Hobbes: Philosophy of Science

The nature of light is a focus of Thomas Hobbes’s natural philosophical project. Hobbes’s explanation of the light of lucid bodies differs across his works, from dilation and contraction in Elements of Law to simple circular motions in De corpore. However, Hobbes consistently explains perceived light by positing that bodily resistance generates the phantasm of light. In Letters I.XIX–XX of Philosophical Letters, fellow materialist Margaret Cavendish attacks the Hobbesian understanding of both lux and lumen by claiming that Hobbes has illicitly (...) made abstractions from matter. In this paper, I argue that Cavendish’s criticisms rely on an incorrect understanding of the nature of Hobbesian geometry and the role it plays in Hobbes’s natural philosophy. Rather than understanding geometry as wholly abstract, Hobbes attempts to ground geometry in different ways of considering bodies and their motions. Furthermore, Hobbes’s own criticisms of abstraction suggest that he would share many of the worries she raises but deny that he falls prey to them. (shrink)

Margaret Cavendish is widely known as a materialist. However, since Cavendishian matter is always in motion, “matter” and “motion” are equally important foundational concepts for her natural philosophy. In Philosophical Letters (1664), she takes to task her materialist rival Thomas Hobbes by assaulting his account of accidents in general and his concept of “rest” in particular. In this article, I argue that Cavendish defends her continuous-motion view in two ways: first, she claims that her account avoids seeing accidents as capable (...) of generation and annihilation, which she argues is inconceivable; and second, she contends that according to Hobbes’s own view “rest” is an absurd conception since it cannot be drawn from experience. Beyond its function as a defense, I claim that Cavendish’s focused criticism of “rest” shows that she is a perceptive reader of Hobbes’s natural philosophy, insofar as her criticisms undercut the two a priori principles of Hobbesian physics. Finally, I show how her views developed in more detail in Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1663) and Observations upon Experimental Philosophy ([1666] 2001) avoid the worries she raises for Hobbesian materialism. (shrink)

Offers comprehensive treatment of Thomas Hobbes’s thought, providing readers with different ways of understanding Hobbes as a systematic philosopher As one of the founders of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes is best known for his ideas regarding the nature of legitimate government and the necessity of society submitting to the absolute authority of sovereign power. Yet Hobbes produced a wide range of writings, from translations of texts by Homer and Thucydides, to interpretations of Biblical books, to works devoted to geometry, (...) optics, morality, and religion. Hobbes viewed himself as presenting a unified method for theoretical and practical science—an interconnected system of philosophy that provides many entry points into his thought. A Companion to Hobbes is an expertly curated collection of essays offering close textual engagement with the thought of Thomas Hobbes in his major works while probing his ideas regarding natural philosophy, mathematics, human nature, civil philosophy, religion, and more. The Companion discusses the ways in which scholars have tried to understand the unity and diversity of Hobbes’s philosophical system and examines the reception of the different parts of Hobbes’s philosophy by thinkers such as René Descartes, Margaret Cavendish, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Presenting a diversity of fresh perspectives by both emerging and established scholars, this volume: Provides a comprehensive treatment of Hobbes’s thought in his works, including Elements of Law, Elements of Philosophy, and Leviathan Explores the connecting points between Hobbes’ metaphysics, epistemology, mathematics, natural philosophy, morality, and civil philosophy Offers readers strategies for understanding how the parts of Hobbes’s philosophical system fit together Examines Hobbes’s philosophy of mathematics and his attempts to understand geometrical objects and definitions Considers Hobbes’s philosophy in contexts such as the natural state of humans, gender relations, and materialist worldviews Challenges conceptions of Hobbes’s moral theory and his views about the rights of sovereigns Part of the acclaimed Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, A Companion to Hobbes is an invaluable resource for scholars and advanced students of Early modern thought, particularly those from disciplines such as History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Intellectual History, History of Politics, Political Theory, and English. (shrink)

This paper aims both to tackle the technical issue of deciphering Hobbes’s derivation of the sine law of refraction and to throw some light to the broader issue of Hobbes’s mechanical philosophy. I start by recapitulating the polemics between Hobbes and Descartes concerning Descartes’ optics. I argue that, first, Hobbes’s criticisms do expose certain shortcomings of Descartes’ optics which presupposes a twofold distinction between real motion and inclination to motion, and between motion itself and determination of motion; second, Hobbes’s optical (...) theory presented in Tractatus Opticus I constitutes a more economical alternative, which eliminates the twofold distinction and only admits actual local motion, and Hobbes’s derivation of the sine law presented therein, which I call “the early model” and which was retained in Tractatus Opticus II and First Draught, is mathematically consistent and physically meaningful. These two points give Hobbes’s early optics some theoretical advantage over that of Descartes. However, an issue that has baffled commentators is that, in De Corpore Hobbes’s derivation of the sine law seems to be completely different from that presented in his earlier works, furthermore, it does not make any intuitive sense. I argue that the derivation of the sine law in De Corpore does make sense mathematically if we read it as a simplification of the early model, and Hobbes has already hinted toward it in the last proposition of Tractatus Opticus I. But now the question becomes, why does Hobbes take himself to be entitled to present this simplified, seemingly question-begging form without having presented all the previous results? My conjecture is that the switch from the early model to the late model is symptomatic of Hobbes’s changing views on the relation between physics and mathematics. (shrink)

