensibilia.”)
- 29.
Gassendi relied on Cicero’s Academica posteriora, I, xii, 45.
- 30.
See Gassendi 1658, I, 18a.
- 31.
Gassendi 1658, I, 18b: “Tametsi vero Cicero non videtur agnoscere quidpiam a Carneade fuisse innovatum; is tamen vulgo agnoscitur Academiae Nouae, sive Tertiae author, ut qui temperauerit rationem philosophandi Arcesilae, statuendo in rebus reperiri quandam non certitudinem quidem, sed verisimilitudinem tamen.”
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
Gassendi 1972, 302–303 (modified): “Nor did Carneades, when he founded the Academy called the Third Academy, even though he did introduce some innovations, restore the criterion, for he did not believe he held the truth, but only probability, which is why he is different according to Sextus Empiricus from those who posit some criterion.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 72b)
- 35.
Note however that Sextus Empiricus mentioned appearances as a criterion: see Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 11 [21–24]. But then he meant that appearances were always considered to be true in themselves, not insofar as they were indicative of the reality of things.
- 36.
Gassendi 1972, 294: “And yet the criterion ought to be one that is subject to no falsity and that gives birth to certain and infallible knowledge; moreover, it cannot be one that can only prove something as probable, nor one that does not create full confidence and therefore command an assent that is anything but unsteady and fearful.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 70a)
- 37.
Gassendi 1972, 294: “Nor is there enough solidity in the customary objection to those who say that nothing is certain or can be comprehended, namely that they do not really doubt that it is daylight when the sun is shining, that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet, and other things of that sort; and that therefore they must at least accept the criterion by which those things are determined, namely the senses. For these men, as we observed above, say that the appearance of things, or what things appear to be on the outside, is one thing and the truth, or the inner nature of things, namely what the things are in themselves, is another matter, and that when they say that nothing can be known certainly and that there is no criterion, they are not speaking of what things appear to be and of what is revealed by the senses as if by some special criterion, but of what things are in themselves, which is so hidden that no criterion can disclose it.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 70a)
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
Gassendi 1972, 326 (modified): “And since the dogmatics really do not know the greater part of the things they believe they know, the occasion arises only too frequently in Physics to declare that we are fortunate if we attain not what is true but what is probable <verisimile> .” (Gassendi 1658, I, 79b)
- 43.
Gassendi 1972, 333: “And although it is admitted that the senses are sometimes misleading and that therefore the sign may not be reliable, still reason, which is superior to the senses, can correct the perception of the senses so that it will not accept a sign from the senses unless it has been corrected and then at last it deliberates, or reaches its judgment of the thing.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 81b).
- 44.
Detel 2002, 262.
- 45.
See Dear 1984, 191–192, 196, 201, 204.
- 46.
- 47.
See Jones 1981, 13, 16.
- 48.
Sarasohn 1996, 199: “By the time Gassendi wrote the Syntagma, rhetoric had incorporated strategies from Academic skepticism, in particular the use of ad utramque partem reasoning…to find the most probable conclusion.”
- 49.
See Shapiro 1983, 4, 6–9, 15–17, 38–39.
- 50.
Gassendi was initiated into astronomy by Joseph Gaultier, prior of La Valette and Vicar General of the diocese of Aix: see the preface to his Commentary on Celestial Phenomena in Gassendi 1658, IV, 76. His first observations were concerned with a comet that appeared between November and December 1618. On Gassendi’s astronomical activities, see Humbert 1936.
- 51.
On this topic, see Martin 2011, in particular chapter 1, 21–37.
- 52.
Aristotle, Meteorologica, 339 a 2–3: “[…] in those topics that remain partly problematic to us, but of which, in a way, we grasp a part”. Gassendi recalled this view of Aristotle in the Exercitationes: see Gassendi 1658, III, 130a.
- 53.
