The principal claim of this thesis is that Hobbes neither argues for, nor is committed to, psychological egoism. More positively, I construct a reading of Hobbes which gives a non-egoistic theory of character the role of supporting his political theory. In so doing I present a Hobbes whose mechanistic psychology and account of self-preservation are neutral with respect to the character of men in civil life. I deny that there are any compelling reasons to treat Hobbesian individuals as predisposed to some form of egoism. What I refer to as a "theory of character" is what Hobbes treats under the headings of "dispositions" and "manners". I conclude that Hobbes has ample room within his psychology for civic virtues and for motivations at odds with psychological egoism. Contrary to Gauthier, who argues that Hobbes is committed to psychological egoism because of details in his mechanistic psychology, I contend that the mechanistic basis of the psychology is what disallows any ascription of egoism to Hobbes. I do this without following either McNeilly or Gert: the former of whom believes that Hobbes' materialism is irrelevant to the remainder of his philosophy, and the latter of whom believes that the materialism is destructive of any motivational theory at all. Disagreeing with all three, I argue for a positive and constructive relationship between Hobbes' materialism and psychology. In particular I claim that one aspect of Hobbes' materialism - the account of endeavour or conatus - constitutes a general theory of dispositions, one implication of which is that human dispositions are not fixed in any way that would be necessary to create the character of the egoist. So, far from being the reason why Hobbesian individuals are egoists, his materialism provides what I take to be the best reason for thinking that they are not. To argue that Hobbesian individuals are not egoistic, and to base that claim on features of his materialism is one thing; but of course the reason alluded to - features of his materialism - is arcane to say the least. There are other reasons available to support the same conclusion, and these reasons are far more accessible than the first. These reasons derive from descriptions Hobbes gives of the character of the best kind of men (those whom I use the term "magnanimous" to refer to). I consider the range of character traits in question, and conclude that Hobbes was certainly impressed by older chivalric and martial virtues, despite being a strong proponent of a more civilian code of virtues. My method for looking into these qualities of character assumes a particular point of view. The point of view in question is historical: I consider what Hobbes says about character in terms of the social context centring on the Jacobean and Caroline aristocracy. My strategy here is designed to do two things. Firstly, I wish to support the claim that Hobbes discusses character traits for which there are no obvious egoistic interpretation. And secondly, I wish to shed some light on why Hobbes was so exercised by the social impact of certain motives; particularly those connected with power, honour, and worth. The material I cover is precisely that which interested Macpherson. However, unlike him I do not believe that Hobbes1 analysis of social interactions was one unwittingly suffused with details taken from early English capitalism. Rather, my argument is that Hobbes' conception of the pitfalls in the path of civility was largely based on his understanding of aristocratic character. Following Keith Thomas I suggest that Hobbes was a critic of the culture for which honour was the dominant concern; although in some respects a sympathetic critic. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

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Orientador: Roberto Romano da Silva / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-28T22:21:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Queiroz_MarianaAmaral_M.pdf: 13366046 bytes, checksum: 5b858e1e46c28a8cd057dba1903b20e8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2001 / Resumo: A filosofia política de Thomas Hobbes é nosso ponto de partida para uma análise do conceito de soberania. Da forma como se encontra descrita nas obras políticas do autor, como o poder supremo e absoluto, a soberania tomou-se o cerne da concepção moderna de Estado. Por outro lado, a teoria da soberania de Hobbes continua, nos dias de hoje, a suscitar considerações de grande relevância política, e. g., reflexões sobre democracia, sobre legitimidade, e outros ternas. Buscamos neste trabalho, em primeiro lugar, assinalar alguns aspectos originais da teoria política de Hobbes e descrever, brevemente, o seu lugar na história do pensamento político. Em seguida, tendo por referência o De Cive, procuramos reconstituir os argumentos que o levaram a postular a necessidade de um poder absoluto como condição formal para a existência da própria comunidade política. Para tanto, retomamos os fundamentos de sua civil science, observando, também, como nela é engendrado o conceito de soberania. Os princípios da teoria política de Hobbes, de acordo com ele próprio, devem ser extraídos da natureza do homem. Pretendemos mostrar nesta dissertação, que esses fundamentos são, para o autor, a razão e o interesse próprio, e que o entendimento do significado desses fundamentos é essencial para a compreensão do conceito de Commonwealth. Outra questão que pretendemos abordar em profundidade concerne à noção de pacto, urna vez que a idéia de soberania está intimamente ligada em Hobbes à uma concepção peculiar dessa noção teórica. Em virtude disso, foi possível tecer algumas considerações sobre as presumidas tendências autoritárias do autor, e sobre a sua concepção secular da política. Tais questões são inevitáveis quando se examina em profundidade os fundamentos sobre os quais Hobbes edifica a sua teoria soberania / Abstract: Thomas Hobbes's Philosophy of Politics is our prior concern here since we intend to analyze the concept of sovereignty. Described in his political system as the absolute and supreme power within civil society, that concept became the core of the Modern State Theory. From another standpoint, Hobbes's view on sovereignty also contributes nowadays to discuss great issues on Politics such as democracy and legitimacy of power. Our aim here is, first, to present some considerations about Hobbes's remarkable political enterprise, showing some of its oddities to the politics of his own day and briefly describing its place in the History of Political Thought. Second, based on the theory presented in De Cive, we try to exhibit the arguments that lead the author to state an absolute power as a formal condition to any political community. Two things must be considered in order to accomplish our account of the theory: its basis, and how it begets the abstract idea of a sovereign power. According to Hobbes, the tenets of his political theory are to befound in man 's nature. As we try to show here, they are defined as reason and self-interest. lt is a fundamental task to comprehend the meaning of those principies, since we wish to understand what kind of Commonwealth Hobbes establishes in his political science. Another point to be stressed is Hobbes's notion of covenant. For his idea of Sovereignty strongly depends on this theoretic device. Furthermore, we draw from his particular conception of sovereignty some conc/usions about Hobbes's vigorously authoritarian position, and issues concern the secularism of his political theory, among several other topics / Mestrado / Mestre em Filosofia

