Abstract

There is no doubt about considering Thomas Hobbes as one of the most radical shields of XVII century mechanistic materialism, which explains phenomena according to laws of bodily motion. Agreeing to such an explicatory system, every single movement is caused by an external one, which implies that there is neither a self-moving body nor a body whose cause of motion is itself. However, a main idea is conceived by Hobbes himself, namely, the consideration of a vital or animal motion in certain bodies. Is such a suggestion about qualitative difference between bodies? Are animated bodies able to be grounded to equal explicatory principles of mechanism? William Harvey's blood circulation and heart beating claims allow us to safeguard the Hobbes' theory coherence.