Language was central to Hobbes's understanding of human beings and their mental abilities, and criticism of other philosophers' uses of language became a favorite critical tool for him. This paper connects Hobbes's theories about language to his criticisms of others' language, examining Hobbes's theories of propositions and truth, and how they relate to his claims that various sorts of proposition are absurd. It considers whether Hobbes in fact means anything more by 'absurd' than 'false'. And it pays particular attention to (...) Hobbes's categorization of causes of absurdity and of types of incoherent proposition, arguing that Hobbes's approach is only loosely related to later discussions of category mistakes. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes was, rather famously, a nominalist. The core of that nominalism is the belief that the only universal things are universal names: there are no universal objects, or universal ideas. This paper looks at what Hobbes's views about universal names were, how they evolved over time, and how Hobbes argued for them. The remainder of the paper considers two objections to Hobbes's view: a criticism made by several of Hobbes's contemporaries, that Hobbes's view could not account for people saying (...) the same thing in different languages; and a more recently popular criticism of Hobbes, that his nominalism's reliance on similarity implicitly (and inconsistently) involves reliance on a universal. (shrink)

In recent years, we have witnessed renewed interest in metaphors in political theory. In this context, Hobbes’s theory of metaphor is of great importance as it helps us understand aesthetic qualities in theory and politics. This article argues that in the work of Hobbes – often portrayed as hostile to the use of metaphor, especially so by himself – there is a remarkable discrepancy between his professed enmity to metaphor and his own use of the very word ‘metaphor’. In a (...) philosopher who censures conceptual imprecision, we find a fundamentally inconsistent and ever-changing use of this key term. This inconsistency can be accounted for if we relate it to Hobbes’s own often neglected poetics and his theory of the need for conceptual innovation. This will help solve riddles that have haunted Hobbes studies. Moreover, we must discover Hobbes’s theory of metaphor as a source of potential insights into the way in which political and theoretical languages operate with regard to aesthetic pleasure through linguistic change. Hobbes’s theory can thus make us understand the importance of something being new, that is, how theoretical languages need novelty in order to be pleasant and persuasive. (shrink)

This paper brings new work to bear on the perennial question about Hobbes's atheism to show that as a debate about scepticism it is falsely framed. Hobbes, like fellow members of the Mersenne circle, Descartes and Gassendi, was no sceptic, but rather concerned to rescue physics and metaphysics from radical scepticism by exploring corporealism. In his early letter of November 1640, Hobbes had issued a provocative challenge to Descartes to abandon metaphysical dualism and subscribe to a ?corporeal God?; a provocation (...) to which the Frenchman angrily responded, but was perhaps importantly influenced. Hobbes's minimal realism was consonant with atheism, to which Descartes felt he was being forced. Moreover, Hobbes was unrelenting in his battle against Cartesian dualism, for which he saw Robert Boyle's experimental science as a surrogate. (shrink)

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the genealogy of the modern state delivered by the author at the 2008 British Academy Lecture. It explains that to investigate the genealogy of the state is to discover that there has never been any agreed concept to which the word state has answered. The lecture suggests that any moral or political term that has become so deeply enmeshed in so many ideological disputes over such a long period of time is (...) bound to resist any efforts at definition. (shrink)

What is the relation between material objects and spacetime regions? Supposing that spacetime regions are one sort of substance, there remains the question of whether or not material objects are a second sort of substance. This is the question of dualistic versus monistic substantivalism. I will defend the monistic view. In particular, I will maintain that material objects should be identified with spacetime regions. There is the spacetime manifold, and the fundamental properties are pinned directly to it.