Orientador: Yara Adario Frateschi / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T08:48:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Segala_VaniaDantas_M.pdf: 518928 bytes, checksum: 63931e2937ece8594b282cdf259bfb66 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: O presente trabalho pretende analisar os conceitos de razão e reta razão em Hobbes com o objetivo de compreender melhor o estatuto das leis de natureza nessa Teoria. Pois ainda que Hobbes afirme que a razão é frágil perante as paixões, que é capaz de erro e engano, que não é uma faculdade infalível, ele também nos diz que o uso diligente e rigoroso da razão possibilita a ciência bem como a dedução das regras de comportamento que conduzem à paz e à preservação de si. Como as leis de natureza são deduzidas a partir da razão, consideramos que uma investigação dessa faculdade, aliada à consideração da natureza humana, nos permite compreender melhor a questão da obrigação em Hobbes. Para tanto, pretendemos resgatar o uso que Hobbes faz dos termos razão e reta razão e comparar com os conceitos de razão e reta razão na tradição. Também nos propomos a tratar brevemente da questão da obrigação em Hobbes e como ela foi é compreendida pelos comentadores. / Abstract: The present work intends to analyze the reason and right reason in Thomas Hobbes. In this manner we aim to understand the operation of natural laws on this theory. Hobbes recognizes the fragility of reason confronted to passions, he tells us reason is prone to mistakes and deceive and it is not an infallible faculty. But in the other hand he supports that the very use of reason allows the existence of science, and through reason we can obtain that conduct rules necessary to lead us to self-preservation and peace. Since natural laws are deduced from reason, inquiring into this faculty allow us a better comprehension of the obligation in Hobbes. To achieve this, we intend to analyze the Hobbes's use of terms reason and right reason and proceed with a confrontation on traditional conceiving of reason and right reason. We also propose to deal briefly about obligation in Hobbes and how this subject is understood by Taylor e Warrender. / Mestrado / Filosofia / Filosofia

Hobbes' argument in Leviathan can be viewed as a response to the question of why rational human beings should choose to organize themselves into a state. In Hobbes' words, the argument, in large part, attempts to establish the 'causes' of a 'commonwealth'. However, the fact of the matter is that human beings do not organize themselves into a. state; rather, they organize themselves into a plurality of states. The question then becomes one of determining — again in Hobbes' words — the 'causes' of a plurality of 'commonwealths'. In other words, why do rational human beings choose to organize themselves into separate states? It is not clear to me that Hobbes' answered this question; nor is it clear to me that Hobbes' arguments can be extended in order to provide a satisfactory answer to this question. Since international theory is concerned with the plurality of states, it seems reasonable to suppose that an 'Hobbesian' tradition in international thought would have provided at least some insight into the question of the 'causes' of such a plurality. In other words, an 'Hobbesian' tradition in international thought must have at least considered why it is that several Leviathans would emerge from the state of nature. However, having examined the current conception of the 'Hobbesian' tradition, I found that it was simply the 'realist' tradition under a different label; a tradition to which Hobbes' name had been appropriated. Furthermore, I found that the appropriation of Hobbes' name was justified on the basis of his chapter 13 analogy which compared— albeit in a limited way — his theoretical inference of the state of nature with his observations of relations among sovereigns. I argue that the analogy, being neither a definition nor an inference, has no theoretical relationship with Hobbes' main argument; in which case it cannot form the basis of a genuine Hobbesian tradition. Having established that the current Hobbesian tradition is not a genuine one, I propose that a genuine tradition should a least render an account of the emergence of several Levaithans from the state of nature and conclude that this cannot be done without compromising Hobbes' account of the state. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

