ABSTRACT
This essay treats Gassendi’s first publication, the Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos (1624). Complicating matters is the fact that there are at least three separate books at issue. Though on its title page Gassendi announced seven constituent books, the volume published in 1624 contained only an introduction and the first book, a general attack on Aristotelian doctrine. However, the volume that appeared as the Exercitationes in the posthumous Opera omnia (1658) was different, containing the full contents of the 1624 volume plus book two, which Gassendi had finished not long after the original publication. And finally, distinct from both of these is the full project as Gassendi initially conceived it, a work comprising seven books, five of which existed only in Gassendi’s mind and possibly in his notes, but of which nothing identifiable remains, outside of their description in the 1624 preface. This essay traces the evolution of the project from 1624, as it changes, grows, and is ultimately abandoned, to be published in 1658 as a historical document, a kind of curiosity from his youth.
