not explained by definition; whereof there have been as resting on that mistake.

One aim of this critical passage

abundance coined by schoolmen, and puzzled is to support materialism by showing a problem with the
philosophers. belief that there can be thought without a body. Hobbes
elsewhere claims that Aristotle thinks that “the human
Another, when men make a name of two names, whose soul, separated from man, subsists by itself”, so
significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this presumably has Aristotle and Aristotelians in mind as
name, an incorporeal body, or (which is all one) targets (Hobbes 1668b, 46.17).
an incorporeal substance, and a great number more. For
whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of When Hobbes talks about Aristotelian views, one might ask
which it is composed, put together and made one, signify whether his target is Aristotle himself, or some later
nothing at all (Hobbes 1655, 4.20–1). Aristotelians. When Hobbes talks about Aristotelian
metaphysics in particular, his main approach seems to be
Thus Hobbes apparently thinks that talk about incorporeal to take a certain core view to have been Aristotle’s, then to
substances (such as Cartesian unextended thinking things) criticize both that view and the further uses that were
is just nonsense. But why does he think that? Hobbes’s made of it. Hobbes’s attitude to Aristotelianism comes
comment about false affirmations suggests he thinks that across forcefully in a discussion in Behemoth that begins by
‘incorporeal substance’ is insignificant because ‘a describing Peter Lombard and John Duns Scotus as writing
substance is incorporeal’ is false. But that seems to derive like “two of the most egregious blockheads in the world”
the insignificance from the truth of materialism, which is (Hobbes 1668a, 41–2). That exchange has several
hardly going to convince Hobbes’s opponents. Hobbes elements: the condemnation of the philosophical view as
does offer a supporting argument, when he claims that nonsensical; the claim that some philosophers aim to
‘incorporeal substance’ and ‘incorporeal body’ are “all confuse; and the claim that views are promoted in order to
one”. But that premise too will be denied by his control the public and take their money. However, though
opponents, who think that there can be substances that Hobbes rejected many of the views of the Scholastic
are not bodies, and that ‘substance’ and ‘body’ are far Aristotelian tradition, his work had several connections to
from interchangeable terms. it, as is illustrated by Leijenhorst 2002.
Hobbes offers a further argument against his opponents’ The view that there can be thought without a body is also
belief in immaterial things in De Corpore, in a passage in Descartes’s view. Indeed, Hobbes may be thinking of
which he talks at length about the “gross errors” of Descartes’s argument for that view in the Sixth Meditation.
philosophers. A key claim in Descartes’s argument is that “the fact that I
But the abuse consists in this, that when some men see can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from
that the increases and decreases of quantity, heat, and another is enough to make me certain that the two things
other accidents can be considered, that is, submitted to are distinct” (Descartes 1641a, 2.54). Descartes argues, via
reasons, as we say, without consideration of bodies or that claim, from his ability to clearly and distinctly conceive
their subjects (which is called “abstraction” or “existence of mind apart from body and vice versa, to the conclusion
apart from them”), they talk about accidents as if they that mind and body are really distinct (i.e., are two
could be separated from every body. The gross errors of substances, not one). Abstracting away from the details,
certain metaphysicians take their origin from this; for from we have an argument from the conceivability of mind
the fact that it is possible to consider thinking without without body to the conclusion that the mind is not
considering body, they infer that there is no need for a physical. And such an argument is one of Hobbes’s targets
thinking body; and from the fact that it is possible to in the “gross errors” passage.
consider quantity without considering body, they also think However Descartes, by endorsing that argument, does not
that quantity can exist without body and body without endorse the claim that ‘if I can conceive of A’s existing
quantity, so that a quantitative body is made only after without B’s existing, then A can exist without B existing’.
quantity has been added to a body. These meaningless He endorses at most the weaker claim that ‘if I can clearly
vocal sounds, “abstract substances,” “separated essence,” and distinctly conceive of A’s existing without B existing,
and other similar ones, spring from the same fountain then A can exist without B existing’. There’s a special sort
(Hobbes 1655, 3.4). of conceivability involved here, clear and distinct
The key mistake, Hobbes thinks, lies in moving from the conceivability, which licenses the move in this case but not
observations that we can talk about ‘A’ and ‘B’, and can in general. Hobbes’s argument seems blind to this
think about A without thinking about B, to the conclusion distinction.
that A can exist without B existing. Hobbes attacks various Overall then, something of a puzzle remains. Hobbes
views associated with the Scholastic Aristotelian tradition clearly was a materialist about the natural world, but the
explicit arguments he offers for the view seem rather And it might indeed be the case that both stories about
weak. Perhaps he just had a good deal of confidence in the Hobbes’s method (the Zabarellan and the mathematical)
ability of the rapidly developing science of the his time to have some truth to them.
proceed towards a full material explanation of the mind.