Gassendi 1658, III, 653a: “Sufficit mihi coniecturam sequi quae vel umbram quondam levem probabilitatis habeat…” See also Gassendi 1658, III, 655b where he concluded from the “verisimilitude” of the refraction from the inside edge in the case of the rainbow to the “probability” of the refraction from the external edge in the case of the halo for the parhelia. He also declared that the explanation of the rainbow that he proposed was probable and that those of others like Cardano, Scaliger, and Maurolyco were less likely (verisimiles minus).
- 54.
Gassendi to Peiresc, 15 June 1629, in Peiresc 1893, 195–196: “Je veux bien que nous en ignorions les causes, comme en effet nous les ignorons et ensemble la façon dont ilz sont produictz, mais si cette ignorance là nous doibt faire apprehender quelque chose, apprehendons hardiment de tout ce qui est produit en nature, car à vray dire nostre ignorance s’y trouve esgale partout…Pour la production de ces mesmes parhélies dont vous demandez aussi mon sentiment, je contredirois à ce que je viens de dire si je vous en disois un advis certain. Je n’ai point la vanité de dire que j’en cognoisse la façon et mon humeur aulcunement pyrrhoniene est bien esloignée d’en asseurer quelque chose. Ce que je vous en vay aussi dire tout en beguayant, ne sera que pour vous donner la satisfaction qu’il vous plaist avoir, que je vous en dise peu ou prou…”
- 55.
See Diogenes Laertius, Lives, X, 38–40.
- 56.
Joy 1987, 171.
- 57.
- 58.
In the Syntagma philosophicum, after having distinguished the Dogmatics, the Academics and the Sceptics among the Greek schools of philosophy, Gassendi, overlooking the distinction between the Sceptics and the Academics, wondered whether Epicurus was closer to the Dogmatics or to the Sceptics and opted for the second interpretation. He indeed considered that the formulation of multiple explanations to account for natural phenomena was similar to the way the Sceptics opposed some causes the one to the others about one same thing. See Gassendi 1658, I, 13b–14a. This is an evolution in comparison with his earlier writings: although he acknowledged that Epicurus’ meteorological and astronomical explanations got him close to the Sceptics, he still considered him as a Dogmatic in 1642: see his letter to Louis de Valois, 28 February 1642 in Gassendi 1658, VI, 135a. Even if, in the Syntagma philosophicum, Gassendi did not explicitly associate Epicureanism with Academic philosophy, but rather with scepticism, it is obvious that the importance of the notion of probability is what they both have in common. On multiple explanations and meteorology in Epicureanism, see Bakker 2010.
- 59.
- 60.
See Franklin 2001, 134–140. The most famous example at the time is the preface Andreas Osiander added to Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in order to downplay the realist dimension of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory. For such a view of astronomical hypotheses which are considered to be false from a physical point of view and only meant to allow for calculations, see Gassendi 1658, I, 265a.
- 61.
See Dear 1984, 199–200. Lorraine Daston characterized Gassendi, together with Mersenne or Boyle, as belonging to early probabilists. She made an explicit link between their probabilist approach to natural philosophy and the traditional standards adopted in astronomy. Daston 1988, xii: “They conceived of their field as more akin to, say, celestial mechanics than to algebra – that is, as a mathematical model of a certain set of phenomena, rather than as an abstract theory independent of its application.”
- 62.
From that perspective, he was clearly in the line of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe.
- 63.
The idea of “saving the phenomena” was expressed in his Institutio astronomica (1647): see Gassendi 1658, IV, 25a. See also his Syntagma philosophicum in Gassendi 1658, I, 615a, 617b, 630a. On Gassendi’s move from a realist to a hypothetical approach to astronomy and from a Copernican to a Tychonic cosmology after Galileo’s 1633 condemnation, see Brundell 1987, 30–47.
- 64.
See Gassendi 1658, I, 630a.
- 65.
