Thomas Hobbes

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In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. [36]

The preface of Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan, read in his original Latin adaptation, with English subtitles

In such states, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to comfortable living, and the hope of being able to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population and a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some right [37] for the sake of protection. Power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted, because the protector's sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign: [38] "he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self is impossible". There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion. He argues that any division of authority would lead to internal strife, jeopardizing the stability provided by an absolute sovereign. [39] [40] According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers, even the words. [41]

Opposition

John Bramhall

In 1654 a small treatise, Of Liberty and Necessity, directed at Hobbes, was published by Bishop John Bramhall. [22] [42] Bramhall, a strong Arminian, had met and debated with Hobbes and afterwards wrote down his views and sent them privately to be answered in this form by Hobbes. Hobbes duly replied, but not for publication. However, a French acquaintance took a copy of the reply and published it with "an extravagantly laudatory epistle". [22] Bramhall countered in 1655, when he printed everything that had passed between them (under the title of A Defence of the True Liberty of Human Actions from Antecedent or Extrinsic Necessity). [22]

In 1656, Hobbes was ready with The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, in which he replied "with astonishing force" [22] to the bishop. As perhaps the first clear exposition of the psychological doctrine of determinism, Hobbes's own two pieces were important in the history of the free will controversy. The bishop returned to the charge in 1658 with Castigations of Mr Hobbes's Animadversions, and also included a bulky appendix entitled The Catching of Leviathan the Great Whale. [43]

John Wallis

Hobbes opposed the existing academic arrangements, and assailed the system of the original universities in Leviathan. He went on to publish De Corpore , which contained not only tendentious views on mathematics but also an erroneous proof of the squaring of the circle. This all led mathematicians to target him for polemics and sparked John Wallis to become one of his most persistent opponents. From 1655, the publishing date of De Corpore, Hobbes and Wallis continued name-calling and bickering for nearly a quarter of a century, with Hobbes failing to admit his error to the end of his life. [44] After years of debate, the spat over proving the squaring of the circle gained such notoriety that it has become one of the most infamous feuds in mathematical history.

Religious views

The religious opinions of Hobbes remain controversial as many positions have been attributed to him and range from atheism to orthodox Christianity. In The Elements of Law, Hobbes provided a cosmological argument for the existence of God, saying that God is "the first cause of all causes". [45]

Hobbes was accused of atheism by several contemporaries; Bramhall accused him of teachings that could lead to atheism. This was an important accusation, and Hobbes himself wrote, in his answer to Bramhall's The Catching of Leviathan, that "atheism, impiety, and the like are words of the greatest defamation possible". [46] Hobbes always defended himself from such accusations. [47] In more recent times also, much has been made of his religious views by scholars such as Richard Tuck and J. G. A. Pocock, but there is still widespread disagreement about the exact significance of Hobbes's unusual views on religion.

As Martinich has pointed out, in Hobbes's time the term "atheist" was often applied to people who believed in God but not in divine providence, or to people who believed in God but also maintained other beliefs that were considered to be inconsistent with such belief or judged incompatible with orthodox Christianity. He says that this "sort of discrepancy has led to many errors in determining who was an atheist in the early modern period". [48] In this extended early modern sense of atheism, Hobbes did take positions that strongly disagreed with church teachings of his time. For example, he argued repeatedly that there are no incorporeal substances, and that all things, including human thoughts, and even God, heaven, and hell are corporeal, matter in motion. He argued that "though Scripture acknowledge spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning thereby without dimensions and quantity". [49] (In this view, Hobbes claimed to be following Tertullian.) Like John Locke, he also stated that true revelation can never disagree with human reason and experience, [50] although he also argued that people should accept revelation and its interpretations for the same reason that they should accept the commands of their sovereign: in order to avoid war.

