Miller-Thomas Hobbes and The Constraints That Enable The Imitation of God.

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Thomas Hobbes and

the Constraints that
Enable the Imitation of
God
Ted H. Miller
Published online: 06 Nov 2010.
To cite this article: Ted H. Miller (1999) Thomas Hobbes and

the Constraints that Enable the Imitation of God, Inquiry: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 42:2, 149-176, DOI:
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Inquiry, 42, 14976
Thomas Hobbes and the Constraints that

Enable the Imitation of God
Ted H. Miller
Dartmouth College
Hobbes promises to teach philosophers how to im itate God. With this bold claim as
its basis, the paper questions the widely accepted view that Hobbes authored an early
instance of a modern social science. It focuses on the constraints that Hobbes im poses
on the language of philosophical practitioners. He restricts its truth-claims to the
closed circle of language; he does not philosophize to describe, model, predict, or
mirror empirical reality. He nevertheless makes claims for a useful science, one that
can construct a stable commonwealth. The restrictive claims concerning truth and
Hobbes s claim to a practical philosophy are reconciled through an investigation of
his distinction between à posteriori and à priori sciences. Hobbes teaches
philosophers to imitate God as a creator: as a `re-creator of divinely produced effects
(a posteriori), or (like an architect) by manipulating matter to create things we design
ourselves (a priori) . The science of politics is a priori. It dictates the motions (of men)
so as to create a well-ordered commonwealth, an arti cial man, a creation made in
our own image.
Hobbes greets readers of De Corpore with a profou ndly arrogant claim. His
philoso phy teaches how to be an orderer and a creator, how, in fact, to im itate
the creator:
Philosoph y, therefor e, the child of the w orld and your own m ind, is w ithin yourself ;
perhap s not fashione d yet, but like the w orld its father , as it was in the beginni ng, a
thin g confuse d. D o, therefor e, as the statuarie s do, w ho, by hew ing off that which is
super uous, do not make but nd the image. Or im itate the creation : if you will be a
philosop her in goo d earnest , let you r reaso n m ove upo n the deep of you r ow n
cogitati ons and experie nce; those thing s that lie in confusi on must be set asunder ,
distingu ished , and ever y one stam ped with its ow n nam e set in order; that is to say,
1
your m etho d must resem ble that of the creation .
Such boasts do not sit comfortably with conventional views. Hobbes is

2
usually assigned a more modest role than im itator of the om nipoten t. W e
have learned to think of him as a mere student of the natural order, and of
human nature in particular. He is said to have ground ed his systematic
political philoso phy in assumptions that posit permanent human characteristics. To better their condition he did not seek to craft or create humans but
strove to accommodate them, and to compensate for their obdurate
3
characteristics.
The conventional understanding of this process of accommodation and
compensation is roughly captured by the notio n of `constraints that enable .
150
Ted H. Miller
The constraints are most often associated with Hobbes s laws of nature. They
ènable by helping us to overcome and even take advantage of human nature,
especially those characteristics that are not always desirable. W e pursue our
self-interest and our survival; we are willing (even entitled in the state of
nature) to do this at a cost to others. W hen unconstrained, our pursuit of these
goals gets in the way of our capacity to cooperate with one another. Such a
life has, famously, `no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and
which is worst of all, continu al fear, and danger of violent death; and the life
4
of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short . The constraints we im pose
are designed with these root-level motivations in mind. W e try to channel
them towards more productive ends (sometimes promising to turn
disadvantages into advantages). T hey count on our reasoning, perhaps our
self-interest, or our sel shness, but most im portantly they modify the rewards
and punishm ents that attend loyalty or the temptation to betray and double cross. T he constraints, therefore, do not modify basic human nature (however
conceived). Instead, they create the circumstances that allow beings assumed
to have these characteristics to cooperate with one another.
Arguing against this perspective, I will focus on a different set of
constraints and a different set of promises to enable. Althoug h the laws of
nature are undoub tedly im portant, there are more constraints (and more to the
constraints) in Hobbes s philoso phy. Instead of working around an inviolable
subject (who must bounce and rebound off the institutional structures of the
state, but who remains whole and essentially unchanged), Hobbes s
constraints are like the hands of a craftsman. They are designed to refashion
the subject. Those who submit themselves to Hobbesian constraints are
crafted into forms suitable to a well-ordered commonwealth. T hey can be
compared, as Hobbes indeed does com pare them, to stones made to t
together by a mason if our sharp edges and odd shapes prove too hard to
5
trim, the stone mason may throw us away as useless. T his violable, alterable,
subject is a part of a more appropriate reading of the same philosopher who
wrote:
[T]he comm on people s m inds, unless they be tainted with depende nce on the potent ,
or scribble d over with the opinion s of their doctors, are like clean paper , t to receiv e
6
w hatsoeve r by public authorit y shall be im printe d in them .
Hobbes s mention of `their doctors suggests an educational context.

Elsewhere, I argue we need to understand Hobbes s writings in terms of the
7
im plicit logic of seventeenth-century political education. He was determined
to make his work of cial state doctrine. By sovereign command, it had to be
taught in the universities. It had to be preached from the pulpits. (This is
where most of the citizens would learn the laws of nature, and it is how these
Thomas Hobbes and the Constraints that Enable the Imitation of God
151
laws come to have an effect in the world.) Moreover, all contrary doctrines
were to be forbidd en in the name of preventing sedition.
This essay presents a part of this larger argument. My primary concern is
with the constraints Hobbes im poses on the practices of philoso phers: the
constraints Hobbes teaches philoso phers to place on their style of thinkin g, on
their method. T hese constraints make the philoso phy and the philosophers
who can craft a commonwealth. I discuss the divin e characteristics Hobbes
promises to deliver to those who allow themselves to be guided by his
method, and also speak to the boasts he makes for his civil science. If we work
according to the constraints im posed by his science, Hobbes promises we will
make ourselves god-like. W e will im itate God as Creator and craft what we
will out of the matter that composes the universe. This rather active, one could
even say aggressive, style suggests that the vision of the scientist who stands
back in objectivity and detachm ent is inappropriate to Hobbes. The kind of
philoso phy Hobbes has in mind teaches us how to will things into being.
These are undoub tedly ambitious , arrogant, and boastful promises. From a
tw entieth-century perspective, however, it is easy to overestimate this
conceit, or to assume that someone claim ing to im itate God has lost all sense
of perspective. Althoug h space does not permit a discussion of what it meant
to ìmitate God , or to claim to do so in the seventeenth-century, I would like
to gesture towards a few elements of this context that might allow us to
receive Hobbes s boasts withou t mouths agape. First, claiming to teach skills,
particularly intellectual skills, that could help men im itate God was not
uncommon. Renaissance humanists made such claims often (although with a
8
complexity that cannot be surveyed here). One need not look further than
Richard Hooker (d. 1600 ) to discover an association between the cultivation
of man s reason and the achievement of man s perfection as a creature man in
9
God s im age. Hobbes s contemporary, Ben Jonson, compared his own
practice poetry to acts of divin e creation, even if the poet s creation
10
remains restricted to men s fancies. If the commonality of the claim helps
mediate the shock value, Hobbes s claims to help us to im itate God are none
the less worthy of our detailed attention. Beginning with the constraints that
Hobbes im poses on philoso phical practice, I will show that his boast suggests
a reinterpretation of his work that stands as a challenge to received views of
the purpose of his philoso phy.
I. Constraints on Truth and Language

Let us look at some of these constraints. Hobbes places limits on truth (i.e.
what can count as truth). Under his regime, the truth is permitted to emerge
under speci c circumstances. Truth is restricted to the realm of words. This
limitation suggests his nominalism, but truth s limitation to the realm of
152
Ted H. Miller
words represents a more comprehensive con nement. Nom inalism is merely

11
a key part. T aken as a whole, these limits can be seen most clearly when
made to stand in the foreground against the truth claim s of worldly, especially
12
factual, experience. The barrier Hobbes erects between experience of things
outside ourselves and the realm of truth has multiple components.
13
He tells us that prudence, the wisdom acquired through experience,
cannot produce truth. Although Hobbes s devaluation of prudence is
14
sometimes over-emphasized,
there is no question he draws a sharp
distinction between prudence and the knowledge made available throug h
15
(his) philosophy. T he distinction is perhaps most marked when Hobbes
16
allows that even beasts can be prudent. The prudent person may `recon (i.e.
recollect) the im ages in his head, com pare them with present circumstances,
and use signs to form indispensable judgments. W hen one considers that
17
Hobbes states that our minds are prone to a chaotic, `wild raging , this
certainly counts as an accomplishment. The prudent individ ual s desires and
curiosity may allow him (or her) to tame the chaos, to regulate the train of
18
thought, and sweep throug h our memories like a spaniel lookin g for a scent.
In spite of the prudent person s efforts, the results do not represent the best
that humans can do. W e only reach this level when we are further assisted by
`the help of speech and method . W ith these, `the same faculties may be
im proved to such a height as to disting uish men from all other living
19
creatures .
Only speech can lead to the production of truth. In Leviathan Hobbes
invites readers to think of speech as an invention or technology. It is one of
our most ancient, and it stands above more recent inventions designed to
facilitate communication. It must be ranked above the printin g press, or even
letters (e.g. à, b, c . . . ). Althoug h printin g is given recognition, Hobbes tells
readers they ough t to have greater reverence for the unkno wn individ ual who
invented letters. (According to Hobbes, letters were invented to help us
memorize the different words which we can create with our tongue s and other
20
òrgans of speech .) W e ough t be that much more im pressed with speech. It
is:
the m ost noble and pro table inventio n of all consistin g of nam es or appellat ions, and
their connexi on, w hereb y men registe r their thought s, recall them w hen they are past,
and also declar e them one to anothe r for m utual utility and conversation , w ithou t
w hich there had been am ongst men, neithe r com m onw ealth , nor society , nor contract ,
21
nor peace, no more than am ongst lions, bears, and wolves.
As suggested in the quotation, there are tw o fundamental advantages

