The battle of the gods and giants : the legacies of Descartes and Gassendi, 1655-1715

Resource Information

The work The battle of the gods and giants : the legacies of Descartes and Gassendi, 1655-1715 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Boston University Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The battle of the gods and giants : the legacies of Descartes and Gassendi, 1655-1715

Title remainder

the legacies of Descartes and Gassendi, 1655-1715

Statement of responsibility

Thomas M. Lennon

Creator

• Lennon, Thomas M

Subject

• Descartes, René, 1596-1650
• Descartes, René, 1596-1650
• Filosofie
• France -- Intellectual life -- 17th century
• Gassendi, Pierre, (1592-1655)
• Gassendi, Pierre, 1592-1655
• Gassendi, Pierre, 1592-1655
• Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 17th century
• Locke, John, (1632-1704) -- Critique et interprétation
• Locke, John, 1632-1704
• Locke, John, 1632-1704
• Philosophie -- 17e siècle
• Polemiek
• Descartes, René, (1596-1650)

Language

eng

Summary

By the mid-1600s, the commonsense, manifest picture of the world associated with Aristotle had been undermined by skeptical arguments on the one hand and by the rise of the New Science on the other. What would be the scientific image to succeed the Aristotelian model? Thomas Lennon argues here that the contest between the supporters of Descartes and the supporters of Gassendi to decide this issue was the most important philosophical debate of the latter half of the seventeenth century. Descartes and Gassendi inspired their followers with radically opposed perspectives on space, the objects in it, and how these objects are known. Lennon maintains that differing concepts on these matters implied significant moral and political differences: the Descartes/Gassendi conflict was typical of Plato's perennial battle of the gods (friends of forms) and giants (materialists), and the crux of that enduring philosophical struggle is the exercise of moral and political authority. Lennon demonstrates, in addition, that John Locke should be read as having taken up Gassendi's cause against Descartes. In Lennon's reinterpretation of the history of philosophy between the death dates of Gassendi and Malebranche, Locke's acknowledged opposition to Descartes on some issues is applied to the most important questions of Locke exegesis

Member of

• Studies in intellectual history and the history of philosophy

Cataloging source

DLC

Index

index present

LC call number

B1887

LC item number

.L46 1993

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography