Hobbes’s exalted view of himself as a mathematician did not align with the opinions of his contemporaries. Douglas Jesseph’s chapter “Hobbesian Mathematics and the Dispute with Wallis” examines Hobbes’s philosophy of mathematics and Hobbes’s continual disagreements with John Wallis. Jesseph focuses on Hobbes’s attempts to understand geometrical objects and geometrical definitions in accordance with his materialism and furthermore on Hobbes’s disdain for analytic geometry. Their exchanges relating to mathematics can be seen as originating in 1655 with the publication of De corpore and continuing until Hobbes’s death, and beyond issues in mathematics they also concerned broader issues in theology and politics.
Continuing the focus on the unity of Hobbes’s philosophy begun in Helen Hattab’s chapter, Marcus Adams’s chapter “Explanations in Hobbes’s Optics and Natural Philosophy” examines how Hobbes’s optics and natural philosophy depend upon his geometry. Adams considers Hobbes’s descriptions about how the parts of his philosophy fit together with one another and provides case studies to show Hobbes’s practice of explanation in optics and natural philosophy. Adams suggests that Hobbes held that explanations in natural philosophy should ideally be like those in optics, showing how Hobbes’s explanations in both employ claims from experience and from a priori geometry.
2.2 Human Nature and Morality
R.W. McIntyre’s chapter “‘A Most Useful Economy’: Hobbes on Linguistic Meaning and Understanding” directs attention to the human/non-human animal divide to make sense of the role of names in language. McIntyre argues that for non-human animals, like dogs and cats, names play the role of natural signs of the passions and the will. A dog, for example, will take an instance of the name ‘walk’ as a sign that their owner is about to get the leash and take them outside. However, for humans who are competent at using language names function as symbols that aid in helping bring to mind conceptions that will guide inferences and ultimately human behavior. Beyond aiding in the increase of prudence, this ability to understand words as words that Hobbes posits allows humans to acquire universal knowledge, e.g., of all triangles, while maintaining his commitment to nominalism.
In “Hobbes’s Theory of the Good: Felicity by Anticipatory Pleasure,” Arash Abizadeh shows how Hobbes’s account of felicity was influenced by and modified ideas from Ancient Greek ethics. Abizadeh argues that Hobbes posits an ultimate, overarching good for a human life, which Hobbes conceives not as a final end or state to be realized but as an ongoing process of experiencing greater pleasures relative to pains. Contrasting Hobbes’s understanding of felicity with that of the Epicureans and the Cyrenaics, Abizadeh depicts a Hobbes who holds that felicity consists primarily in the mental pleasures arising from anticipating the satisfaction of one’s desires.
The role fear plays in humans’ escape from their natural state, as well as within the commonwealth after it has been established, has always been a point of focus among interpreters of Hobbes. Gabriella Slomp, in the chapter “In Search of ‘A Constant Civill Amity’: Hobbes on Friendship and Sociability,” compares Hobbes’s views with Aristotle’s and shows how Hobbes’s account differs in terms of the origin, nature, and conditions of “civill amity” within political states. On Slomp’s account, what emerges is a picture of Hobbesian amity that results not from reciprocity of love or care but rather from a shared understanding of the function of the Leviathan and the effort among its citizens to support it.
In the chapter “Hobbes on Power and Gender Relations,” Sandra Leonie Field considers what Hobbes’s philosophy offers to help make sense of gender relations. Field distinguishes between two models of interpersonal power relations: the dominion model and the deference model. The dominion model, which represents power as a vertical relationship of the subjection of one person to another, has been frequently associated with Hobbes by feminist scholars. While this model is reflected in Hobbes’s writings, Field suggests that this model has difficulty making sense of gender relations in a post-coverture world. In its place, Field draws attention to the deference model, which understands the complex and often non-vertical ways in which power can be expressed in gender relations. Not only does this model better aid in understanding contemporary power relations, but Field shows that this model can be found within Hobbes’s thought.
The natural state of humans – the state of nature – is one of the most evocative parts of Hobbes’s philosophy. Against understanding the state of nature as diametrically opposed to the state of civil society, S.A. Lloyd’s chapter “The State of Nature as a Continuum Concept” argues that the state of nature differs from civil society in degrees. In other words, there are states of nature rather than a simple line that is crossed upon the formation of a commonwealth. Lloyd articulates this spectrum as ranging from a condition of mere nature, characterized by a universal right of private judgment, to a perfectly totalitarian state. This approach to Hobbes’s state of nature offers an understanding of humans’ natural state that can make sense of how imperfect political systems are more or less like the mere state of nature. Lloyd argues that the continuum view is more theoretically and empirically plausible than alternative views that claim that Hobbes saw civil society as always at risk of falling back, at any moment, into the mere state of nature.
Michael Green’s chapter “Hobbes’s Minimalist Moral Theory” challenges conceptions of Hobbes’s moral theory that have taken it to follow from broader aspects of Hobbes’s philosophy, such as an aim to harmonize morality with one’s self-interest, as a type of divine-command theory, or following from an account of rationality. In place these accounts, which Green identifies as maximalist theories, Green offers a minimal theory relying upon two theses drawn from Hobbes’s discussions of the Laws of Nature: the value thesis, which holds that the laws are valued because of their role in preserving peace, and the conditional thesis, which holds that what the laws require depends upon what others do. In contrast to more maximal moral theories, Green shows that with only this minimal theory Hobbes can accomplish his goals of arguing for the benefits of the state and constructing an alternative to Aristotle’s theory of justice.
2.3 Civil Philosophy
The break between natural bodies and political bodies occurs with the creation of the commonwealth, but the ability to represent, e.g., one person representing another person, is something possible within humans’ natural state, and it is part of what enables commonwealth to be generated. Mónica Brito Vieira’s chapter “Hobbesian Persons and Representation” traces Hobbes understanding of “person” and its linkage with a capacity for agency. Persons can be natural (when someone’s words and actions are considered their own) or artificial (when someone’s words and actions are considered as representing those of someone or something else), and whoever owns the words spoken or actions done is considered the author. Hobbes furthermore differentiates between true representation, which is when the represented party authorizes its representation, and representation by fiction, which is when the represented party cannot authorize its representation, but the actions of the representative are nonetheless held (by fiction) to be its own (Hobbes 2012, 244; 1651, 80). However, Hobbes does not explicitly say what sort of person the state itself is, and there has been disagreement among scholars. Connecting Hobbes’s discussion of entities such as churches, hospitals, and bridges to the issue of the state, Vieira argues that the state is a person by fiction.
Rosamond Rhodes’s chapter “Hobbes’s Account of Authorizing a Sovereign” challenges a widely held interpretation of Hobbes’s understanding of how humans leave their natural state and authorize the sovereign: that the sovereign is a third-party beneficiary of a covenant between individuals. Against this view of Hobbesian authorization, Rhodes offers a nuanced understanding that relies upon distinguishing two steps: the establishment of the commonwealth and the subsequent authorization of the sovereign. In the time between these two steps, the commonwealth (formed in step 1) selects its form of sovereignty, whether it will be a monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. The view of Hobbes’s sovereign that arises from Rhodes’s interpretation is of a sovereign who can be held accountable for their actions since they are party to the covenant.
Moving from focus on the sovereign to the subjects