While in Venice on tour, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio, a close associate of Paolo Sarpi, who had written against the pretensions of the papacy to temporal power in response to the Interdict of Pope Paul V against Venice, which refused to recognise papal prerogatives. James I had invited both men to England in 1612. Micanzio and Sarpi had argued that God willed human nature, and that human nature indicated the autonomy of the state in temporal affairs. When he returned to England in 1615, William Cavendish maintained correspondence with Micanzio and Sarpi, and Hobbes translated the latter's letters from Italian, which were circulated among the Duke's circle. [9]

Works

Posthumous works

  • 1680. An Historical Narration concerning Heresie, And the Punishment thereof
  • 1681. Behemoth, or The Long Parliament
    • Written in 1668, it was unpublished at the request of the King
    • First pirated edition: 1679
  • 1682. Seven Philosophical Problems (English translation of Problematica Physica, 1662)
  • 1682. A Garden of Geometrical Roses (English translation of Rosetum Geometricum, 1671)
  • 1682. Some Principles and Problems in Geometry (English translation of Principia et Problemata, 1674)
  • 1688. Historia Ecclesiastica Carmine Elegiaco Concinnata

Complete editions

Molesworth editions

Editions compiled by William Molesworth.

Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (portrait).jpg
Portrait by John Michael Wright, c.1669–70
Born(1588-04-05)5 April 1588
Died4 December 1679(1679-12-04) (aged 91)
Education
Education
Thomae Hobbes Malmesburiensis Opera Philosophica quae Latina Scripsit, 5 vols. 1839–1845. London: Bohn. Reprint: Aalen, 1966 (= OL)
VolumeFeatured works
Volume I Elementorum Philosophiae I: De Corpore
Volume II Elementorum Philosophiae II and III: De Homine and De Cive
Volume III Latin version of Leviathan.
Volume IV Various concerning mathematics, geometry and physics
Volume V Various short works.
The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols. 1839–1845. London: Bohn. Reprint: London, 1939–; Aalen, 1966 (= EW)
VolumeFeatured Works
Volume 1 De Corpore translated from Latin to English.
Volume 2 De Cive .
Volume 3 Leviathan
Volume 4
  • TRIPOS; in Three Discourses:
    1. Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policy
    2. De Corpore Politico, or the Elements of Law
    3. Of Liberty and Necessity
  • An Answer to Bishop Bramhall's Book, called "The Catching of the Leviathan"
  • An Historical Narration concerning Heresy, and the Punishment thereof
  • Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes
  • Answer to Sir William Davenant's Preface before "Gondibert"
  • Letter to the Right Honourable Edward Howard
Volume 5 The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, clearly stated and debated between Dr Bramhall Bishop of Derry and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury.
Volume 6
  • A Dialogue Between a Philosopher & a Student of the Common Laws of England
  • A Dialogue of the Common Law
  • Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England, and of the Counsels and Artifices By Which They Were Carried on From the Year 1640 to the Year 1660
  • The Whole Art of Rhetoric (Hobbes's translation of his own Latin summary of Aristotle's Rhetoric published in 1637 with the title A Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique)
  • The Art of Rhetoric Plainly Set Forth. With Pertinent Examples For the More Easy Understanding and Practice of the Same (this work is not of Hobbes but by Dudley Fenner, The Artes of Logike and Rethorike, 1584)
  • The Art of Sophistry
Volume 7
  • Seven Philosophical Problems
  • Decameron Physiologicum
  • Proportion of a straight line to half the arc of a quadrant
  • Six lessons to the Savilian Professors of the Mathematics
  • ΣΤΙΓΜΑΙ, or Marks of the absurd Geometry etc. of Dr Wallis
  • Extract of a letter from Henry Stubbe
  • Three letters presented to the Royal Society against Dr Wallis
  • Considerations on the answer of Dr Wallis
  • Letters and other pieces
Volume 8 History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated into English by Hobbes.
Volume 9
Volume 10 The Iliad and The Odyssey , translated by Hobbes into English
Volume 11 Index

Posthumous works not included in the Molesworth editions

WorkPublished yearEditorNotes
The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (1st complete ed.)London: 1889 Ferdinand Tönnies, with a preface and critical notes
"Short Tract on First Principles". [64]

Pp. 193–210 in Elements, Appendix I.