This essay will examine and compare concepts of body and space in the respective systems of Hobbes and Descartes. Rather than provide an exhaustive analysis of these similarities and differences, several key issues will be highlighted that reveal the distinctive traits of Hobbes’s approach to these issues as compared with Descartes. While some of Hobbes’s hypotheses seem closer to Descartes, such as the importance of extension in the conception of body, others are more unique, such as Hobbes’s appeal to phantasms (...) and imaginary space, as well as his understanding of void space. Overall, the basic similarities among their competing schemes does not obscure the importance of the many innovative, and sometimes problematic, features manifest in Hobbes’s theory. (shrink)

The status of the laws of nature in Hobbes’s Leviathan has been a continual point of disagreement among scholars. Many agree that since Hobbes claims that civil philosophy is a science, the answer lies in an understanding of the nature of Hobbesian science more generally. In this paper, I argue that Hobbes’s view of the construction of geometrical figures sheds light upon the status of the laws of nature. In short, I claim that the laws play the same role as (...) the component parts – what Hobbes calls the “cause” – of geometrical figures. To make this argument, I show that in both geometry and civil philosophy, Hobbes proceeds by a method of synthetic demonstration as follows: 1) offering a thought experiment by privation; 2) providing definitions by explication of “simple conceptions” within the thought experiment; and 3) formulating generative definitions by making use of those definitions by explication. In just the same way that Hobbes says that the geometer should “put together” the parts of a square to learn its cause, I argue that the laws of nature are the cause of peace. (shrink)

I would like to begin by congratulating Arash Abizadeh. Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics is a splendid book. Even where I have disagreed with Abizadeh, the book has been a great help to me in framing central issues and in setting out pressing questions for different interpretations. I am sure that it will be a valuable resource for students of Hobbes for many years. -/- Here I will discuss Abizadeh’s views on the science of morality in Hobbes, and (...) I will focus on his Chapter 3. I will begin from the principles that form the basis of that science and proceed to its conclusions, the laws of nature. In both cases, although I recognize the difficulties that Abizadeh has presented for what he calls subjectivism, I am also concerned about the alternative interpretation that he defends. On that interpretation, prudentialism, the view that one ought to desire and pursue one’s own good, is a foundational principle of moral science, which gives us reason to follow the laws of nature. The principle is distinct from any particular desire or knowledge, but its practical importance is guaranteed by epistemic access to the laws of nature: any sane adult can easily know the laws of nature. (shrink)

This paper examines Hobbes’s criticisms of Robert Boyle’s air-pump experiments in light of Hobbes’s account in _De Corpore_ and _De Homine_ of the relationship of natural philosophy to geometry. I argue that Hobbes’s criticisms rely upon his understanding of what counts as “true physics.” Instead of seeing Hobbes as defending natural philosophy as “a causal enterprise … [that] as such, secured total and irrevocable assent,” 1 I argue that, in his disagreement with Boyle, Hobbes relied upon his understanding of natural (...) philosophy as a mixed mathematical science. In a mixed mathematical science one can mix facts from experience with causal principles borrowed from geometry. Hobbes’s harsh criticisms of Boyle’s philosophy, especially in the _Dialogus Physicus, sive De natura aeris_, should thus be understood as Hobbes advancing his view of the proper relationship of natural philosophy to geometry in terms of mixing principles from geometry with facts from experience. Understood in this light, Hobbes need not be taken to reject or diminish the importance of experiment/experience; nor should Hobbes’s criticisms in _Dialogus Physicus_ be understood as rejecting experimenting as ignoble and not befitting a philosopher. Instead, Hobbes’s viewpoint is that experiment/experience must be understood within its proper place – it establishes the ‘that’ for a mixed mathematical science explanation. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 30, Issue 1, pp 4 - 27 The _Animadversiones in Elementorum Philosophiae_ by a little known Flemish scholar G. Moranus, published in Brussels in 1655 was an early European response to Hobbes’s _De Corpore_. Although it is has been referred to by various Hobbes scholars, such as Noel Malcolm, Doug Jesseph, and Alexander Bird it has been little studied. Previous scholarship has tended to focus on the mathematical criticisms of André Tacquet which Moranus included in the form (...) of a letter in his volume. Moranus’s philosophical objections to Hobbes’s natural philosophy offer a fascinating picture of the critical reception of Hobbes’s work by a religious writer trained in the late Scholastic tradition. Moranus’s opening criticism clearly shows that he is unhappy with Hobbes’s exclusion of the divine and the immaterial from natural philosophy. He asks what authority Hobbes has for breaking with the common understanding of philosophy, as defined by Cicero ‘the knowledge of things human and divine’. He also offers natural philosophical and theological criticisms of Hobbes for overlooking the generation of things involved in the Creation. He also attacks the natural philosophical underpinning of Hobbes’s civil philosophy. In this paper I look at a number of philosophical topics which Moranus criticised in Hobbes’s work, including his mechanical psychology, his theory of imaginary space, his use of the concept of accidents, his blurring of the distinction between the human being and the animal, and his theories of motion. Moranus’s criticisms, which are a mixture of philosophical and theological objections, gives us some clear indications of what made Hobbes’ natural philosophy controversial amongst his contemporaries, and sheds new light on the early continental reception of Hobbes’s work. (shrink)

Uber Hobbes naturwissenschaftliche Ansichten - und ihren Zusammenhang mit der Naturphilosophie seiner Zeit ist ein unveranderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1886. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernahrung, Medizin und weiteren Genres. Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur. Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitaten erhaltlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bucher neu und tragt damit zum Erhalt selten gewordener (...) Literatur und historischem Wissen auch fur die Zukunft bei.". (shrink)

Many of Margaret Cavendish’s criticisms of Thomas Hobbes in the Philosophical Letters (1664) relate to the disorder and damage that she holds would result if Hobbesian pressure were the cause of visual perception. In this paper, I argue that her “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV is aimed at a different goal: to show the explanatory potency of her account. First, I connect Cavendish’s view of visual perception as “patterning” to the “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV. Second, (...) I provide a potential reply on Hobbes’s behalf that appeals to physiological differences between perceivers’ sense organs, drawing upon Hobbes’s optics in De homine. Third, I argue that such a reply would misunderstand Cavendish’s objective of showing the limited explanatory resources available in understanding visual perception as pressing when compared to her view of visual perception as patterning. (shrink)

I offer an alternative account of the relationship of Hobbesian geometry to natural philosophy by arguing that mixed mathematics provided Hobbes with a model for thinking about it. In mixed mathematics, one may borrow causal principles from one science and use them in another science without there being a deductive relationship between those two sciences. Natural philosophy for Hobbes is mixed because an explanation may combine observations from experience (the ‘that’) with causal principles from geometry (the ‘why’). My argument shows (...) that Hobbesian natural philosophy relies upon suppositions that bodies plausibly behave according to these borrowed causal principles from geometry, acknowledging that bodies in the world may not actually behave this way. First, I consider Hobbes's relation to Aristotelian mixed mathematics and to Isaac Barrow's broadening of mixed mathematics in Mathematical Lectures (1683). I show that for Hobbes maker's knowledge from geometry provides the ‘why’ in mixed-mathematical explanations. Next, I examine two explanations from De corpore Part IV: (1) the explanation of sense in De corpore 25.1-2; and (2) the explanation of the swelling of parts of the body when they become warm in De corpore 27.3. In both explanations, I show Hobbes borrowing and citing geometrical principles and mixing these principles with appeals to experience. (shrink)

Accounts of Hobbes’s ‘system’ of sciences oscillate between two extremes. On one extreme, the system is portrayed as wholly axiomtic-deductive, with statecraft being deduced in an unbroken chain from the principles of logic and first philosophy. On the other, it is portrayed as rife with conceptual cracks and fissures, with Hobbes’s statements about its deductive structure amounting to mere window-dressing. This paper argues that a middle way is found by conceiving of Hobbes’s _Elements of Philosophy_ on the model of a (...) mixed-mathematical science, not the model provided by Euclid’s _Elements of Geometry_. I suggest that Hobbes is a test case for understanding early-modern system-construction more generally, as inspired by the structure of the applied mathematical sciences. This approach has the additional virtue of bolstering, in a novel way, the thesis that the transformation of philosophy in the long seventeenth century was heavily indebted to mathematics, a thesis that has increasingly come under attack in recent years. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 1, pp 86 - 102 The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the place that Hobbes assigns to optics in the context of his classification of sciences and disciplinary boundaries. To do this, I will begin with an account of Hobbes’s conception of philosophy or science, and particularly his distinction between true and hypothetical knowledge. I will also show that in his demarcation between mathematics or geometry and natural philosophy Hobbes was (...) influenced by Galileo’s _Dialogue_. I then analyse the consequences of this distinction for optics, and conclude by clarifying its status among the scientific disciplines. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 1, pp 9 - 38 Hobbes tried to develop a strict version of the mechanical philosophy, in which all physical phenomena were explained only in terms of bodies in motion, and the only forces allowed were forces of collision or impact. This ambition puts Hobbes into a select group of original thinkers, alongside Galileo, Isaac Beeckman, and Descartes. No other early modern thinkers developed a strict version of the mechanical philosophy. Natural philosophies relying solely on (...) bodies in motion require a concept of inertial motion. Beeckman and Descartes assumed rectilinear motions were rectilinear, but Galileo adopted a theory which has been referred to as circular inertia. Hobbes’s natural philosophy depended to a large extent on what he called “simple circular motions.” In this paper, I argue that Hobbes’s simple circular motions derived from Galileo’s belief in circular inertia. The paper opens with a section outlining Galileo’s concept, the following section shows how Hobbes’s physics depended upon circular motions, which are held to continue indefinitely. A third section shows the difficulty Hobbes had in maintaining a strictly mechanistic philosophy, and the conclusion offers some speculations as to why Galileo’s circular inertia was never entertained as a serious rival to rectilinear inertia, except by Hobbes. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 1, pp 66 - 85 This paper will deal with the notion of _conatus_ and the role it plays in Hobbes’s program for natural philosophy. As defined by Hobbes, the _conatus_ of a body is essentially its instantaneous motion, and he sees this as the means to account for a variety of phenomena in both natural philosophy and mathematics. Although I foucs principally on Hobbesian physics, I will also consider the extent to which Hobbes’s account (...) of _conatus_ does important explanatory work in his theory of human perception, psychology, and political philosophy. I argue that, in the end, there are important limitations in Hobbes’s account of _conatus_, but that Leibniz adapted the concept in important ways in developing his science of dynamics. (shrink)

