Ethischer egoismus thomas hobbes biography

Nevertheless, the notion that reasoning is computation has been referred back to more than once. And the idea appears to have continued to hold some appeal for him. The central idea of a modern computational theory of mind is that the mind is a sort of computer. And very roughly, we might see Hobbes as saying the same thing. There are various mental processes compounding ideas, forming propositions, reasoning syllogistically that we can describe without knowing that reasoning is computation.

By the time of Leviathan and De CorporeHobbes was convinced that human beings including their minds were entirely material. This was not a popular or widely-held position at the time. Hobbes, however, was a materialist. Why was he a materialist? What need is there to postulate an immaterial mind when this perfectly good, and more minimal, explanation is available?

However, for the most part we do not find Hobbes explicitly stating that argument. All other names are but insignificant sounds; and those of two sorts. One when they are new, and yet their meaning not explained by definition; whereof there have been abundance coined by schoolmen, and puzzled philosophers. Another, when men make a name of two names, whose significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal bodyor which is all one an incorporeal substanceand a great number more.

For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of which it is composed, put together and made one, signify nothing at all Hobbes4. Thus Hobbes apparently thinks that talk about incorporeal substances such as Cartesian unextended thinking things is just nonsense. But why does he think that? The gross errors of certain metaphysicians take their origin from this; for from the fact that it is possible to consider thinking without considering body, they infer that there is no need for a thinking body; and from the fact that it is possible to consider quantity without considering body, they also think that quantity can exist without body and body without quantity, so that a quantitative body is made only after quantity has been added to a body.

Ethischer egoismus thomas hobbes biography

Hobbes attacks various views associated with the Scholastic Aristotelian tradition as resting on that mistake. One aim of this critical passage is to support materialism by showing a problem with the belief that there can be thought without a body. When Hobbes talks about Aristotelian views, one might ask whether his target is Aristotle himself, or some later Aristotelians.

That exchange has several elements: the condemnation of the philosophical view as nonsensical; the claim that some philosophers aim to confuse; and the claim that views are promoted in order to control the public and take their money. However, though Hobbes rejected many of the views of the Scholastic Aristotelian tradition, his work had several connections to it, as is illustrated by Leijenhorst Descartes argues, via that claim, from his ability to clearly and distinctly conceive of mind apart from body and vice versa, to the conclusion that mind and body are really distinct i.

Abstracting away from the details, we have an argument from the conceivability of mind without body to the conclusion that the mind is not physical. Overall then, something of a puzzle remains. Hobbes clearly was a materialist about the natural world, but the explicit arguments he offers for the view seem rather weak. Perhaps he just had a good deal of confidence in the ability of the rapidly developing science of the his time to proceed towards a full material explanation of the mind.

Just as his contemporary William Harvey, of whom he thought very highly, had made such progress in explaining biological matters, so too Hobbes might have thought might we expect further scientists to succeed in explaining mental matters. Hobbes was very much interested in scientific explanation of the world: both its practice which he saw himself as engaged in and also its theory.

Chapter 9 of Leviathan tells us something about the differences between scientific and historical knowledge, and the divisions between sciences. Chapter 6 of De Corpore gives a much fuller treatment of issues in the philosophy of science, issues of what Hobbes calls method. Method tells us how to investigate things in order to achieve scientiathe best sort of knowledge.

This has often been developed into a story about the particular influence on Hobbes of the works of Giacomo Zabarella, a sixteenth-century Aristotelian who studied and taught at the University of Padua, which influence is then often said to have been somehow mediated by Galileo. Here the notions of analysis and synthesis are key. This section tells a version of the first story.

For a helpful recent critical discussion of such an approach, see Hattab Still, one should note that Hobbes sometimes uses the language of mathematical method, of analysis and synthesis, in describing his general method Hobbes6. Several commentators have seen this, together with his clear admiration for the successes of geometry, as evidence of a more general use of mathematical notions in his account of method Talaska Resolution moves from the thing to be explained, which is an effect, to its causes, and then composition brings you back from causes to effects.

At a suitably general level that is correct, but it misses much detail. A crucial though somewhat mysterious third step stands between the move from effect to cause and that from effect to cause. The complete sequence, the arguments from effect to cause and back again, Zabarella calls regressus. This sequence improves our knowledge, taking us from confused to clear knowledge of something.

But how do we do this? The first step is to move from having confused knowledge of the effect to having confused knowledge of the cause. The second step moves from confused to clear knowledge of the cause. This step works, Zabarella thinks, by a sort of intellectual examination of the cause. The aim is not just to know what thing is the cause, but to understand that thing.

The final step then moves from the clear knowledge of the cause to clear knowledge of the effect. That is, your new full understanding of the cause gives you better understanding of the thing caused by it. There Hobbes lays out a model of the proper form of a scientific explanation. A proper explanation tells you three things: what the cause is, the nature of the cause, and how the cause gives rise to the effect.

Thus Hobbes accepts the Aristotelian idea that to have the best sort of knowledge, scientific knowledge, is to know something through its causes. Here Hobbes defines philosophy as knowledge acquired by correct reasoning. It is both knowledge of effects that you get through conception of their causes and knowledge of causes that you get through conception of their visible ethischer egoismus thomases hobbes biography. Already we see signs of the Aristotelian picture in which you come to know the cause by knowing the visible effect and to know the effect by knowing the cause.

