Version classiqueVersion mobile

Gassendi et l’Europe (1592-1792)

 | 
Sylvia Murr

Abstracts

Texte intégral

1Gassendi’s Training at the Collège Royal in Aix-en-Provence and the Carmélite Philosophical Tradition

2This paper relies on the unpublished lectures taught at the Collège Royal in Aix-en-Provence by Father Fezaye, Gassendi’s teacher in Philosophy. Following the philosophical tradition of his Order, the « Great Carmelites », Fezaye referred to John Baconthorpe, the so called « princeps averroistarum », whose main features in metaphysics and physics explain some of Gassendi’s original ideas. By a close comparison between Gassendi’s later writings and Carmelite teaching in Philosophy, we suggest more extensive research upon this specifie tradition in XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries.

3Jean-Robert Armogathe. Professor of History of Religions & Scientific Ideas in Modern Europe at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Religions Sciences), Sorbonne, 45 rue des Écoles, 75005 Paris.
<jrarmo@worldnet.fr>

4Gassendi’s mystical mathematics

5Gassendi read, on his reception at the College Royal (23/11/1645), an Oratio inauguralis on the theme: ὅθέος ἀεὶ γεωµετρεῖ. (God is always geometrizing), a lecture which, untypically enough in a Christian skeptic, belongs to the genre of mystical mathematics. This tradition can be traced from Nicolaus Cusanus to Pascal and Leibniz: it builds on the philosophical – and even theological – problems, in order to test reason’s ability to solve them; thus, the operation of « transsumption », such as the passage from the polygon to the circumference, is supposed to establish a commensurability or common ratio between the most heterogenous objects – man and Christ for instance, or the world and God –, a method which leads to viewing nature as a vast morphogenetic process following the rules of tranformational geometry.
Gassendi’s extremely brilliant performance suggests that the mysteries of nature and of religion cannot be transcribed into geometrical problems, and that they rather point to the fact that their solution is a matter of decision rather than a matter of reason.

6Pierre Magnard, Professor of Philosophy at the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), 1 rue Victor Cousin, 75230 Paris Cedex 05.

7Divine will and Mathematical Truth: The Conflict between Gassendi and Descartes on the Status of the Eternal Truths

8The disagreement between Gassendi and Descartes on the metaphysical status of mathematical truths reflects differences in their understandings of God’s relationship to the creation. As a voluntarist, Gassendi emphasized God’s free will and the contingency of the creation. According to him, mathematical truths, like all other creatures, are utterly contingent on God’s will and can be known only by empirical methods. As an intellectualist. Descartes argued that God had created mathematical truths to be neccessary. God could not change them, and therefore, they can be known by a priori methods. While these differences are evident throughout their writings, they lie at the heart of their dispute in the fifth set of « Objections and Replies », appended to Descartes’ Meditations.

9Margaret OSLER, Prof essor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Dept. of History, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4.
<mjosler@acs.ucalgary.ca>

10Naudé and Gassendi

11As the assassination of King Henry the IVth of France provoked a new strategy in the defense of absolutism and forced the libertines to wear a mask, secrecy became a crucial issue, and understatement a means of communication among the happy few – a characteristic evolution from the Baroque to the Classical. The very complex and sophisticated relationship between State and Court, Roman Catholicism and the Reformation, and the censorship prevailing in France at that particular moment, all called for new approaches: instead of founding a new science (politics), Gabriel Naudé offered a kind of « Discours de la méthode » for the education of the Prince, e.g. a System of references embodied in a prejudice-free library – and provided the necessary clue for understanding the function and mechanisms of the Reason of State.

12Marianne SCHAUB. Director of Research at the CNRS (UPR 75, Paris). 92, rue du Bac. 75007 – Paris.

13The “frivolous” gassendist philosophy of Saint-Evremond

14It is not always easy to understand how and why the philosophy of P. Gassendi came to be a key-reference for a certain kind of French writer towards the end of the seventeenth century or to describe its new meanings and functions in contexts which seem so remote from its original background. The writings of Saint-Evremond may provide some enlightening insight into this historical enigma, for they unveil, in very subtle ways, some of the diffuse hermeneutic procedures which led to a « frivolous », non-speculative – but aesthetically inspiring and fruitful – approach to epicureanism. In this paper, we concentrate on two kinds of such typical shifts in focus, namely: – in the field of knowlege, on the image of « skepticism » associated with Gassendi’s philosophical writings and oral teaching; and – in the realm of ethics, on the reappraisal of the epicurean philosophy of pleasure.