secured by speech. It helps us to remember our conceptions and to
communicate them to others. Speech engages us in a process whereby we
`transfer our mental discourse (i.e. the conceptions that occur in our heads
153
the phantasms) into `verbal discourse. W e transfer, that is, `the train of
thoughts into a train of words . W ords keep our conceptions from slippin g out
of our memory, but speech does more than help with im mediate sense
im pressions. W henever we calculate, words help us retain our results.
W ithou t words, persons are unable to preserve their conclusions. W ords thus
facilitate reasoning itself. T hey allow us to speak of classes and categories of
things. W ithou t words we cannot generalize the conclusions of though t to
cover sim ilar circumstances. L anguage can therefore codify and preserve our
22
conclusions: with it we can teach them to others.
Other thing s can be done with words. With speech we may acquire help
23
from one another by letting persons know òur wills and purposes . W e can
also use speech `to please and delight ourselves and others, by playing with
24
our words, for pleasure or ornament, innocently . Most im portant, it is only
when we have moved to this higher level, where the order of our thought s is
tamed by the order we im pose (or could im pose) with our words and
discourse, that Hobbes will allow us to speak of truth and falsity. Mere mental
discourse, either the chaotic urry of our fancy or thought s strung together in
relative order, may be made to serve us, but these fancies, unassisted by the
25
aid of words, are not the materials out of which truths can be constructed.
For Hobbes, however, speech is a double -edged sword. Truth has no `place
26
but amongst such living creatures as use speech , yet this assertion suggests
more than a claim about the relative intelligence and dignit y of creatures
capable of using speech. Speech-using creatures can stand above the rest in
that they possess the necessary equipment for making truths, but the same
equipment that allows them to make truths also gives them the privilege of
speaking falsities, and not just falsities but absurdities. For example, the
absurdity ìncorporeal body is created when we allow ourselves to combine
27
words that belong to categories that are properly kept apart. In De Hom ine
Hobbes writes: W orse yet, such mistakes are masked by words (often
invented by the schools) as abbreviations for these ùn t connexions . The
abuses of speech are so dangerous that they may bring us to depths that less
28
capable creatures need never fear.
it is easily understo od how m uch w e owe to languag e, by which we, havin g been
drawn togethe r and agreein g to covenant s, live securely , happily , and elegantl y, w e
can so live , I insist, if we so will. But languag e also hath its disadva ntages ; namely
becaus e m an, alon e am ong the animals, on accoun t of the universa l signi cation of
nam es, can create genera l rules for him self in the art of living just as in other arts; and
so he alone can devise error s and pass them on for the use of others . T herefor e m an
errs m ore widely and dangero usly than can other anim als. . . . T herefor e by speech
29
m an is not made better, but only given greate r possibili ties.
Like birds, perhaps insects, in a panic, we may tangle ourselves in a web of

absurdities. Philosop hy had to nd a way out:
154
Ted H. Miller
For speech has som ethin g in it like a spider s w eb . . . for by context ure of words
tender and delicat e wits are ensnare d and stopped ; but strong wits break easily
30
throug h them . T hey abuse speech by puttin g it to use in grievin g one another . T his,
however , is a more subtle area of abuse : he hold s that there are circu mstance s in
w hich the practice s used in grievin g anothe r constitu te an appropr iate use. These
involv e governi ng and instructi on:
Hobbes though t himself a strong wit and took on the task of breaking
throug h the absurdities that had accumulated throug h centuries of abuses
committed by the schools and their de cient philoso phies. If philosophy was
to live up to its promise, it had to teach us to regulate to place constraints
on our speech so that we might reap the bene ts.
Hobbes im agines multiple ways in which we might becom e ensnared in
speech. Some of the abuses of speech are deliberate. Persons lie: they use
words to, `declare that to be their will, which is not . They speak
metaphorically by using words, ìn other sense than that they are ordained
31
for.
for seein g natur e hath arm ed livin g creatur es, som e with teeth , som e w ith horns, and
some w ith hands, to griev e an enemy, it is but an abuse of speech , to griev e him with
the tongue , unless it be one whom w e are oblige d to govern and then it is not to grieve ,
32
but to correc t and am end.
Correcting and amending are Hobbes s near constant preoccupation s, they

are a necessary loophol e.
He insists that we de ne our words. W e must also remain aware of the way
others de ne theirs. Many abuses are outlined against the background of this
standard. Hum an beings have given names to their conceptions, but they are
not always diligent in keeping track of these conceptions. De nition s always
ought to be kept in mind as we use our words. Moreover, the de nition s we
supply ough t to create a picture in the mind of the hearer of the conception we
name. In listing the strictures that should guide the philoso pher s practice
with speech, Hobbes goes into great detail: im portantly, he dictates that
de nition s of thing s that have a conceivable cause ought to resolve the causes
(i.e. supply us with the necessary àccidents of the matter under
33
consideration which, when brough t together, generate the entity).
In contrast to the abuses listed above, most of the abuses Hobbes concerns
himself with are not understood to be unequivocally deliberate. If working
with only well-de ned words is a strict mental discipline that must be
achieved throug h diligence, then most abuses of speech are partially
attributable to lapses in discipline. Hobbes is fond of drawing com parisons
between the thinker who is not sure of the conceptions that attach (or should
attach) to words and the troubles created by delinqu ent book-keeping.
Trusting an author s words is akin to
155
a m aster of a fam ily, [who] in takin g an account , casteth up the sum s of all the bills of
expens e into one sum , and not regardi ng how each bill is summ ed up by those that
give them in account , nor what it is he pays for, he advanta ges him self no m ore than if
he allow ed the accoun t in gross, trustin g to ever y of the accounta nts skill and
honesty , so also in reasoni ng of all other things, he that takes up conclusi ons on the
trust of authors , and doth not fetc h them from the rst item s in every reckoni ng (which
are the signi cation s of nam es settle d by de nitions ) loses his labour , and does not
34
know anythin g, but only believet h.
Because we hate to acknowledge our mistakes, however, the risk of

duplicitous accountants remained a key part of the problem. The schools have
built their philoso phies out of non-sense, and therefore have an interest in
maintaining their deceptions whether they started as the deceived victims or
designed them deliberately to hide their ignoran ce and incompetence.
The mathematical simile (quoted above) for the compounde d confusion
that occurs through the careless use of speech is indicative of something
greater. Hobbes s model of the proper use of speech was rooted in his
admiration for the mental habits of competent mathematicians. He wanted to
35
see these spread across the learned disciplines. All reasoning, according to
Hobbes, ough t to be understood as reckoning: the adding and subtracting of
36
mental parcels. It is possible to conduct these operations withou t the aid of
speech (for Hobbes can im agine that conceptions or phantasms generated
from sense im pressions might be compounde d one with the other) but the
operations are, again, greatly facilitated and im proved with the aid of
37
language. Our conceptions may be culled and organized under the general
terms, and these terms may be compounde d into propos itions (or
38
af rmations) that suggest the causes of our conceptions;
propositions
may be compounde d into syllogisms, and syllogi sms may be strung together
to reach conclusions that supply us with knowledge of the complex causes of
39
thing s we wish to produce.
W hat is the model for the right use of speech? W hose example ough t the
philoso phers to follow? Of all the mathematicians, Hobbes had the greatest
admiration for the geometricians. In particular, he wanted the careful habits
40
cultivated in geometry to become the model for philoso phers. Geom etricians begin with de nitions : this was exemplary practice. Their selfdiscipline in using de nition s is the guide the strong wits adopt to break
throug h the confusion created by the risks of using language:
Seein g then that truth consistet h in the right orderin g of nam es in our af rm ations , a
m an that seeket h precis e truth had need to rem em ber w hat ever y nam e he uses stan d
for, and to place it accordi ngly , or else he w ill nd himself entangle d in words: as a
bird in lim e tw igs, the m ore he struggle s the m ore belim ed. A nd therefo re in geom etry
(which is the only scienc e that it hath please d God hithert o to bestow on mankind )
m en begin at settlin g the call de nitions , and place them in the beginni ng of their
41
reckoni ng.
156
Ted H. Miller
The claim that geometry was God-giv en is particularly interesting. The

talents that allow man to im itate the divin e throug h geom etry will be
discussed later, but it is worth notin g that Hobbes s claim form s the second
half of a minor theodicy drama which he build s in Chapter Four of Leviathan.
If God has given us geometry as a way to escape from the turmoil brought
about by the inconstancy of our words, it may be a form of compensation for
the confusion he caused when he punished man at the tower of Babel. God
was the rst author of speech but Adam and the generations that followed
42
augmented our supply of words. At this time man spoke a single language.
Hobbes takes note to mention that this language was deprived of the term s
necessary to philoso phers or orators. As punish ment for our sins, however,
God deprived us of speech:
But all this languag e gotten , and augm ented by A dam and his posterit y, was again lost
at the tow er of B abel, when by the hand of God every man w as stricken , for his
rebellio n, w ith an oblivio n of his form er languag e. And being hereby forced to
dispers e them selves into severa l parts of the world, it m ust needs be that the diversit y
of tongue s that now is proceed ed by degree s from them , in such m anner as need (the
m other of all inventi on) taugh t them ; and in tract of time grew everyw here m ore
43
copious.
Thereafter, the opportunities for absurdity grew. To overcome this hardship