Hobbes établit une distinction entre signes certains et signes incertains, qui correspond à la distinction entre science et prudence. Mais il précise toutefois que les signes de la science ne sont pas tous certains, ni infaillibles. Cette recommandation n’est pas tant une critique de la science, qu’une mise en garde adressée à ceux qui renoncent à leur jugement naturel et s’en remettent aveuglément à l’autorité des livres. La certitude dépend donc d’un bon usage des signes de la part du sujet (...) qui connaît ou interprète. Hobbes affirme ainsi le primat du sujet ou de l’esprit dans la constitution du signe et sa manipulation. La différence entre signes certains et signes incertains ne dépend pas seulement du type de signes, mais également des conditions de l’interprétation. Cette solution s’impose si l’on comprend la définition de Hobbes selon laquelle il n’y a de signe que pour et par un sujet, comme une définition générale s’appliquant à tout type de signe. On pourra alors rendre compte de la certitude ou de l’incertitude des signes à partir de la manière dont le sujet fait usage des signes dans le calcul des conséquences. À cet égard, la distinction entre consécutions de l’imagination et consécutions de la raison joue un rôle au moins aussi essentiel que la distinction entre signes naturels et signes d’institution : s’il est vrai que l’imagination dépend de l’ordre aléatoire des perceptions, alors que les calculs de la raison se fondent sur des signes arbitraires, la notion de consécution apparaît comme le fondement de toute activité portant sur les signes, puisque tout signe, qu’il soit naturel ou conventionnel, suppose un rapport posé ou effectué par l’esprit. L’originalité de Hobbes consiste notamment à envisager le signe comme un rapport entre deux événements, entre un conséquent et un antécédent : plutôt que le rapport entre une présence et une absence, c’est la notion d’ordre qui est au cœur de la pensée hobbesienne du signe. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 1, pp 39 - 65 Since Euclid, optics has been considered a geometrical science, which Aristotle defines as a “mixed” mathematical science. Hobbes follows this tradition and clearly places optics among physical sciences. However, modern scholars point to a confusion between geometry and physics and do not seem to agree about the way Hobbes mixes both sciences. In this paper, I return to this alleged confusion and intend to emphasize the peculiarity of Hobbes’s geometrical optics. (...) This paper suggests that Hobbes’s conception of geometrical optics, as a mixed mathematical science, greatly differs from Descartes’s one, mainly because they do not share the same “mechanical conception of nature.” I will argue that Hobbes and Descartes also have in common the quest for a different kind of geometry for their optics, different from that of the Ancients. I will show that this departure is not recent since Hobbes’s approach is already evident in 1636, when he judges the demonstrations of his contemporary friends, Claude Mydorge and Walter Warner. Finally the paper broadly suggests what is noteworthy in Hobbes’s optics, that is, the importance of the idea of force in his mechanics, although he was not able to conceptualize it in other terms than “quickness.”. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 3 Seiten: 308-333.

Several recent commentators argue that Thomas Hobbes’s account of the nature of science is conventionalist. Engaging in scientific practice on a conventionalist account is more a matter of making sure one connects one term to another properly rather than checking one’s claims, e.g., by experiment. In this paper, I argue that the conventionalist interpretation of Hobbesian science accords neither with Hobbes’s theoretical account in De corpore and Leviathan nor with Hobbes’s scientific practice in De homine and elsewhere. Closely tied to (...) the conventionalist interpretation is the deductivist interpretation, on which it is claimed that Hobbes believed sciences such as optics are deduced from geometry. I argue that Hobbesian science places simplest conceptions as the foundation for geometry and the sciences in which we use geometry, which provides strong evidence against both the conventionalist and deductivist interpretations. (shrink)

early modern philosophers commonly appeal to a mathematical method to demonstrate their philosophical claims. Since such claims are not always followed by what we would recognize as mathematical proofs, they are often dismissed as mere rhetoric. René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and Benedict de Spinoza are perhaps the most well-known early modern philosophers who fall into this category. It is a matter of dispute whether the ordo geometricus amounts to more than a method of presentation in Spinoza’s philosophy. Descartes and Hobbes (...) clearly appeal to a method of discovery modeled after geometry, but neither employs it to develop a heavily quantitative physics. Whereas Descartes’s version of the geometrical method .. (shrink)

Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s seeks to explain the 'change in orientation' that Strauss underwent during a decade of personal and political upheaval. Though he began to garner attention in the 1950s, it was in the 1930s that Strauss made a series of fundamental breakthroughs which enabled him to recover, for the first time since the Middle Ages, the genuine meaning of political philosophy. Despite this being a period of marked output and activity for Strauss, his research in this (...) era remains overlooked. This volume is the first to assemble in one place an examination of Strauss' various publications throughout the decade, providing a comprehensive analysis of his work during the period. It includes, for the first time in English, five newly translated writings of Strauss from 1929-37, brought to life with insight from leading scholars in the field. (shrink)

This chapter examines the main theories of material qualities developed by leading British philosophers during the seventeenth century, describes the taxonomy of qualities during this period, and analyzes the epistemological and metaphysical theses that influenced the development of the theory of material qualities in Great Britain. It also considers the relevant works of Thomas Hobbes, Walter Charleton, Robert Boyle, John Locke, and Isaac Newton.