15Jean-Charles DARMON Université de Paris-Sorbonne, UFR de Philosophie moderne, Paris IV, 1 rue Victor Cousin, 75230 – Paris Cedex 05.

16Is Bernier’s seminal Gassendism unfaithful?

17As has been pointed out before, François Bernier’s Abregé must have been the only access the learned public had to Gassendi’s written work, front the last third of the XVIIth. century onwards. Bernier thus appears to personify the « followers » of Gassendi, not only as one of his most dedicated disciples, but as the only deliberate and self-conscious interpreter of his doctrine, and hence the source of the gassendism of a large portion of Gassendi’s later « followers ». It seems therefore of central relevance for this conference to compare the gassendism he presents as the « genuine » one, with Gassendi’s text.
The purpose of this paper is to try and to assessthe various aspects of the differences between the three versions of Bernier’s Abrégé (considered as a whole) and what can be assumed to be, to a certain -controversial- extent, the body of Gassendi’s intended philosophical teaching, namely his posthumous Syntagma Philosophicum (1658). The hypothesis of an unreflexive « deviationist » twist in Bernier’s transmission to the Enlightenment of Gassendi’s spirit and intent is finally proposed, qualified, and discussed.

18Sylvia MURR, Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (UPR 75, Paris), 6, rue Lagarde. 75005 – Paris.
<sylvia.murr@infobiogen.fr>

19Nicolas de Blégny and Gassendi

20A close study of the texts published in Holland between 1679 and 1681 by the physician Nicolas de Blégny (1646-1722) shows that his physics, although blending Cartesian and Gassendian elements, may be labelled Gassendist for two reasons: 1. he acknowledges the concept and reality of void, and 2. he considers matter and pure space to be mutually exclusive.
Textual comparison yields evidence that Blégny owes whatever he knows of Gassendi’s doctrine to Bernier’s 1674 Abrégé, and that his reading is more deliberately materialistic than his source. He thus prepares the ground for a further step towards the materialistic philosophy of the French Enlightenment, namely the doctrine of the sensibility of matter developed in 1714 by another french physician, Abraham Gaultier.

21Olivier Bloch, Professor. UFR de Philosophie Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne 17, rue de la Sorbonne. 75231 Paris Cedex 05.

22A forgotten Gassendist: G. B. de Saint Romain

23The chimist physician G. B. de Saint Romain, who had attended the Great Experiment of the Puy-de-Dôme performed upon the instructions of B. Pascal, has been a correspondent of Nicolas de Blégny. Like him too, he displays in his main work, La Science naturelle degagée des chicanes de l’École (Paris, 1679), an atomistic philosophy of which the frame is provided by Gassendi. Discarding both the formal and the exemplary causes, brushing away de facto the final causes by never even mentioning them. Saint Romain uses only material and efficient causes.. In this view, occult qualities must be banished from the field of natural sciences, where all is reduced to matter – made of indivisible atoms –, and material composite bodies. Yet, Saint Romain sets down the existence of a primal cause (God) given as necessary and demonstrable, and he further postulates that of such immaterial beings as angels and reasonable souls.

24Sylvain Matton. Research Fellow CNRS: (UPR 76). 45 rue Saint-Maur, F-75011 Paris.

25Is Desgabets a Gassendist?

26Dom Robert Desgabets (1610-1678) has been reckoned Gassendist by a few authors, among whom Victor Cousin. Yet Desgabets himself claims to be Cartesian, and even more Cartesian than Descartes! The evidence provided by his own texts is herewith analysed in order to attempt an answer to the question « Is Desgabets a Gassendist? ». Theese texts seem to show that he is indeed only a Gassendist insofar as he considers Gassendi as a the co-founder, along with Descartes, of the mechanistic « New philosophy ». But when the question arises as to which of the two parties he choses to belong, he will follow Descartes, condemning explicitly the doctrine of void and atoms. Desgabet’s apparent affinities with Gassendi may be explained by a cause other than influence: namely his own, often paradoxical, insight finding precisely in Descartes the means to maximize the fulfillment of whatever good is to be found in any other philosophy.

27Joseph BEAUDE. Director of Research (CNRS, UPR 75). 15 Boulevard de l’industrie, F-01600 Trévoux. France.

