SOURCE: “Gassendi and the Transition from the Middle Ages to the Classical Era,” in Yale French Studies, No. 49, 1973, pp. 43-55.

In the following essay, Bloch discusses Gassendi as a transitional figure in the development of modern thought, focusing on his materialism and his epistemology. Bloch argues for the unrecognized importance of Gassendi both to British materialist thought, from John Locke to Immanuel Kant, and to political philosophy through modern times. This essay was translated by T. J. Reiss.

“In the English materialists, nominalism is an all-important element and broadly speaking it constitutes the first expression of materialism.” The philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) was the compatriot and contemporary of Descartes. Yet this remark of Marx in the Holy Family concerning the birth of modern materialism from the womb of medieval theology may equally well be applied to him.¹ The very real role played by him in the history of...