The requirement to know how the cause works, not just what it is, is analogous to the Zabarellan requirement to have distinct knowledge of a cause. Knowledge that the cause exists comes from the first step of regressus. Complete regressusi. For Hobbes, analogously, to get to scientia of the effect you need to understand, not just what the causes are, but how they work.

In a more fully Aristotelian picture, explanations are causal, but causes can be of several sorts. Moreover, he thinks the efficient causes are all motions, so the search for causes becomes the search for motions and mechanisms. One story is that Hobbes learned about this method from Galileo, but that claim is problematic. Harvey, whose work Hobbes greatly admired, and who studied at the medical school in Padua, might also have been an intermediary Watkins41—2.

This section focuses on two central questions: whether Hobbes believes in the existence of God, and whether he thinks there can be knowledge from revelation. Hobbes at one point rules a good deal of religious discussion out of philosophy, because its topics are not susceptible to the full detailed causal explanation that is required for scientiathe best sort of knowledge.

Also excluded are discussion of angels, of revelation, and of the proper worship of God. But despite these not being, strictly speaking, philosophy, Hobbes does in fact have a good deal to say about them, most notably in Leviathan. Things outside philosophy in its strict sense may not be amenable to thorough causal explanation in terms of the motions of bodies, but they may well still be within the limits of rational discussion.

Many people have called Hobbes an atheist, both during his lifetime and more recently. They thought, however, that he was a rather dubious sort of Christian. Other critics, however, have thought that Hobbes in fact denied the existence of God. This might seem a curious allegation, for Hobbes often talks about God as existing. Certainly, to read Hobbes in this way requires one to take some of his statements at something other than face value.

In the Elements of Law Hobbes offers a cosmological argument for the existence of God Hobbes Despite being a Royalist, he was also often criticised for being an atheist. Inhe wrote his most famous work Leviathan which constructed a materialistic and rational system for explaining metaphysics, psychology and political philosophy. The office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the law of nature.

Inhe returned to England, after making an agreement with Cromwell and his parliamentarians. He continued to write polemics for the rest of his life. However, he was helped by his old student Charles II — after his restoration to the monarchy. He continued writing well into his 80s, on a wide range of subjects from the causes of the English civil war to translations of classic literature like Iliad and Odyssey.

Leviathan ranks high as an essential Western treatise on statecraft, on par with Machiavelli 's The Prince. In Leviathanwritten during the English Civil WarsHobbes 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 creaturewhich would protect people from their own ethischer egoismus thomas hobbes biography.

He also warned of "the war of all against all" Bellum omnium contra omnesa 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 inHobbes continued to write. De Corpore was published inand De Homine was published incompleting 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 LockeJean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kantto name a few. Hobbes died on December 4, We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Marcus Garvey. The formerly dominant view that Hobbes espoused psychological egoism as the foundation of his moral theory is currently widely rejected, and there has been to date no fully systematic study of Hobbes's moral psychology.

Readers new to Hobbes should begin with Leviathanbeing sure to read Parts Three and Four, as well as the more familiar and often excerpted Parts One and Two. There are ethischer egoismus thomases hobbes biography fine overviews of Hobbes's normative philosophy, some of which are listed in the following selected bibliography of secondary works.

Hobbes sought to discover rational principles for the construction of a civil polity that would not be subject to destruction from within. Because virtually any government would be better than a civil war, and, according to Hobbes's analysis, all but absolute governments are systematically prone to dissolution into civil war, people ought to submit themselves to an absolute political authority.

Continued stability will require that they also refrain from the sorts of actions that might undermine such a regime. For example, subjects should not dispute the sovereign power and under no circumstances should they rebel. In general, Hobbes aimed to demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between political obedience and peace. To establish these conclusions, Hobbes invites us to consider what life would be like in a state of nature, that is, a condition without government.

Perhaps we would imagine that people might fare best in such a state, where each decides for herself how to act, and is judge, jury and executioner in her own case whenever disputes arise—and that at any rate, this state is the appropriate baseline against which to judge the justifiability of political arrangements. Hobbes's near descendant, John Locke, insisted in his Second Treatise of Government that the state of nature was indeed to be preferred to subjection to the arbitrary power of an absolute sovereign.

Although many readers have criticized Hobbes's state of nature as unduly pessimistic, he constructs it from a number of individually plausible empirical and normative assumptions. He assumes that people are sufficiently similar in their mental and physical attributes that no one is invulnerable nor can expect to be able to dominate the others.

While people have local affections, their benevolence is limited, and they have a tendency to partiality. Concerned that others should agree with their own high opinions of themselves, people are sensitive to slights. They are curious about the causes of events, and anxious about their futures; according to Hobbes, these characteristics incline people to adopt religious beliefs, although the content of those beliefs will differ depending upon the sort of religious education one has happened to receive.

Hobbes further assumes as a principle of practical rationality, that people should adopt what they see to be the necessary means to their most important ends. Taken together, these plausible descriptive and normative assumptions yield a state of nature potentially fraught with divisive struggle. The right of each to all things invites serious conflict, especially if there is competition for resources, as there will surely be over at least scarce goods such as the most desirable lands, spouses, etc.