En el presente artículo se señala la tensión entre las pretensiones normativas de los textos políticos de Thomas Hobbes, y la identificación del método resolutivo-compositivo de las ciencias como aquél aplicado en esos textos. Para resolver esta dificultad se apela a los textos epistemológicos del autor en los que leer el ejemplo del reloj desde una nueva perspectiva. Así, si el método hobbesiano responde a la necesidad de la innovación normativa, no sólo niega una intencionalidad apologética para una realidad histórica (...) de la que se prescinde por completo, sino también que es posible realizar una descripción de la relación entre individuo y Estado distinta a la estándar. Según estas conclusiones el hombre deja de ser una parte mecánica para convertirse en causa y, por tanto, en medida de la eficacia y funcionalidad de un Estado. El individualismo feroz del hombre arrojado en la naturaleza no es el modelo, sino la causa que ha de justificar un Leviathan capaz de convertir al homo homini lupus, en homo homini deus. (shrink)

Leviathan by Hobbes is one of the most original books in political theory ever written. Broad is scope, rich in ideas and bold in its claims; it contains much more than just political theory. The article focuses on Hobbes’s presentation of human nature, in particular in light of the then new thesis that universe is matter in motion; on observation how human automata whom Hobbes created (as it were) live in state of nature and under authority of “the leviathan”; and (...) on the impact of man’s and woman’s nature on their natural rights. Hobbes pioneered a host of ideas that became a staple food for early modern political thought—state of nature, social contract, individualism, or inalienable rights. The article reviews them and concludes that in spite of illiberal conclusions of his political theory, Hobbes is a proto-liberal thinker that paved the way for Locke and others. (shrink)

Review of Gianni Paganini (transl.), Moto, luogo e tempo di Thomas Hobbes. Torino: UTET, 2010, pp. 708.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), whose current reputation rests largely on his political philosophy, was a thinker with wide ranging interests. In philosophy, he defended a range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against Cartesian and Aristotelian alternatives. In physics, his work was influential on Leibniz, and lead him into disputes with Boyle and the experimentalists of the early Royal Society. In history, he translated Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War into English, and later wrote his own history of the Long Parliament. (...) In mathematics he was less successful, and is best remembered for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to square the circle. But despite that, Hobbes was a serious and prominent participant in the intellectual life of his time. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes' natural philosophy is often characterised as rationalistic in opposition to the emerging inductivist method employed by Francis Bacon and fellows of the Gresham College - later the Royal Society. Where as the inductivists researched and published a multitude of natural histories, Hobbes' mature publications contain little natural historical information. Nonetheless, Hobbes read numerous natural histories and incorporated them into his works and often used details from these histories to support important theoretical moves. He also wrote a number of (...) natural histories, some of which remain either unpublished or untranslated. Hobbes' own mature statements about his early interest in natural histories are also misleading. This article attempts to review Hobbes' early writings on natural histories and argues that his works of the 1630s and 1640s owe a significant debt to the natural histories of Francis Bacon, Hobbes' one-time patron. (shrink)

In the first three sections, I argue that Hobbes has a distinctive conception of philosophy, the highest value of which is not truth, but human benefit; and that his philosophical utterances are constrained by this value (both insofar as they are philosophical in particular, and insofar as they are public utterances of any kind). I address an evidentiary problem for this view in the penultimate section, and then turn to the question of how such a conception of philosophy requires different (...) interpretations of particular philosophical positions. The whole is intended as a case study of the need for an interpreter to understand how the interpreted philosopher conceives of the nature and aim of his undertaking. (shrink)

El objetivo principal de este artículo es precisar los elementos que operan en el substrato de la filosofía de Thomas Hobbes y que permiten dar coherencia lógica a su sistema. Para ello se apela a la idea de concepto operatorio desarrollada por Eugen Fink, a la vez que se llama la atención sobre la importancia de considerar la filosofía hobbesiana en su totalidad. Esto implica que cualquier análisis de la teoría política de Hobbes debe considerar las relaciones existentes con las (...) concepciones científicas hobbesianas. (shrink)

: This paper investigates the influence of Galileo's natural philosophy on the philosophical and methodological doctrines of Thomas Hobbes. In particular, I argue that what Hobbes took away from his encounter with Galileo was the fundamental idea that the world is a mechanical system in which everything can be understood in terms of mathematically-specifiable laws of motion. After tracing the history of Hobbes's encounters with Galilean science (through the "Welbeck group" connected with William Cavendish, earl of Newcastle and the "Mersenne (...) circle" in Paris), I argue that Hobbes's 1655 treatise De Corpore is deeply indebted to Galileo. More specifically, I show that Hobbes's mechanistic theory of mind owes a significant debt to Galileo while his treatment of the geometry of parabolic figures in chapter 16 of De Corpore was taken almost straight out of the account of accelerated motion Two New Sciences. (shrink)

