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Hobbes's Doctrine of Method*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

J. Weinberger
J. Weinberger*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Abstract

A persistent problem in the interpretation of Hobbes's self-proclaimed founding of modern political science is the nature of the link between that political science and Hobbes's understanding of modern natural science and scientific method. The intention of this essay is to suggest that Hobbes's doctrine of method reveals the unity of his teaching about science, man, and politics. The unifying role of the doctrine of method can be understood only as a function of Hobbes's intention to reform what he saw as the previously defective relationship between practice and theory. In the light of this intention, the doctrine of method will be shown to consist in a new rhetoric which links the resolution of the human problem to the conquest of nature facilitated by the new science of nature. This rhetoric will be shown to be the substantial core of the doctrine of method itself.

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Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 1336 - 1353
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1975

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Footnotes

*

The preparation of this study was aided by a Fellowship Research Grant from the Earhart Foundation. I would like to thank the Trustees of Earhart Foundation for their gracious and generous financial assistance.

References

1 These two interpretations are not necessarily clearly stated in the Hobbes literature. However, the distinction between them is clearly at the root of the issue of the autonomy of Hobbes's theory of obligation from his empirical psychology. The two extremes are best represented by Stephens, Leslie, Hobbes (London: Macmillan and Co., 1904), p. 73 Google Scholar, on the one hand and Taylor, A. E., “The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes,” Philosophy, 13 (10, 1938), 406–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the other. See also Goldsmith, M. M., Hobbes's Science of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), pp. 228, 242 Google Scholar; Brown, Stuart M. Jr., “The Taylor Thesis: Some Objections,” in Hobbes Studies, ed. Brown, K. C. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 57–71 Google Scholar; and the literature generated by Warrender, Howard, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: His Theory of Obligation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957)Google Scholar. The dichotomy between these two interpretations, and the question of the “scientific” versus the “moral” nature of the doctrine of man are usually imposed upon Hobbes exegesis by a preinterpretive (Kantian-positivist) understanding of man and nature. Those who would seem to occupy a middle position between the two interpretations and between the question of “science” versus “morality” presuppose the distinction fashioned by the two extremes. See Peters, R. S., Hobbes (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967), pp. 43–74, 151–55, 159–62, 165–67Google Scholar; Watkins, J. W. N., Hobbes's System of Ideas (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 75–81 Google Scholar. In contrast to these errors, see Strauss, Leo, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952), pp. 1–5 Google Scholar; Natural Right and History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 169–177 Google Scholar.

2 The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmes-bury, ed. SirMolesworth, William, 11 vols. (London: John Bohn, 1839–1845), hereafter EW, I, 73 Google Scholar.

3 EW, I, 8, 73; Leviathan, ed. Macpherson, C. B. (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1971), Intro., pp. 81–83 Google Scholar.

4 EW, I, 87–88.

5 De Cive, Ep. Ded., EW, II, iii–iv.

6 EW, I, 9.

7 EW, I, ix; VII, 471; Strauss, , The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, pp. 1–2 Google Scholar; Goldsmith, , Hobbes's Science of Politics, pp. 228–229 Google Scholar; cf. Skinner, Quentin, “The Ideological Context of Hobbes' Political Thought,” Historical Journal, 9 (1966), 286–317 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr., “Hobbes and the Science of Indirect Government,” The American Political Science Review, 65 (03, 1971), 97 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 De Cive, Ep. Ded., EW, II, i–vii; EW, I, 1–2, 8–10; EW, IV, 1.

9 While the ancient geometers acquitted themselves well, the ancient moral philosophers failed to discharge their theoretical duties. For “were the nature of human actions as distinctly known as the nature of quantity in geometrical figures, the strength of avarice and ambition, which is sustained by the erroneous opinions of the vulgar as touching the nature of right and wrong, would presently faint and languish; and mankind should enjoy such an immortal peace. …” EW, II, iv.

