De vita et moribus Epicuri
First edition of this essential text by Gassendi, which had a powerful influence on the formation of the rationalist movement in the Enlightenment.
In-4 of 3 ff., pp.5-236, (9) ff., portrait. Full contemporary flexible vellum, calligraphic title on spine, scattered dampstains, some foxing.
214 x 152 mm.
Gassendi, Pierre. De vita et moribus Epicuri Libri octo.Lyon, Guillaume Barbier, 1647.
Period binding.
First edition of this essential text by Gassendi, which exerted a powerful influence on the formation of the rationalist movement in the Enlightenment.It is decorated with a portrait of Epicurus.
Goldsmith G., 186; Hoffmann, II, 148; Turner-G., 88; Franck, Dictionnaire des Sciences philosophiques, pp. 494-502; J. H. Randall, The Career of Philosophy, I, pp. 521-23.
This text lays the foundation of Gassendi’s Epicurean atomism and seeks, for the first time, to officially rehabilitate Epicurus.
The atomist thesis developed by Gassendi would be used by Boyle and adopted by Newton.
“Before Galileo and Descartes had succeeded in combining mathematics with mechanics, the chief refuge of hard-headed opponents of scholastic verbalism and Renaissance Platonism was the tradition of Greek atomism. Its chief representative during the period of Cartesian domination was Gassendi, who stands both as the climax of Epicurean atomism of the Renaissance in its accommodation to a mathematical science of nature, and as the first of the explorers of the implications of that science for the traditional empirical philosophy of knowledge.
Gassendi is with Hobbes one of the fathers of ‘scientific’ empiricism.
Gassendi indeed fancied himself the creator of the great rival scientific system to that of Descartes, the system founded on sound experience. History has reserved that distinction for Hobbes; yet it is probable that Gassendi contributed far more to the actual advance of scientific ideas than his more consistent and gifted British fellow-worker.” (J.H. Randall).
“I do not think, said Bayle, that in any country where anyone has written for this philosopher [Epicurus], anyone has equaled Gassendi: what he did on this subject is a masterpiece, the most beautiful & the most judicious collection that can be seen.”
“No one has defended Epicurus with more wit, more happily than Pierre Gassendi, a truly great man, learned if ever there was one in every kind of science.” (Sansom Parker).
Gassendi (1592-1655), “the most learned among philosophers and the mostskilful philosopher among the scholars of the 17th century” (Tennemann) obtained the chair of philosophy at the University of Aix.
The Prince of Conti attended Gassendi’s lectures.
The discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler demonstrated to him the inadequacy of Aristotelianism, and he tried to have it recognized publicly in his lectures. In 1624, he went to Paris where he associated with most of the distinguished minds of his time: La Mothe Le Vayer, Mersenne, Descartes, Kepler, and Galileo.
Although there was great rivalry between Gassendi and Descartes, they united as opponents of Aristotle.
Like Descartes, Gassendi indeed affirmed the rights of reason against superstitions.
“It is to Leibniz that Gassendi should be compared, since both tend to substitute a dynamism for the Cartesian mechanism. But Gassendi is more directly connected to this empiricist and scientific trend, somewhat on the margins of the 17th century and which, through the intermediary of Fontenelle, would have a great influence on the following era.
Gassendi claimed Epicurus, to whom he would devote several works.” (Dictionnaire des auteurs).
Luillier, knowing the notes he had collected on the life of Epicurus, had them printed in Lyon in 1647. The reception given to this treatise encouraged Gassendi. He threw himself with renewed ardor into studying Epicurus and preparing the important materials for the works he later produced on this philosopher. Gassendi endeavored to show that Epicurus’s life had been slandered and his doctrines misunderstood and distorted. He succeeded in the works he undertook to make known the life and doctrines of Epicurus. For this he had to gather, arrange, and discuss all the testimonies that had survived through the centuries. Gassendi did this with rare success, and the treatises he published on this point are masterpieces of erudition and sound criticism. (Franck).