Attributed by important critics to Robert Payne
Tractatus opticus II (1st partial ed.)

pp. 211–226 in Elements, Appendix II.

1639, British Library, Harley MS 6796, ff. 193–266
Tractatus opticus II (1st complete ed.)

Pp. 147–228 in Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 18

1963Franco AlessioOmits the diagrams
Critique du 'De mundo' de Thomas WhiteParis: 1973Jean Jacquot and Harold Whitmore JonesIncludes three appendixes:
  • De Motibus Solis, Aetheris & Telluris (pp. 439–447: a Latin poem on the movement of the Earth).
  • Notes in English on an ancient redaction of some chapters of De Corpore (July 1643; pp. 448–460: MS 5297, National Library of Wales).
  • Notes for the Logica and Philosophia prima of the De Corpore (pp. 461–513: Chatsworth MS A10 and the notes of Charles Cavendish on a draft of the De Corpore: British Library, Harley MS 6083).
Of the Life and History of Thucydides

pp. 10–27 in Hobbes's Thucydides

New Brunswick: 1975Richard Schlatter
Three Discourses: A Critical Modern Edition of Newly Identified Work of the Young Hobbes (TD)

pp. 10–27 in Hobbes's Thucydides

Chicago: 1975Noel B. Reynolds and Arlene SaxonhouseIncludes:
  • A Discourse upon the Beginning of Tacitus pp. 31–67.
  • A Discourse of Rome, pp. 71–102.
  • A Discourse of Law, pp. 105–119.
Thomas Hobbes' A Minute or First Draught of the Optiques: A Critical EditionUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison: 1983 - PhD dissertationElaine C. StroudBritish Library, Harley MS 3360
Of Passions

pp. 729–738 in Rivista di storia della filosofia 43

1988Anna Minerbi BelgradoEdition of the unpublished manuscript Harley 6093
The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes (I: 1622–1659; II: 1660–1679)