10

Aristotle, Metaphysics 982a19–b10Google Scholar; cf. Nic. Eth. 1094a19–27, 1096a11–1096b9, 1098a21–1098b8, 1141–a9–20; Plato Republic 504b 1–541b5. For the ancients the distinction between theory and practice, speech and deed, depended upon the thematic connection between them. See Owens, Joseph, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1963), p. 167 Google Scholar.

11 See Plato Republic 514a-520d; Meno 70al–4, 71b–c1, 72a6–d1, 86e1–87d8. Apology 37e2–38a10; Aristotle Metaphysics 1023b13–1024a10; Nic. Eth. 1097a15–1098b7, 1102a5–1102a28, 1141a9–1141b14, 1177al3–1179a33; Politics 1252b28–1253a1, 1253a7–19, 1261a17–25, 1274b39–1275a5, 1276b16–1277b33, 1324a23–33.

12 Leviathan,chap. 2, pp. 89, 93–94; chap. 3, pp. 94–99; cf. EW, I, 399.

13 Leviathan, chap. 3, p. 95; EW, IV, 14–15.

14 Ibid., chap. 3, p. 96.

15 Ibid., chap. 3, pp. 97–99; chap. 5, pp. 110–118; EW, IV, 28–29; cf. De Homine, X. 1, Thomae Hobbes, Malmesburiensis, Opera Philosophica Quae Latine Scripsit Omnia, ed. SirMolesworth, William, 5 vols. (London: John Bohn, 1839–1845)Google Scholar, hereafter LW, II, 89.

16 De Homine, X, 1, LW, II, 88–89. I have used the translation in Man and Citizen, ed. Gert, Bernard (New York: Anchor Books, 1972), pp. 37–38 Google Scholar.

17 De Cive, V, EW, II, 66–67.

18 De Homine, X, 3, LW, II, 90–92, Gert, , Man and Citizen, pp. 39–41 Google Scholar; Leviathan, chap. 3, p. 98; chap. 4. pp. 100–102; chap. 5, p. 115–18; chap. 6.

19 Leviathan, chap. 4, pp. 101–102, 104–106.

20 Ibid., chap. 5, p. 110.

21 Ibid., chap. 5, p. 115.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., chap. 7, p. 131; chap. 9, pp. 147–148.

24 Ibid., chap. 1, pp. 86–87; chap. 4, pp. 107–108; chap. 5, pp. 112–115; chap. 8, pp. 146–147.

25 Ibid., chap. 5, pp. 114–15; see EW, I, 55–62.

26 In chapter 34 of the Leviathan, Hobbes provides no thematic discussion of body and thus no defense or discussion of why “substance” is identical to “body” or why the universe is simply “the Aggregate of all Bodies.” Hobbes appeals to the “general Acceptation” of the word body in order to refute the fabulous religious dogma of incorporeal substance; there is no serious consideration of the problems of Aristotle's Metaphysics. In chapter 46 Hobbes clearly states his rhetorical intention. He attacks the “school Divinity,” which transforms Aristotle's Metaphysics into “Books of supernatural philosophy,” in order to prevent men from using its “vain philosophy” as the ground for appeal from government and obedience. It is rarely noted that in this chapter Hobbes suggests a difference between Aristotle, who feared the fate of Socrates, and the fabulous “Aristotelity” of the schools. Leviathan, chap. 34, pp. 428–429; chap. 46, pp. 688–689, 691–692. See pp. 1348–1349 and nn. 56-60, infra.

27 EW, I, 3; cf. EW, I, 387.

28 LW, I, 2–3. In describing the end of knowledge, Hobbes remarks, “Scientia propter potentiam; Theorema (quod apud Geometras proprietatis investigatio est) propter problemata, id est propter artem construendi; omnis denique speculatio, actionis vel operis alicujus gratia instituta est.” LW, I, 6. Given the prior composition and publication of the Leviathan, this usage, consistent throughout the De Corpore, cannot be attributed to an “earlier stage” of Hobbes's scientific development.

