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Thomas Hobbes
14 pages (2008/1915); 145KB download
WOWIO Books; ISBN: WOWIO-00381
DESCRIPTION
In 1637 Thomas Hobbes “became interested in the idea that everything, mind included, can be explained by being referred to motion in nature. His ‘Leviathan’ was published in 1651. In it he tried to apply mechanical principles to society as he had previously tried to assign them to nature. Society he thought to be an organism, its basis a contract by which the people had alienated their rights to the king in return for protection. He considered the best government to be a monarchy, but raised the question of the right of the subject to change allegiance when the power of the king to protect is gone.
“The ‘Leviathan’ besides containing the idea that society is an organism and the theory of the Social Contract ... psychologically traces all sensation to motion in the body and its environment. The carrying out of this theory of sense to its logical limit would make mental facts as entirely subject to natural laws as physical. Hence Hobbes’ influence ... is on the side of materialism. [This essay demonstrates] something of his idea that motion is the cause of all sensation ...” —Oliver Joseph Thatcher