While in Paris, Hobbes became close friends with the philosopher and astronomer Pierre Gassendi and engaged Rene Descartes in argument; in Florence, he talked with Galileo. He presented his developing thoughts on physics, optics, and psychology to Marin Mersenne, a friar whose salon was the hub of continental science and philosophy.
Hobbes returned to England in to find the country in a state of unrest. Charles I had antagonized Parliament by attempting to raise money without its consent and by holding High Anglican views on ecclesiastical matters which some feared were inspired by his Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria. He refused to convene Parliament for nine years, but was forced to do so in to raise money to combat the rebellion of the Scots, who resented his attempts at religious reform.
Parliamentary members took the opportunity, upon meeting, to present a set of grievances against Charles. Charles quickly dissolved the Parliament, but was forced to recall it several months later. These political contentions prompted Hobbes to write his first work of political philosophy, a short treatise entitled The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic , which was privately circulated in In The Elements of Law , Hobbes began to promulgate the view that reason including political argument should be reduced to instrumental thinking, figuring out means to given ends, rather than seeking to understand the ends themselves.
This narrowing of the goals of reason allowed Hobbes to model his arguments concerning political subjects on a geometric, or deductive, method. This argument, though only privately circulated, caused Hobbes to fear that he might be targeted by the Parliamentarians. Hobbes planned to write a set of treatises elaborating his materialistic approach to physics the study of bodies in motion , psychology the study of motion in the brain, or the passions , and political science the study of the motions of individuals in a commonwealth.
These works were, however, written and published only slowly over the next eighteen years, in part because the continuing political upheavals in England provoked Hobbes to write the last volume, De Cive , first. Parts of the work anticipate the better-known Leviathan , which would come nine years later.
While still in Paris, Hobbes began work on what would become his magnum opus and one of the most influential books ever written: Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil usually referred to as simply Leviathan. Leviathan ranks high as an essential Western treatise on statecraft, on par with Machiavelli 's The Prince. In Leviathan , written during the English Civil Wars , Hobbes argues for the necessity and natural evolution of the social contract, a social construct in which individuals mutually unite into political societies, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept resultant duties to protect themselves and one another from whatever might come otherwise.
He also advocates rule by an absolute sovereign, saying that chaos--and other situations identified with a "state of nature" a pre-government state in which individuals' actions are bound only by those individuals' desires and restraints --could be averted only by a strong central government, one with the power of the biblical Leviathan a sea creature , which would protect people from their own selfishness.
He also warned of "the war of all against all" Bellum omnium contra omnes , a motto that went on to greater fame and represented Hobbes' view of humanity without government. As Hobbes lays out his thoughts on the foundation of states and legitimate government, he does it methodically: The state is created by humans, so he first describes human nature.
He says that in each of us can be found a representation of general humanity and that all acts are ultimately self-serving--that in a state of nature, humans would behave completely selfishly. He concludes that humanity's natural condition is a state of perpetual war, fear and amorality, and that only government can hold a society together.
After his return to England in , Hobbes continued to write. De Corpore was published in , and De Homine was published in , completing the Elements of Philosophy trilogy.
In his later years, Hobbes turned his attention to a boyhood favorite--classics--publishing translations of Homer's The Odyssey and The Iliad.
Hugely influential, Hobbes' ideas form the building blocks of nearly all Western political thought, including the right of the individual, the importance of republican government, and the idea that acts are allowed if they are not expressly forbidden. The historical importance of his political philosophy cannot be overstated, as it went on to influence the likes of John Locke , Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant , to name a few. We strive for accuracy and fairness.
If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! For much of the rest of his life he would be the employee, tutor, counsellor and friend of the Cavendishes, with whom he made trips to Europe. Hobbes was a royalist and in , as England moved towards civil war, he retreated to Paris, where he later briefly taught mathematics to the exiled future Charles II. His Leviathan , the masterpiece for which he is remembered, came out in Malet [ 28 ] writes:- Hobbes's theory of optical images [ was ] developed in his optical magnum opus "A minute of first draught of the optiques" and published in abridged version in "De homine" Hobbes's theory of vision and images serves him to ground his philosophy of man on his philosophy of body.
Furthermore, since this part of Hobbes's work on optics is the most thoroughly geometrical, it reveals a good deal about the role of mathematics in Hobbes's philosophy. Hobbes published a new expanded edition of De Cive in , then three years later, in , his earlier work The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic was published without his permission.
Hobbes was the mathematics tutor of the Prince of Wales between and He remained on the continent until , the year his most famous work Leviathan was published then, late in that year, he returned to England. In fact he was now in some difficulties with all sides of the political spectrum. In England the Royalists, with Charles I dead, seemed to have lost their struggle for power.
Passages near the end of the Leviathan appeared to indicate that Hobbes was trying to make his peace with the English government, which angered the Royalists.
In fact in these passages Hobbes was remaining consistent with his view that one showed allegiance to a ruler only so long as that ruler could provide protection. Hobbes had also attacked the Roman Catholic Church which made his position in Paris pretty untenable. Hobbes' masterpiece Leviathan set out his ideas with great clarity.
He argued that people want to live in peace and security and to attain this they must organise themselves into communities for protection. Since there will always be some in the community who cannot be trusted, people must set up a government with their authority to make and enforce laws necessary to protect the community. It is, Hobbes argues, the rational way for people to behave so moral behaviour is rational.
Although Hobbes was himself a Christian, these arguments were seen as many as removing the need for God as the giver of moral code, for Hobbes argues that it follows by reason alone.
Another aspect of the work which caused many to attack it was Hobbes' vitriolic arguments against the university system.
Before this Hobbes had been seen by many as promoting a mechanistic scientific approach which was much in tune with those who would form the Royal Society.
Indeed he had argued that since what we know and understand only comes through our senses and all objects that our senses can detect are material, we can only view the world in a material way. He promoted an approach through language and mathematics to analyse experience which he claimed would lead to a complete mechanistic understanding of the world.
The certainty of mathematics would lead to correct and indisputable conclusions about society and about man. His argument that all was material was seen as denying the existence of the immaterialistic soul and intellect. At this stage, however, although Hobbes had published little in the way of mathematics, he certainly was considered by some as a leading mathematician on a par with Roberval and Fermat.
Hobbes saw mathematics as an essential part of knowledge, but he also saw his own materialistic approach as revolutionising the subject and he set out to reform mathematics in this work. His approach is certainly consistently materialistic, denying abstract ideas; for Hobbes mathematics is the study of quantity, and quantities are the measures of 3 -dimensional bodies. This is the sense in which the earth is usually called a point and the path of its annual revolution the ecliptic line.
Lines, therefore, are the paths of moving points, surfaces are the paths of moving lines, volumes are the result of moving surfaces. He then proceeded to study ratios and angles, then acceleration, projectiles and the ideas of Galileo followed by a study of indivisibles and the ideas of Cavalieri , the rectification of the spiral, and finally squaring the circle.
It is fair to say that much of Hobbes' mathematical ideas are generalised from Galileo 's study of mechanics and of motion.
Jesseph writes of Hobbes' attempt to square the circle [ 5 ] Hobbes did not remove the "proof" but renamed it "From a false hypothesis, a false quadrature".
He then added a second proof which he quickly changed to only claim it was "an approximate quadrature". Finally he attempted a third exact proof but when the book was being printed he realised that it too, of course, was wrong.
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