Contemporary Hobbesian contractarianism began in the wake of John Rawls' revitalization of contractarianism in A Theory of Justice and the subsequent body of critical literature which has grown up around it. Philosophers have been impressed with Rawls' powerful application of a contractarian framework to traditional issues in moral and political philosophy but dismayed at the extensive normative precommitments of his particular contractarian theory. They have thus sought an equally powerful contractarian approach unwed to strong normative precommitments. Of all extant contractarian theories, Thomas Hobbes' theory in Leviathan uniquely constitutes such an approach. Like all contractarians, Hobbes specifies a hypothetical choice problem consisting of a choice environment, a choice problem, and a method of resolution. But Hobbes' choice environment purports to make virtually no substantive normative precommitments. The strength of Hobbesian contractarianism is that it seeks to generate substantive normative conclusions from premises established in a normatively minimalistic theoretical framework, and thus promises not to beg any fundamental normative questions. This dissertation considers in detail three comprehensive and game-theoretically sophisticated books which are central to the current corpus of contemporary Hobbesian contractarianism. These are Jean Hampton's Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, Gregory Kavka's Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, and David Gauthier's Morals by Agreement. We explain the common denominators and points of divergence among these theories while undertaking an extensive critical investigation of each. Two fundamental themes emerge from these investigations. First, Hobbesian contractarianism tends to run afoul of collective action problems at various levels of its overall argument. Collective actions problems arise when the requirements of individual and collective rationality diverge. Second, the normative minimalism which is heralded as the primary virtue of Hobbesian contractarianism is also revealed as one of its fundamental problems. By minimalizing its normative precommitments, Hobbesian contractarianism undermines its ultimate goal of generating powerful normative conclusions.

Hobbes opera um arranjo argumentativo de forma a estruturar um novo esqueleto conceitual dos termos principais do seu original projeto politico-filosófico. O presente trabalho pretende dar conta de percorrer o labirinto argumentativo, que envolve a inclusao e a exclusao dos ambitos de validade entre lei natural e lei positiva. A trajetória intelectual hobbesiana é permeada por definições contrastantes entre termos e atua na direção de fazer com que uma possvel contenda sobre a extensao ou preeminencia entre os termos se dissipe, afrouxando a contraposição entre eles. Imagina-se ter um ganho de compreensao desse n6 com que amarra a lei natural e a lei civil, atendo-se a s suas articulaC6es. A exposição visa apontar alguns elementos-chaves da tessitura fina da relação entre lei natural e lei positiva, como, por exemplo, razão natural, razão soberana, ação e intenção, direito de resistência,"silencio da lei". Utiliza-se de partes da peça Antígona de Sófocles para ilustrar alguns dos seus pontos, somando a ela interpretações modernas que podem ser sugestivas do movimento teórico hobbesiano. Identifica-se, ao final, na literatura crtica, várias afirmações dos interpretes quanto a s reconciliações conceituais com que Hobbes opera e sugere-se que esse pode tambem ser o caso na relação entre lei natural e lei civil. Alem disso, propõe-se que esses elementos-chaves podem ser as pistas para percorrer esse labirinto argumentativo. / Hobbes makes a theoretical arrangement in order to structure a new skeleton of conception from main terms of his political and philosophical original project. The present text intends to search his theoretical labyrinth, which involves the spheres of inclusion and the exclusion between law of nature and civil law. The Hobbes~ way of argue is building with contrast definitions, but he pleads they are no antagonism. The author seeks understand how the links between right of nature and civil right are articulated. For this, he exposes key elements as natural right, reason of commonwealth, action and intention, right of self-defence, "silence of law". He lays hold of Antigone by Sofocles and modern interpretations hereof illustrate points of this presentation. In the end, it is showed opinions of specialists, who mention conceptual reconciliations in his system. It is suggested that conceptual reconciliation meet the case to describe the relationship between law of nature and civil law and also, the key elements are the traces to roam about his theoretical labyrinth.