28Malebranche, Bernier, and father Le Valois’s defense of the traditional explanation of transsubstantiation

29In 1680, the jesuit Louis Le Valois published under the pen name of Louis de La Ville a very offensive indictment of what he called the cartesian concept of matter and space, and he did it in order to reassert the only physical doctrine which – according to tradition –, was compatible with the Roman Churche’s doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ, or Transsubstantiation, in the Eucharist. His attack was aimed at Malebranche considered as champion of the « Cartesians », but included the « Gassendists » (Bernier) in its range, charging them all with crypto-calvinism because they rejected the scholastic physics of Eucharist. This article analyses Malebranche’s and Bernier’s counterattacks as well as the doctrinal relationship between Malebranche and gassendism as represented by Bernier. It includes a brief account of the discussion that followed the conference, and a bibliographical survey of the whole case.

30Germain Malbreil, University of Lyons III, 10 rue du Palais-Grillet, F- 69002 Lyon. France.

31Gassendi And Bayle: two acolytes of Clio

32These two thinkers invite comparison and study of possible influence. Their philosophical outlooks were so similar that Bayle was bound to have read Gassendi; and in fact, Gassendi was a source for him on a variety of topics ranging from empirical science to atomism, skepticism and anti-aristotelianism. In addition, they shared versions of modernism, toleration, voluntarism, and the importance of final causes. However, the close connection that one would expect seems upset by crucial differences, e.g. Gassendi’s empiricism, his defense of the void, and most especially, his conception of history. While history is important to both, for Bayle it has a dynamic, narrative quality that is not found in his great predecessor.

33Thomas M. Lennon, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario. Canada N6A 3K7.
<TLennon@julian.uwo.ca>

34Atoms and the Void in the French collèges de plein exercice 1640- 1730

35Before 1650 philosophy teachers in France were Thomist Aristotelians who paid little attention to atomist explanations of natural phenomena. In the period 1650 to 1690 physics courses continued to be predominantly Aristotelian in tone, but some attempt was made to discuss, albeit always critically, Gassendi’s atomist theories, as part of a wider evaluation of the new mechanical philosophy. From 1690 philosophy professors were converted to the Cartesian version of the mechanical philosophy, and the Gassendist alternative continued to be dismissed as absurd. It would seem therefore that Gassendi’s reformulation of classical atomism left little mark on classroom teaching in the France of Louis XIV. In fact, only a handful of professors can be found who ever championed even a form of Gassendist atomism. Gassendi’s lack of influence in the classroom is difficult to explain completely but can be attributed in part to the increasing Cartesian prejudice of the opinion-forming Académie des Sciences and to atomism’s association with materialism, novelty and the scientific culture of an enemy power, England.

36Laurence Brockliss, Professor. Department of History. Magdalen College. UK-Oxford 0X1 4AU. United Kingdom.
<laurence.brockliss@magd.ox.ac.uk>

37Gassendi and the bio-sciences

38In the first half of the eighteenth century, Gassendi’s image was darkened by such disreputable ideas as epicureanism, materialism and atomism. Although it is difficult to find a direct and continuons connection between Gassendi’s writings and the problems addressed by physicians and naturalists of that period, this paper argues that strong links are discernible, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century in such classical debates as those dealing with the souls of beasts and the divisibility of Matter. Buffon and Maupertuis, who were in favour of epigenesis, actually turned Gassendi’s arguments against himself in their use of his theses about matter, and more broadly in their inquiry into the problematic link between the elemental life and the life of organised bodies. On the other hand, vitalists such as Bordeu, Menuret, Fouquet and others, underlined the importance of sensibility as a kind of elemental life. The proper reappraisal of Gassendi’s work in France took place in the second half of the century and was probably due to the influence of English authors, i.e. R. Cudworth and more especially F. Glisson, the new issue being then to understand the energetic power of Nature inherent in every fibre, every atom and particle.

39Roselyne REY († 15. J an. 1995). Late Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris.

40Gassendi and English scepticism

41Gassendi had a serious influence on English thought in the second half of the XVIIth. Century. His resolution of the sceptical crisis in some important ways foreshadowed that of the English sceptics, Glanvill and Hume, and of the British Empirical tradition from Mill. Several of his Works appeared in English translation. Glanvill cited Gassendi and presented a sceptical outlook much like Gassendi’s, and used it as way of explicating the sientific activity of the lime. Hume could have known Gassendi’s views directly or indirectly, though he never mentioned him. Hume’s « mitigated scepticism » is close to Gassendi’s via media between dogmatism and scepticism.

