Pierre Gassendi
1592–1655 · Scientific Revolution · Known
Gassendi was a Catholic priest who brought Epicurus back and baptized him. Atoms and empty space are real, he held, though finite in number, created by God and steered by providence instead of chance. Knowledge starts in the senses and never gets past appearances, a fallible science he was content with. He kept the immortal soul, free will, and a Christian pleasure that ends in beatitude.
Signature
The position Gassendi is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Universals
- leans Nominalism
- Knowledge
- Sense Experience
Positions on the 6 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (82 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ethics
- leans Ends (25 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
14 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Gassendi refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Pleasure / Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Indirect Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Egoism / Utilitarian Calculation
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Language
- Conventional
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Social Contract
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Tabula Rasa
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Friends
What is your primary bond and loyalty?