Modern Philosophy: Empiricism for discussion purposes only

Jove Jim S. Aguas

The Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes

I. Life and Works

Thomas Hobbes was born in Malmesbury in 1588. He studied in Oxford University, a

center of nominalistic Scholasticism during his time. He served as a tutor for a noble
English family which gave him the chance to travel abroad. When he traveled to Florence he
came into contact with the thought of Galileo; when he went to France he got to know
Mersenne, a friend of Descartes who encouraged him to write his critical observations on
the Meditations of Descartes.

In 1637, Hobbes returned to England with the intention of writing. When the
struggle between Parliament and the King broke out, Hobbes, who was a supporter of the
absolute monarchy, retired to France and lived there for the next ten years. After being
granted an amnesty, he returned to England in 1651 and was reconciled with Cromwell.
When Charles II, whom Hobbes had tutored, ascended the throne, the King granted a
pension to his former teacher. Hobbes died in 1679, having lived beyond the age of ninety.

Hobbes wrote one great philosophical work, which he divided into sections and
published at three different times: De cive (On the Social and Political Organism), this was
later revised and published under the title The Leviathan; De corpore (On the Body); and
De homine (On Man). The vigorous thought of Hobbes made a deep impression in his
country and abroad. The Leviathan is generally considered his masterpiece.

II. General Notions

Hobbes' system can be considered as a synthesis of Empiricism and Rationalism. The

fundamental points of Hobbes' doctrine are:
 (1) All reality is matter and derived from matter;
 (2) Matter is endowed with intrinsic movement;
 (3) Intellectual, moral and political life is the object of mathematical calculus, and
hence are made up of nothing but combinations of matter in motion.

III. Theory of Knowledge

His theory of knowledge although follows the tradition ot empiricism is closed to

nominalism. Form Hobbes, the whole of human knowledge is contained within the limits of
sensation. Sensations are due to an external movement which generates an internal
Modern Philosophy: Empiricism for discussion purposes only
Jove Jim S. Aguas

reaction in our organism. Concepts are representations of qualities common to several

distinct sensations, which in speech are expressed by a common name. The mind operates
on such concepts through analysis and synthesis, composing and dividing them into their
elements. For example, by adding the concept of animality to that of rationality, we have the
concept man; by subtracting from the concept man the concept of rationality, we have the
concept animal. This system is pure mechanical nominalism.

Nevertheless, Hobbes does not deny the value of science, of knowledge of abstract
causes. This science will be attained in fact as soon as we have an analytical knowledge of
the elements and a synthetic understanding of their combinations. Thus Hobbes believed
that he had saved science as an absolute value, even though such a value is only
phenomenal, being an operation of the mind and not an objective contact with external
reality.

IV. Metaphysics

Of the two Cartesian substances, Hobbes accepts extended material substance and
denies the spiritual of its independent existence. He makes the spiritual substance a
derivative of material substance. Matter is not passive, as conceived by Descartes and
Malebranche . On the contrary, it is endowed with motion, and this motion is from within.
Thus for Hobbes there are two metaphysical elements: matter and motion, which can be
reduced to one, dynamic matter. The intrinsic motion of matter has given origin to the
diversity of the inorganic and organic world. Life is thus a product of matter and motion,
and the human soul is a composite of very subtle atoms.

Hobbes does not deny the existence of God, but he is decidedly opposed to any
positive revealed religion, including Christianity. Even the moral life does not exceed the
limits of matter and of motion. Sensations, passing to the heart, generate pleasure and hate,
that is, inclinations and repulsion. Men naturally tend to pleasure considered as a form of
self-satisfaction. But such a tendency must be rationalized by calculation, in order that it
may bring greater pleasure. This is possible only in the state.

V. Politics

The civil state, that is, the result of the passage of primitive man from the state of
nature to a social life, derives from a contract the purpose of which is to procure the
greatest possible pleasure, a pleasure which could not be had in the state of nature. The
state of nature in which man lived before the formation of society, was founded on a savage
egoism which drove man to secure a maximum of pleasure without hindrance from a norm
Modern Philosophy: Empiricism for discussion purposes only
Jove Jim S. Aguas

of justice or mercy toward other men ("homo homini lupus est"). Every man was
continually engaged in war against all other men ("bellum universale").

With the dawn of reason, man understood that he could not live in eternal warfare
and that if he wished to satisfy his instinct of egoism he must seek peace. The means of
attaining peace consisted in man's ceding his natural rights in favor of an authority which
would ensure this peace and allow the greatest possible pleasure. Once man had ceded his
rights to this authority, he was bound to obey the sovereign.

This contract having been made, authority came into being in the person of the
sovereign, who had not ceded his natural rights. The members of the state, then, have given
up their rights in favor of the ruler, while the ruler alone still enjoys the same unlimited and
absolute power which belonged to all men in their primitive condition. The ruler must
retain this power if he is to have the authority and strength to dominate the instincts and
passions of individuals and to ensure the maximum of good for all.

This massing together of individuals, dominated by force, is the state, the symbol of
which Hobbes believed he had found in the monstrous Biblical animal, the leviathan, which
was capable of devouring all other animals. Thus Hobbes named his greatest work The
Leviathan.