Thomas+Hobbes

 ·  born on April 5, 1588 and died December 4, 1679  ·  English Philosopher  ·  "whose famous book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory  ·   Childhood without father, educated at Westport church from the age of four, then to the Malmesbury School, then to a private school. Then went to Magdalen Hall, whose principal was a puritan, John Wilkinson, who had "some influence on Hobbes."  ·  "Althoughhe associated with literary figures like Ben Jonson and thinkers such as Francis Bacon, he did not extend his efforts into philosophy until after 1629”  ·   In 1636 he travelled to Florence, where he had become a regular debater in “philosophical groups in Paris”  ·   1637 was when he considered himself to be a philosopher and a scholar __Paris __  ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hobbes took an interest in “the physical doctrine of motion and physical momentum,” but “disdained the experimental work as in physics” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">He tried to use a system of thought to explain this “phenomena” of motion and momentum <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Wrote a critique of the //Meditations on First Philosophy// __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The English Civil War __ <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Broke out in 1642 <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“Royalist cause began to decline in the middle of 1644 there was an exodus of the king’s supporters to Europe” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hobbes’s //De Cive// was republished and more widely distributed <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">In 1647 Hobbes was the mathematical instructor to Charles, Prince of Whales, Hobbes left for Holland in 1648 <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Accompanied by exiled royalists, Hobbes produced an English book to set his theory of “civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. o  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Book is based off his belief of the State as an artificial man of monster, composed of men, with a life that might be traced from its generation under pressure of human needs to its dissolution though civil strife proceeding from human passions <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">In 1647 had inducted a serious illness which had disabled him for six months <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">In 1650 he allowed the publication of his earliest “treatise” in two volumes <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Then in 1651 the printing of his greater work had occurred __Opponents__ __John Wallis__ Wallis had an easy task in defending himself against Hobbes's criticism, and he seized the opportunity given him by the English translation of the //De Corpore// to re-confront Hobbes with his mathematical inconsistencies. Hobbes responded with //Marks of the Absurd Geometry, Rural Language, Scottish Church Politics, and Barbarisms of John Wallis, Professor of Geometry and Doctor of Divinity//. The thrusts were easily parried by Wallis in a reply (//Hobbiani puncti dispunctio//, 1657). Hobbes finally took refuge in silence and there was peace for a time. Hobbes published, in 1658, the final section of his philosophical system, completing the scheme he had planned more than twenty years before. //De Homine// consisted for the most part of an elaborate theory of vision, whose fundamental importance in relation to his political philosophy has often been overlooked. The remainder of the treatise dealt cursorily with some of the topics more fully treated in the //Human Nature// and the //Leviathan//. Wallis had meanwhile published other works and especially a comprehensive treatise on the general principles of calculus (//Mathesis universatis//, 1657). Hobbes, now with time on his hands, took it upon himself to re-spark their clash. He decided once more to attack the new methods of mathematical analysis and by the spring of 1660, he had managed to put his criticism and assertions into five dialogues under the title //Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae hodiernae qualis explicatur in libris Johannis Wallisii//, with a sixth dialogue so called, consisting almost entirely of seventy or more propositions on the circle and cycloid. Wallis, however, would not take the bait. Hobbes then tried another tack having solved, as he thought, another ancient problem, the duplication of the cube. He had his solution brought out anonymously in French, so as to put his critics off the scent. No sooner had Wallis publicly refuted the solution than Hobbes claimed the credit of it, and went more astray than ever in its defence. He republished it (in modified form), with his remarks, at the end of a 1661 Latin dialogue which he had written in defence of his philosophical doctrine. The //Dialogus physicus, sive De natura aeris// attacked Robert Boyle and other friends of Wallis who were forming themselves into a society (incorporated as the Royal Society in 1662) for experimental research. Hobbes saw this as a direct contravention of the method of physical inquiry enjoined in the //De Corpore//. The careful experiments recorded in Boyle's //New Experiments touching the Spring of the Air// (1660), which Hobbes chose to take as the manifesto of the new "academicians," seemed to him only to confirm the conclusions he had reasoned out years before from speculative principles, and he warned them that if they were not content to begin where he had left off their work would come to naught. To this ill-conceived diatribe Boyle quickly replied with force and dignity, but it was from Wallis that true retribution came, in the scathing satire //Hobbius heauton-timorumenos// (1662). Hobbes seems to have been "fairly bewildered by the rush and whirl of sarcasm" and wisely kept aloof from scientific controversy for some years.
 * __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Thomas Hobbes: __**<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">
 * Hobbes now turned to complete the fundamental treatise of his philosophical system. He worked so steadily that //De Corpore// was first printed in 1654. Also in 1654, a small treatise, //Of Liberty and Necessity//, was published by Bishop John Bramhall, addressed at Hobbes. 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. But a French acquaintance took a copy of the reply and published it with "an extravagantly laudatory epistle." 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//). In 1656 Hobbes was ready with //The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance//, in which he replied "with astonishing force" 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//. Hobbes never took any notice of the Castigations.
 * Beyond the spat with Bramhall, Hobbes was caught in a series of conflicts from the time of publishing his De Corpore in 1655. In //Leviathan// he had assailed the system of the original universities. In 1654 Seth Ward (1617–1689), the Savilian professor of astronomy, replying in his //Vindiciae academiarum// to the assaults by Hobbes and others (especially John Webster) on the academic system. Errors in //De Corpore//, particularly in the mathematical sections, opened Hobbes to criticism from John Wallis, Savilian professor of geometry. Wallis's //Elenchus geomeiriae Hobbianae//, published in 1655, contained an elaborate criticism of Hobbes's whole attempt to put the foundations of mathematical science in its place within the general body of reasoned knowledge—a criticism which exposed the utter inadequacy of Hobbes's mathematics. Hobbes's lack of rigour meant that he spent himself in vain attempts to solve the impossible problems that often waylaid self-sufficient beginners, his interest was limited to geometry and he never had any notion of the full scope of mathematical science. He was unable to work out with any consistency the few original thoughts he had, and thus was an easy target. Hobbes took care to remove some of the worst mistakes exposed by Wallis, before allowing an English translation of the //De Corpore// to appear in 1656. But he still attacked Wallis in a series of //Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics// in 1656.

