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Overcoming the Suspension of Assent: The Academic Roots of Gassendi’s Probabilism

In this paper, I show that, beyond the role played by Pyrrhonian arguments in rebuking Aristotelian theses, Academic philosophy offered to Gassendi a probabilist model of knowledge which, contrary to the Pyrrhonian suspension of assent, opened the possibility of a natural philosophy conceived as a science of appearances. In addition to Gassendi’s erudite interest for Cicero and Charron, Academic probabilism suited Gassendi’s own practice as a natural philosopher in the realms of meteorology and astronomy. But first and foremost, Gassendi’s preference for Academic philosophy rather than for Pyrrhonism was motivated, early in his philosophical career, by ethical concerns immanent to his practice of savant: the importance of preserving his libertas philosophandi for his experimental approach to nature, combined with his personal incapacity not to incline toward one opinion or another, led him to formulate his epistemological probabilism and to claim the freedom to revise his opinions from day to day.