(as we shall see), man had to make himself God-like.
II. Nom inalism

As a part of the discipline he im poses on the use of language, true and false
are only spoken of in the narrow context of statements that take the form of a
44
propos ition. Thus (for Hobbes) `true and a true propos ition are one and the
same thing. `False and a false proposition are one and the same thing . More
precisely, the thing s that adm it of evaluation as either true or false can and
should be reduced to words joined by a copula, in English the word ìs . For
Hobbes a proposition, `X is Y , is true if when we speak `X it can be said to
`name the same thing as when we speak `Y . This, Hobbes states, occurs
45
when `X is comprehended in `Y . By this rule, `man is a living creature is
true because `man is comprehended under the more abstract name `living
creature ; likewise, `whatsoever is called, man, the same is also called living
46
creature . `Charity is a virtue is true because we count `charity as one of
the virtues. That which we name charity may also be named a virtue. `Man is
a stone is false because what we name `man is not comprehended under the
notio n of `stone .
This leads to the question, what is the determining groun d on which we
declare one name comprehended in another? Many persons, both Hobbes s
157
47
contemporaries and ourselves, are likely to consult sense. They would make
our experience of the world the arbiter. Hobbes is determined to block this
avenue. Instead, he refers us to the arbitrary power man has to im pose names,
to attach names to the particular conceptions that have their beginnings in
sensation, but which have their names due to man s at. Names are not
assigned according to some independently established truth that existed prior
to the im positio n of names themselves. Following his boast concerning the
capacity of strong wits to break through the confusion suffered by `tender and
delicate wits (quoted above), he writes:
From hence it may be deduced , that the rst truth s w ere arbitrar y m ade by those that
rst of all im posed nam es upo n things, or receive d them from the im positio n of others .
For it is true (for exam ple) that man is a livin g creatur e, but for this reason , that it
48
please d men to im pose both those nam es on the sam e thing.
W hen he reiterates and clari es his identi cation of `true and à true
propos ition in De Corpore , Hobbes reinforces the barrier between the
experience of the outside world and the realm of words and propositions:
N ow these w ords true, truth , and true proposit ion , are equivale nt to one another ; for
truth consist in speech , and not in the thing s spoken of; and thoug h true be som etimes
opposed to apparen t or feigned , yet it is alw ays to be referre d to the truth of
proposi tion ; for the im age of a m an in a glass, or a ghost, is therefo re denied to be a
very m an, becaus e this proposi tion, a ghost is a man, is not true; for it canno t be
denied but that a ghost is a very ghost. A nd therefo re truth or verity is not any
49
affectio n of the thing , but of the proposit ion concerni ng it.
Even when the temptation to assess truth claims in terms of the real or the
apparent to test, for example, descriptive truth claims against the existence
or non-existence of something is strongest, Hobbes erects a barrier. He
redirects philoso phers back into the closed circle of propos itions and to truths
that are strictly formal. Under Hobbes s regime a witness who sees a ghost
and claims to have seen a man may be said to have spoken a falsehood. This
claim of falsehood, however, cannot be ground ed in an em pirical assertion.
Truth or falsity cannot be determined because someone can show that the
witness saw a `true man (e.g. someone who af rms that the witness saw
John) or a `false man (e.g. a claim that the witness saw a re ection or a ghost)
Determining falsehood on this basis does exactly what Hobbes wishes to
disallow; it assigns, he insists, truth or falsity to the entities themselves rather
than propos itions. Only the witness s statement can be submitted to the test of
truth or falsehood: if his statement amounts to the proposition that a ghost is a
man, then the proposition is false. This must be strictly related to the
conclusion that `ghost is not comprehended under the name `man . Claims
about the world, the im pression of sense, even re ned ones that might keep us
158
Ted H. Miller
safe from what we would call misperceptions, are disallowed as arbiters of

truth and falsity.
I am not particularly concerned with the viability of Hobbes s nom inalism,
or whether the broader set of restrictions he im poses on philoso phical though t
could be successfully adopted. I would note, however, that a number of
scholars have resisted these characteristics of Hobbes s work. Often the fear
is that Hobbes disconnects himself from knowledge of the real world, and this
concern is re ected in questions directed towards Hobbes s account of our
exit from the state of nature. Scholars want to know, ìs this in fact the way
rationally self-interested individuals act? ; `can we assume that persons will
act in rationally self-interested ways, even if Hobbes actually understood
50
what rationally self-interested persons would do. Hobbes s lim itations on
truth and his nominalism are an obstacle for those who seek this kind of
reassurance. Their fears are justi ed. The veri cation these scholars seek is
ruled out by Hobbes s decision to limit the realm of truth to the realm of
words.
III. Satis ed with Less?

Rather than try to salvage Hobbes s philoso phy, we ough t to consider how
Hobbes could have remained satis ed with something that has dissatis ed so
many readers in this century. I justify this claim as an interpretative strategy,
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not as attem pt to assist Hobbes as a philoso pher. The best way to do this is to
focus on Hobbes s de nition of philosophy: speci cally his strict insistence
that philoso phy teach us cause and effect, and his equally rm demand that
philoso phy be rooted in the practices of manipulating and understanding the
actions and interactions of bodies in motion.
Hobbes identi es philosophic knowledge ( true ratiocination ) with
knowledge of cause and effect. In De Corpore he de nes philoso phical
method as, `the shortest way of nding out the effects by their known causes,
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or of causes by their known effects.
To consider an additional barrier
between Hobbes s philoso phy and knowledge of the world, it must be noted
that causal knowledge does not in this case im ply knowledge of reality. His
demand for causality is also accompanied by his insistence on the conditional
character of such knowledge:
[F]or the kno wledg e of consequ ence, which I have said before is calle d science , it is
not absolute , but conditio nal. No m an can know by discours e that this or that is, has
been , or will be, w hich is to kno w absolutel y, but only that if this be, that is, if this has
been , that has been , if this shall be, that shal l be, which is to kno w conditio nally; and
that not the consequ ence of one thin g to another , but of one nam e of a thin g to anothe r
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nam e of the same thing.
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Hobbes de nes reason as a process of either determining the conditional

54
causes of effects, or the conditional effects of given causes. For enthusiastic
readers at the turn of the century such as Ferdinand To nnies, these
mechanistic aspects of Hobbes s writing were evidence of a path-breaking
philoso phy: it was the rst step in revealing the working structures of the
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social world. One can acknowledge that Hobbes s philoso phical account of
the world was machine-like; Hobbes strives for well-ordered cause and effect
relations that describe with precision the conduct of matter in motion .
How ever, because it provid es strictly conditional knowledge of cause and
effect, and because of Hobbes s nominalism, To nnies s leap cannot be
accepted.
Hobbes s arguments concerning the deceptiveness of sensation further
erodes the possibility of a connection between Hobbes s philosophy and the
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practice of making descriptive truth claims. He traces the beginnings of all
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conceptions to sensation. Everything im agined or remembered,
every
element of a person s train of thought, is built from the conceptions that have
their beginnings in sense. Strictly countin g on sensation, we may go as far as
prudence, but (as noted above) such knowledge cannot make universal
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conclusions, and, at its root, it is uncritical `knowledge of fact . Reason,
however, does not apply itself to sensation per se. It is applied, rather, to the
words we put to sensations (in particular, those nam es that stand for
sensations that we class together general names). W e are thereby channeled
back into the nominalist stream.
There is another factor at work in Hobbes s limitation on reason.This
concerns man s ability to know the works of God. The world is God s
creation, and like many who held to the voluntarist theolog ical view, Hobbes
claimed: `T here is no effect which the powers of God cannot produce in many
59
several ways. This means that whatever we witness in nature might have
been produced in any way that God pleased. To suggest otherwise would be to
place a limit on God s capacity as the om nipoten t creator, a matter which he
60
forbids in others. W e cannot know with certainty how the world was created
because the Creator Him self is so far above us that we dare not presume to
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learn how he has produced it. For we mortals, it should be enough for us to
know that He is om nipotent, that He is material, and that His dictates always
agree with the dictates of right reason. Althoug h space does not permit an
extended treatment, it is worth notin g that Hobbes puts the voluntarist veto on
knowledge of God s ways to work against his philoso phical oppone nts. In
particular, those whose philoso phies made the kind of claims that Hobbes s
put beyond the limits of his own claims to philoso phical knowledge, e.g.
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claims about the world. In light of these lim itations, Hobbes instructs his
philoso phers to rest satis ed with the continge nt conclusions that reasoning
makes possible in natural philosophy: these will always (only) be about the
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possible means by which thing s that we see in nature might be

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generated.
Thus far, Hobbes s philoso phy emerges as a complex trade-off. It teaches
the proper means of producing truth with language, the means of avoiding
falsity (and absurdity). Nevertheless, it leaves these truths permanently boun d
within the realm of words. One could say that reason s conclusions are
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established by `true ctions. Is this satisfactory? Here it is worth taking
note of M ichael Oakeshott s view. For him, this was indeed enough.O akeshott was deeply im pressed with Hobbes s philoso phic rationalism, but was
also concerned that this kind of thinkin g be kept within its proper limits that
it not migrate to places such as politics, where it does not belong. On this
reading, Hobbes must teach us to be guided by the thread of reason, to the
exclusion of all other in uences. He is said to pursue these ctions not merely
because they achieve a generalizable knowledge, but (as ctions and no more)
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because `reasoning can go no further .
There are good reasons, however, to suggest that Hobbes did not nd
philoso phies that measured their accomplishments in these terms satisfactory.
To assume that he did is to dramatically underestimate his practical intents.
W e reason by true ctions, but the purpose of doing so is for the sake of
making these ctions `come true . Of course, Hobbes had a strictly linguis tic
conception of truth (as noted above), and so in saying that his true ctions are
made to `come true I am departing from his conception to make a larger
point. This concerns the concrete expectations Hobbes attached to his science.
Truth for Hobbes was nothin g other than a true propos ition, but the true
propos itions that reason establishes are not, in Hobbes s view, self-justifying.
Hobbes pursued knowledge of cause and effect so that we might produce
concrete effects for ourselves. In De Corpore he wrote:
T he end or scop e of philoso phy is, that w e m ay m ake use to our bene t of effects
form erly seen; or that, by applicat ion of bodie s to one another , we may produc e the
like effects of those we conceiv e in our m ind, as far forth as m atter , strength , and
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industry , will perm it, for the com modity of hum an life.
This may present something of a quandary. Can one af rm that Hobbes s