42Richard H. Popkin. Professer. University of California, Los Angeles, Department of History. Albright Street #204, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. USA.

43Charleton, Gassendi and the reception of epicurean atomism in England

44Walter Charleton is generally regarded as a disciple of both Epicurus and Gassendi. But we must see that he was also strongly influenced by Descartes. He attempted to synthesise two rather different philosophical positions, Epicurean atomism and Cartesian metaphysics. The Cartesian dimensions of his thought were never to produce significant converts. But the atomistic philosophy and the Epicurean ethics found a much more receptive audience. This, combined with a firm commitment to Christian theology, allowed a wider acceptance of atomic theories, together with their epistemologically important consequences, which emerged most clearly in Locke’s philosophy and the corpuscular theories of Boyle and Newton.

45G. A. John ROGERS, Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire, STS 5BG. UK.
<pia04@cc.keele.ac.uk>

46Gassendi’s atomism and Boyle’s corpuscular theory

47The early diffusion of Gassendi’s philosophy in England took place between the end of the 1640s and the beginning of the 1650s. Boyle was not satisfied with Gassendi’s revision of Epicurean atomism. He also opposed the idea that atoms had an internal principle of motion. Nonetheless, Boyle’s corpusuclar philosophy has much more in common with Gassendi’s atomism than with Descartes’ philosophy. Like Gassendi, Boyle imposed severe restrictions on the use of the mechanical principles in the explanation of natural phenomena. Rather than deviations in respect of a supposed linear progress of atomism towards a fully mechanistic view of the universe, the atomism of Gassendi and Boyle’s corpuscularianism constituted two corpuscular theories of matter which were not strictly mechanistic, but which played nonetheless a fundamental rôle in seventeenth century natural philosophy.

48Antonio CLERICUZIO, University of Cassino.
Via Tommaso Archidiacono, 33. 1-00143 Roma. Italy.

49About some analogies between Gassendi’s and Locke’s theories of sensitive knowledge

50There are analogies in the theories of sensitive knowledge as explained by Gassendi, especially in the Disquisitio, and by Locke in the Essay and Drafts A and B. They concern not only the terminology and explanation of that theory, but also the examples illustrating it. The specimina in the Drafts (1671) cannot have been suggested by Bernier’s Abrégé. It is clear that analogies are not proofs. But if systematic research could show that there are as many of them in other parts of the Essay, the supposition of close relations between Gassendi’s and Locke’s philosophies should get some credence.

51Rainer Specht, Professor, Ist chair of Philosophy. University of Mannheim. Schloß, Postfach 103462, D-6800 Mannheim 1. Germany.

52Gassendi and « The four philosophers » of David Hume

53A strong current of Epicureanism had appeared in England during the XVIIth. century and strengthened throughout the XVIIIth. century, when the influence of hedonism in morals and politics kept increasing. The point is to determine Gassendi’s influence on Hume’s philosophy. Gassendi was not directly quoted; but, among the twelve Essays, moral and political, published in 1742, Hume sketched four « portraits », the first of which is « the Epicurean » (the three others being « the Stoïc, the Platonist and the Sceptic »). Indeed, « the intention of the essay on the Epicurean and the other following essays is not so much to explain accurately the sentiments of the ancient sects of philosophy, as to deliver the sentiments of sects that naturally form themselves in the work »; but I have tried to determine the indirect influence of Gassendi on the first essay and in other quotations of Epicurus.

54Jean-Pierre Cléro, University of Rouen.
135 rue Chasselièvre, F-76000 Rouen. France.

55Gassendi and the Netherlands

56The most prominent feature of the history of Dutch philosophy in the XVIIth. century seems to be its emancipation from orthodox Aristotelianism; this trend was fostered by the emergence of Cartesianism, a philosophy that set the dismissal of all pre-existing knowledge and obedience as a prerequisite. The Anticartesians, well examplified by Bornius (1617-1675) and later Gerard De Vries (1648-1705), used Gassendi and his Disquisitio metaphysica as a source and model in their battle against Cartesian dogmaticism and intolerant sectarism, in favour of critical eclecticism and a genuine pursuit of experimental knowledge. But, as this paper tries to point out, a close scrutiny of the writings and teachings of the Dutch “modern” authors yields no evidence of Gassendi’s stylistic or doctrinal influence upon them.

