Journal of the History of Philosophy

648 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 26:4 OCTOBER 1988 Sacksteder and Talaska on System in Hobbes In his response ~to my paper ~on method in Hobbes, Dr. William Sacksteder criticizes my position on what may be the most crucial, as yet unresolved, problem in Hobbes scholarship, viz., the unity of his philosophy. The following comments are addressed to this issue and its history. Sacksteder's concern is with my statement that "the sciences exist in a specific order of deductive dependency," and "the nearly sound gloss on it" that "the less general sciences cannot be understood without the prior development of the more general."~ He thinks that the latter gloss "overlooks Hobbes's claim that moral and political philosophy can be expounded without prior sciences." The real interpretive issue between us, signalled by his suggestion of the Hobbes claim I seem to overlook, is not, in fact, deduction. There is evidence in my paper--as Sacksteder himself has noticed--to show that I do not hold the naive deductive view of the relationship among the sciences in Hobbes. However, we do disagree on one important matter: the relationship between Hobbes's political and natural philosophy. As to the statement about deductive dependency, Sacksteder says that "the villain .., is the term deductive." I agree with him that deduction, understood without qualification, of physics from prior sciences is impossible.4 The latter set conditions "necessary but never sufficient"5 for physics because physics requires hypotheses to "supplement principles available for demonstration. ''6 If a single proof in physics requires ' "Hobbes and Talaska on the Order of the Sciences," Journal of the History of Philosophy26 0988). References to Dr. Sacksteder's article will be to paragraph number. I am flattered that a Hobbes scholar of the stature of William Sacksteder should have recognized my paper with a response that is balanced by praise and critical suggestion. I wish that the following be taken in the same courteous spirit of friendly philosophical exchange as Sacksteder's comments were intended. "Analytic and Synthetic Method According to Hobbes," Journal of the History of Philosophy 26 (1988): 2o7-37. In the following, references to Hobbes's texts will follow the conventions used in my paper on method. Additional Hobbes texts cited are: Thomas Hobbes, De Cive: The Latin Version and De Cive: The English Version, vols. 2-3 of The ClarendonEdition of the Phdosophical Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. Howard Warrender (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983); Thomas Hobbes, Critiquedu De Mundo de Thomas White, ed. Jean Jacquot and Harold Whitmore Jones (Paris: Vrin, 1973). 3 Par. lo. 4 De corp. 25. x (EW x.388; LW 1.316); 3o. 15 (EW 1.531; LW 1.43o-31). But see De corp. 6.6 (EW 1.73; LW 1.64) and De horn. lo. 5 (LW 2.93), where Hobbes emphasizes the dependence of physics upon geometry. On system and the order of the sciences, see my "The Emergence of the Early Modern Concept of System," PhilosophyResearchArchives 11 (1985): 1-83, microfiche supplement , and "Aristotelian 'Order' and 'Form' According to Hobbes," Rivista di storia dellafilosofia (1988: l): 5-43Par . 13. See my paper, pages 228, 93o, where the same point is made, and same vocabulary used. 6 Par. 12. See my paper, pages 226-35. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 649 ad hoc principles in addition to principles accepted from previous sciences, then such a proof "lacks the rigor defining geometry."7 By the very fact that a proof in physics introduces new principles not deduced from propositions in a previous science, the relationship among the sciences in question must be considered "non-deductively dependent ''8 upon previous sciences, as I myself suggest: "There would appear to be a decisive break in the deductive demonstrative character of the system."9 Thus, one cannot use the term deductive, without qualification, for the relationship between physics and the previous sciences precisely because the principles of the proofs in physics are not all deduced from previous principles in geometrical mechanics, geometry, or first philosophy. Hobbes himself says concerning proofs in physics: "Proprietates earum [i.e., return naturalium] a causis deducere non possumus. '''~ Sacksteder's critical comparison of the naive interpretation of Spinoza to...