I could only find a few references to astronomical “hypotheses” until 1633: one in a letter to Gaffarel of 8 March 1629 (Gassendi 1658, VI, 14a) but the idea is that astronomers can “establish” their hypotheses (hypothesisbusque suis stabiliendis) by the use of accurate instruments; another in a letter to Blaeu of 1 October 1632 (Gassendi 1658, VI, 51a) about the way Kepler might have omitted some observations by Tycho Brahe in order to fit better his own hypotheses. The letter to Schickard of 15 March 1633 expressed a similar idea (Gassendi 1658, VI, 62a). Contrary to the later Syntagma philosophicum, no idea of a fictional dimension was expressed in any of those letters. Another mention of astronomical “hypotheses” is to be found in a letter of 2 November 1632 addressed to Scheiner; it has a mainly rhetorical value because Scheiner rejected the motion of the Earth (Gassendi 1658, VI, 55a).
- 66.
See Gassendi to Mersenne, 13 December 1635 in Gassendi 1658, VI, 81b.
- 67.
Gassendi 1658, III, 635a: “Enim-verò illa usurpo, quasi quasdam hypotheseis, quibus coner, quatenus possum, intelligere, atque explicare industriam admirabilem, qua sapientissimus Opifex voluit sua haec opera proprias exserere actiones. Atque id quidem eadem ratione, qua Astronomi, dum hypotheseis, seu mavis figmenta in Caelum inducunt.” (“Indeed, I use those [fictions], as if they were some hypotheses by which I attempt, as far as I can, to understand and to account for the wonderful industry by which the wisest workman wanted his works to uncover his own actions. And this by the same reason by which astronomers introduce in the heaven hypotheses, or rather fictions.”)
- 68.
I therefore agree with Marco Messeri when he claims that, contrary to Lenoble’s interpretation, Gassendi’s reference to astronomical conjectures did not convey the idea of a natural philosophy that would be completely auto-sufficient and independent from any reference to the ideal of a definitive knowledge of causes and possession of truth. See Messeri 1985, 51–53. The reference to astronomical hypotheses does not point to a mathematical natural philosophy autonomous from the search for causes, but appears as a last resort due to the limitation of our cognitive capacities in this life. Moreover, as Detel has shown, in Gassendi’s more physical investigations, his probabilism could take the form of a kind of hypothetico-deductive method, using experience not only as a set of signs from which to infer the probable material causes of phenomena, but as a way to confirm or refute a physical theory like the existence of the void or the principle of inertia in relation to the motion of the Earth: see Detel 2002, 263–266.
- 69.
Gassendi, Syntagma philosophicum, Institutio logica, I, Canon XI, in Gassendi 1981, 93–94: “experience gained through the senses remains the supreme criterion upon which we must rely when something is in doubt…” (Gassendi 1658, I, 96b); Institutio logica, IV, Canon IV, in Gassendi 1981, 160: “At the same time, since it sometimes happens that reason and the senses appear to contradict each other, Aristotle has taken the clear position that we must rely on the senses more than on reason; and he takes this position because in such situations there is the possibility that the reasoning is an inaccurate estimate or a surface explanation only, the true reason for the phenomenon appearing to the senses as it does remaining hidden.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 122a)
- 70.
Exercitationes, II, vi, 1, in Gassendi 1658, III, 192a: “notitiam quamdam experimentalem et rerum apparentium.”
- 71.
- 72.
On that point, I disagree with Marco Messeri who claimed that, in the Exercitationes, Gassendi’s conception of a conjectural science of appearances bore only on the conduct of life, and not on the knowledge of nature: see Messeri 1985, 24–25.
- 73.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 33, in Sextus Empiricus 1994, 60: “[the Academics] say that some [impressions] are plausible and others implausible. Even among the plausible ones they say there are differences: some, they think, really are just plausible, others plausible and inspected [διεξωδευμένας], others plausible and scrutinized [περιδευμένας] and undistractable.” The first correspond to what appears at first sight, the second to what appears under closer scrutiny; the third to what can be concluded from relating by reason appearances to what one already knows.
- 74.
- 75.
