Philosophy of

Thomas Hobbes
 1

Thomas
Hobbes
English Philosopher
1588 - 1679

1 Biography

Bodies in
2
Motion: The
Object if
3 Thought
Mechanical
View of Human
Thought
Biography
Born in Westport, Malmesbury England

• Son of a Vicar
• He writes his Philosophy at the age of 61, died at the age of 91
• Became a tutor to the Earl of Devonshire, William Cavendish
• He met many leading thinkers and personages of the day. In Italy he met
Galileo, In Paris he met Descartes’ admirer, Mersenne. Also Descartes an-
tagonist Gassendi.
• His works are De Cive (The Citizen), De Corpore (Concerning Body), De
Homine (Concering Man) and his famous book that he is known for, The
Leviathan
Bodies in Motion: The Object if
Thought
Philosophy, According to Hobbes, is concerned chiefly with the
causes and characteristic of the body. There are three majors
types of bodies:

• Physical Bodies (such as stone)

• Human Body
• Body politic
Philosophy is concerned with all three types, inquiring into their
causes and characteristics. There is one principal characteristic
that all bodies share and which alone makes it possible to un-
derstand how they came to be and do what they do, and that
characteristic is Motion.
Bodies in Motion: The Object if
Thought
Motion is a key concept in Hobbes’ thought. Equally important is
the assumption Hobbes makes that only bodies exist, that know-
able reality consists solely of bodies.

“Motion” says Hobbes, “is a continual relinquishing of one place

and acquiring of another.” Anything that move is changing its
place. If something is at rest. It will always be at rest unless
something moves.
Bodies in Motion: The Object if
Thought
Motion is not only locomotion in a simple
sense, but also what we know as a
process of change. Things become dif-
ferent because something in them has
been moved by something else, and this
refers not only to physical but also to
mental change
Bodies in Motion: The Object if
Thought
Vital Motion and Voluntary motions

Vital motions Voluntary Motions

• Begins with the process of
birth.
• Continue through life
• Include such motion as
pulse, nutrition, breathing
etc.
• To which motion needs no
help of imagination
• Going, speaking & deliber-
ate movements of our limbs
• Because going, speaking
and the like depend always
upon a precedent thought of
whither.
Mechanical View of Human
Thought
The Human mind works in various ways, ranging from percep-
tion, imagination, memory. All these types of mental activity are
fundamentally the same because they are all motion in our bod-
ies.

The whole structure and process of human thought is explained

as bodies in motion.
Mechanical View of Human
Thought
Sensation and Memory

In sensation, the sequence of images in our mind is determined by

what is happening outside us, whereas in thinking we seem to put
ideas together whichever we wish.

Hobbes explained thinking in exactly the same terms that he used

in his account of sensation, so that thinking, for him, is a variation
of sensation. Ideas follow each other in thought because they first
followed each other in sensation.
Mechanical View of Human
Thought
Sensation and memory

“those motions that immediately suc-

ceeded one other in sense, continue also
together after sense.” Our ideas have a
firm relationship to each other for the
reason that in any form of continued mo-
tion.
Mechanical View of Human
Thought
Sensation and Memory

The retention of the image within us after the ob-

ject is removed is imagination, is simply a linger-
ing or a decaying sensation, When later, we wish
to express this decay and show that the sense is
fading, we call this memory, “so that imagination
and memory are but one thing, which for dicers
considerations hath divers name”