“Of Darkness from Vain Philosophy”: Hobbes's Critique of the Classical Tradition—ERRATA

Due to mistakes made by the outgoing editorial team, there were several errors in the article by Stauffer in the August 2016 issue of American Political Science Review (2016):

In the affiliation footnote on page 481, the author's name is listed as David Stauffer. It should be listed as Devin Stauffer.

In the first sentence of the paragraph that begins at the bottom of the first column on page 484, the word “aware” should be “unaware.” The sentence should read, “Hobbes cannot have been unaware that Aristotle was not an unambiguous supporter of democracy who thought that democratic principles require only the check provided by the rule of law.”

Thirteen lines from the bottom of the first column on page 485, there should be a dash between “Aristotle in particular” and “is twofold.” The sentence should read, “The deeper difficulty that according to Hobbes besets all prior moral philosophy—and this of course includes classical thought and Aristotle in particular—is twofold.”

Ethica Nichomachea on page 486 and Ethica Nicomachea on page 487 should each be Nicomachean Ethics.

In the second line of the second column of page 487, the word “can” should be “could.” The sentence should read, “Those answers are only partial because Hobbes clearly believed that he could accomplish something far greater than a return to a primitive, uncorrupted past.”

In the second column, second line of the last paragraph on the page 487, there should be a comma between “supernatural” and “or.” The sentence should read, “Now, Hobbes is aware that in using the term ‘metaphysical’ to refer to the supernatural, or to that which is ‘beyond the physical,’ he is following Aristotle's scholastic heirs in taking a questionable step that was not clearly taken by Aristotle himself.”

In column 1, line 14, of page 488, “sufficient before Aristotle's culpability” should be “sufficient for Aristotle's culpability.” The full sentence should read, “Yet it is sufficient for Hobbes—sufficient for Aristotle's culpability—that Aristotle left his own view so opaque and that he spoke so often of ‘substances’ and ‘essences’ (as his terminology came to be translated).”

In column 1, line 23, of page 488, the word “is” after “terrible error” should be removed. The sentence should read, “It is perhaps the most unmistakable evidence of his conviction that Aristotle made a terrible error that Hobbes chooses the context of his criticism of Aristotle to make his own most uncompromising statements on the question of being and the possibility of incorporeal existence.”

The first sentence in the full paragraph in the first column of page 490 should read, “Two indications that this is Hobbes's view of the matter can be found in his critique of the ‘vain philosophy’ of the classical tradition in Chapter 46 of Leviathan.”

In the same paragraph, the quotation mark before “the schoolmen” should be deleted. The sentence should read, “If pushed to clarify this answer, the schoolmen will define heaviness as ‘an endeavor to go to the center of the earth.’”

In line 14 of the first column of page 492, the colon after “fear to another” should be a comma. The sentence should read, “The chief impact of that doctrine, as Hobbes must have envisioned it, would be to move men from one kind of fear to another, that is, away from the superstitious anxiety that, according to Hobbes, grips men by nature or prior to education, and toward a new kind of fear that is a more rational response to finding oneself in an unresponsive, chaotic universe whose dangers are neither exacerbated nor mitigated by ‘invisible powers’ (see Johnston 1986, 100–1, 120–21; Strauss 1959, 181).”

In the second column, line 12, of page 492: “including accepting the restrictions” should be “including accepting the restrictions necessary.” The sentence should read, “It is admittedly something of a speculation—but hardly an implausible one—to suggest that Hobbes thought that, by cultivating a new kind of fear and combatting men's pride, he could put men in a frame of mind to do the work necessary, including accepting the restrictions necessary, to build the only kind of commonwealth that can provide the security we desperately need in our dangerous world.”

We regret these errors.