Gassendi, Syntagma philosophicum, Institutio logica, I, Canon XI, in Gassendi 1981, 93–94: “To be sure, though experience gained through the senses remains the supreme criterion upon which we must rely when something is in doubt, nevertheless not any experience whatsoever is to be so regarded, but only that which has been freed from all uncertainty and all doubt and which is so clear that everything weighed in the balance it cannot reasonably be doubted.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 96b); Institutio logica IV, Canon IV, in Gassendi 1981, 160: “whenever there is a question about something which can be verified by the senses…we must refer the matter to the senses and rely upon the evidence which they supply, evidence, I say, which is readily available if no hindrance stands in the way, or which is readily supplied once the hindrance is removed; and by hindrance I mean, for example, distance, which causes large objects to appear small, square objects round, and so on…” (Gassendi 1658, I, 122a).
- 76.
Sextus Empiricus rejected the distinctions formulated by the Academics between more or less probable appearances insofar as they were compared and referred to what they were the appearances of. For him, all appearances were equal in terms of probability or improbability: see Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 33 [227].
- 77.
On the way Gassendi elaborated the notion of objective appearance for the apparent size of celestial bodies, see Bloch 1971, 16–18.
- 78.
Gassendi 1972, 326 (modified): “And since the dogmatics really do not know the greater part of the things they believe they know, the occasion arises only too frequently in Physics to declare that we are fortunate if we attain not what is true but what is probable <verisimile>.” (Gassendi 1658, I, 79b)
- 79.
See Epistolae tres de proportione qua gravia decidentia accelerantur in Gassendi 1658, III, 570a–b. Contrary to mathematics where it is possible to attain certainty, the realm of physics is that of the “darkness of the human mind.”
- 80.
Some commentators have defended the idea that the development of a probabilist or hypothetical epistemology in the seventeenth century was linked to the development of corpuscular theories of matter. The idea that the adoption of corpuscular matter theories, i.e. of material entities impossible to visualize, led natural philosophers to adopt a hypothetical epistemology was defended by Larry Laudan: see Laudan 1966, 89–91, 96. Even if she does not exclude the possibility that the connection might work the other way round (that is to say that corpuscular matter theories could have been adopted because of a modification of epistemological standards in the wake of the diffusion of scepticism), Sophie Roux has tried to establish this connection in a more systematic way than Laudan: see Roux 1998, 233–238. Since Gassendi turned out to be an atomist, this is obviously an attractive suggestion linking his interest for Academic philosophy to his adoption of atomism. However, Gassendi began to work on Epicureanism in 1626, and only around 1629 more precisely on his atomist theory. Now, as is clear from the Exercitationes paradoxicae of 1624 and his letter to du Faur de Pibrac of 8 April 1621 (Gassendi 1658, VI, 1b–2a), his interest in Academic philosophy predates his adoption of atomism. Therefore, in Gassendi’s case, the latter cannot account for the former. The latter ontological commitment was not what first prompted his epistemological interest in Academic philosophy. Of course, this does not exclude that Gassendi’s adoption of atomism reinforced his interest in a probabilist form of scepticism. However, in Gassendi’s case, it is clear that he adopted parts of Academic philosophy before atomism.
- 81.
This is only on the condition to understand probabilism in this sense that I can agree with Lisa Sarasohn when she writes: “Gassendi is one of the links between the humanism and skepticism of the late sixteenth century and the hypothetical and probabilistic approach to knowledge of the late seventeenth century…Gassendi’s natural and ethical philosophy clearly shows that at least this founder of the mechanical philosophy was part of an emerging probabilistic tradition.” (Sarasohn, 1996, x)
- 82.
If Gassendi envisaged the possibility to predict probable future events, this was only as a derivative of the establishment of conjectural causes. This is what distinguished divinatory arts (that Gassendi sharply criticized) from authentic knowledge: see Gassendi 1658, II, 855a.
- 83.
See Glucker 1995.
- 84.
See Lévy 1992, 285–290.
- 85.
See De apparente magnitudine, Epistola II, in Gassendi 1658, III, 423a where Gassendi claimed that his explanations were only probable and that he was satisfied if he could choose among many verisimilar explanations the one that had the greater semblance to truth.
- 86.
See Tack 1974, 109–112.
- 87.
