Modified: 2025-01-08 12:54 PM
- Born when Spanish Armada tried to invade Britain in 1588
- Cavendish family, grand tours
- Worked for the Cavendish family
- Gave their sons their grand tours
- Today, extramural travel is often part of a college education
- On his third grand tour, Hobbes met Gassendi and Mersenne and learned of Descartes
Grand Tour-the traditional finishing point of an English gentleman's education consisting of a lengthy (several years) guided tour of European cities conducted by a knowledgeable tutor.
- Translator
- Materialist (anti-dualist)
- He opposed Descartes's dualism
Materialism-the belief that everything in the universe must consist of matter, including minds and mental states.
- Minimized sensory experience
- State of Nature
- A primordial era when no laws existed and all were equal (including women)
- The state of nature was relativistic, chaotic, and relativistic
Relativism-the belief that no universal values exist and that instead values vary by individuals, groups, or historic era. NOTE: this has now become a current problem. Think of the removal of John C. Calhoun' portrait from Yale, the flap over the Confederate flag, and the moving of Confederate memorials in New Orleans, the US Capitol, and other public places.
- In Leviathan, Hobbes described life as:
- "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"
- Social Contract
- The social contract was Hobbes's solution to the state of nature
- People gave up their individual rights to a ruler, who in turn protected them with laws
- Hobbes's version of the social contract was modified by Locke (see below)
Social Contract-an agreement between the governed and the government to provide security, welfare, and laws agreeable to both. (Modern examples in the USA include: WIC, Social Security, and Welfare.
- Anti-relativist
- Exile (English Civil War)
- Hobbes was a royalist and a follower of Charles I
- As such, it was not safe for him to remain in Britain
- He returned after the English Revolutions had subsided
- He wrote his major book:
- Leviathan
- De Facto Theory
- This was Hobbes's way out:
- The theory held that any government in power that provided for public safety was legitimate regardless of its form
- Hobbes was unpleasant in print and was denied Royal Society membership
- Did not believe in experimentation
- Contributions
- Passion over reason
- Social psychology of government
- Thinking = Computation
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