Hobbes: Epistemology

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)

Gassendi and Hobbes knew each other, and their approaches to philosophy often seem similar. They both criticized the Cartesian epistemology of clear and distinct perception. Gassendi engaged at length with skepticism, and also rejected the Aristotelian notion of scientia, arguing instead for a probabilistic view that shows us how we can move on in the absence of certain and evident knowledge. Hobbes, in contrast, retained the notion of scientia, which is the best sort of knowledge and involves causal explanation. He (...) thought, however, that this sort of knowledge was only available in geometry and political philosophy. (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)

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)

This article shows how the specific interaction and mutual dependence between language and curiosity accounts for the more general dialectic between reason and passion in Hobbes’ philosophy, providing the distinguishing trait of human beings and their behaviour.

Many critics, Descartes himself included, have seen Hobbes as uncharitable or even incoherent in his Objections to the Meditations on First Philosophy. I argue that when understood within the wider context of his views of the late 1630s and early 1640s, Hobbes's Objections are coherent and reflect his goal of providing an epistemology consistent with a mechanical philosophy. I demonstrate the importance of this epistemology for understanding his Fourth Objection concerning the nature of the wax and contend that Hobbes's brief (...) claims in that Objection are best understood as a summary of the mechanism for scientific knowledge found in his broader work. Far from displaying his confusion, Hobbes's Fourth Objection in fact pinpoints a key weakness of Descartes's faculty psychology: its unintelligibility within a mechanical philosophy. (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)

The importance of Pyrrhonism to Hobbes's political philosophy is much greater than has been recognized. He seems to have used Pyrrhonist arguments to support a doctrine of moral relativity, but he was not a sceptic in the Pyrrhonist sense. These arguments helped him to develop his teaching that there is no absolute good or evil; to minimise the purchase of natural law in the state of nature and its restrictions on the right of nature; virtually to collapse natural law into (...) civil law; and to make the sovereign the political, moral and theological epicenter of his political system. (shrink)

Cet article s’interroge sur le statut épistémologique des fictions employées en théorie politique, dont l’état de nature constitue l’un des cas exemplaires. Contre les critiques relativistes et celles d’inspiration marxiste , on montre que l’utilisation des fictions obéit à des règles précises du point de vue de leur finalité et de leur justification, ce qui interdit de considérer toutes les fictions comme équivalentes. Cette problématique est illustrée à partir de la théorie des fictions développée par le philosophe néokantien Hans Vaihinger (...) et en la comparant avec l’usage des fictions tel qu’on le trouve illustré dans les écrits scientifiques et politiques de Thomas Hobbes .This article addresses the question of the epistemological status of fictional discourse in political theory, the « state of nature » being one of its paradigmatic examples. Against both relativism and Marxist critiques , it is argued that the use of fiction obeys to well-defined rules from the point of view of their finality and justification, which forbids us to consider all fictions as equivalent. This problem is illustrated by means of a presentation of the theory of fictions developed by the Neo-Kantian philosopher Hans Vaihinger and by comparing it to the use of fictions as found in the scientific and political writings of Thomas Hobbes. (shrink)

Hobbes denies in Leviathan that we have an idea of God. He does think, though, that God exists, and does not even deny that we can think about God, even though he says we have no idea of God. There is, Hobbes thinks, another cognitive mechanism by means of which we can think about God. That mechanism allows us only to think a few things about God though. This constrains what Hobbes can say about our knowledge of God, and grounds (...) his belief in a fairly strong version of the thesis that God is incomprehensible. (shrink)

Hobbes julgava ter encontrado na ciência e na sua metodologia, especifi­camente naquelas ciências que eram consideradas como indubitáveis, o modelo que lhe permitiria construir as bases da nova sociedade. Com isto buscava evadir-se das ambiguidades predominantes no seu tempo, as quais não faziam outra coisa senão manter a sociedade num estado bélico. O presente artigo mostra como Hobbes constrói o seu pensamento político de modo geométrico, como uma ciência demonstrativa, comparando o dever-ser da ciência política com a ordem imperante na (...) matemática. O autor mostra ainda até que ponto Hobbes colocou todos os seus esforços na tarefa de dar um carácter científico à política, já que a sua pretensão era fazer dela uma ciência racional. Numa palavra, o artigo mostra de que modo Hobbes pretendeu elevar o carácter da filosofia política ao de uma verdadeira ciência política.In science – particularly in those sciences that were considered indubitable – and in its methodology, Hobbes thought to have found the pattern which would allow him to build the bases of a new society. In doing so he was trying to avoid the prevailing ambiguities of his time, which did not go beyond keeping society in an ongoing state of war. Accordingly, he builds his thought around the geometrical mode, as a demonstrative science. Thus he compares the “ought be” of political science to the prevailing order of mathematics. Hobbes took great pains to give politics a scientific character, as he tried to make a rational science out of it. By doing this, Hobbes attempted to raise the nature of political philosophy to political science. (shrink)

This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work ha generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historical research. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of the (...) theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history now as much as ever. (shrink)

Starting from an historical remark of R. Tuch (1993) concerning the relationship between Renaissance scepticism and the first social contract theories, this article defends the idea that the main difference between Hobbes's social contract theory and contemporary contractualism rests on the conception of reason. Comparing Hobbes and Rawls it shows that the first one rejects subjective theories of rationality and conceives the contract as a pre-condition of successfid individual rationality, which allows him both to escape sceptical and relativist criticisms and (...) to consider politics as an autonomous source of norms. /// Apoiando-se numa observação historica de R. Tuck (1993) acerca das relações entre o cepticismo saído do Renascimento e as primeiras teorias do contrato social, o presente artigo defende a tese de que a diferença fundamental entre a teoria hobbesiana do contrato e o contratualismo contemporâneo versa sobre a concepção da razão. Comparando Hobbes e Rawls acerca do contrato, o autor mostra até que ponto o filósofo de Malmsbury rejeita as teorias subjectivas da racionalidade fazendo do contrato a precondição para o exercício individual da razão, o que lhe permite simultaneamente evitar as críticas cépticas e relativistas e de considerar a política como uma fonte autónoma de normas. (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)

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)

Richard Tuck has argued that important elements of Hobbes's thought grew out of a confrontation with scepticism; seen in this context, rather than through the lens of post-Kantian philosophy, Hobbes’s moral science takes on a ‘negotiatory’ and fundamentally pluralist character, Tuck alleges. In this paper, I offer an alternative account of Hobbes's relationship with scepticism, while defending Tuck's position against critics who see no role at all for scepticism in Hobbes's intellectual development. Even if his primary purpose was not to (...) defeat the sceptics. Hobbes may have been deeply influenced by sceptical ideas, in particular the sceptic's awareness of the great diversity that exists in human perceptions, tastes, customs and opinions. Hobbes put an epistemological twist on the sceptical recognition of diversity, however, allowing him to justify a moral theory that was reductive in character. Moreover, Hobbes's epistemology and political theory were closely connected; in the hands of the sovereign, his moral theory was to serve as a tool for the reform of popular discourse, in the interest of peace. While certainly no fanatic, Hobbes feared that any significant diversity of opinion within a single commonwealth would inevitably lead to strife. (shrink)