29 Both terms are used in the Leviathan. They are not differentiated, however, by an analysis of ratiocination that articulates the possibility of knowing the whatness of things, which is not simply the knowing of cause and effect or mere “prudence.” See Leviathan, chap. 9, p. 149; chap. 46, p. 682.

30 LW, I, 3–4.

31 EW, I, 3–6; LW, I, 5; cf. EW, IV, 24–27.

32 EW, I, 10.

33 The articulation of whatness and hence the objects of ratiocination can include, for Hobbes, negative properties. See EW, I, 27. Unless the existence of God is simply denied, the implication is that God is corporeal and finite. Hobbes repeals Bacon's Promethean heresy. EW, I, 98–101, 117–19, 411–12; cf. Bacon, De Sapientia Veterum, XI; Essays, XVI, XVII; “The Advancement of Learning,” Works, ed. Spedding, , Ellis, , and Heath, , 14 vols. (London: 1857–1874), III, 295–319 Google Scholar. See pp. 1343–1344, infra.

34 EW, I, 7.

35 Ibid.

36 “For the Thoughts, are to the Desires, as Scouts, and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired: All Stediness of the minds motion, and all quickness of the same, proceeding from thence,” Leviathan, chap. 8, p. 139.

37 De Cive, V, EW, II, 66–67; De Homine X, 3, LW, II, 90–92. Man is, therefore, the speaking, rational, political animal. Cf. Aristotle Politics 1252b28–1253a20.

38 EW, I, 131–132. So “… the knowledge of the essence of anything is the cause of the knowledge of the thing itself; for, if I first know that a thing is rational, I know from thence, that the same is man; but this is no other than an efficient cause.”

39 So for the ancients although man was not the highest thing, the contemplation of the highest things was always mediated by the problems of the human things. See Aristotle Nic. Eth. 1141a21–1141bl4; n. 10, supra.

40 De Cive, Preface, EW, II, x. Hobbes argues that the most “profitable part of natural science” is the science of man's body. The new science of nature aims to fulfill the desire for eternal life denied man by a jealous God. For Hobbes, as for Bacon and Descartes, medicine is the real queen of the sciences. EW, I, viii; cf. Descartes, , Discours de la Méthode, Sixième Partie, in Oeuvres et Lettres, ed. Bridoux, A. (Paris, 1952), pp. 168–169 Google Scholar; Bacon, , De Augmentis IV: 3 Google Scholar; Novum Organum II: 1 Google Scholar. The fact that knowledge of the infinite is a function of human imagination and is limited by human imagination would be affected, of course, by the possible eternity of human imagination. Hobbes never argues that man is necessarily a finite or ephemeral being, but rather argues that knowledge of what is infinite can never be attained by a finite inquirer. The question of the infinite is not the question of the beginning or eternity of the world, but of the ability of man to conquer natural decay or the Baconian equation of knowledge and power. See EW, I, 7, 98–101, 411–412; cf. Bacon, , De Sapientia Veterum, XI Google Scholar. Hobbes's science of nature does not result in a radical materialism. “First philosophy” does not exhaust the intelligible illumination of nature and does not result in a materia prima as the separable and ontologically real ground beneath a putative phenomenal reality. EW, I, 118. Hobbes unabashedly speaks of the accidents of “Politique Bodies”; surely such bodies are not merely corporeal entities. See n. 45, infra.

41 EW, I, 66–67. Hobbes's emphasis.

42 See pp. 1341–1343, supra.

43 LW, I, 59.

44 We are again reminded of the possibility of ratio-cination from sense and memory, which is not simply reducible to reasoning about cause and effect, and of the logical priority of the question of the whatness of things.