57Theo Verbeek, Professor, Rijsksuniversiteit te Utrecht, Faculteit der Wijsbe-geerte. Postbus 80.126, N-3508 TC Utrecht. Holland.
<Theo. Verbeeke@phil.ruu.n1>

58Change and permanence in the influencce of Gassendi’s atomism on the genesis of Leibniz’s philosophical System

59This paper sums up five of the points that can be found with their complete developments in the main work of the author on the subject, Der Junge Leibniz, t. II: Der Übergang vom Atomismus zu einem mechanischen Aristotelismus. Der revidierte Anschluß an Gassendi. 1. The Syntagma Philosophicum has led Leibniz to his own early atomism. 2. There is a paradoxical historical analogy between Gassendi’s and Thomas Aquinas’ Syntheses of rational knowledge and Christian dogmas. 3. Leibniz’s world is a harmony with a universal mechanical foundation. 4. The very apories of atomism are the origin of Leibniz’s new concept of substance, namely the monad. 5. Technicism, which has emerged out of Descartes’ philosophy, is prevailing and menacing our world in spite of Gassendi’s and Leibniz’s philosophical heritages.

60Konrad Moll, Professor, Fachhochschule Esslingen. 33, Hellerweg. D- 7300 Esslingen. Germany.

61Leibniz’s reception of Gassendi in his years of maturity

62The object of this study is to delineate the portrait of Gassendi and of his work which cornes ont from the texts written by Leibniz after 1680. This picture, historically at variance with it’s model, belongs to the philosophy of the history of philosophy as conceived by Leibniz: a rehabilitator of Democritus and of Epicurus, Gassendi had been right, in a way, to rehabilitate the past ( « where nothing must be despised »), while he had been wrong to approve of the undefendable physics of the atomists. In promoting Galileo’s work, Gassendi had also been right against the enemies of modem science, although he had been unaware of the metaphysical foundations which account for the full intelligibility of mechanism. Paradoxically, Leibniz took advantage of Gassendi’s attacks against R. Fludd’s gibberish, while using them to build his own conception of the active force inherent in all creatures (a remote image of which could be seen in Gassendi’s idea of the activity of matter).

63Michel Fichant, Professor. UFR de Philosophie Paris I- Panthéon-Sorbonne 17, rue de la Sorbonne. 75231 Paris Cedex 05.

64<Theo. Verbeeke@phil.ruu.n1>Leibniz’s manuscript reading notes of Gassendi’s Opera

65Prof. André Robinet, editor of the Œuvres complètes de Malebranche for the CNRS and of a number of texts written by Leibniz, describes and transcribes here the Leibniz’s manuscript « reading notes » on Gassendi’s Opera omnia (1658). These (hardly legible) notes appear to have been written between 1673 and 1675, while he was working on his invention of infinitesimal calculus; they cover two pages only and are kept at the Landesbibliothek Hannover (Germany).

66André Robinet, Professor, Université libre de Bruxelles.
Les Vaux Clairs, 8, rue du Vieux-Moulin, F-41190 Orchaise. France.

67Gassendi and the polish Socinians and free-thinkers

68The reception of Gassendi’s ideas in Poland during the 17th. and 18th. centuries can be found among those philosophical circles representing Socianianism, Copernicanism, the « Philosophia recentiorum », and libertine Epicureanism. Some Socinians – such as A. Wiszowaty – met Gassendi in Paris. They were mainly interested in his Natural Philosophy. J. L. Wolzogen wrote a set of « eighth objections to Descartes’ Meditations » which are deeply influenced by Gassendi’s own « Objections ». J. Hevelius is one of the the Polish astronomers who exchanged a correspondence with the French philosopher. As for Gassendi’s heliocentrism, it was circulated, in a milder form, by the learned Natural Philosophers of Thorń and Dantzig/Gdańsk. The Piarist scientists like S. Konarski and A. Wiśniewski took interest not only in his occasionalist atomism, but in his logic as well. His Epicurean ethics met enthusiastic followers amidst the « Libertines » of the 17th. and 18th. centuries.

69Marian Skrzypek, Science Academy of Poland.
ul. Klaudyny 36 m 85, P-01-684 Waszawa. Poland.