The paper argues that Leviathan can be interpreted as employing a constructionist approach in several important respects. It takes issue with commentators who think that, if for Hobbes man is not naturally social, then man must be naturally unsocial or naturally purely individual. First, Hobbes's key conceptions of the role of artifice and nature-artifice relations are identified, and uncontroversially constructionist elements outlined, most notably Hobbes's conceptualisation of the covenant. The significance of crucial distinctions in Leviathan, between the civil and the (...) social, between science and philosophy, between mankind's nature and the human condition, is developed. A constructionist reading of the argument of Leviathan is then advanced. The interpretation focuses on the contribution of nature-artifice relations, and of Hobbes's notion of civil philosophy, in understanding the critical issues of the state of nature and individual subjectivity. This reconstruction of the meaning of the text highlights the necessarily social character of human life in Leviathan, expressed in the way that the social' gives meaning to the 'natural', as well as because for Hobbes we live in a mind-affected world of perception and ideas. Leviathan can be interpreted as, in particular, a political social construction, because both social and individual identity logically require the social order and arrangements that only a strong government can supply. The social world, in Leviathan, cannot exist prior to the generation of a political framework, in civil society, the commonwealth, and law. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes has recently been cast as one of the forefathers of political realism. This article evaluates his place in the realist tradition by focusing on three key themes: the priority of legit...

Prior to 1651, Hobbes was agnostic about the existence of God. Hobbes argued that God’s existence could neither be demonstrated nor proved, so that those who reason about God’s existence will systematically vacillate, sometimes thinking God exists, sometimes not, which for Hobbes is to say they will doubt God’s existence. Because this vacillation or doubt is inherent to the subject, reasoners like himself will judge that settling on one belief rather than another is epistemically unjustified. Hobbes’s agnosticism becomes apparent once (...) we attend to his distinctions between the propositional attitudes one might adopt towards theological claims, including supposing, thinking, having faith and knowing. (shrink)

En los últimos años, la relación entre la filosofía de la Ilustración y el cinismo ha logrado atraer la atención de los especialistas. En ese marco, los críticos suelen identificar las filosofías de Diógenes y Diderot. El objetivo del presente trabajo es revisar el vínculo que existe entre ambos con el fin de demostrar que el mismo es problemático y que, por esa razón, desborda las interpretaciones que se han presentado hasta el momento. Esto, por otra parte, arrojará luces sobre (...) la relación entre el materialismo de Diderot y su teoría ético-política. In recent years the relationship between the philosophy of the Enlightenment and cynicism has managed to attract the attention of scholars. In this framework, critics often identify Diogenes and Diderot's philosophy. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between Diderot and Diogenes in order to demonstrate that it is a problematic relationship that goes beyond the interpretations that have been presented so far. This, on the other hand, will shed light on the relationship between Diderot's materialism and his ethical and political 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)

Los estudios recientes sobre Hobbes han puesto una gran atención en el uso de las imágenes. Permanece, sin embargo, una objeción seria y factible: se podría argumentar que Hobbes no relaciona su producción de imágenes, ni a su política, ni a su teoría de la percepción y que, por tanto, no tenemos razón para creer que sus imágenes son una aplicación de esta doctrina. El propósito de este trabajo es mostrar que Hobbes de hecho sí vincula — de un modo (...) implícito — la construcción de imágenes y su teoría psicológica al orden político. Primero, el artículo reconstruye la teoría hobbesiana de la percepción y sus implicaciones. Segundo, se muestra que el Leviathan establece encubiertamente el vínculo entre la teoría de las imágenes y las imágenes políticas, incluyendo, por consiguiente, las creadas por el propio Hobbes. Tercero, se muestra que el Leviatán de Hobbes rara vez descubre su rol como dispositivo para ver, para hacer que el lector vea imágenes que él considera necesarias. Finalmente, se discuten las consecuencias de este descubrimiento para nuestra comprensión de Hobbes y de la visualidad y las imágenes en el pensamiento político. (shrink)

Proponemos una lectura de la obra de Hobbes como revolución, como ruptura radical con el pensamiento de la tradición dominante: ruptura, que lo es en casi todos los ámbitos, pero sobre todo en el del pensamiento político, moral y jurídico. Sugerimos, además, que esa radical ruptura sigue manteniendo elementos vivos y útiles para pensar la política hoy.