philoso phy does not strive to inform us of how the world really is, and also
maintain that Hobbes s philoso phy was meant to produce effects in the
world? Here is another instance where grasping Hobbes s work requires that
we move beyond the limits im posed by readings which seek to assimilate
Hobbes to the tradition of predictive/ explanatory social sciences. At best,
these give Hobbes permission to model the world. A model need not get the
world right in every detail. A model works when it proposes a scheme which
offers a sim pli ed notio n of the world, and our observations allow us to say
that the world functions às if it were in fact constructed this way. It is
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dif cult to see how Hobbes could have belong ed to even this more permissive
form of inquiry . T he practitioners of social scienti c modeling are (in theory)
ready to test their models against empirical reality. A good m odel m ay not
capture all of reality, but it ough t to predict it. Hobbes s nominalism, and the
myriad other barriers between his truths and the world, disallow the ground s
on which to describe a hypothe tical account true or false in terms of its
relation to the real world. In fact, Hobbes makes clear that demonstration is
not possible when we try to give accounts of the causes of thing s that we
observe (more about this in the discussion of a priori and a posteriori sciences
below). Both the modelers and some of the earlier readings that claim to nd
something like a modern social science in Hobbes assume that Hobbes rst
needed to com e to some understanding that, at least, re ected the world as it
really is (was).
This point of view fails to consider a more radical, if much less practical,
possibility. Hobbes need not maintain that his philoso phy s ctions are
empirically true (i.e. a matter of fact, or an approxim ation to reality, or even a
model of reality) to perform the practical functions described in the quote
above. If our goal is to produce effects, then a form of reasoning that teaches
us how thing s could be generated has already done enough . Hobbes suggests
this in several places. He tells the King in the dedicatory to Seven
Philosophical Problems:
T he doctrin e of natura l cause s hath not infallibl e and eviden t princip les. F or ther e is
no effect w hich the power of God cannot produc e by many severa l ways.
But seein g all effects are produce d by m otion , he that supposin g som eone or m ore
m otions , can deriv e from them the necessit y of that effect whose cause is require d, has
done all that is to be expecte d from natura l reason . And though he prove not that the
thin g was thus produce d, yet he proves that thus it m ay be produce d when the
m aterial s and the pow er of m oving are in our hands: which is as usefu l as if the causes
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them selves were know n.
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He restates this claim in Decam eron Physiologicum. In short, there is

something more than philoso phical knowledge (truth) to be had from
Hobbes s philoso phy. In arguing his view of Hobbes, Oakeshott wrote that
philoso phy s utmost end is to re ect the real world in the rational m irror. It
yields a picture that is merely analogous to the world, but philoso phy
sacri ces accuracy for the advantages of knowledge that strictly adheres to
the demands of uncompromised reason.
Hobbes goes much further. He does more than sacri ce accuracy. In
pointin g to the suf ciency of knowledge that allows us to produce effects for
ourselves, Hobbes in effect gives philoso phers permission to give up
mirroring completely. Put in a more philoso phical vein, Hobbes need not hold
his philoso phy to a corresponden ce theory of truth. W e may be indifferent as
to whether reason shows us how things were actually produced. This
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Ted H. Miller
indifference is not the product of the satisfactions of achieving a

philoso phical conception. Hobbes encourages our indifference with the
in nitely more boastful claim that he will teach us how to produce the effects
observed in nature for ourselves by our own means. Here is an exam ple of the
boastfulness that I m entioned earlier but, as we shall see in the next section,
these claims do not exhaust the philoso pher s capacity to assert his
resourcefulness.
Not unlik e other visionaries of the seventeenth century, Hobbes embraced
designs that were oriented towards practical ends, but none the less visionary
and excessive in their means. Hobbes s admiration for geometricians
illustrates this tendency. He drew on geometry because it exempli ed
systematic thought , but also because it yielded `commodities to mankind:
geometry allows us to measure matter and motion , to move large bodies, it
gives us architecture, navigation, and instruments to study the motion of the
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stars, `parts of time, aided geography, etc. T hese more pragmatic in
particular those more architectural uses for geometry illustrate instances of
an intellectual practice that yields both truths and com modities withou t
having to tell us something about a reality that exists independent of
ourselves. Rather, these thing s accom plished with geometric knowledge are
not true before we make them `come true . These strains in Hobbes s work are
captured when he writes:
For the inward glor y and trium ph of mind that a m an m ay have for the m asterin g of
some dif cult and doubtfu l matter , or for the discover y of som e hidde n truth , is not
w orth so much pain s as the stud y of Philosoph y requires ; nor need any m an care m uch
to teach anothe r what he kno ws him self , if he thin k that will be the only bene t of his
labour . T he end of kno wledg e is power; and the use of theore m s (w hich , am ong
geom etricians , serv e for the ndin g out of propert ies) is for the constru ction of
proble m s; and, lastly , the scope of all speculat ion is the perfor m ing of som e action , or
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thin g to be done .
IV. Imitating the Creator

Clearly, Hobbes placed great im portance on our ability to produce effects for
ourselves. Our capacity to do so carried weighty im plications for human
autono my: with regard to both what we could know and what we could do on
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our own (withou t calling upon the further assistance of God). The closer we
look at Hobbes s remarkable claims, the more we appreciate the im portance
of these boasts to his enterprise. T he best evidence is found in the categories
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that inform his classi cations of the sciences. Hobbes was concerned to
divid e the sciences according to what, for want of a better terms, could be
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called relative degrees of creative autono my. In De Hom ine, he notes that
geometry exempli es the highest degree of such autono my:
Since the causes of the properti es that individu al gures have belon g to them becaus e
w e ourselve s draw the lines: and since the generati on of the gures depend s on our
w ill; nothin g m ore is require d to kno w the pheno m enon peculia r to any gure
w hatsoeve r, than that we conside r everyth ing that follo ws from the construc tion that
w e ourselve s m ake in the gure to be describe d. T herefor e, becaus e of this fact, (that
is, we ourselv es create the gures) , it happen s that geom etry hath been and is
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dem onstrabl e.
The im mediate contrasts are with the physical sciences, in which the effects
are brought about initially not by ourselves but by the Creator. In the physical
sciences one begins with something that does not, at rst, depend on our will.
One begins, rather, with thing s that already exist, that have already been
created:
O n the othe r hand , sinc e the causes of natura l thing s are not in our pow er, but in the
divin e w ill, and since the greates t part of them , namely the ether, is invisible ; we, that
do not see them , cannot deduce their qualitie s from their causes. O f course , w e can, by
deducti ng as far as possibl e the conseque nces that we do see, dem onstrat e that such
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and such could have been their causes .
A science such as geometry therefore stands higher than physics. Being

able to make thing s ourselves yields a superior form of demonstrability. W e
can always know what we make much better than what God has made.
Beyond the relative certainty of demonstrability, however, there is a more
radical claim for human abilities contained in this distinction, and this brings
us back to the context of God and man.
As noted, in the address to readers at the beginnings of De Corpore Hobbes
invites his readers to im itate God. He also does so in addressing the readers of
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Leviathan. The distinction we are now pointin g to suggests that there are
more and less digni ed ways to im itate the Creator. E ither one may attempt to
create what God creates by our own means, or we may play the part of creator
in a more daring and independent way. Instead of merely fashionin g our own
versions of what the Creator has already made, we pursue the less slavish
course and use our abilities to turn ourselves into creators who make what we
wish. W e become more digni ed by creating something original, not
something that merely emulates a thing created by someone else (even if that
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someone is God himself.)
In spite of this boastfulness, Hobbes did not claim to share knowledge with
God. He was not claiming to give us the knowledge of the Creator (or the
Creator s own knowledge), yet Hobbes does promise to help man to turn
himself into a creator. Hobbes willingly admits that we cannot know how God
created the world. In this respect, his though t conforms to voluntarist
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theolog ical tradition as noted above. He is, however, anxiou s to put us in a

positio n where we might become indifferent to this ignoran ce. This
indifference does not proceed from a mood of philoso phical detachm ent,
but from the knowledge that we might (by our ow n m eans) produce like
effects to God s own by causes that we ourselves control. Hobbes promises,
moreover, to turn us into forceful, original, creators (and not just re-creators),
and this promise `to enable fosters that much more indifference towards our
inability to know the world as it actually is.
V. Mathematical Method and the Science of Creating