Just as his contemporary William Harvey, of whom he Those writing about Hobbes often describe Zabarella’s
thought very highly, had made such progress in explaining method as having two parts, resolution and composition.
biological matters, so too (Hobbes might have thought) Resolution moves from the thing to be explained, which is
might we expect further scientists to succeed in explaining an effect, to its causes, and then composition brings you
mental matters. back from causes to effects. At a suitably general level that
is correct, but it misses much detail. Most importantly,
4. Method Zabarella’s method — as seen for instance in his work De
Regressu – is better described as having three parts. A
Hobbes was very much interested in scientific explanation crucial though somewhat mysterious third step stands
of the world: both its practice (which he saw himself as between the move from effect to cause and that from
engaged in) and also its theory. Chapter 9 of Leviathan tells effect to cause. The complete sequence, the arguments
us something about the differences between scientific and from effect to cause and back again, Zabarella
historical knowledge, and the divisions between sciences. calls regressus. This sequence improves our knowledge,
Chapter 6 of De Corpore gives a much fuller treatment of taking us from confused to clear knowledge of something.
issues in the philosophy of science, issues of what Hobbes But how do we do this? The first step is to move from
calls method. Method tells us how to investigate things in having confused knowledge of the effect to having
order to achieve scientia, the best sort of knowledge. confused knowledge of the cause. Roughly, you need to
Those writing about Hobbes’s method have tended to tell figure out what caused the thing you’re trying to explain.
one or other of two stories about the sort of method he The second step moves from confused to clear knowledge
proposes and its historical roots. One story emphasizes the of the cause. This step works, Zabarella thinks, by a sort of
connections between Hobbes’s method and Aristotelian intellectual examination of the cause. The aim is not just to
approaches. This has often been developed into a story know what thing is the cause, but to understand that thing.
about the particular influence on Hobbes of the works of The final step then moves from the clear knowledge of the
Giacomo Zabarella, a sixteenth-century Aristotelian who cause to clear knowledge of the effect. That is, your new
studied and taught at the University of Padua, which full understanding of the cause gives you better
influence is then often said to have been somehow understanding of the thing caused by it.
mediated by Galileo. The alternative story emphasizes the Chapter six of De Corpore is Hobbes’s main work on
connections between Hobbes’s general views about method. There Hobbes lays out a model of the proper form
method and the traditions of thinking about method in of a scientific explanation. A proper explanation tells you
geometry. Here the notions of analysis and synthesis are three things: what the cause is, the nature of the cause,
key. Oddly enough, both of these stories can be connected and how the cause gives rise to the effect. Thus Hobbes
to anecdotes that Aubrey tells about Hobbes: on the one accepts the Aristotelian idea that to have the best sort of
hand, the report that Hobbes became friendly with Galileo knowledge, scientific knowledge, is to know something
while traveling in Italy, and on the other, the tale of how through its causes. Similarities to Aristotelian theories such
Hobbes became fascinated with geometry at the age of as Zabarella’s show up even in section one of chapter six.
forty after looking at copy of Euclid’s Elements, not Here Hobbes defines philosophy as knowledge acquired by
believing a proposition, and tracing back the correct reasoning. It is both knowledge of effects that you
demonstration of it and the propositions on which it get through conception of their causes and knowledge of
depended. causes that you get through conception of their visible
This section tells a version of the first story. (For a helpful effects. Already we see signs of the Aristotelian picture in
recent critical discussion of such an approach, see Hattab which you come to know the cause by knowing the visible
2014.) Still, one should note that Hobbes sometimes uses effect and to know the effect by knowing the cause.
the language of mathematical method, of analysis and Moreover, there is perhaps in Hobbes’s method something
synthesis, in describing his general method (Hobbes 1655, like the middle step of regressus. For Hobbes, to know an
6.1). Several commentators have seen this, together with effect through its causes is to know what the causes are
his clear admiration for the successes of geometry, as and how they work: “We are said to know
evidence of a more general use of mathematical notions in scientifically some effect when we know what its causes
his account of method (Talaska 1988). Adams 2019 argues are, in what subject they are, in what subject they
that Hobbes “proceeds by a method of synthetic introduce the effect, and how they do it” (Hobbes 1655,
demonstration” in both geometry and political philosophy.
