Abstract

Hobbes and all the commentators so far who have argued for the overall coherence of his philosophy have attempted, and failed, to establish it on a foundation in "mechanical" conceptions of body and motion, according to Weiss. But Hobbes in effect overcame the inherent limitations of the mechanical model when he introduced in his conception of man as a seeker after power a model drawn from a different kind of machine: "cybernetic" structures carried over from psychology into politics are the real basis of Hobbes's system.