__<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Leviathan __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate government-based on social contract theories” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“Most of it is demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hobbes hypothesizes what life would be like without a government, which he calls the “state of nature”- each person would have a right to everything in the world-which leads to a “war of all against all” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“to escape this state of war, men in the state of nature accede to a social contract and establish a civil society”- which in terms means that some sort of government would be established and if powers are abused, rebellion is determined to happen. __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Geometers __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hobbes used his credit to bash geometry teachers with “controversial activity” __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Later Life __ <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">He continued to produce and publish philosophical works <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">He acquired a “new prominence,” “Hobbism”- a creed which it was the duty of “every lover of true morality and religion” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Hobbes terrified of being “labeled a heretic,” burned a lot of his compelling, persuasive papers <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">After a bill was passed Hobbes could no longer publish anything in England <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Suffered from a bladder disorder, leading to a paralytic stroke then died

[|www.wikipedia.org] [|www.oregonsate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/**hobbes**.html] [|www.iep.utm.edu/h/hobmoral.htm] [|www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/nature/**hobbes**-bio.html]

On April 5, 1588 an English philosopher was born. Thomas Hobbes’ childhood was without father, but had been educated well. He had eventually attended Magdalen Hall, whose principal was a puritan, having some influence on Hobbes. He hadn’t extended into philosophy until after 1629. In 1636 he traveled to Florence, where he would debate in philosophical groups. 1637 is when Hobbes had admitted, considered, himself to be a philosopher and a scholar. Paris is where Hobbes had taken interest in “the physical doctrine of motion and physical momentum, but disdained the experimental work as in physics.” He tried to use a system of thought to explain this occurrence of motion and momentum, and also wrote a critique of the //Meditation on First Philosophy.// During the English civil war, Hobbes was accompanied by exiled royalists. These royalists inspired him to state his theory of “civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war.” This book is based off his belief of the state as an “artificial man or monster, composed of men, with a life that might be traced from its generations under pressure of human needs to its dissolution though civil strife proceeding from human passions.” In this book he set his “doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate government-based on social contract theories.” It demonstrates the necessity of a “strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.” He hypothesizes what it’d be like without a government, which he calls “the state of nature”-everyone would have a right to everything, which leads to a “war against all.” He then concludes that some sort of authority would be established. In about 1647 he had induced a serious illness, disabling him for six months, postponing his publication of the Leviathan. In 1650, he allowed his previous work to be published and open to public. A year later he had his greater work, the Leviathan, published. Hobbes returns to complete his treatises of his philosophical system, and in 1654 //De Corpore.// Bramhall, who had also published a book that same year, met and debated with Hobbes. After debating, Bramhall sent Hobbes his view privately to be answered. Hobbes replied, but a French acquaintance took a copy of the reply and had it published. Bramhall had everything that had been passed between the two of them published under the title of //A Defense of the True Liberty of Human Actions from Antecedent or Extrinsic Necessity// in 1655, which Hobbes was ready to answer with //The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance.// Another opponent of Hobbes was a miser John Wallis. Wallis’s //Elenchus geomeiriae// //Hobbianae// contained criticism of Hobbes’s attempt to “put the foundations of mathematical science in its place within the general body of reasoned knowledge. Hobbes had answered back with a series of //Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics// in 1656. Hobbes also sent a bombardment of books criticizing Wallis. The debating between the two had died down after a little while. In that peace of time, Hobbes published //De Homine.// It contained mostly a “theory of vision, whose fundamental importance in relation to hes political philosophy has often been overlooked.” In his later life, he became terrified of being considered a heretic so he burned a lot of his persuasive, compelling papers. Towards the end of his life Hobbes suffered from a bladder disorder, which lead to a paralytic stroke, and eventually death on December 4, 1679. [|thomas hobbes script.aup]