Clarendon Edition, vol. 6–7

Oxford: 1994Noel Malcolm

Translations in modern English

New critical editions of Hobbes's works

See also

References

Citations

  1. Kenneth Clatterbaugh, The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy, 1637–1739, Routledge, 2014, p. 69.
  2. Orozco-Echeverri, Sergio H. (2012). "On the Origin of Hobbes's Conception of Language: The Literary Culture of English Renaissance Humanism". Revista de Estudios Sociales. 44 (44): 102–112. doi: 10.7440/res44.2012.10 .
  3. 1 2 "Thomas Hobbes". Thomas Hobbes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2021. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
  4. Lloyd, Sharon A.; Sreedhar, Susanne (2022), "Hobbes's Moral and Political Philosophy", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, archived from the original on 10 March 2023, retrieved 10 March 2023
  5. Williams, Garrath. "Hobbes, Thomas: Moral and Political Philosophy". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  6. Sheldon, Garrett Ward (2003). The History of Political Theory: Ancient Greece to Modern America. Peter Lang. p. 253. ISBN   978-0-8204-2300-5.
  7. Hobbes, Thomas (1679). "Opera Latina". In Molesworth, William (ed.). Vita carmine expressa. Vol. I. London. p. 86.
  8. Jacobson, Norman; Rogow, Arnold A. (1986). "Thomas Hobbes: Radical in the Service of Reaction" . Political Psychology . 8 (3). W.W. Norton: 469. doi:10.2307/3791051. ISBN   978-0-393-02288-9. ISSN   0162-895X. JSTOR   3791051. LCCN   79644318. OCLC   44544062.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Sommerville, J.P. (1992). Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context. MacMillan. pp. 256–324. ISBN   978-0-333-49599-5.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Robertson 1911, p. 545.
  11. "Philosophy at Hertford College". Oxford: Hertford College. Archived from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2009.
  12. Helden, Al Van (1995). "Hobbes, Thomas". The Galileo Project. Rice University. Archived from the original on 27 April 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
  13. King, Preston T. (1993). Thomas Hobbes: Politics and law. Routledge. p. 89. ISBN   978-0-415-08083-5.
  14. Malcolm, Noel (2004). "Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679), philosopher". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13400.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  15. O'Connor, J.J.; Robertson, E.F. (November 2002). "Thomas Hobbes". School of Mathematics and Statistics. Scotland: University of St Andrews. Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
  16. Schlatter, Richard, ed. (1975). Hobbes's Thucydides. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. pp. xxvii, 7. ISBN   978-0-8135-0783-5.
  17. Hobbes, Thomas (1995). Reynolds, Noel B.; Saxonhouse, Arlene W. (eds.). Three Discourses: A Critical Modern Edition of Newly Identified Work of the Young Hobbes. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   978-0-226-34545-1.
  18. 1 2 3 4 Robertson 1911, p. 546.
  19. Bickley, F. (1914). The Cavendish family. Houghton, Mifflin Company. p. 44. ISBN   978-5-87487-145-1. Archived from the original on 22 April 2024. Retrieved 22 April 2024.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  20. Sommerville, J.P. (1992). Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context . MacMillan. pp. 11–12. ISBN   978-0-333-49599-5.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Robertson 1911, p. 547.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Robertson 1911, p. 548.
  23. Vardanyan, Vilen (2011). Panorama of Psychology . AuthorHouse. p. 72. ISBN   978-1-4567-0032-4..
  24. Aubrey, John (1898) [1669–1696]. Clark, A. (ed.). Brief Lives: Chiefly of Contemporaries . Vol. II. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 277.
  25. Robertson 1911, p. 550.
  26. "House of Commons Journal Volume 8". British History Online . Archived from the original on 18 March 2006. Retrieved 14 January 2005.
  27. 1 2 3 4 Robertson 1911, p. 551.
  28. "Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)". BBC. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  29. 1 2 Malcolm, Noel (2003). Aspects of Hobbes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 80. ISBN   0199247145. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  30. Grounds, Eric; Tidy, Bill; Stilgoe, Richard (25 November 2014). The Bedside Book of Final Words. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 20. ISBN   978-1-4456-4464-6.
  31. Norman Davies, Europe: A history p. 687
  32. Coulter, Michael L.; Myers, Richard S.; Varacalli, Joseph A. (5 April 2012). Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy: Supplement. Scarecrow Press. p. 140. ISBN   978-0-8108-8275-1.
  33. Hobbes, Thomas (10 November 2021). "Thomas Hobbes - Political Philosophy". Britannica . Archived from the original on 8 July 2015. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  34. Malcolm, Noel (2003). "Hobbes's Science of Politics and His Theory of Science". Aspects of Hobbes (Online ed.). Oxford Scholarship Online. pp. 147–155. doi:10.1093/0199247145.001.0001. ISBN   9780199247141. Archived from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
  35. Gaskin. "Introduction". Human Nature and De Corpore Politico. Oxford University Press. p. xxx.
