| Popis: |
Seventeenth-century French priest, mathematician, historian, and philosopher Pierre Gassendi has been the subject of increased scholarly attention recently. But studies of Gassendi have consistently bypassed a major component of his thought: his defense of a vegetarian diet. Conversely, because of the density of his Latin tomes, historical surveys of vegetarianism have mostly overlooked his views on the topic. By neglecting such a prominent institutional figure, historians of vegetarianism have, in turn, tended to reinforce a progressivist narrative that orbits around “radical” reformers. Based on an analysis of Gassendi’s arguments for a vegetable-based diet, this chapter argues that his defense of abstention from meat consumption was far more than a peripheral reaction to the intellectual mainstream. Indeed, it demonstrates that his case for vegetarianism was taken seriously by a range of contemporaries, from the famous Flemish physician and medical reformer Jan Baptista van Helmont (1580–1644) to prominent early Royal Society associates. |