Earlier, I noted that reason s accomplishment consists in escaping the
con nes of sense experience. This also speaks to Hobbes s distinction
between creative and re-creative sciences. According to Hobbes, some of the
sciences guided by reason are m ore detached from sense experience than
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others. T his emerges in the distinction he makes between sciences that
depend on either mixed or unmixed forms of mathematics. According to
Hobbes, `[T]hose sciences are usually called mathematical that are learned
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not from use and experience, but from teachers and rules. Exam ples of
unmixed mathematics include geometry and arithmetic and these `revolve
around quantities in the abstract so that work in the subject requires not
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knowledge of fact. . . . By contrast, the mixed mathematical ventures force
us to become involve d with matters of fact: `those mathematics are mixed, in
truth, which in their reasoning also consider any quality of the subject, as is
the case with astronomy, music, physics, and the part of physics that can vary
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on account of the variety of species and the parts of the universe.
This distinction can be restated in terms of Hobbes s two methods of causal
reasoning, resolution and composition . In resolution one begins with a whole
and works one s way down a causal chain (i.e. from a speci c effect to its
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composite causes, down to the most elemental parts of the whole). In
compositio n one begins with the elemental parts and works one s way up to
the whole (i.e.. compounding causes until one has constructed the desired
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effect). Although all of Hobbes s sciences entail both resolution and
compositio n, those that Hobbes classi es as unmixed in their mathematics
may (always) begin by means of compositio n. In the case of the unmixed
sciences, therefore, we learn (at rst from instructors) and practice the m eans
by which the most elem ental matter may be combined to produce certain
effects. By contrast, sciences such as physics begin with an observed (i.e.
factual) whole, which then must be resolved into elemental parts; after
dismantling, a compositio n process is begun whereby we apply the
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constructive techniques of compositio n. In De Hom ine Hobbes calls the
unmixed science s form of demonstration a priori: those that are mixed make
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a posteriori demonstrations. (Althoug h in De Corpore, Hobbes states that

demonstration only occurs in those sciences that are unmixed in the sense
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described above. In all cases, however, the unmixed sciences are always
held in higher regard than the mixed.) Hobbes was certainly not the rst to use
the distinction between a priori and a posteriori demonstration, and to argue in
terms of synthetic and analytic methods. It was in fact a part of the traditional
case made on behalf of the demonstrative certainty of geometrical
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demonstrations. W hat is notable about Hobbes s use of this distinction,
however, is the way he puts it to use in asserting the worthiness of his science
of politics and how the distinction is linked to the way we are said to im itate
God.
The relative degrees of dependency upon sense map to the distinction
between more or less digni ed ways of im itating God. The natural sciences
teach us how to produce, by our ow n means, the effects that we observe in
nature; the a priori sciences teach us how to generate what we wish. In the
latter, we direct our efforts towards goals (thing s to create) that we choose
ourselves: we are not im itators of the outcom e of another s creation. Instead,
we choose our ow n ends, constructing whatever we are capable of by our own
means. In this sense, the a priori sciences make us the brasher, more
independent, im itators of God. The independence from sense, from matters of
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fact, or as Hobbes puts in De Hom ine, `the irrevocable past is also a step in
the direction of becoming more independent creators.
As noted, the distinctions discussed above do not sim ply illuminate the
differences between geometry and the physical sciences. They are also key to
understanding the ambitiou s nature of Hobbes s science of politics. Hobbes
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counted his science of politics among the a priori sciences. The science of
politics does not teach us to direct our efforts towards reproducing things
observed in nature, matters of fact, or thing s from the ìrrevocable past .
Indeed, the very idea of a polity as the subject of an empirical study is at odds
with this vision. The laws and covenants that form the materials of the science
of politics are, like the concatenated planes, lines, and gures of geometry, or
the guidance we provid e ourselves in the science of navigation, items of our
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own creation. Continu ing his analysis in De Homine Hobbes wrote:
Finally, politic s and ethics (tha t is the science s of just and unjust , of equity and
inequity ) can be dem onstrate d a priori ; becaus e w e ourselve s make the principl es
that is; the causes of justice (nam ely law s and covenan ts) w hereby it is know w hat
justice and equity , and their opposite s injustice and inequity , are. For befor e covenan ts
and law s were drawn up, neithe r justice nor injustice , neithe r public goo d nor publi c
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evil, w as natura l among men any m ore than it was am ong beasts .
In the Introduction to Leviathan Hobbes plays with the distinction between

more or less digni ed modes of im itating the Creator, ultimately af rming
that politics falls into the former category. He begins by notin g that Nature,
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`the art whereby God hath made and governs the world is by `the art of man
im itated. W e are capable of creating an àrti cial animal . Here Hobbes refers
us to the lesser form of im itation, and suggests a series of equivalencies
between natural animal life and the life that might be created throug h arti cial
means already within our power to create:
For seein g life is but a m otion of lim bs, the beginni ng whereo f is in som e princip al
part within , why m ay w e not say that all autom ata (engine s that move them selve s by
spring s and wheels as doth a watch ) have an arti cial life? F or what is theheart , but a
spring , and the nerves , but so m any strings , and the joints, but so m any wheels, giving
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to the whole body, such as was intende d by the arti cer?
In each case, something divinely produced (hearts, nerves, and joints) is

linked to an equivalent in the realm of thing s we can produce for ourselves.
The heart, nerves, and joints, the Creator s own handiwork, are pulled back
down into the orbit of potential human creation. As natural bodies receive
their motion from the heart, nerves, and joints, so may man-made bodies
receive an arti cial life by means at our own disposal. The quotation is in the
spirit of practicality mentioned above. The effects observed in nature are
reproduced by our own means, springs, wheels, and joints. The passage above
has been read by som e as illustrative of a reductionist reconceptualization of
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humans and the rest of the world in mechanical terms. Althoug h many
readers have assented to this reading (some enthusiastically), I would suggest
that the enterprise Hobbes is here suggesting is not, fundamentally, a matter
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of conceiving of the world in sim pli ed mechanical terms. The capacity to
create for ourselves obviates the need to describe and conceive of the world
precisely as God made it. W hen Hobbes suggests that the heart is but a spring,
his efforts are not so much a matter of reductionism, as they are a
proclamation of equivalency between divin e and human creation. God may
make a heart, but we may make a spring and that is all we need do. In the
face of this prospect, the goal of knowing the world as it really is becomes less
im portant. Our springs may do for us what God s handiwork has done in
creating a heart (i.e. we may re-create the effect); having produced the same
effect, we need not know how an actual heart functions.
The im itation of the Creator s effects is certainly grandiose, but (as noted
above) this form of im itation is not the highest in Hobbes s hierarchy of
sciences. T he Introduction re ects this hierarchy. After the passage just
quoted Hobbes writes:
A rt goes yet further , imitatin g that rationa l and m ost excellen t work of nature , man.
For by art is create d that great L E VIAT HAN calle d a COMM ON W EA LT H, or
ST AT E (in L atin CIVITA S), which is but an arti cial m an, though of greate r stature
and strengt h than the natural , for whose protecti on and defens e it was intended ; and in
w hich the sovereign ty is an arti cial soul, as givin g life and m otio n to the w hole body ;
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the magistrate s and other of cers of judicatu re and executio n, arti cial joints; rew ard
and punishm ent (by which fastene d to the seat of the sovereig nty every join t and
m em ber is m oved to perfor m his duty ) are the nerves , that do the same in the body
natural ; the wealth and riches of all the particul ar members are the strength . . .
L astly, the pacts and covenan ts by which the parts of this body politic were at rst
m ade, set together , and united , resem ble that at, or the let us make m an, pronoun ced
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by G od in the creation .
The rst sentence is particularly interesting. Our art will go further in so far
as it im itates the rational and excellent creature of nature, man. Yet,
ìmitation is now suggestive of something different than it was before.
Instead of merely producing for ourselves what God has produced by his
mysterious means, we are now told that we are capable of using art to produce
a Commonwealth, an arti cial man that is òf greater stature and strength than
the natural . L ike God, we create after our ow n im age. In ìmitating the
creature that God created we are im itating the Creator s actions on a higher
level. Instead of creating what he has already willed into existence, we create
what we ourselves will. The L eviathan is not a mere man but a man-made
man, not a singular man but a composite of men. Moreover, we ourselves
surpass God s creation; the arti cial man is greater and stronger than the one
God created. Finally, we make ourselves God-like by creating something
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after our ow n im age.
Hobbes thus makes a particularly bold claim to enable. He measures God s
accomplishments and claims that humans who use his philoso phy may im itate
(perhaps even out-perform ) God. Speci cally, he claims to teach the art of
political creation. W e sometimes speak of the tendency among moderns to
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im agine themselves as starting afresh. Hobbes s claims concerning what his
philoso phy can accomplish illustrates this tendency. Hobbes s state would
seem to have its own, man-made Genesis.
Earlier, I mentioned that this re-reading of his philoso phy is a part of a
larger argument linkin g Hobbes s political philoso phy to the educational
politics of the seventeenth century. I have been arguing that Hobbes s
philoso phy does not make an accurate report of the world, but claims to make
its own truths. If Hobbes s commonwealth is to `come true it must be taught
and obeyed as a doctrine. Elsewhere, I argue that Hobbes pleaded with his
sovereign to have the doctrine taught in the schools and to censure all
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competing doctrines. This didactic re-reading of Hobbes squares with the
interpretation of Hobbes s philosophy defended above: in the context of
politics, the concrete means of creation the process that allows us to become
creators, like God is political education.
A geometrician may construct gures by moving matter on the page, an
architect by directing the assembly of timbers and stones, but the
commonwealth comes into being throug h the actions of the indoctrinated
citizens and those higher-ups who serve at the sovereign s pleasure. Here is
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where the link between the im itation of God and Hobbes s didactic
orientation becomes clear. To create the commonwealth, to im itate the
Creator (in the most digni ed way, as speci ed above), the doctrine devised
by Hobbes must be taught. Hobbes required that the sovereign power make
his doctrine of cial state doctrine. Its of cers and prominent citizens were
expected to uphold it, and its clergy were expected to preach obedience to the
state according to its rule.
In effect, Hobbes s politically educated citizens, their divines, their
teachers, and magistrates are all taught to work in concert according to his
doctrine. All such persons subordinate to the sovereign are the matter Hobbes
would have controll ed according to the precise directions of his philosophically guided doctrine. Their motions, like the matter manipulated on the
geometrician s page, are precisely dictated. W hen combined, they create the
well-ordered commonwealth that Hobbes promises. One could call it a
marching band state: when each has been taught obedience to the sovereign
according to the philosopher s doctrine, they generate, in precise formation,
the peaceful commonwealth Hobbes promises. Put somewhat crudely,
Hobbes s philoso phy generates an elaborate `How to manual for the precise
construction of a peaceful, well-ordered, state. Individual persons are his
buildin g blocks, his doctrine must be written on them by their teachers. In
conducting themselves in accordance with it, they make themselves pieces of
a well constructed, peaceful, arti cial man.
In Leviathan Hobbes draws an extended parallel between what the
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sovereign must teach his citizens and the Ten Com mandments. T his is
im m ediately followed by a plea for his doctrines be taught in the universities.
Moreover, Hobbes uses im agery that suggests the need to use his doctrine to
manage and control the motion s of the individ uals so that they might form a
stable and lasting commonwealth. He writes that nothin g made by mortals can
be im mortal, but that commonwealths can at least live as long as, `mankind,
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or the laws of nature, or as justice itself, which give them life . Furthermore,
if they do dissolve by ìntestine disorder ,
the faul t is not in m en as they are the matter, but as they are the makers and orderer s of
them . For m en, as they becom e at last w eary of irregul ar jostlin g and hew ing one
another , and desir e with all their hearts to confor m themselve s into one rm and
lastin g edi ce, so for w ant, both of the art of m akin g t laws to squar e their action s by,
and also of humility and patienc e to suffe r the rude and cumbersom e points of their
presen t greatnes s to be take n off, they cannot , withou t the help of a very able architect ,
be com piled into any other than a crazy buildin g, such as, hardly lastin g out their ow n
1 00
tim e, must assuredl y fall upo n the head s of their posterit y.
Men, in other words, are an adequate starting material from which to build a
commonwealth. A strong and enduring structure could be built out of them,
but the task cannot be done withou t the help of a very able architect.
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VI. Conclusion
Throug h a survey of constraints that Hobbes im poses on philoso phy and his
boasts to im itate the Creator, I have tried to question a conventional
understanding of his philoso phy. Hobbes s philoso pher is not a passive
observer. Philoso phers must im itate the creator. When philosophers nd
chaos, in language, in heads, or in politics, their task is to set it right by
stamping an order upon it. They do not need a true and accurate report of the
world to accomplish this. They need, instead, the skills of a builder; they need
the skills of an àble architect . This does not mean that Hobbes found dealing
with his fellow human beings easy. The opposit e is the case: it is precisely
because they were so prone to cause chaos that the im itation of God the
greatest orderer of chaos becom es necessary. Hobbes s philoso phy is a
political philoso phy of counter-measures. Quite literally, he was going to
teach jostling humanity a lesson. The conventional view I have questioned
has frequently asserted that Hobbes s philoso phy is about taking steps to calm
chaos and to create order. This is correct, but what it has failed to grasp is how
ontolog ically aggressive Hobbes was in his efforts to arrest our jostling
selves. Developing a descriptive/ predictive social science was not a part of
Hobbes s attempt to solve the problem. He insists that nothin g short of turnin g
ourselves into creators will do. Hobbes s philoso phy teaches us to respond to
the threat of chaos by modifying and crafting the world and our selves into a
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well-ordered arti ce.
Notes on Citation s
Because the collected works by Molesworth are often surpassed by particular
editions, Hobbes scholars have a dif cult task arriving at a standard citation
format. I have used Molesworth editions sparingly and have adopted a format
most likely to supply owners of different editions of Leviathan and the other
major political works with useful citations.
W hen citing Molesworth texts I have used the following format: [work
title, chapter number, paragraph number] (E.W. or L.W. for English or Latin
works) volume, page number.
Citations from Leviathan are taken from the edition by E dwin Curley
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994) . T o facilitate references to other editions, I used
the Curley s paragraph numbers (which match Molesworth s and that of
many other popular editions. Note that the recent Cambridge edition by Tuck
includes a concordance. Citations follow this form at: Lev., chapter, paragraph
num ber.
I have used W arrender s edition of De Cive and the Philosophicall
Rudiments Concerning Government and Society (i.e. the established
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Ted H. Miller
translation of De Cive) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983 . T he format is:

