Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi ( born January 22, 1592 Champtercier, Provence, † October 24th 1655 in Paris, also Pierre Gassend, Peter Gassendi ) was a French theologian, scientist and philosopher. He conducted research among other things as an astronomer and as such was with Galilei and Christoph Scheiner in frequent contact.
Biography
His parents were Françoise Fabry and Antoine Gassend, later the vowel 'i' became the name came from a peasant hinzugefügt.Er environment, by his maternal uncle, the Catholic priest Thomas Fabry, Pierre received his first school teachings. Gassendi was employed with 16 years as a teacher of rhetoric in Digne, where he had begun his studies. Later, he studied theology in Aix -en- Provence and Avignon and was ordained a priest, after graduation in 1614 in Avignon in 1616, he was professor of philosophy at Aix. After the Jesuits had taken over the management of the University, he decided to give up his professorship and began designing an extensive work, which took a critical look with the prevailing Aristotelian philosophy, the Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos whose first book anonymously in 1624 in Grenoble, with attribution appeared in 1649 in Amsterdam. The original plan abzuhandeln the entire peripatetic philosophy, has been abandoned; the second book, which dealt with the dialectic, first appeared in the Opera omnia (Lyon 1658).
Gassendi was in contact with many scholars and scientists of his time; his closest confidants were Nicolas- Claude Fabri de Peiresc and the mathematician and theologian Marin Mersenne that he will return with Gabriel Naudé, François de La Mothe le Vayer, Joseph Gaultier (1564-1647), among others made known. Among his correspondents were Christoph Scheiner, Galileo Galilei, van de Putte Eerryk (1574-1646), Johannes Gerhard Vossius.
Since 1625 to Gassendi was intensely occupied with the philosophy of Epicurus, which he tried to reconstruct adequately from the ancient sources. 1647 published a biography of Epicurus with the refutation of the usual since ancient defamation of his person: De vita et moribus Epicuri, two years later, the annotated translation of the main source of the philosophy of Epicurus, the 10th book of his De vita et moribus of Diogenes Laertius and a philosophorum systematic reconstruction of the whole Epicurean philosophy under the title Philosophiae Epicuri Syntagma, based on Diogenes Laertius, Lucretius and other ancient sources, especially Cicero and Seneca. This representation has been instrumental to the 19th century.
Gassendi watched with great interest the scientific research of his time, such as Galileo, and participated in them. So on November 7, 1631 he succeeded in the first observation of a transit of Mercury, which had been predicted by Kepler, problems of dynamics are his studies De proportione qua gravia decidentia accelerantur and De motu impresso a motore translational dedicated, which appeared 1642-1645.
Gassendi was raised in 1634 to the provost of the cathedral church at Digne; 1645 re-appointed to a professorship he came (probably at the instigation of Richelieu) at the Collège de France in Paris, where he taught mathematics and astronomy. However, he was able to exercise his poor health because of the teaching for a short time.
After a long illness, he died at the age of 63 years in the house of a patron, the nobleman Habert de Montmor.
Theological and philosophical achievement
At the atomistic doctrine of Epicurus Following, represented Gassendi - contrary to the dualistic world view of Descartes ( spirit and matter ) - the "only" materialist worldview. So he sat down not only on Descartes, but also, ultimately from Plato and Aristotle. Even in Aix he had a work Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos written, was published of which only the first ( 1624) and the second book (1659, posthumous ) ( " ... the laziness, instead of with one's own eyes with the eyes see Aristotle and take nature itself only to study the writings of Aristotle on the Nature! "). In addition, already made Gassendi, Descartes criticized for what will later inculcate Immanuel Kant: Descartes did in his proof of God existence einfachhin under the properties ( God ) counted. It should be something fundamentally different existence than a mere additional property or tangible content ( realitas ) among others; it is rather what in the first place bring all property contents into being.