6.1). The requirement to know how the cause works, not required for scientia, the best sort of knowledge. “Thus
just what it is, is analogous to the Zabarellan requirement philosophy excludes from itself theology, as I call the
to have distinct knowledge of a cause. Knowledge that the doctrine about the nature and attributes of the eternal,
cause exists comes from the first step of regressus. ungenerable, and incomprehensible God, and in whom no
Complete regressus, i.e., complete explanation, requires composition and no division can be established and no
that you make a fuller investigation of the cause. For generation can be understood” (Hobbes 1655, 1.8). Also
Hobbes, analogously, to get to scientia of the effect you excluded are discussion of angels, of revelation, and of the
need to understand, not just what the causes are, but how proper worship of God. But despite these not being,
they work. strictly speaking, philosophy, Hobbes does in fact have a
good deal to say about them, most notably in Leviathan.
Comparison of Hobbes’s view to Zabarella’s and other Things outside philosophy (in its strict sense) may not be
more fully Aristotelian ones is complicated by Hobbes’s amenable to thorough causal explanation in terms of the
thinking that all causes are efficient causes and that motions of bodies, but they may well still be within the
motion is the cause of all change in the natural world. In a limits of rational discussion.
more fully Aristotelian picture, explanations are causal, but
causes can be of several sorts. Hobbes’s picture is more Many people have called Hobbes an atheist, both during
restrictive: to find the causes is to find the efficient causes. his lifetime and more recently. However, the word ‘atheist’
Moreover, he thinks the efficient causes are all motions, so did not mean the same thing in the seventeenth century as
the search for causes becomes the search for motions and it means now. Thus when Mintz (1962), in a study of
mechanisms. Hobbes’s critics that often mentions atheism, summarizes
the reasons those critics gave for calling Hobbes an atheist,
For all that there do seem to be similarities between he lists the views
Hobbes’s method and older Aristotelian approaches, one
might well wonder how Hobbes could have come to know that the universe is body, that God is part of the world and
about Zabarella’s views in particular. One story is that therefore body, that the Pentateuch and many other books
Hobbes learned about this method from Galileo, but that of Scripture are redactions or compilations from earlier
claim is problematic. Galileo did know about Zabarella’s sources, that the members of the Trinity are Moses, Jesus,
ideas and other similar ones (Wallace 1984). However, the and the Apostles, that few if any miracles can be credited
texts of Galileo in which signs of Zabarellan ideas are after the Testamental period, that no persons deserve the
evident are early ones, but Hobbes knew Galileo’s thought name of ‘martyr’ expect those who witnessed the
through his later published works. But even if the ascension of Christ, that witchcraft is a myth and heaven a
Zabarella-Galileo-Hobbes story is hard to support, there delusion, that religion is in fact so muddled with
are other ways in which Hobbes might have learned of superstition as to be in many vital places indistinguishable
Zabarella’s work. Harvey, whose work Hobbes greatly from it, [and] that the Church, both in its government and
admired, and who studied at the medical school in Padua, its doctrine, must submit to the dictates of Leviathan, the
might also have been an intermediary (Watkins 1973, 41– supreme civil authority (Mintz 1962, 45).
2). And it’s far from ridiculous to contemplate Hobbes
reading the work of the popular logician Zabarella. Thus, many of Hobbes’s critics in the seventeenth century,
including those who vehemently attacked his religious
5. Philosophy of Religion views, still thought he believed in the existence of God.
They thought, however, that he was a rather dubious sort
Hobbes’s views about religion have been disputed at great of Christian. Other critics, however, have thought that
length, and a wide range of positions have been attributed Hobbes in fact denied the existence of God. This might
to him, from atheism to orthodox Christianity. This section seem a curious allegation, for Hobbes often talks about
focuses on two central questions: whether Hobbes God as existing. Certainly, to read Hobbes in this way
believes in the existence of God, and whether he thinks requires one to take some of his statements at something
there can be knowledge from revelation. Some important other than face value.
aspects of Hobbes’s approach to religion are left aside.
