Pierre Gassendi, the leading French seventeenth-century skeptical and Epicurean philosopher and scientist, was born at Champtercier, a Provençal village in France. He studied at Digne and Aix-en-Provence and was appointed professor of rhetoric at Digne at the age of twenty-one. In 1614 he received his doctorate in theology at Avignon. He was ordained a priest in 1616 and was appointed professor of philosophy at Aix. From 1617 to 1623 he lectured on Aristotle's philosophy, developing a forceful critique of it. His first published work, Exercitationes Paradoxica Adversus Aristoteleos (1624), was intended to be followed by six more parts, of which only the second part, published posthumously, was written. It contains both an attack on Aristotle's thought and portions of Gassendi's mitigated skepticism.

After a year in Digne, during which he performed various ecclesiastical duties, Gassendi visited Paris for a brief period in 1625 and became friendly with such avant-garde...