Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics

Samantha Frost

Published by Stanford University Press 2008

Lessons from a Materialist Thinker

Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics

Samantha Frost

In the series Cultural Memory in the Present

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503626836

Overview
Contents

About this book

Thomas Hobbes is an iconic figure who serves as an easy reference for pundits commenting on the brutality of war as well as for critics of a distinctly modern individualism in which calculating and rapacious self-interest is the cause of the violence, destruction, and exploitation endemic to the contemporary world. Frost's reading of Hobbes's philosophy shows us that underlying such visions of self and politics is another iconic figure: that of the Cartesian subject. What gives the iconic Hobbes his hardcore individualism and its corollary accounts of instrumentalism, conflict, and absolutism is a Cartesian rendering of the self as split into mind and body. Carefully elaborating Hobbes's materialist ontology, Lessons from a Materialist Thinker challenges both our implicit Cartesian assumptions about the self and the commonplace Hobbes that so readily figures violence in our political imagination. Through his materialism, Hobbes presents an alternative modern account of self-consciousness, reason, agency, power, freedom, and responsibility. In doing so, he shows that our fundamental intersubjectivity and interdependence require that we pursue peace above all else.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Hobbes and the Matter of Self-Consciousness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
2 Hobbes and the Caprice of Reason Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3 The Time of Determination: Movement, Will, and Action Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
4 The Ethics in Determinism: Intersubjectivity, the Collective, and Peace Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	106
5 The Action and Passion of Politics: Hobbes on Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 232

eBook

Published: February 6, 2008
ISBN: 9781503626836