My thesis examines Thomas Hobbes's attempt to develop a mathematical account of nature. I argue that Hobbes's conception of how we should think quantitatively about the world was deeply indebted to the ideas of his ancient and medieval predecessors. These ideas were often amenable to Hobbes's vision of a demonstrative, geometrically-based science. However, he was forced to adapt the ancient and medieval models to the demands of his own thoroughgoing materialism. This hybrid resulted in a distinctive, if only partially successful, approach to the problems of the new mechanical philosophy.

La filosofía política de Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) tiene como fundamento último una teología política que deduce del cristianismo el fundamento del poder absoluto del soberano. A esta altura del estado del arte, esto no resulta nada nuevo, y la importante literatura al respecto, que mencionaremos más adelante, así lo demuestra, lo que no deja de sorprender en un pensador que fue considerado por mucho tiempo como un ateo. Sin embargo, nos parece que el uso que hace Hobbes de las Escrituras es muchas veces incorrecto, inadecuado, reductor y acomodaticio, dejando fuera aspectos esenciales del cristianismo y, destacando sólo aquellos que les sirven para sus propósitos. De forma tal, que, por un lado, su teología política es discutible, y, por otro, su interpretación de las Escrituras acrecienta, en vez de disminuir, su fama de ateo. En consecuencia, pensamos, que es necesario realizar un análisis crítico del lugar que ocupa la religión, y el cristianismo, en su sistema de ideas para apreciar lo bien o mal fundada que resulta su filosofía política cuando a los argumentos filosóficos se agregan los teológicos. Éste será nuestro aporte al tema, la crítica a los fundamentos de su teología política. Creemos que Hobbes hace un uso abusivo de las Escrituras para darle un fundamento religioso a su política, de esta forma, pretende darle una mayor fuerza persuasiva a sus escritos, y un fundamento superior a su filosofía política. Ésta es nuestra tesis. Nuestra estudio, en consecuencia, tiene como propósito analizar la relación entre religión y política en la filosofía de Thomas Hobbes con el fin de evaluar el lugar que la religión ocupa en su filosofía política, al punto de que se pueda hablar de la existencia de una teología política en su filosofía. Entendemos por teología política, una política cuyos fundamentos son religiosos o teológicos.

Hobbes opera um arranjo argumentativo de forma a estruturar um novo esqueleto conceitual dos termos principais do seu original projeto politico-filosófico. O presente trabalho pretende dar conta de percorrer o labirinto argumentativo, que envolve a inclusao e a exclusao dos ambitos de validade entre lei natural e lei positiva. A trajetória intelectual hobbesiana é permeada por definições contrastantes entre termos e atua na direção de fazer com que uma possvel contenda sobre a extensao ou preeminencia entre os termos se dissipe, afrouxando a contraposição entre eles. Imagina-se ter um ganho de compreensao desse n6 com que amarra a lei natural e a lei civil, atendo-se a s suas articulaC6es. A exposição visa apontar alguns elementos-chaves da tessitura fina da relação entre lei natural e lei positiva, como, por exemplo, razão natural, razão soberana, ação e intenção, direito de resistência,"silencio da lei". Utiliza-se de partes da peça Antígona de Sófocles para ilustrar alguns dos seus pontos, somando a ela interpretações modernas que podem ser sugestivas do movimento teórico hobbesiano. Identifica-se, ao final, na literatura crtica, várias afirmações dos interpretes quanto a s reconciliações conceituais com que Hobbes opera e sugere-se que esse pode tambem ser o caso na relação entre lei natural e lei civil. Alem disso, propõe-se que esses elementos-chaves podem ser as pistas para percorrer esse labirinto argumentativo. / Hobbes makes a theoretical arrangement in order to structure a new skeleton of conception from main terms of his political and philosophical original project. The present text intends to search his theoretical labyrinth, which involves the spheres of inclusion and the exclusion between law of nature and civil law. The Hobbes~ way of argue is building with contrast definitions, but he pleads they are no antagonism. The author seeks understand how the links between right of nature and civil right are articulated. For this, he exposes key elements as natural right, reason of commonwealth, action and intention, right of self-defence, "silence of law". He lays hold of Antigone by Sofocles and modern interpretations hereof illustrate points of this presentation. In the end, it is showed opinions of specialists, who mention conceptual reconciliations in his system. It is suggested that conceptual reconciliation meet the case to describe the relationship between law of nature and civil law and also, the key elements are the traces to roam about his theoretical labyrinth.