ABSTRACT – Sanches contributed to the birth of the modern subjectivity: it stressed the personal feature of the sceptical experience, against the impersonal phainetai of Sextus and it overcame the scholastic objections against the... more
ABSTRACT – Sanches contributed to the birth of the modern subjectivity: it stressed the personal feature of the sceptical experience, against the impersonal phainetai of Sextus and it overcame the scholastic objections against the reflective knowledge. Thus, Sanches paved the way to a more positive assessment of introspection; by contrast, his own anti-metaphysical approach was an epistemological obstacle that prevented him from proceeding towards a science like that based on the Cartesian cogito.
In the following pages, we will explore the proximity of Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi's arguments against Descartes' Meditations. We will study how, in some of their objections, both Mersenne and Gassendi adopted a nominalist and... more
In the following pages, we will explore the proximity of Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi's arguments against Descartes' Meditations. We will study how, in some of their objections, both Mersenne and Gassendi adopted a nominalist and empiricist view regarding central topics of Cartesian epistemology, such as the idea of God, and the origin and classification of ideas in the Mind. We propose that the assessment of the confrontation between the two objectors and Descartes may provide us a better picture of the complex intellectual debates that took place at the very beginnings of Modern Philosophy.