45 “Homo enim non modo corpus naturale est, sed etiam civitatis, id est (ut ita loquar) corporis politici pars. Quamobrem considerandus erat turn ut homo turn ut civis; id est, ultima physicae cum principiis politicae conjungenda erant, difficillima cum facillimis.” De Homine, Ep. Ded., LW, II. see also Leviathan, Intro., pp. 81–83; EW, I, 73–75.

46 De Cive, VII, EW, II, 94 Google Scholar. So among men there is, because of speech, a “contestation of honor and preferment,” and “man scarce esteems anything good, which hath not somewhat of eminence in the enjoyment, more than that which others do possess,” and some men suppose themselves “wiser than the others” and hence claim to rule. De Cive, V, EW, II, 66–67 Google Scholar; see Leviathan, chap. 13, pp. 184–185; chap. 17, pp. 225 ff.

47 EW, I, 67.

48 EW, I, 67–68.

49 The objects of universal cause must always be determinate, differentiable phenomenal wholes particularized “according to some certain accidents or accident” lest “all agents, seeing that all bodies are alike, would produce like effects in all patients.” EW, I, 121.

50 The principles of first philosophy are “the first principles by which we know the διότι of things.” The metaphysics of first philosophy, or natural philosophy universal, which teaches the nature of motion as universal cause, is, therefore, determined by method and the distinction between knowledge τοῦ τιὄ and tow διότι. The order of study that proceeds from first philosophy or the study of universal cause is from first philosophy to geometry, and then to mechanics or the study of the effects of one body upon another, then to physics, and finally to moral philosophy, which studies man as “the subject of physical contemplation.” EW, I, 69–73, 87–88.

51 See n. 22, supra; Leviathan, chap. 5, p. 115. Cf. EW, VII, 183–184. So far is the knowledge of cause and effect from being the sole knowledge of the phenomena of nature that physics is, of itself, indemonstrable. Only when causes are in our power is the knowledge of cause and effect demonstrable with respect to the phenomena of nature. It is for this reason that both knowledge from cause to effect and knowledge from effect to cause are parts of philosophy or science rather than science and prudence respectively.

52 EW, I, 70–73, 87–88.

53 EW, I, 104.

54 EW, I, 117.

55 Ibid. Eadem essentia quatenus generata, forma dicitur. LW, I, 104.

56 EW, I, 57–61. See Leviathan, chap. 4, p. 108; chap. 5, pp. 113–15; chap. 9, pp. 146–47.

57 Ibid. This is the case whether this atomism is “epistemological” or “ontological.” In either case Hobbes's argument begs the question of the kinds of things that exist, which question is, to repeat, comprehended by his teaching about method.

58 EW, I, 19–20.

59 EW, I, 33. Except for the most extreme and vulgar “Platonism,” this remark would hardly be a scandal to the classical tradition. For Christianity it is an anathema.

60 Hobbes's nominalism is at best very inconsistent. While the discussion of common and universal names in the De Corpore is consistent with the metaphysics of the doctrine of method, Hobbes's nominalism is much more radical in explicitly religious or political contexts. Hobbes's nominalism is a necessary component of his methodological rhetoric, which aims at the reformation of common speech and veils the comprehensive teaching about method. See pp. 1349–1351, infra. Watkins has noted the equivocal character of Hobbes's “nominalism” and even hints that practical or moral intentions may govern this nominalism. The point is, however, not whether or not Hobbes maintained a “Humpty-Dumpty theory of truth and falsity” but rather that Hobbes was a new kind of King's man. Watkins, , Hobbes's System of Ideas, pp. 144–50, 158 Google Scholar.

61 Hobbes insists that because of his new political science the “Science of Naturall Justice is the onely Science necessary for Sovereigns.” Leviathan, chap. 31, p. 407. Hobbes was not a simple conventionalist, for the power and scope of his new political science depended on the possible harmony of nature and convention. Thus the positive precepts of civil law are “of equal extent” to or are contained by the laws of nature, to which men are obliged in foro interno in the prepolitical natural condition. Leviathan, chap. 14, pp. 189–192; chap. 15, pp. 201–206, 215; chap. 26, p. 314.