See Cicero, Academica priora, II, xxxi, 99–100. Even if some commentators refuse to see in Carneades’ πιθανόν a merely dialectical tool whose function was to defeat the Stoics, they generally agree on the fact that this notion was only meant to solve the problem of action and everyday life if one was to adopt a general suspension of judgment. See for example Lévy 1992, 282–283.
- 88.
Syntagma philosophicum, in Gassendi 1972, 322: “and although Carneades accepted the ‘probable’ (pithanon), or that which, all things considered, seemed probably the best thing to do, nonetheless it is clear that these are not so much criteria for determining the truth as criteria for leading one’s life, much like the appearances (phainomenon) of the Skeptics…” (Gassendi 1658, I, 78a)
- 89.
Cicero, Academica priora, II (Lucullus), x, 32 in Cicero 1956, 509: “For [the Academics] hold…that something is ‘probable,’ or as it were resembling the truth, and that this provides them with a canon of judgment both in the conduct of life and in philosophical investigation and discussion.”
- 90.
Gassendi 1658, III, 214: “Tametsi enim tu me fere Pyrrhonium esse prohibes, sicque semper urgere soles, quasi aliquid habeam, quod Dogmaticῶs proferam: vicissim tamen amicitiae iure illud debes concedere, ut vivere in diem liceat, & nihil unquam vel efferre, vel excipere praeter fines merae probilitatis.”
- 91.
- 92.
Even if Gassendi might have had a kind of Pyrrhonian temptation, its rejection clearly predates the writing of the Exercitationes paradoxicae and thus cannot support Popkin’s interpretation.
- 93.
Gassendi 1658, VI, 1b–2a. Charron might be an important source for the elaboration of Gassendi’s probabilism, since the author of De la sagesse, as has been shown by José R. Maia Neto, adopted Academic views and was highly influential in early modern philosophy: see Neto 2009, 227. See also Neto 2014, 45–65 for a parallel between Gassendi’s Exercitationes paradoxicae and Charron.
- 94.
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, V, xi, 33 in Cicero 1950, 459: “I live from day to day; I say anything that strikes my mind as probable; and so I alone am free” (“nos in diem vivimus; quodcumque nostros animos probabilitate percussit, id dicimus, itaque soli sumus liberi.”)
- 95.
Exercitationes, I, ii, 8 in Gassendi 1658, III, 113b: “Ille sane generosior, qui, hoc liberiores, inquit, et solutiores sumus, quod integra nobis est judicandi potestas: neque ut omnia, quae prescripta, et quasi imperata sunt, defendamus, necessitate illa cogimur. Nam caeteri ante primum tenentur adstricti, quam quid esset optimum judicare potuerunt. Deinde infirmissimo tempore aetatis, aut obsecuti amico cuidam, aut una alicujus, quem primum audierunt, oratione capti, de rebus incognitis judicant. Hic porro ille est Marcus Tullius, quem cum alias admonuisset quis, videret ne suam inconstantiam proderet, quod eandem semper non tueretur sententiam, Tu quidem, inquit, tabellis obsignatis agis mecum, et testificaris quid dixerim aliquando, aut scripserim. Cum aliis isto modo, qui legibus impositis disputant. Nos in diem vivimus: quodcumque nostros animos probabilitate percussit, illud dicimus. Itaque soli sumus liberi.” On the topic of the libertas philosophandi in Gassendi, see Murr 1992.
- 96.
See the autobiographical account of Gassendi’s philosophical calling in the preface to the Exercitationes paradoxicae: Gassendi 1658, III, 99 (there Gassendi quoted Cicero, De senectute, I, 2).
- 97.
As was noted by Brundell: see Brundell 1987, 15, 24.
- 98.
Exercitationes, I, ii, 7 in Gassendi 1658, III, 113b: “Nisi forte libertas illa nihili aestimanda est? 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.” See also De proportione, in Gassendi 1658, III, 627b. Note that the image of an open hand is to be found in Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum, I, vi.
- 99.
See in particular the Liber Prooemialis in Gassendi 1658, I, 30b which referred to the libertas philosophandi.
