Includes bibliographical references (p. [383]-409) and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Basses-Alpes Priest, Provençal Scientist, and Parisian Philosopher -- Chapter One: The Skeptical Challenge, an Empiricist Response, and a Physicalist Theory of Perceptual Belief -- Chapter Two: The Theory of Signs: Cautious License for Truth-Like Empirical Belief -- Chapter Three: Empiricist Epistemic Warrant, and Probabilist and Anti-Essentialist Consequences -- Chapter Four: Methodological Pursuits: The Regressus Recast, Induction, and Probability -- Chapter Five: The Institutio Method in Practice: Gassendi’s Report of the Pascalian Experiment -- Chapter Six: A Method of Hypotheses and Hypothetical Reasoning -- Chapter Seven: Smallest Particles: From Ancient Atomist and Minima Theories to Minima Naturae and Physical Corpuscularianism -- Chapter Eight: The Mechanical Philosophy -- Chapter Nine: Ultimate Particles and Essential Features -- Chapter Ten: Atomic Motion, Causal Role, and Internal Impetus -- Chapter Eleven: Explanatory Uses of the Atomist Hypothesis -- Chapter Twelve: Atomism, the Mechanical Philosophy, and Empirical Viability -- Chapter Thirteen: Atomism and Scientific Method -- Chapter Fourteen: Is There a Circle in Gassendi’s Reasoning? -- Bibliography -- General Index.

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This look at Gassendi’s philosophy and science illuminates his contributions to early modern thought and to the broader history of philosophy of science. Two keys to his thought are his novel picture of acquiring and judging empirical belief, and his liberal account of criteria for counting empirical beliefs as parts of warranted physical theories. By viewing his philosophical and scientific pursuits as part of one and the same project, Gassendi’s arguments on behalf of atomism can be fruitfully explained as licensed by his empiricism.