Thomas Hobbes- GROUP 3

2. Background
 Born in Westport near
Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England
 April 5, 1588-December 4, 1679
 The Elements of Law and Natural Politic
 Leviathan (1651)

4.  Spanish armada
 Fathers name: Thomas Sr.
 Robert Latimer
 John Wilkinson

5. •
Studied at Oxford University in England
• Main interests are Political Philosophy. History,
Ethics and Geometry
• Influenced by Aristotle, Thucydides, Tacitus, Rene
Descartes, and Hugo Grotius
• Modern founder of the social contract tradition;
life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short”.

6.  Physical doctrine of emotion
 Physical momentum
 The Elements of Law, Natural & Politic
 De Cive or in English “The Philosophical
Rudiments Concerning Government and Society
in 1651”

7.  Mathematical instructor
 Young Charles
 Prince of Wales
 Political crisis resulting to war
 The state: “great artificial man or
monster” (LEVIATHAN)

8. The
Leviathan

9.  A condition wherein there is the absence of
government
 Hobbes terms this situation “the condition of mere
nature”, a state of perfectly private judgment, in
which there is no agency with recognized authority to
arbitrate disputes and effective power to enforce its
decisions.
 Hobbes assumes that people generally “shun death”,
and that the desire to preserve their own lives is very
strong in most people.
 Hobbes ascribes to each person in the state of nature
a liberty right to preserve herself, which he terms “the
right of nature”.

11.  The state of nature is the state of war.
 It is “the war of all against all”.
 The right of each to all things invites serious
conflict, especially if there is competition for
resources, as there will surely be over at least scarce
goods.
 Conflict will be further fuelled by disagreement in
religious views, in moral judgments, and over matters
as mundane as what goods one actually needs, and
what respect one properly merits.

13.  A form of government represented by a sea monster
wherein the head symbolizes the sole ruler of the state
and the body composes of the people or the citizens of
the state.
 Hobbes believed that an absolute monarchy - a
government that gave all power to a king or queen was best. Its powers must be neither divided nor
limited.
 Needed to suppress or prevent the state of nature that
can eventually lead to a state of war.

14. The
government represented by
Leviathan ‘sea
monster’
Needed to suppress
or prevent
State of Nature
Can eventually
lead to a
State of War
The Summary of the Leviathan

16. BOOKS
AND
WRITINGS

17. 1707- “Arithmetica”
1707-1708- “Philosophical Commentaries”
1709- “An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision”
1710- “A Treatise Concerning the Principle of
Human Knowledge”
1713- “Three Dialogues Between Hylas and
Philonous”
TOTAL NUMBERS OF WRITINGS BEING
PUBLISHED: 300 WRITINGS from 1707- 1932

18. CONTRIBUTIONS
TO
PHILOSOPHY

19. “We have no direct ‘idea’ of spirits, albeit we have
good reason to believe in the existence of other
spirits, for their existence explains the purposeful
regularities we find in experience”
(“It is plain that we cannot know the existence
of other spirits otherwise than by their
operations, or the ideas by them excited in
us”, Dialogues #145)
“Reflection on the attributes of that external
spirit leads us to identify it with God. Thus a
material thing such as an apple consists of a
collection of ideas (shape, color, taste, physical
properties, etc.) which are caused in the spirits of
humans by the spirit of God.”

20. “There are only two kinds of things: spirits and ideas.
Spirits are simple, active beings which produce and perceive
ideas; Ideas are passive beings which are produced and
perceive.”
“I do not argue against the existence of any one thing
that we can apprehend, either by sense ore ref lection. That
the things I see with mine eyes and touch with my hands do
exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only
thing whose existence we deny, is that which philosophers
call mater or corporeal substance. And in doing of
this, there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I
dare say, will never miss it. ” (Principles #35)

21. He believed God to be present as an immediate cause of
all our experiences.

He concluded that the source of our sensations
could only be God; He gave them to man, who had to see
in them signs and symbols that carried God's word.

Berkeley believed that God is not the distant
engineer of Newtonian machinery that in the fullness of
time led to the growth of a tree in the university
quadrangle. Rather, the perception of the tree is an idea
that God's mind has produced in the mind, and the tree
continues to exist in the quadrangle when "nobody" is
there, simply because God is an infinite mind that
perceives all.

22. Berkeley's proof of the existence of
God:
Whatever power I may have over my own
thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense
have not a like dependence on my will. When in broad
daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose
whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular
objects shall present themselves to my view; and so
likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas
imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is
therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them.
(Berkeley. Principles #29)

23. “
There is not any substance other than spirit.”
 Berkeley rejects Locke’s belief that the world
only contains two fundamental stuffs – Mind
and Matter
Berkeley disagrees that there is any world
beyond our ideas.

24. Berkeley’s Philosophy
Negative:
Berkeley’s Project can be seen as
fundamentally destructive. He seeks to tear down
an edifice of confusion.
Berkeley has a religious agenda.
Positive:
Berkeley wants to motivate men of speculation
to behave virtuously. In this way, Berkeley’s
philosophy should be seen as motivational and
even inspirational

25. Agon, Tiffany
Abenilla, Erica Vanessa
Besa, Edjhonmar
DelaCruz, Jhoana Marie
Magay,Gabriel
Panagsagan, Zoe
Sulit, Paula Jane