De Cive, chapter, paragraph number.
I have made use of the translation of De Homine by Charles W ood, T . S. K.
Scott-Craig, and Bernard Gert. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1991.
The format is: De Homine, chapter, paragraph number.
Citations to Elements of Law are to the edition by Ferdinand Tonnies,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928 . The format: Elements, Part,
chapter, paragraph number.
NOTES
1 [De Corpore, Author s Epistle to the Reader] E. W . I, xiii. Please see the pre xed note on
citations.
2 For an im portant exception, see Norman Jacobson, Pride and Solace (London: Methuen,
1978), pp. 5192. See also Carl Schmitt, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas
Hobbes, trans. George Schwaband and Erna Hilfstein (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996),
esp. 3137.
3 Gregory Kavka s work is representative. See Gregory Kavka, Hobbesian M oral and
Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 2951. He asks
whether Hobbes held to a particular egoistic theory of human nature. Kavka asks what a
proper theory of human nature should do for a political philosophy and what might be
done to im prove upon the one Hobbes seems to supply. The unconsidered possibility:
Hobbes s account of a predictable human subject is less than satisfactory because he did
assume one, and did not pursue a science that needed to discover such a subject.
Other interpreters who accept that Hobbes needed to latch on to some understanding of
the permanent characteristics of human nature or the world in order for his philosophy to
work include. J. W . N. W atkins, Hobbes s System of Ideas A Study in the Political
Signi cance of Philosophical Theories (L ondon: Hutchinson University Library, 1973),
esp. pp. 7274; Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 11; F. S. McNeilly, The Anatomy of Leviathan
(New York: St Martins, 1968), esp. pp. 7677, 83. For Kavka s disagreements over the
issue of egoism with McNeilly, see Kavka, op. cit., pp. 4451.
4 Lev., 13, 9.
5 De Cive, 3, 9.
6 Leviathan, 30, 6; Elements of Law, 2, 9, 8. On this and the educational agenda, see Ted
Miller and Tracy Strong, `Meaning and Contexts: Mr Skinner s Hobbes and the English
Mode of Political Theory , Inquiry 40 (1997), pp. 32356.
7 Miller and Strong, op. cit.; Ted Miller, M aking Certain: Thomas Hobbes, Geometry, and
the Educational Politics of Early M odernity (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California,
San Diego, 1998).
8 For extensive discussions of the theme of Divine imitation in among Italian Renaissance,
see Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian
Humanist Thought (2 vols) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). Particularly
useful in Trinkaus s account are the associations between imitating the creator and man s
capacity to play the role of creator, or homo faber. I review this history and juxtapose such
claims with Hobbes s own in Miller, Making Certain, op. cit.
9 Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, vols 13 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 197781), ch. 5, sect. 3.
10 Ben Jonson, `D iscoveries , in C. H. Herford, Percy Simpson, and Evelyn Simpson (eds),
Ben Jonson, v. 8, pp. 6367.
11 I use nominalism in a narrow, perhaps anachronistic sense. Earlier nominalists (Ockham,
most im portantly) had a larger agenda which may have overlapped certain respects of
Hobbes s. A more complete look at Hobbes and philosophical language would also have
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to consider the possible in uences of Mersenne s aspiration for the creation of a universal
language. The notion of a language suited to speaking philosophical truths clearly has
resonance. Moreover, because Mersenne fell into the camp that argued that the universal
language would have to be created he held that all languages were rather than
discovered, there are af nities with the constructivist elements of what I am calling
Hobbes s nominalism. See Peter Dear, M ersenne and the Learning of the Schools (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1988).
Hobbes does speak of the experience of words, i.e. customary words and phrases, as well
as experience of sensations and so the distinction between experience of fact and sensation
on the one hand, and the experience of speech on the other must be made. See, e.g.,
Elements of Law, I, 4, 11.
Elem ents, I, 4, 10. Lev. 3, 710.
For a defense of the lower faculties, and in particular the connection between Hobbes s
reason and experience in curiosity, see Jeffery Barnouw, `Hobbes s Psychology of
Thought: Endeavours, Purpose, and Curiosity , History of European Ideas 10 (1989) 5, pp.
51945. See also Verna Gehring, `The Em bodied Politics of Thomas Hobbes , in A. T.
Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana (forthcoming).
It also follows from this that Hobbes does not base his science on assertions of fact. There
is something Hobbes calls `knowledge of fact (De Homine, 10, 5), but the mere existence
of this category within Hobbes s thought does not mean that he used matters of fact as a
ground for his science. To assume that he wished to do so is to make the kind of whigish
leap contested here. Such a leap would also have to contend seriously with the work of
Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer (Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the
Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). It would also have to
contend in the context of his science of politics with the straightforward statement at
the close of Leviathan, `the matters in question are not of fact, but of right, wherein there
is no place of witnessing (Lev., Review and Conclusions, 15). Establishing matters of fact
was precisely the kind of contentious business that Hobbes sought to avoid by resorting to
a mathematically inspired science. Its certainty was meant to be unpolluted by disputes
over matters of fact.
Lev. 3,9; Elements, I, 6, 4.
Lev. 3,3.
Lev. 3, 25; on curiosity, see Gehring, op. cit., and Barnouw, op. cit.
Lev. 3, 11.
Lev. 4, 1.
Ibid.
[De Corpore, 2,2]. E. W ., I, 14; Lev., 4, 3; 4, 9.
Lev., 4, 3. Cf. Miller and Strong, op. cit.
Lev., 4, 3.
Elem ents, I, 4, 11.
[De Corpore, 3,8.] E.W ., I, 36.
Elem ents, I, 11, 5; Lev., 4, 21; 34, 2, 24.
Lev., 4, 4, 1213, 2021, 24; 5, 519; Elem ents, I, 5, 68, 1314; I, 6, 3.
De Homine, 10, 3. He also mentions in this chapter the capacity to lie, and layer upon
layer of habitual self-deception and the collective deception the schools. In comparison to
animals, Hobbes notes that only man can deceive himself. See also Lev., 4, 13.
[De Corpore, 3,8] E.W. I, 36.
Lev., 4, 3.
Ibid.
See [De Corpore, 6,1315] E.W. I, 8186 for a complete list of the strictures on how to
form de nitions. Hobbes states that accidents are best de ned by examples, rather than
de nitions, but nevertheless de nes accident as `the manner by which any body is
conceived ; which is all one as if they should say, an accident is that faculty of any body, by
which it works in us a conception of itself [De Corpore, 8,2] E.W. I, 103. Take hardness:
hardness is properly attributed to a body when, `no part gives place, but when the whole
gives place [De Corpore, 8,2] E.W. I, 1045. Hobbes s accidents can be thought of as
characteristics that attend to bodies at root, how they move. With the exception of a few
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global accidents, like extension (because there is no body without extension), accidents
occur in particular combinations to yield particular phantasms.
Lev., 5,4 see also Lev., 4, 13.
See Miller, M aking Certain, op. cit.
Lev., 5, 1.
For Hobbes s account of the arithmetic of phantasms, see [De Corpore, 1,3] E.W . I, 35.
In speech, however, we may create abstract names, including those that identify
characteristics or àccidents of bodies. Thus, man is de ned by Hobbes as a rational,
animate creature. Being rational is an accident that de nes the matter that is brought
together under the name `man and is a cause in accordance with Hobbes s understanding
of causality. All that can be explained causa lly in Hobbes s philosophy is explained by the
concatenation of accidents. Such accidents are the necessary causes of a particular named
entity.
Lev., 5, 17.
The status of mathematics, and mathematicians, with regard to philosophy in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries in the context of the schools was a part of, by this time, a longstanding controversy. I argue in Miller, M aking Certain, op. cit., that Hobbes s defense
was bolder than most because of his willingness to put creation so much further above any
other goal including that of modeling reality. The con ict and the progress of
mathematicians in making encroachments into the territory of philosophy has been
approached from a variety of perspectives. Some im portant works on the subject include
Peter Dear, Discipline and Experience: The M athematical W ay in the Scienti c Revolution
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) and M ersenne and the Learning of the
Schools, op. cit.; Paolo Mancosu, À ristotelian Logic and Euclidean Mathematics:
Seventeenth-Century Developments of the Quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum ,
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 23 (1992), pp. 24165; Mancosu brie y
discusses Hobbes s con ict with John Wallis; Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, op. cit.;
Nicolas Jardine, The Birth of History and Philosophy of Science: Kepler s À Defence of
Tycho against Ursus with Essays on its Provenance and Signi cance (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984); Robert Westman, `The Astronomer s Role in the
Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Study , History of Science 18 (1980), pp. 10547; A. C.
Crombie, `Mathematics and Platonism in the Sixteenth-Century Italian Universities and in
Jesuit Educational Policy , in Y. Maeyama and W. G. Slatzer (eds), Prismata,
Naturw issenschaftgeschichtliche Studien (W iesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1977), pp.
6394.
Lev., 4, 12.
Lev., 4, 1. On this point, however, see Pat Moloney, `Leaving the Garden of Eden:
Linguistic and Political Authority in Thomas Hobbes , History of Political Thought, 18
(1997), pp. 24266.
Lev., 4, 2. Cf. [De Corpore, 2,4] E.W. I, 16.
[De Corpore, 3,1] E.W. I, 2930. See also Lev., 4, 1112; Elements, I, 5, 10.
[De Corpore, 3,2]. E.W. I, 3031.
[De Corpore, 3,7]. E.W. I, 3536.
On the growing popularity of sense as a criteria for acceptable knowledge, see Barbara
Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the
Relationship between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1983); Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, op. cit.
[De Corpore, 3,7] E.W. I, 3536; see also ibid. [3, 10] 3738: `[T]ruth adheres not to
things, but to speech only, for some truths are eternal; for it will be eternally true, if man,
then living creature; but that any man, or living creature, should exist eternally, is not
necessary. This assertion is explained by the fact that Hobbes de nes `living creature as
one of the accidents that are necessary to `man ; in his terminology, a cause of man. Thus,
it is true that `man entails the notion of `living creature but it could be that men, and all
living creatures will one day be gone. The formal truth that `m an is a `living creature will
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none the less remain true. In Lev., 4, 11 Hobbes writes: `For True and F alse are attributes
of Speech, not of Things. And where Speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.
These questions are asked, e.g., in F. S. McNeilly, op. cit., pp. 65, 18691, 2504. Other
texts where the expectation that Hobbes either must, did, or should have made empirical
reality the standard against which his philosophy should be judged include some of the
most in uential philosophical interpretations of Hobbes s work in last fty years:
Watkins, op. cit, esp. pp. 7274; Kavka, op. cit., pp. 6 ff.; Hampton, op. cit., p. 11.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and M ethod (2nd ed.), trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald
Marsall (New York: Crossroads, 1990), esp. pp. 265379.
[De Corpore, 6,1] E.W . I, 6566.
Lev. 7, 3. This statement also gestures towards Hobbes s nominalism, see above.
Michael Oakeshott, Ìntrodu ction to Leviathan , reprinted in Michael Oakeshott,
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (2nd ed.), ed. Timothy Fuller (Indianapolis:
Liberty Press, 1991), p. 237; Hobbes [De Corpore, 6, 1; 6, 1, 1]. E.W. I, 6566, 387.
Ferdinand T o nnies, On Social Ideas and Ideologies, ed. E. G. Jacoby (New York: Harper
& Row, 1974), pp. 3435.
See esp. Elements I, 2, 410; Lev., 1, 45.
Ibid.
Lev. 3, 7; E.W. IV, 18.
E.W. VII, 3. For discussions of related Renaissance theology in the context of science,
including voluntarism, see Margaret Osler, Divine W ill and M echanical Philosophy:
Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994); Antoni Malet, Ìsaac Barrow on the Mathematicization of Nature: Theological Voluntarism and the Rise of Geometric Optics , Journal of the
History of Ideas 58 (1997), 2, pp. 26587; Steven Shapin, `Robert Boyle and
Mathematics: Reality, Representation, and Experimental Practice , Science in Context 2
(1988), pp. 3258; Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scienti c Im agination from the
M iddle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986);
Francis Oakley, Omnipotence, Covenant, and Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1984); Shapiro, op. cit.; Eugene Klaaren, Religious Origins of M odern Science (G rand
Rapids: Eerdamans, 1977).
Lev., 31, 1428. Oakeshott notes the connection with the Scotist tradition. Oakeshott, op.
cit., p. 245, n. 37.
Hobbes wrote, `For though there be many things in Gods Word above Reason; that is to
say, which cannot by naturall reason be either demonstrated, or confuted; yet there is
nothing contrary to it (Lev. 32, 2). Hobbes gives reason a `veto power over what God s
Word might mean. He nevertheless arrives at the same destination concerning the relation
of reason to revelation. See also David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 1389. Hobbes s originality lay not in claiming that
Scripture s meaning is not inconsistent with human reason. Rather, it is the particulars of
what he claimed right reason to have in fact dictated, i.e. his own doctrine concerning a
subject s obedience. See also Patricia Springborg, `Leviathan and the Problem of
Ecclesiastical Authority Political Theory 3 (1975), pp. 289303, and Lotte Mulligan,
` Reason, Right Reason, and Revelation in Mid-Seventeenth-Century England , in
Brian Vickers (ed.), Occult and Scienti c Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 375401.
Consider the objection made to Descartes s M editations, particularly Hobbes s 9th
through 11th objections. ReneDescartes, Oeuvres, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery (rev. ed.),
11 vols (Paris: Vrin, 1974), vii, pp. 17196.
Cf. Oakeshott, op. cit., pp. 2434.
The phrase is Oakeshott s, ibid., p. 245.
Ibid. See also the remarks on this page concerning Hobbes s conception of philosophical
knowledge.
[De Corpore, 1, 6], E.W. I, 7.
E.W. VII, 34. The practical expectations do, however, necessitate a subtle distinction:
between truth claims which assert that something exists in a particular way in the world
(which, as indicated above, his philosophy does not make) and things that must exist in
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order for his philosophy to ful ll its practical functions. His philosophy may not speak
truths about the world, but to be practical it must speak truths that can guide us in concrete
practices of construction. This requires that at least one thing about the world be assumed:
that it is composed of bodies. `Body is the one thing to which Hobbes attributes an
independent existence. [De Corpore, 8, 1], E.W. I, 99100. This is not a conclusion, but a
starting presupposition, an axiom just as geometry has axioms. For Hobbes s philosophy
to function practically, the world must be full of matter (i.e. no vacuums). He was a
plenist. See Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer (1985).
Ànd supposing some motion for the cause of your phenomenon, try, if by evident
consequence, without contradiction to any other manifest truth or experiment, you can
derive the cause you seek for from your supposition. If you can, it is all that is expected, as
to that one question, from philosophy. For there is no effect in nature which the Author of
nature cannot bring to pass by more ways than one [Decameron Physiologicum, 8] E.W.
VII, 88.
[De Corpore, 1.6] E.W. I, 7.
Ibid.
See discussion of `Maker s Knowledge , in Antonio Perez-Ramos, `Francis Bacon and
Man s T wo-faced Kingdom , in G. H. R. Parkinson (ed.), Renaissance and Seventeenthcentury Rationalism (London: Routledge, 1993); Antonio Perez-Ramos, Francis Bacon s
Idea of Science and the Maker s Knowledge Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989);
Arthur Child, `Making and Knowing in Hobbes, Vico, and Dewey , University of
California Publications in Philosophy 16, (1953), pp. 271310. Amos Funkenstein, op.
cit., esp. pp. 290345. Cf. Jacobson, op. cit.
In Tom Sorell, `H obbes s Scheme of the Sciences , in Tom Sorell (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Sorell suggests
that Hobbs s various classi catio ns of the sciences are not internally consistent. Leviathan
would seem to divide the sciences in a different way than is suggested, e.g., in De
Corpore. Perhaps the most im portant of these inconsistencies concerns the uncertain status
of the sciences that concern the passions, including ethics. One suspects that this debate
will continue. I would point out that the distinction that I am referring to is maintained
between works. Needless to say, I am not claiming that Hobbes s division between a priori
and a posteriori sciences (introduced below) is the only basis for Hobbes s classi cation. I
am merely claiming that his decision to divide the sciences along these lines is indicative
of a key concern.
De Homine, 10, 5, trans. Charles Wood, T. S. K. Scott-Craig, and Bernard Gert, in Man
and Citizen (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991), pp. 4142.
Ibid., p. 42. See also Hobbes s concluding remarks of [De Corpore 30, 15] E.W. I, 531.
E.W. I, xiiixiv; Lev. Ìntrodu ction to the Reader. 1.
Cf. Nicolaus of Cusa, Idiota de mente, 51, in Opera Omnia (Iussu et auctoritate Literarum
Heidelbergensis ad codicum dem edita, Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1932). I have also used
the translation by Clyde Lee Miller, The Idiot on M ind (New York: Abaris Books, 1979),
p. 45. On this passage, see especially the analysis of Pauline Mof tt Watts, Nicolas
Cusanus: A Fifteenth-Century Vision of M an (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982), esp. pp. 131 ff,
and pp. 9194.
See note 59.
See also [De Corpore, 6, 1], E.W. I, 66, on the distinction between the `science of causes
and all other sciences.
De Homine, [10,5], 42.
Ibid.
Ibid. The concept of a `m ixed form of mathematics occurs in Aristotle, Posterior
Analytics, 1.7 and Metaphysics XIII. 3 (esp. 1078a1417). Aristotle, however, did not
classify physics as a `m ixed science; for Aristotle it was an autonomous discipline.Hobbes, by de ning physics as a mixed form of mathematical science makes a
characteristically brash move. He subordinates physics to mathematics in a way that outs
the Aristotelian tradition. Not least because he situates mathematical entities in the realm
of the material. Earlier notions of mixed mathematics distinguished between pure, abstract
reasoning, and mathematically informed sciences such as astronomy that dealt in material
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things. For a new and excellent discussion of the (often more cautious and politic)
encroachments of mathematics on physics in the Renaissance see Dear, Discipline and
Experience, op. cit., Dear, M ersenne and the Learning of the Schools, op. cit., pp. 6370;
Peter Dear, `Jesuit Mathematical Science and the Reconstruction of Experience in the
Early Seventeenth Century , Studies in History and P hilosophy of Science 18 (1987), pp.
13375. Hobbes s brash use of the notion of mixed mathematics should be contrasted in
particular to that of the Jesuit professor of mathematics, Christopher Clavius. See also
Mancosu, op. cit. I explore this further in Miller, M aking Certain, op. cit.
[De Corpore 6, 4] E.W. I, 69, see also the remarks on analysis [De Corpore, 6, 1; 6, 9; 6,
10], E .W. I, 66, 77, 79.
[De Corpore 6, 6; 6, 12], E.W. I, 71, 81 see also the remarks on synthesis [De Corpore 6,
1; 6, 9; 6, 10] E.W. I, 66, 77, 79.
See William Sacksteder, `Three Diverse Sciences in Hobbes: First Philosophy, Geometry,
and Physics , Review of Metaphysics 45 (1992), pp. 73972, especially with regard to the
`convertibility of the sciences.
[De Corpore, 6, 12] E.W. I, 8081. Hobbes asserts, that is, that demonstration is strictly a
matter of synthesis (or composition). It does not entail the resolving (or analytic) steps
with which one begins in `m ixed sciences such as physics.
See, however, Paulo Mancosu, op. cit., pp. 133, and especially the translation of
Biancani s De M athematicarum Natura Dissertatio , ch. 1. For a contextually richer
treatment of this struggle see the works of Dear cited. See also Douglas Jesseph, `Hobbes
and Mathematical Method , Perspectives on Science 1 (1993), pp. 30641. Jesseph helps
us to understand how arguments based on this distinction also inform the opposition of
mathematical conservatives such as Isaac Barrow to analytic geometry. On this, see also
Miller, M aking Certain, op. cit. For a review and a new analysis of Hobbes s method
among political theorists see Donald Hanson, `T he Meaning of `Demonstration in
Hobbes s Science , History of Political Thought 11 (1990). I come to very different
conclusions than Hanson, who it seems to me, ignores key differences between Hobbes
and Descartes on the worthiness of analytic methods.
`[I]t is better to know how we can best use present causes than to know the irrevocable
past, whatsoever its nature (De Homine [10, 4], 41).
This is not to deny that analytic methods cannot be used among those who are called upon
to live in Hobbes s state (see, e.g., [De Corpore, 6, 7] E.W., I, 74 and the discussion in
Tom Sorell, Hobbes (London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), pp. 713. As
noted above (and see Sacksteder, op. cit.) all of Hobbes s sciences entail a combination of
resolution and composition (i.e. analytic and synthetic reasoning). The critical point,
however, is that civil philosophy (like other a priori sciences) begin with construction.
Lev. 5, 1.
De Homine (10, 5), 4243.
Lev. Ìntroduction , 1.
E.g. in Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 3233.
Peter Dear (Discipline and Experience, op. cit.) has suggested that seventeenth-century
writers used mechanical metaphors to describe the world routinely, and that through their
practice the distinction between àrti cial and `natural became blurred. I do not question
Dear s claim here, but I do not think that this stands as a convincing objection to this
interpretation of Hobbes. The discussion above concerning Hobbes s voluntarism and
nominalism suggests that his thought deviates from Dear s exemplars. Dear witnesses a
fusion between two poles among Hobbes s contemporaries, but Hobbes himself avoided
one of these poles by refusing to draw conclusions about God s workmanship.
Lev. Ìntroduction , 1.
This series of analogous relationships suggests an irreverent possibility. Our creation (the
commonwealth) exceeds ourselves (man). Does God s creation (man) exceeds Him? This
brings us to the question of Hobbes s atheism. This question, in my view, is most
interesting when it can suggest a place for Hobbes in the process Weber described as the
disenchantment of the world. Instead of asking whether Hobbes ts with a contemporary
understanding of atheism (which, too often, is the question), I think it is more fruitful to
176
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97
98
99
100
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Ted H. Miller
ask how Hobbes s plan to turn man into an equivalent, if not a superior, leads towards the
diminution of God s place in the universe. This formulation has the advantage of nding
more commensurable terms with the conceptions of atheism that informed Hobbes s
accusers. Cf. Samuel Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan; Seventeenth-century Reactions to
the M aterialism and M oral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. (Cambridge: University Press,
1962), pp. 39 f. On the other hand, the quote need not challenge the traditional hierarchy
between God and his creation. One might read Hobbes s boast as an instance of an
imperfect creature using his most perfect, most divine, faculty his reason to overcome
its decrepitude: we overcome by using what our creator gave us to create something better
than ourselves.
Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the M odern Age, trans. Robert Wallace (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1983), pp. 6375, 11520, 184, 45781.
Miller, M aking Certain, op. cit.; see also Miller and Strong, op. cit.
Lev., 30, 713.
Lev., 29, 1.
Ibid.
I thank Tracy Strong, Deborah Baumgold, Alan Houston, Steven Shapin, Verna Gehring,
William Kennedy, Peter Euben, Gerald Doppelt, John Hughes, James Philipp, Joseph
Lima, Gary Shiffman, Steven Dubb, Sammy Basu, and James Murphy for their comments
and encouragement. I also wish to acknowledge the support of the Huntington Library, its
staff, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its nancial support in the initial stages
and the Earhart Foundation for nancial support in later stages.
Received 10 June 1998