In Syntagma philosophicum ( 1658) he followed the tripartite division of philosophy of Epicurus. In logic, he pointed Descartes ' view of the inherent concepts back and lifted sensations ( and corresponding induction ) emerged as the primary source of human knowledge. However, Gassendi was not a pure sensualist, for he accepted with complex ideas very well the principle of abstraction and in mathematics, he also recognized the deduction to be employed as a useful method. In physics, he represented a mechanistic interpretation of nature and sensations; nevertheless can not explain the world for Gassendi without divine origin. The proof for the existence of God he saw in the harmony of nature. His evidence for a rational and - in contrast to Aristotle - immortal soul was based on the ( obvious for him) force reflective thinking and man's knowledge of ethical principles. In the third part of his philosophy - ethics - he embodied the peace of mind and freedom from pain as the goal of human endeavor; However, these are hardly attainable in practice. Here he was particularly evident as followers of Epicurus.
Ludwig Feuerbach realized that Gassendi was more than just critics of Aristotle and Descartes. To unite His attempt to moderate skepticism, ancient atomism, Christian faith and the mechanistic physics of his time, was an outstanding individual performance. Much like Thomas Aquinas - as far as it seemed this possible - had combined Aristotelian doctrines with Christian beliefs, Gassendi took this with the doctrine of Epicurus. In this sense, he was less forerunner of the coming enlightenment, but the thinkers of the Renaissance detail. Like them, he started every philosophical argument with detailed quotations antique and contemporary authors; they formed the framework of "modern" epistemology for him. So no criterion of truth it was sufficient if it was not enough for the arguments that had been advanced by the ancient skeptics.
Experimental and scientific services
In his scientific writings Gassendi defended the heliocentric theory, the reality of the empty space and rejected the Aristotelian " forms " and purposes as the effect of the forces of nature from. He provided a valid formulation of the principle of inertia and an early interpretation of air pressure experiments Pascal. For his theory of vision, he assumed atomistic " Effluxionen " transport the images from the object to the viewer. In support of his atomic theory, he undertook a series of chemical experiments, the solution or crystallization of salts as its subject.
By means of a study of the spire of Aix after a thunderstorm Gassendi described as the first, that iron can be magnetized by lightning.
Gassendi's formulation of the principle of inertia ( first time in its currently valid form) dates back to experiments performed by him. With more than 100 participants, he led on a galley in front of Marseille by one of Galileo ersonnenes indeed, but not by run case experiment. Contrary to the Aristotelian assumptions beats of a dropped on a moving ship from the mast stone to not be moved towards the stern, but directly at the foot of the mast. Thus, the impetus theory was disproved. The use of large galleys was because they possessed poles and reach high speeds were the same, without being exposed in bedeutsamem Dimensions seas and heeling. By invented by Gassendi Fallrad (diameter 4 m ), the impetus theory, with much less effort, be refuted traceable in all places.
By adopting it, "In the world always remains the same force ", he formulated also for the first time the principle of energy conservation.
Gassendi maintained an extensive correspondence with Marin Mersenne, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Hevelius, Christoph Scheiner, Descartes, Christina of Sweden, Thomas Hobbes and others.
History and Biographies
Gassendi published the first complete biography of a scientist at all, the first and only biography of Tycho Brahe, which came about through direct contact with then still living eyewitnesses. More Biographies of Gassendi were Epicurus, Nicolas- Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Georg von Peuerbach, Regiomontanus and Copernicus. He also gave an overview of the supporters and opponents of the doctrine of Copernicus until about 1615 (see De revolutionibus orbium Coelestium ).
Trivia
The IAU honored him with the naming of the asteroid ( 7179 ) Gassendi and a - geologically highly structured - Moon crater on the northern edge of the "Mare Humorum ".
Writings
- Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos ( 1624)
- Epistolica Exercitatio, in qua precipua Principia Philosophiae Roberti Fluddi deteguntur (1631 ) polemic against Robert Fludd
- Disquisitiones Anticartesianae ( 1643)
- Disquisitio metaphysica (1644 ) polemic against Descartes
- De vita et moribus placitis Epicuri ( 1647) Bilingual edition: Vie et d' Epicure moeurs. Édition bilingue français -latin, notes, introduction et commentaires par S. Taussig, Belles Lettres, 2006