These include religion’s role in politics (Lloyd 1992), and In the Elements of Law Hobbes offers a cosmological
the question of whether God plays some fundamental role argument for the existence of God (Hobbes 1640, 11.2).
in Hobbes’s ethical system (see Warrender 1957 and However, he argues, the only thing we can know about
Martinich 1992, but also Nagel 1959 and Darwall 1994). God is that he, “first cause of all causes”, exists. Our
knowledge is limited in this way because our thoughts
Hobbes at one point rules a good deal of religious about God are limited: “we can have no conception or
discussion out of philosophy, because its topics are not image of the Deity”. So when we seem to attribute features
susceptible to the full detailed causal explanation that is to God, we cannot literally be describing God (Hobbes
1640, 11.3). We’re either expressing our inability, as when undermine the plausibility of claims to know things
we call God incomprehensible, or we’re expressing our because told by God:
reverence, as when we call God omniscient and just. The
same indeed is going on when we call God a spirit: this is To say he [God] hath spoken to him in a dream is no more
not “a name of anything we conceive”, but again a than to say that he dreamed God spake to him, which is
“signification of our reverence” (Hobbes 1640, 11.3). not of force to win belief from any man that knows dreams
are for the most part natural and may proceed from
Those three views — support for a cosmological argument, former thoughts … To say he hath seen a vision, or heard a
the belief that God is inconceivable by us, and the voice, is to say that he hath dreamed between sleeping
interpretation of apparent descriptions of God as not really and waking; for in such a manner a man doth many times
descriptions — appear to recur in Leviathan (Hobbes 1651, naturally take his dream for a vision, as not having well
11.25, 12.6–9). However, in later work, such as the observed his own slumbering (Hobbes 1651, 32.6)
appendix to the 1668 Latin edition of Leviathan, Hobbes
proposes a different view. The older Hobbes thought that This does not rule out the possibility that God might
we could know God to have at least one feature, namely indeed communicate directly with an individual by means
extension. In his Answer to Bishop Bramhall, Hobbes of a vision. But it does rule out other people sensibly
describes God as a “corporeal spirit” (Hobbes 1662, 4.306). believing reports of such occurrences, for the events
By this he means at least that God is extended. Indeed, reported are easily (and usually if not necessarily always
Hobbes seems to think of God as a sort of extended thing correctly) given a natural explanation as dreams, which
that’s mixed through the rest of the world, not being in themselves have natural causes.
every individual place in the world, but able to affect all Hobbes takes a similarly sceptical attitude to reports of
the things in the world (Hobbes 1662, 4.306–13, especially miracles. Chapter 37 of Leviathan is a discussion of this
4.309–10). topic, centred on Hobbes’s definition of a miracle as “a
Whatever one thinks of the orthodoxy of Hobbes’s earlier work of God (besides his operation by the way of nature,
views — and one might take the holder of those views just ordained in the creation), done for the making manifest to
to be a very serious believer in the rather orthodox view his elect the mission of an extraordinary minister for their
that God is incomprehensible — this later view that God is salvation” (Hobbes 1651, 37.7). Though there is some
corporeal is strange indeed. However, Hobbes does seem dispute about exactly what Hobbes is doing there, there
in his Answer to Bishop Bramhall and the Appendix to the clearly is a good deal of talk about “false” or “pretended”
Latin edition of Leviathan to believe this strange view miracles, with an emphasis on the possibility of trickery,
sincerely. Indeed, he goes to some pains to defend this as and a warning about believing too hastily in reports of
an acceptable version of Christianity. Whether or not one miracles. The conclusion is weaker than that of Hume’s
believes that, this is still on the surface an odd theism more famous argument about the evidence for belief in
rather than atheism. miracles, but a similar sceptical attitude is present.

Even if Hobbes is some sort of theist, he’s a theist who is The case has often been made, however, that Hobbes was
sceptical about many widely held religious views. This is not just somewhat sceptical about some religious claims,
notable to some extent in his critical reading of biblical but actually denied the existence of God. The idea is that,
texts, which was not at all a standard approach at the time. though Hobbes says that God exists, those statements are
Indeed, Hobbes and Spinoza often get a good deal of credit just cover for his atheism. Moreover, these interpreters
for developing this approach. It’s notable too in his claim, there are various pieces of evidence that point to
treatment of matters related to revelation. this hidden underlying view. Opinions differ on what the
crucial evidence of the hidden atheism is. Jesseph (2002),
In chapter 2 of Leviathan Hobbes comes to these topics at for instance, argues that Hobbes’s claims about a material
a slightly surprising point. In the course of discussing the God do not add up. Curley (1992) argues that Hobbes’s
workings of imagination, he talks naturally enough about discussions of prophecy and miracles, taken together,
dreams. Emphasizing the occasional difficulty of contain a suggestive problem.
distinguishing dreams from waking life, he turns to talk of
visions. Dreams had in stressful circumstances, when one There is (what I would take to be) a fairly obvious problem
sleeps briefly, are sometimes taken as visions, Hobbes says. of circularity here: in the chapter on miracles we are to
He uses this to explain a supposed vision had by Marcus judge the authenticity of a miracle by the authenticity of
Brutus, and also widespread belief in ghosts, goblins, and the doctrine it is used to support, but in the chapter on
the like. Later he uses it to account for visions of God prophecy we had to judge the prophet’s claim to be God’s
(Hobbes 1651, 32.6). And Hobbes explicitly uses this to spokesman by his performance of miracles. If Hobbes is
aware of this circularity, he does not call attention to it.
