The Physics of Pierre Gassendi and Italian late-Renaissance Naturalism

The essay highlights several elements that reveal the affinity between Pierre Gassendi's physics and the naturalism of Italian Renaissance philosophy: the idea that nature cannot be interpreted except by referring to finalistic schemes; the thesis of the intrinsic activity of matter; the conception of absolute space and time; and gnoseological sensism. These very ideas represented reasons for contrast with the philosophy of the contemporary Rene Descartes, but eventually they were adopted in the dominant current of modem science. The intellectual narrative of Gassendi thus offers one of the most striking examples of the continuity in the history of ideas between the Renaissance and the modem age. Special attention is paid to a comparison of Gassendi's thought with the philosophy of nature of Bernardino Telesio, Francesco Patrizi, and Tommaso Campanella.