Ted H. Miller, Department of Government, Dartmouth College, 6108 Silsby Hall, Hanover,
NH 03755. E -mail: Ted.H.Miller@Dartmouth.edu

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Thomas Hobbes and

To cite this article: Ted H. Miller (1999) Thomas Hobbes and

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of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this

Inquiry, 42, 14976

Thomas Hobbes and the Constraints that

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Such boasts do not sit comfortably with conventional views. Hobbes is

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Hobbes s mention of `their doctors suggests an educational context.

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I. Constraints on Truth and Language

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words represents a more comprehensive con nement. Nom inalism is merely

As suggested in the quotation, there are tw o fundamental advantages

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Like birds, perhaps insects, in a panic, we may tangle ourselves in a web of

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Correcting and amending are Hobbes s near constant preoccupation s, they

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Because we hate to acknowledge our mistakes, however, the risk of

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The claim that geometry was God-giv en is particularly interesting. The

Thereafter, the opportunities for absurdity grew. To overcome this hardship

II. Nom inalism

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safe from what we would call misperceptions, are disallowed as arbiters of

III. Satis ed with Less?

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Hobbes de nes reason as a process of either determining the conditional

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possible means by which thing s that we see in nature might be

This may present something of a quandary. Can one af rm that Hobbes s

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He restates this claim in Decam eron Physiologicum. In short, there is

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indifference is not the product of the satisfactions of achieving a

IV. Imitating the Creator

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A science such as geometry therefore stands higher than physics. Being

theolog ical tradition as noted above. He is, however, anxiou s to put us in a

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V. Mathematical Method and the Science of Creating

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a posteriori demonstrations. (Althoug h in De Corpore, Hobbes states that

In the Introduction to Leviathan Hobbes plays with the distinction between

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In each case, something divinely produced (hearts, nerves, and joints) is

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translation of De Cive) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983 . T he format is:

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