62 See nn. 17, 18, 37, 46, supra.

63 Leviathan, chap. 11, pp. 160–61; chap. 13, pp. 183–88; chaps. 14, 17, 18; De Cive, 111, EW, II, 38–39; EW, IV, 102–105.

64 Leviathan, chap. 15, pp. 203–204. So, too, Hobbes's defense of justice is grounded upon the argument for the commonsensical self-evidence of human equality; see Leviathan,,Intro., pp. 81–83.

65 This simplicity consists in the equation of the precepts of natural law with the precepts of civil law. Leviathan, chap. 26, p. 314.

66 Leviathan, chap. 9, pp. 131, 147–148; cf. EW, IV, 26–30.

67 Leviathan, chap. 6, p. 120; chap. 10, p. 150; chap. II , p. 160; De Homine, XI. 4 Google Scholar, LW, II, 96–97. De Cive, III, EW, II, 47–48 Google Scholar.

68 Leviathan, chap. 15, pp. 215–16; De Homine, XI. 5–15 Google Scholar, LW, II, 96–103; De Cive, III, EW, II, 47–50 Google Scholar.

69 So “… though all men do agree in the commendation of the foresaid virtues, yet they disagree still concerning their nature, to wit, in what each of them doth consist.” De Cive, III, EW, II, 48 Google Scholar. Likewise, “theft, murder, adultery, and all injuries are forbid by the laws of nature; but what is to be called theft, what murder, what adultery, what injury in a citizen, this is not to be determined by the natural, but by the civil law.” De Cive, VI, EW, II, 85 Google Scholar; see Leviathan, chap. 26, p. 314.

70 Mansfield, , Hobbes and the Science of Indirect Government, p. 110 Google Scholar. If the teaching of the Leviathan is a modern cloud it is a familiar cloud. Its common opinion is what would today be called “enlightened” common opinion. As such it champions the quasitheoretical principles of moral relativism and the equation of reason and science in the name of a pre-supposed absolute understanding of the human good. Hence we see that the Leviathan, which purports to spring from the heart-searching of introspective common sense, in fact begins with a doctrine of man based upon the theoretical abstractions of “passion” and “power.”

71 See note 1, supra. See also Peters, , Hobbes, pp. 193–200, 201–203 Google Scholar; Watkins, , Hobbes's System of Ideas, pp. 171 Google Scholar ff; Plamenatz, John, “Mr. Warrender's Hobbes,” Hobbes Studies, pp. 73–87 Google Scholar; Warrender, Howard, “Reply to Mr. Plamenatz,” Hobbes Studies, pp. 89–100 Google Scholar; Barry, Brian, “Warrander and His Critics,” in Hobbes and Rousseau, ed. Cranston, M. and Peters, R. S. (New York: Anchor Books, 1972), pp. 37–65 Google Scholar; cf. Hume, , “Of the Original Contract,” Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 452–473 Google Scholar.

72 Leviathan, chap. 13, p. 188; chap. 14, pp. 189, 192; chap. 15, p. 215.

73 Ibid., chap. 14, pp. 189, 192, 196. The distinction between obligation in foro interno and in foro externo is transferred from the state of nature to civil society when Hobbes argues that “when therefore our refusall to obey, frustrates the End for which the Sovereignty was ordained; then there is no Liberty to refuse: Otherwise there is.” Leviathan, chap. 15, p. 215; chap. 21, pp. 269–274.

74 Ibid., chap. 13, p. 186; chap. 20, pp. 252–253; chap. 21, pp. 264–265. chap. 28, p. 354.

75 Ibid., chap. 14, p. 196; chap. 17, pp. 223–224; De Cive, V, EW, II, 65–66 Google Scholar.

76 Leviathan, chap. 19, pp. 239–40.

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