Perhaps he just did not notice it. Perhaps, as Strauss might endeavour, which have application both to physics and to
have suggested, he leaves it to the reader to discover this mathematics. And Leibniz twice in the 1670s wrote letters
for himself. (Curley 1992, §5). to Hobbes, though it is unclear if Hobbes ever received
them, and there is no evidence of any replies. Leibniz
There are some tricky general methodological questions continued, moreover, to engage with Hobbes’s work
here, about when we can reasonably say that an author is throughout his philosophical career, even if that
trying to communicate a view other than the one engagement was never quite as intense as it was in a brief
apparently stated. Note, however, that for someone early period. There is, for instance, a discussion of
allegedly covering up his atheism to avoid controversy, Hobbes’s views in the 1709 Theodicy.
Hobbes took the curious approach of saying many other
intensely controversial things. He was opposed to free will Looking beyond Leibniz, we can see some close
and to immaterial souls, opposed to Presbyterianism and connections between the work of Hobbes and that of
to Roman Catholicism, and managed to have anti-royalists Locke and Hume, both of whom were well aware of
thinking he was a royalist, but at least one prominent Hobbes’s views. Locke’s connections to Hobbes, though
royalist (Clarendon) thinking he supported Cromwell. This perhaps not obvious, are there (Rogers 1988). Think of
was not a recipe for a quiet life. One might see Hobbes as Locke’s empiricism (i.e., anti-nativism), his attention to
thinking that these things could be said with controversy, language and its workings and related errors, his granting
but God’s existence only denied with genuine danger. But at least the possibility of materialism being true, and his
one needs, at least, a fairly complex story about Hobbes’s scepticism about revelation. Hume, meanwhile, begins
attitudes in order to sustain the view that he was sneakily his Treatise with his view about ideas being less intense
suggesting that God didn’t exist. copies of our sensations, a view with a close resemblance
to Hobbes’s view about decaying sense. Russell (1985;
6. Reception 2008) argues convincingly that Hume modelled the
Hobbes was a widely read and controversial author. In structure of the Treatise on that of Hobbes’s Elements of
many cases, the discussion of his philosophy was about his Law. And Hume, like Hobbes, combines apparent
political philosophy (Goldie 1994, Malcolm 2002). acceptance of a basic cosmological argument with
However, Hobbes’s non-political views were also discussed. scepticism about many religious claims. Indeed there are
The Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth, for example, enough connections that it’s plausible to speak of “the
devoted considerable energy to arguing against Hobbesian empiricism of Hobbes…, Locke…, and Hume” (Nidditch
atheism and materialism. Cudworth’s Cambridge colleague 1975, viii), rather than of the more conventional trio of
Henry More was also a critic of Hobbes. Margaret Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
Cavendish, meanwhile, reacted to Hobbes’s work and
developed her own non-Hobbesian materialism.

One important connection is that between Hobbes’s work

and Leibniz’s. Of all the canonical philosophers in the
period from Descartes to Kant, Leibniz is probably the one
who paid most attention to Hobbes’s work, and had the
most to say about different aspects of it. Leibniz found
Hobbes’s work worthy of serious engagement, but
ultimately also thought it mistaken in many ways. On the
other hand, later empiricist philosophers, in particular
Locke and Hume, develop several Hobbesian themes.
Indeed, one might well speak of Hobbes, not Locke, as the
first of the British empiricists.

The best known parts of Leibniz’s interaction with Hobbes

are from early in Leibniz’s philosophical career, before
1686, the year in which Leibniz wrote his ‘Discourse on
Metaphysics’ (Bernstein 1980; Jesseph 1998; Moll 1996,
103–36; Wilson 1997). His criticism of Hobbes’s
nominalism, and his early adoption of the view that
reasoning is computation, were both discussed above.
Leibniz also paid a good deal of attention to Hobbes’s
views about motion, in particular those about conatus or