- 100.
Concerning Epicurus, Gassendi wrote: “he thought that the things that happen in life are also subject to Fortune, but that it is the gift of wisdom to temper them and to prepare the soul for every event of Fortune.” (Gassendi 1658, II, 830a: “ille censuerit, subiici quidem etiam Fortunae ea, quae in vita accidunt, sed Sapientiae munus esse, illa temperare, praeparareque animum ad omnem Fortunae eventum.”)
- 101.
As Sarasohn rightly pointed, “Gassendi’s ethical doctrines about freedom depend on his epistemology, which…concludes that humans can have only probable rather than certain knowledge. Since no certain knowledge of essences is possible, people are constantly making, revising, rejecting, and changing judgments.” (Sarasohn 1996, 68) See Gassendi 1658, II, 821–825. But it is also true that the practical conditions for the pursue of truth in natural philosophy are conditioned by the freedom of philosophizing, that is to say of changing one’s opinions depending, for example, on new information gained from experience.
- 102.
See his letter to Thomas Fienus, 6 June 1629, in Gassendi 1658, VI, 16b–17a: “I love the liberty of philosophizing greatly… It is shameful for those who take pride in being philosophers not to consider themselves as men; and who fear, if they are not supported by the staff of authority, to waver, to yield and to fall down.”
- 103.
Syntagma philosophicum, Liber prooemialis “De philosophia universe,” IV in Gassendi 1658, I, 10a: “Qui praeterea non authoritate, non ambagibus, non cauillationibus contendit; sed ratione nuda, simplici, aperta, experimentisque indubiis, repetitis plurimis; sicque nunquam meditando, vestigando, explorando defatigatur. Qui nec obstinate se gerit, nec tergiuersatur, nec pudore suffunditur, dum, non dico a celebri viro, sed vel a rustico, a puero, a muliercula edoctus, cogitur mutare sententiam; et bona fide, alacriterque opinionem minus probabilem dimittit, probabiliorem complectitur…”
- 104.
Egan 1984, 86.
- 105.
See Exercitationes paradoxicae, II, v, 5 in Gassendi 1972, 75: “But no universal proposition can be arrived at by induction because it is not possible to pass under review beforehand and enumerate every individual case, by reason of which the proposition may be called universal. The reason for this is simply that the individual cases are innumerable…Hence, if you wished to establish by induction some proposition, for example ‘Every man is an animal,’ who would not realize that it is in fact impossible for you to pass under review and enumerate every individual man, not only those that may exist now, but also all those of the past, of the future, and all those that could ever exist?” (Gassendi 1658, III, 187b–188a)
- 106.
See Syntagma philosophicum, Institutio logica, III, Canon XI, in Gassendi 1658, I, 113a.
- 107.
In his Syntagma philosophicum, he explained that virtue was not only for him something pertaining to the moral realm, but also to science and erudition insofar as the latter were intended to enhance the mind: see Gassendi 1658, II, 705b.
- 108.
On the division between Cartesians and Gassendists at the Royal Society, see Sorbière (1666, 76).
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Acknowledgments
Research for this article was made possible by a Veni grant (275-20-042) funded by NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). I would also like to acknowledge the financial support the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen provided me with for English corrections. A first version of this paper was presented at the conference “Controversies and Experimentations in the Emergence of Modern Philosophy and Science” organized by Sophie Roux at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. I would like to thank the participants for their useful comments. I would also like to thank Raphaël Chappé, Christoph Lüthy, Carla Rita Palmerino, Kuni Sakamoto, Jan Willem Wieland and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions, Angela Axworthy for her help with the translation into English of the French quotations, Elena Nicoli for her help with the translation into English of the Latin quotations, and Charles Wolfe for his emendations to my English text. All translations are the author’s except where otherwise noted.
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Bellis, D. (2017). Nos in Diem Vivimus: Gassendi’s Probabilism and Academic Philosophy from Day to Day. In: Smith, P., Charles, S. (eds) Academic Scepticism in the Development of Early Modern Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 221. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45424-5_7
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