70Between the Ancients and the Modems: the Physics of Gassendi in Tommaso Ceva’s Philosophia novo-antiqua

71Tommaso Ceva SJ. (1648-1737), teacher of Mathematics and Rhetoric at the Brera collegium in Milan, was the author of a De natura gravium and varions other works in poetry and prose. In the short poem Philosophia novo-antiqua he attacked Gassendi’s atomism and Descartes’ physics (the materialistic outcome of which he anticipated with fear) on the basis of a theory which attempted to conciliate the Aristotelian tradition with Galilean teachings. This study examines the main points of criticism which Ceva made against corpuscular doctrines – with particular reference to the theory of movement – and considers at length the debate (highly polemical at times) which he conducted on this subject with G. Grandi – a teacher at the University of Pisa and an attentive observer of the most innovative currents in European science between the end of the 17th century and the early decades of the 18th.

72Guido Canziani, Research Director at Centro di Studi del Pensiero Filosofico del Cinquecento e del Seicento in Relazione ai Problemi della Scienza (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche).
Via Eustachi 35, 1-20129 Milano. Italy<

73Tommaso Cornelio and the history of materialism

74Gassendi began to be known in Neaples after 1650, when Tommaso Cornelio – the founder, with Lionardo di Capua, of the scientific Academy of the Investigators – introduced his works in South Italy. Cornelio feels a great admiration for Descartes’ Principles, but he doesn’t agree with Descartes’s metaphysical views and physical rejection of the « vacuum »; so, in his Progymnasmata physica, a series of scientifïcal essays focusing its main interests on human physiology, he proposes a modem version of Atomism, where the notion of « œther » is the terminus medium between Cartesian plenism and Democritean vacuum.

75Paolo Cristofolini. Professore di Storia della Filosofia. Scuola Normale Superiore. Piazza dei Cavalieri, 7. 1-56126 Pisa. Italy.

76Vico and Gassendi: from prudence to politics

77Among the authors Vico mentions in his autobiography as having played a decisive part in his intellectual education, Gassendi holds a prominent rank, although the neapolitan philosopher – to conform to doctrinal « correctness » – takes care in his mature age to minimize the influence exerted upon his youth by the philosophy of the Kêpos and by its modem revivers.
Through a close examination of Vico’s juridical works and of the different extant versions of Scienza nuova, the present paper attempts to rebuild the – often concealed – conceptual frame of Vico’s références to his Gassendian source in the fields of juridical and political philosophy, namely the notions of « prudentia », « utilitas », and « socialitas ».
Gassendi himself had already revamped the Epicurean juridical utilitarianism not only in his commentary to Epicurus’ Ratœ Sententiœ, but also in the ethical part of his Animadversiones as well as of his Syntagma Philosophicum. Vico transforms this epicurean heritage in order to weave its key notions into the fabric of his own System.

78Gianni Paganini, Professor at the Università degli Studi di Torino, Seconda Facolta di Lettere e filosofia, Vercelli.
Via Turbigo 7, I-21052 Busto-Arsizio. Italy.
<paganini@vc.unipmn.it>

79Gassendi in Spain. Martín Martínez and his Philosophia sceptica

80The Philosophia sceptica (Madrid 1730) delivers on the whole a rather faithful synopsis of Gassendi’s thought and of the debates which have been opposing confronting it alternatively to Cartesianism and to Scholasticism. A sceptic like Gassendi, Martínez enhances the relativity of any knowledge that does not reach to the intimate nature of beings – and none do, of course. While he generally subscribes to the mechanistic theory, he would rather be closer to Descarte’s corpuscularism than to Gassendi’s atomism, following both of their teachings without much discrimination, and constantly trying to reconcile the latter with the Scholasticist doctrine. He thus claims to be a « catholic sceptic »: dogma alone, the truth of which is warranteed by Revelation and the Church, should guide philosophical reflexion, yet Religion is not denied a right to reason: theology and philosophy should be thought as operating on different levels.

81Miguel BENÍTEZ, Professor of Philosophy, University of Sevilla (Andalucía) Porvenir 14 Portais 2°B, E-41013 Sevilla. Spain.

Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont sous Licence OpenEdition Books, sauf mention contraire.

Cette publication numérique est issue d’un traitement automatique par reconnaissance optique de caractères.
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search