Tom Sorell modifies an interpretation he presented in his book, Hobbes (1986) . He continues to maintain that Hobbesian natural philosophy and Hobbesian civil philosophy are methodologically quite distinct, as well as distinct in subject-matter. But it is misleading to put this by saying that civil philosophy is normative and natural philosophy is explanatory, as if civil philosophy itself weren’t supposed to be explanatory. Civil philosophy can be explanatory in the sense of specifying normative precepts for achieving a certain goal (...) precepts that correspondingly explain the achievement of that goal. Explanatory civil science is still quite distinct from explanatory natural science, however, contrary to what is claimed by Sorell’s critics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 101-103 [Access article in PDF] Cees Leijenhorst. The Mechanization of Aristotelianism: The Late Aristotelian Setting of Thomas Hobbes' Natural Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Pp. xv + 242. Cloth, $97.00. Cees Leijenhorst, the young Dutch scholar and student of the late Karl Schuhmann, has written the most important book on Thomas Hobbes's natural science since Frithiof Brandt's Thomas Hobbes's Mechanical Conception of (...) Nature of 1928. This is true despite the undoubted brilliance and success of Leviathan and the Air Pump, published in 1985 by Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin. Why this is so, it will be the burden of this review to clarify.Writing in the modern historiographical tradition known as contextualism, long associated with John Pocock, Quentin Skinner and Richard Tuck, Leijenhorst seeks to locate Hobbes within the horizon of that current of natural thought that began with Aristotle, led through antiquity and then flourished and came to predominate with the West's recovery of the Stagirite in the late Middle Ages. The course of so long a filiation of ideas cannot be the subject of a book whose length is under 250 pages, though a companion collection of essays on Aristotle and his long progeny, edited by Leijenhorst and others, has also appeared [End Page 101] (to be reviewed in the Journal). Instead, Leijenhorst focuses on the last, self-avowed inheritors and developers of that tradition, known as late Aristotelianism, though precisely how to define that tradition is itself problematized.Classically trained, Hobbes was well equipped to study Aristotle directly in Greek, without intermediaries; he early on published a translation of Thucydides. Still, Leijenhorst's concern is less to draw Hobbes closer to Aristotle than to relate him both to his immediate intellectual predecessors and to his own contemporaries, though, in each case, for different reasons. In the former, Leijenhorst convincingly argues that, as Gilson showed for Descartes, Hobbes assumed, drew upon, adopted and modified prevailing Aristotelian doctrines, even as he famously condemned their ancient author. And, Hobbes's sources, as they themselves interpreted, rejected and modified the views of their forebear, were rather various, including such writers of manuals as Bartholomaeus Anglicus and John Case, as well as others whose interests and directions were more varied and less conservative, including Scaliger, Rudolph Goclenius and Otto Casmann.A common source for both these strains of late Aristotelianism was the great stream of commentaries produced largely by members of the Jesuit Order from the middle of the sixteenth century onward, including Franciscus Toletus, Antonio Rubio, Petrus Fonseca, as well as Franciscus Suarez and members of other orders.This stream of thought also fed into the confessional strife of post-Reformation Europe, so that both Lutherans and Calvinists developed their own Aristotelianisms. One of the most striking conclusions of Leijenhorst's work is that, in characterizing both Aristotle's and his own metaphysics (or philosophia prima) as a universal science rather than as a particular theological science, Hobbes is an heir of this "Protestant ontology."Finally, Hobbes looked to the great names of natural-scientific thinking in sixteenth-century Italy, Zabarella, Pomponazzi, Fracastoro, Telesio and Campanella. Like Hobbes, these latter authors, "though vehemently anti-Aristotelian," nonetheless "exploited kinematic, empiricist and materialist tendencies found within the Aristotelian tradition itself, particularly in the School of Padua" (11).Such investigations into sources and lines of argument illuminate relations with predecessors and contemporaries in ways that social-constructivist accounts, like those of Schaeffer and Shapin and of the Edinburgh sociologist of knowledge David Bloor, may not accomplish. The author gives one instance of direct conflict between the results of that school and his own contextualism which illustrates this larger point.In his fight with Boyle, Hobbes is at pains to deny the existence of the void. Though he came to reject it rather late in his scientific thinking, the void, Schaffer and Shapin suggest, served to give space to the "incorporeal substances," similar to the scholastics' "abstract essences," upon which the latter erected the "kingdom of darkness" that... (shrink)

