SOURCE: “Gassendi's Life of Peiresc: The Humanist's Unattainable Goal of Writing a Universal History,” in Gassendi the Atomist: Advocate of History in an Age of Science, Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 41-65.

In this excerpt, Joy considers Gassendi as a historian, using an examination of his early Life of Peiresc to demonstrate the development of his historiography. Finally, Joy proposes, Gassendi's recognition of the futility of Peiresc's “universal history” fueled his later development and expansion of Epicurean philosophy.

Gassendi's residence in Paris and his Dutch travels in the late 1620s were significant not only because they resulted in his decision to expand the scope of the Epicurean project. They also constituted a key period in his development as a historian of philosophy. For just as his earlier encounters with Mersenne had forced him to rethink the consequences of his use of skepticism as a weapon against Aristotle, his new...