  36. "Chapter XIII.: Of the Natural Condition of Mankind As Concerning Their Felicity, and Misery.". Leviathan. 4 September 2022. Archived from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 23 October 2014.
  37. Part I, Chapter XIV. Of the First and Second Naturall Lawes, and of Contracts. (Not All Rights are Alienable), Leviathan: "And therefore there be some Rights, which no man can be understood by any words, or other signes, to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to ayme thereby, at any Good to himselfe. The same may be sayd of Wounds, and Chayns, and Imprisonment".
  38. Gaskin. "Of the Rights of Sovereigns by Institution". Leviathan. Oxford University Press. p. 117.
  39. "1000 Makers of the Millennium", p. 42. Dorling Kindersley, 1999
  40. Peter, Kanzler (31 May 2020). The Leviathan (1651), The Two Treatises of Government (1689), The Social Contract (1762), The Constitution of Pennsylvania (1776). Peter Kanzler. p. 44. ISBN   978-1-716-89340-7.
  41. Vélez, F., La palabra y la espada (2014)
  42. Ameriks, Karl; Clarke, Desmond M. (2007). Chappell, Vere (ed.). Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity (PDF). Cambridge University Press. p. 31. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511495830. ISBN   978-0-511-49583-0. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 August 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  43. Robertson 1911, p. 549.
  44. Boyd, Andrew (2008). "No. 2372: Hobbes and Wallis". The Engines of Our Ingenuity . Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  45. Duncan, Stewart (2021). "Thomas Hobbes". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  46. p. 282 of Molesworth's edition.
  47. Martinich, A. P. (1995). A Hobbes Dictionary. Cambridge: Blackwell. p. 35.
  48. Martinich, A. P. (1995). A Hobbes Dictionary. Cambridge: Blackwell. p. 31.
  49. Human Nature I.XI.5.
  50. Leviathan III.xxxii.2. "...we are not to renounce our Senses, and Experience; nor (that which is undoubted Word of God) our naturall Reason".
  51. Hobbes, Thomas (1995). Reynolds, Noel B.; Saxonhouse, Arlene W. (eds.). Three Discourses: A Critical Modern Edition of Newly Identified Work of the Young Hobbes. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   978-0-226-34545-1.
  52. Hobbes, Thomas. 1630. A Short Tract on First Principles, British Library, Harleian MS 6796, ff. 297–308.
  53. Bernhardt, Jean. 1988. Court traité des premiers principes. Paris: PUF. (Critical edition with commentary and French translation).
  54. Timothy Raylor, Franco Giudice, Stephen Clucas, and Noel Malcolm vote for Robert Payne. Karl Schuhmann, Cees Leijenhorst, Guilherme Rodrigues Neto, and Frank Horstmann vote for Thomas Hobbes. On arguments pro Payne see Timothy Raylor, Hobbes, Payne, and 'A Short Tract on First Principles' (The Historical Journal, 44, 2001, pp. 29–58) and Noel Malcolm, Robert Payne, the Hobbes Manuscripts, and the 'Short Tract' (in: Aspects of Hobbes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 80–145). On arguments pro Hobbes see Karl Schuhmann, Le 'Short Tract', première oeuvre philosophique de Hobbes (Hobbes Studies, 8, 1995, pp. 3-36.) and Frank Horstmann, Der Grauvließer. Robert Payne und Thomas Hobbes als Urheber des 'Short Tract' (Berlin: epubli, 2020, ISBN   978-3-752952-92-6.)
  55. Harwood, John T., ed. 1986. The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. (Provides a new edition of the work).
  56. Schuhmann, Karl (1998). "Skinner's Hobbes". British Journal for the History of Philosophy. 6 (1): 115. doi:10.1080/09608789808570984. p. 118.
  57. Skinner, Quentin. [2002] 2012. Hobbes and Civil Science, (Visions of Politics 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi : 10.1017/CBO9780511613784. (Skinner affirms Schuhmann's view: p. 4, fn. 27.)
  58. Evrigenis, Ioannis D. (2016). "Images of Anarchy: The Rhetoric and Science in Hobbes's State of Nature". Cambridge University Press. Archived from the original on 27 February 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2023. (Provides a summary of this confusing episode, as well as most relevant literature. p. 48 n. 13)
  59. Hobbes, Thomas. 1639. Tractatus opticus II. vis British Library, Harley MS 6796, ff. 193–266.
  60. First complete edition: 1963. For this dating, see the convincing arguments given by: Horstmann, Frank. 2006. Nachträge zu Betrachtungen über Hobbes' Optik. Berlin: Mackensen. ISBN   978-3-926535-51-1. pp. 19–94.
  61. A critical analysis of Thomas White (1593–1676) De mundo dialogi tres, Parisii, 1642.
  62. Elaine Condouris Stroud, Thomas Hobbes' A Minute Or First Draught of the Optiques: A Critical Edition, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ph.D., 1983.
  63. Modern scholars are divided as to whether or not this translation was done by Hobbes. For a pro-Hobbes account see H. Warrender's introduction to De Cive: The English Edition in The Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, 1984). For the contra-Hobbes account see Noel Malcolm, "Charles Cotton, Translator of Hobbes's De Cive" in Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford, 2002)
  64. critical edition: Court traité des premiers principes, text, French translation and commentary by Jean Bernhardt, Paris: PUF, 1988

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