This dissertation discusses the work of Thomas Hobbes, and has two main themes. The first is Hobbes's materialism, and the second is Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers, in particular his place in the mechanist movement that is said to have replaced Aristotelianism as the dominant philosophy in the seventeenth century. -/- I argue that Hobbes does not, for most of his career, believe the general materialist view that bodies are the only substances. He believes, rather, that ideas, which are our (...) main mechanism for thinking about the world, allow us to understand many bodies, but not to understand every thing we recognize to exist. The incomprehensible things include God---and, early in Hobbes's career, the human mind. Discussing materialism and our knowledge of God leads me to engage with the debate over Hobbes's alleged atheism. I argue that the evidence for Hobbes's atheism is weak at best. Hobbes is a sincere theist, though his view is sometimes unusual. -/- My discussion of Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers has three parts. In chapter five I argue that Hobbes's views about method are in important ways similar to Zabarella's. In chapter six I look at Hobbes's rejection of the view, held by some scholastic Aristotelians, that accidents can sometimes exist without inhering in substances. Thus we see two sides of Hobbes's interaction with the Aristotelian tradition. Sometimes that interaction is just rejection, but at other times Hobbes takes over views from that tradition. Then in chapter seven I consider whether, and in what sense, Hobbes is a mechanist. I argue that the narrative of mechanism and Aristotelianism is a less powerful explanation than it has seemed to some to be, because it is hard to see what mechanists have in common. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes made original and philosophically important contributions to the theory of definition in the seventeenth century. Hobbes explicitly challenged the predominance of the traditional paradigm of definition per genus proximum et differentiam specificam. In place of this classifying or "generic" method of definition, Hobbes introduced and insisted upon the primacy of the method of "generating" or "genetic" definition. Instead of defining by classifying, by locating a definiendum relative to the next higher genus and specific difference, a generating definition defines (...) by describing the genesis, emergence, formation, or construction of an object out of its elementary generating or causal conditions. To this day Hobbes's work on definition has received relatively little explicit and systematic attention in comparison with other aspects of his work. The aim of this study is to rectify that deficiency by exploring the philosophical meaning and implications of Hobbes's theory of generating definition. The study has both historical and systematic components. ;Hobbes's theory of generating definition is examined for its role in both reflecting and also effecting the transition from philosophical antiquity to philosophical modernity. Whereas the ancient mind was conceived as essentially theoretical and contemplative, the modern mind, by contrast, has been conceived as essentially productive, generative, and creative. According to the radical moderns, the human mind has genuine knowledge only of those things which it has itself produced. Indeed, for the moderns and for Hobbes in particular, the objects of our knowledge are conceived as having their very being and their properties precisely and only to the extent that they have been constructed or at least reconstructed by the mind. Hobbes's theory of generating definition is shown to give methodological expression to these fundamental epistemological and ontological commitments of modernity. ;Systematically, within the context of Hobbes's own philosophical work, the theory of generating definition is shown to express a methodological perspective that is fundamental to and formative of philosophical views across all the major areas of Hobbes's philosophical program. The latter half of the dissertation is devoted to a systematic study of Hobbes's philosophy from the interpretive perspective of his theory of generating definition. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes adheres to a conception of philosophy as causal knowledge that bears the mark of the Aristotelian tradition, as Cees Leijenhorst has elaborated in another issue of The Monist. Referring to Aristotle, Hobbes states explicitly in two mathematical studies of the 1660’s: “To know is to know by causes.” But according to Hobbes, we encounter obstacles when we search for causes in the field of natural philosophy. Consequently, his well-known definition of philosophy consists of two parts. The earliest version, (...) elaborated in the so-called A 10 manuscript, reads: “Philosophy is the knowledge, acquired by correct ratiocination, of properties of bodies from their conceived manners of generation, and again, of such manners of generation, as may be, from known properties.” This definition reappears almost literally in several of Hobbes’s other essays, for example in De Cive and in the Leviathan, and in a modified version in De Corpore. In the latter, he replaces “properties of bodies” by “effects or appearances” and “manners of generation” by “causes or manners of generation.” But one essential point remains unchanged: the second part of the definition is not a simple reversal of the first part, since Hobbes does not speak of “manners of generation” or of “causes,” but only of possible manners of generation or of possible causes. It is this second part of Hobbes’s theory that refers to natural philosophy. Hobbes stresses repeatedly that in the case of natural philosophy, causes can be concluded only from known effects. In contrast, in First Philosophy or geometry, conclusions can be drawn from known and true principles to their effects. According to Hobbes, this is the essential distinction of natural philosophy, which does not exist by accident. This essay explicates Hobbes’s argumentation for claiming this distinction for natural philosophy but not for geometry. In addition, the consequences of Hobbes’s methodological argument for natural philosophy are examined, especially the consequences for optics and astronomy. Finally, the question of whether there is a development in this theory will be explored. (shrink)

This paper deals with Hobbes's theory of optical images, developed in his optical magnum opus, ‘A Minute or First Draught of the Optiques’, and published in abridged version in De homine. The paper suggests that Hobbes's theory of vision and images serves him to ground his philosophy of man on his philosophy of body. Furthermore, since this part of Hobbes's work on optics is the most thoroughly geometrical, it reveals a good deal about the role of mathematics in Hobbes's philosophy. (...) The paper points to some difficulties in the thesis of Shapin and Schaffer, who presented geometry as a ‘paradigm’ for Hobbes's natural philosophy. It will be argued here that Hobbes's application of geometry to optics was dictated by his metaphysical and epistemological principles, not by a blind belief in the power of geometry. Geometry supported causal explanation, and assisted reason in making sense of appearances by helping the philosopher understand the relationships between the world outside us and the images it produces in us. Finally the paper broadly suggests how Hobbes's theory of images may have triggered, by negative example, the flourishing of geometrical optics in Restoration England. (shrink)

