Hobbes's redefinition of the commonwealth

TY - CHAP

T1 - Hobbes's redefinition of the commonwealth

AU - Stanton, Tim

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - Hobbes’s definition of the commonwealth may seem an unlikely candidate for inclusion in a volume about causation. It has two claims to appear here, as involving positions about the causation of commonwealths, and as contributing to the causal conditions which to his mind sufficed for their existence. This essay argues that Hobbes’s definition has philosophical bearings which affect his account of politics in ways that are fundamental but seldom addressed by commentators. It argues, firstly, that Hobbes resembled Aristotle in his view of first philosophy, but that he otherwise thought in very different philosophical terms from Aristotle. These terms affected the significance of the definitions he propounded and conditioned his attitude to those he wished to supplant: for they indicated, secondly, that the right settling of definitions was not merely a matter of speculative importance, but a matter of ineluctably practical importance. The essay shows that Hobbes’s definitions, in contrast to those of some of his contemporaries’, presupposed non-Aristotelian views of both causality and generation. Those views are seen to have pointed implications for his understanding of the causes and generation of the commonwealth. Not least they imply revisions to conventional readings of Leviathan as an account of the creation of a body politic by individual agents out of a state of nature. Thus a new Hobbes comes into view.

AB - Hobbes’s definition of the commonwealth may seem an unlikely candidate for inclusion in a volume about causation. It has two claims to appear here, as involving positions about the causation of commonwealths, and as contributing to the causal conditions which to his mind sufficed for their existence. This essay argues that Hobbes’s definition has philosophical bearings which affect his account of politics in ways that are fundamental but seldom addressed by commentators. It argues, firstly, that Hobbes resembled Aristotle in his view of first philosophy, but that he otherwise thought in very different philosophical terms from Aristotle. These terms affected the significance of the definitions he propounded and conditioned his attitude to those he wished to supplant: for they indicated, secondly, that the right settling of definitions was not merely a matter of speculative importance, but a matter of ineluctably practical importance. The essay shows that Hobbes’s definitions, in contrast to those of some of his contemporaries’, presupposed non-Aristotelian views of both causality and generation. Those views are seen to have pointed implications for his understanding of the causes and generation of the commonwealth. Not least they imply revisions to conventional readings of Leviathan as an account of the creation of a body politic by individual agents out of a state of nature. Thus a new Hobbes comes into view.

KW - Thomas Hobbes, causation, commonwealth, Robert Filmer, generation, metaphysics, philosophy of language.

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-0-415-88355-9

T3 - Routledge advances in the history of philosophy

SP - 104

EP - 122

BT - Causation and modern philosophy

A2 - Allen, Keith

A2 - Stoneham, Tom

PB - Routledge

CY - New York

ER -