My thesis examines Thomas Hobbes's attempt to develop a mathematical account of nature. I argue that Hobbes's conception of how we should think quantitatively about the world was deeply indebted to the ideas of his ancient and medieval predecessors. These ideas were often amenable to Hobbes's vision of a demonstrative, geometrically-based science. However, he was forced to adapt the ancient and medieval models to the demands of his own thoroughgoing materialism. This hybrid resulted in a distinctive, if only partially successful, (...) approach to the problems of the new mechanical philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.3 (2001) 445-462 [Access article in PDF] Hobbes on Explanation and Understanding Ioli Patellis One aspect of Hobbes's philosophy of science which has not been explored in any depth is his view of the explanatory import of science. This is possibly because of the important passages in Hobbes awarding primary, if not sole, significance to the practical dimension of scientific knowledge, i.e., to (...) science as a means of controlling and manipulating nature, an emphasis which is in tune with the general prudential tenor of Hobbes's philosophy. In addition the Hobbesian view of explanation seems straightforward enough: one explains a phenomenon when one assigns a cause to it. On the face of it there does not seem much more to be said about the matter. Hobbesian science explains because it provides knowledge of causes and causes explain because that is what causes do by definition. A problem with the explanatory force of causes arises when one surveys the great variety of conceptions of causality which have been proposed. Do they all have explanatory value and for the same reasons? Are Aristotelian causes and Humean ones of equal explanatory import and in virtue of the same traits? The case of Hobbes is of particular interest in this respect because in his work we find discussions not only of his own notion of causality as a species of efficient cause but also of Scholastic causes, deriving from Aristotle, and of prudence which is based on Humean-type regularities. One can then ask why it is that, according to Hobbes, the type of causes he espouses explain, while the other varieties do not. In attempting to answer this question I shall suggest that one of the reasons they do so is because they afford a particular sort of understanding. This in turn will provide a link with contemporary discussions of the relations between explanation and understanding, and in particular it will provide some insight into the kind of understanding afforded by systematicity by construing understanding as the integration of what is to be explained within one's body of knowledge.In this paper I attempt to piece together from hints in Hobbes's work a Hobbesian theory of explanation as understanding of a certain sort. In the first [End Page 445] section I argue that, notwithstanding his official pronouncements to the contrary, Hobbes does believe that science has theoretical as well as practical value. The second section discusses two counts on which Hobbes finds School science non-explanatory: the causes it posits are not productive processes in Hobbes's sense and the language it employs is often meaningless. The third section discusses the latter accusation in relation to Hobbes's views on understanding. The fourth section reverts to the former accusation by way of a discussion of Hobbes's views on prudence and the curiosity which leads to the positing of God as the first cause. The last brings together the results of the former two sections and suggests that Scholastic causes have no explanatory value because they do not provide understanding of the required kind. It further briefly attempts to link the latter with recent unification theories of explanation.I. "The goal or scope of philosophy is that we might be able to use previously observed effects for our benefit or that, after the effects have been discovered by the mind, similar effects might be produced through the application of bodies to bodies by the industry of men, insofar as human power and the matter of things will allow for the use of human life." 1 In this passage from De Corpore the goal of science is restricted to the prediction and manipulation of nature. This goal is eminently compatible with the Hobbesian view of science as providing infallible rational knowledge ofcausal relations. First, science provides knowledge of effects given their causes and of possible causes given their effects. 2 For according to Hobbes, a cause is the (manner of) generation or production of effects. 3 "For you enquire not so much, when you see a change... (shrink)

Hobbes appears to subscribe to a form of the resolutive/compositive method not only as the appropriate means for understanding the natural world but also as the correct means for understanding the political world. However, the view that Hobbes adopts this methodology for understanding both 'bodies politic' and 'natural bodies' has been challenged in Tom Sorell's widely praised study of Hobbes' philosophy. In this article, I first rebut Sorell's challenge, and then consider several other objections which might be levelled against the (...) claim that Hobbes employs a version of the resolutive/compositive method in his civil philosophy. (shrink)

Our understanding of Hobbes is pivotal to our grasp of modernity, and yet we misunderstand him. Specifically, we have misconstrued the way his philosophy exemplifies modern political reason. Contrary to the conventional view, Hobbes should not be thought of as the first modern political scientist. His works are not abstract schema devoted to explaining the logic of commonwealths or the actions of rationally self-interested actors. Rather than explanatory, Hobbes's science was didactic: it was written to craft and fashion obedient selves. (...) His works teach political duties and/or strive to persuade the sovereign that his doctrine ought to be taught in the schools---to the exclusion of all others. Hobbes's promise of a peaceable commonwealth required that his doctrine become the political education for England's elite. I illustrate parallels between Hobbes and contemporaries also interested in reeducating England . To reinforce and complement this reading, I defend a new interpretation of his science. Hobbes's approach to geometry, I argue, attaches certainty to what we can make. He uses mathematics to pursue a constructed, rather than a natural, order. He was, therefore, more concerned with imposing an order he designed himself than with predicting nature's. With this new reading I hope to change our perceptions of the origins of modern science and the relationship between science and politics in modernity. My approach is both philosophical and historical, and I hope it will interest persons concerned with modernity, the construction of the modern subject, political education, politics and literature, the history of science, and critiques of modern political rationalism. (shrink)

This article explains the apparent tension between Hobbes' late work A Dialogue between A Philosopher and A Student of the Common Laws of England and his avowed goal of a deductive philosophy which eschews rhetoric and history, by analysing the difference between Hobbes' civil and natural philosophy. A Dialogue's simultaneous use of deduction, rhetoric, and historical citation is congruent with the method applied by Hobbes in Leviathan in order to construct his "civil philosophy". This highlights Hobbes' awareness increasing with the (...) years of the difference between the teachings of "natural philosophy" which are understood by demonstration, and once this is done are evident per se, and those of politics and jurisprudence which in order to make the people obey the sovereign maintaining peace and security, may require employing the language of persuasion before and after being demonstrated. However, I have argued that the awareness of this difference does not undermine the general unity of his philosophical system and in particular of his notion of science. (shrink)