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Part 1: Of Man 1-16

#102: Jan. - Feb. 2012 (Non-Fiction)
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President Camacho

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Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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The First Part:

Of Man



Included:

Introduction
1. Of Sense.
2. Of Imagination.
3. Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations.
4. Of Speech
5. Of Reason and Science.
6. Of the Interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions, commonly called the Passions; And the Speeches by which they are expressed.
7. Of the Ends or Resolutions of Discourse.
8. Of the Vertues, commonly called Intellectual, and their contrary Defects.
9. Of the Severall Subjects of Knowledge.
10. Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and Worthinesse.
11. Of the Difference of Manners.
12. Of Religion.
13. Of the Naturall Condition of Mankind as concerning their Felicity and Misery.
14. Of the first and second Naturall Lawes, and of Contract.
15. Of other Lawes of Nature.
16. Of Persons, Authors, and things Personated.
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heledd
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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Well I got to chapter 13, and still can make no sense of it. But this has helped with chapter 1
http://josephnobles.wordpress.com/2006/ ... chapter-1/
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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Wow. Go ahead and post some thoughts on what you've read! :)

I read that webpage. I've read elsewhere that passages in the book are a direct assault on philosophies - natural or otherwise. Aristotle in his Politics, I believe, echoed Plato in that our perceptions are flawed reality. I don't know what he said in his metaphysics but from what I heard, most of what is in that book is bunk. I think Aristotle needs to be forgiven though because of that period's lack of scientific tools of inquiry such as microscopes and so on. Besides, he was in a transitional period from a time when men reached truth through irrefutable discussion rather than irrefutable observed fact by controlled experimentation.

We have an attack on not only ideas themselves but on this culture's propensity to hold on to one idea while excluding all others - new or old. This is dangerous when truth is the goal. When Hobbes' refers to Christendom and its reliance on Aristotle - he's writing this in the 17th century! Aristotle died in the 4th century BC!!!
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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Suggestions from Dr. Steven Smith:

"A lot can be done simply with Hobbes’s Introduction to Leviathan (what does he mean by nature? How does the creation of a commonwealth imitate God’s creation? Why is the commonwealth described as an “artificial” body? What conception of human nature is being offered here?)

Chapter 13: the state of nature. Why is the state of nature a condition of war? What does he mean by war (this is more complicated than it might appear)? Why does TH believe this? What evidence does he provide?

Chapter 14: what is a law of nature? TH calls the pursuit of peace the first and fundamental law of nature. If the state of nature is a state of war, how does it come about that anyone should ever trust anyone enough to pursue peace? TH compares his first law of nature to the rule of Gospels. Is the law of nature based in religion?"
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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I thought it interesting that he claims that all thought comes from the senses. So if we had no sight, sound, touch, smell, etc? we would have no thoughts? But apparently not, because the workings of our body also cause sensations, and that our thoughts are actually clearer in dreams, because we are unaware of external stimulii. Except of course, we are. Am I making the tiniest bit of sense?
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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You're making perfect sense! I have just begun the book but I want to toss out there an idea that maybe he means that all knowledge is gained by way of the senses and so the reality that we know is only our own perception of it - and not the whole picture or 'truth'.

I feel like I've heard the dream thing before... sounds extremely Greek.

Dreams, it seems to me, are also products of the inputs we've received via our sensory perception organs of touch, sight, taste, smell, hearing. These mingle with our emotions such as desires or fears and the mind explores possibilities. Maybe what he means is that because we are not inundated with inputs - such as now... I'm watching myself type this; I'm listening to the news; my coffee smells and tastes good; and I'm conscious of my clothes on my body, the keys as I punch them, and so on... we can think more clearly. When we sleep, we're possibly more detached from our senses and are able to concentrate?

That we can think clearer in dreams doesn't make much sense, though, in the grand scheme of things if all we know is false because our sensory organs have failed to deliver us an accurate account of reality.
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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I'm going to tangle myself up in knots. Aren't used to discussing philosophical issues! But actually, when you think about it, a lot of people who have a problem to solve decide to stop fretting about it, and just 'sleep on it'. Whcih brings me to something else I often wonder about - is it possible to think without thoughts? Or at least conscious thought? I must say, that on the second reading of the first part, he is starting to make more sense, once you get used to the weird spelling, etc.
Hobbes also has interesting things to say about speech. He bel;ieves that 'without words, there is no possibility of reckoning of Numbers;'. I don't think that can be - because mathematics is in itself a language
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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It seems that Hobbes is saying in the beginning that all men are in a state of war with all other men, or were in a state of war until a commonwealth (government) was created. My question is how was it possible to create a commonwealth in the midst of a war of essentially everyone against everyone. He seems to be discounting (and this is not something I am sure of) something I have always thought that man is fundimentally a social animal. At what point and how these warring parties decided it would be in their best interest to cooperate with others is unclear. How could language ever have been created with a constant state of war of everyman against everyman? I can see how groups of men (tribes/clans etc) could create a language and a commonwealth (government), individual men could create a language, but it would be ineffective until they were able to teach it to others. I hope this makes sense, it seems to me that this war of everyman against everyman is the foundation of what he is trying to build. Looking forward to others thougts.
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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It's a good thing you guys are here.

I felt completely lost with Chapter 1 and I think I understood one or two sentences in Chapter 2. After reading your posts and skimming back over the chapters I think I now have at least a hint of what he's talking about.

I follow the theory of dreams being closer to reality due to the lack of confusing input from the senses. But isn't it having had the experience of sensations, and therefor the memory of sensations, that allows us to dream in the first place? I saw something the other day, I think it was on an Arizona Iced Tea cap, that every face you see in a dream is a face that you have once seen in reality and it has been implanted in your memory. If that's the case, and I really can't believe I'm citing the Arizona Ice Tea bottle when we're talking about Hobbes, then wouldn't that imply that we are incapable of imagining a human face that we have never seen in reality? Would Hobbes agree with that?

Heledd, I found that part about the mathematics and words interesting also. It seems to me that it conflicts with one of the basic tenets of mathematics which is that it is a universal truth. No matter where you are in the universe, whether you know it or not, whether you can put it in words or not, one plus one equals two. At least that's the best of my elemental understanding of mathematics. Is that not the case?
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Re: Part 1: Of Man 1-16

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I'm just starting the section called OF MAN. Hobbes talks about the "body politic," using the metaphor of a human body to represent the Commonwealth. "Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal." (pg. 7 of the Oxford edition). He goes on to identify the parts of the "artificial man." The sovereignty he sees as the soul, the magistrates and other officers as the joints, etc. Thus, Hobbes appeals to a sense of order which was being sought during this time of great political unrest when he wrote Leviathan.

Anyway, this metaphor of the body politic reminds me of the Great Chain of Being, a concept that was probably well known during this time. The basis for the Chain comes from the Greeks who supposed that existence is better than non-existence and over time this idea evolved into a hierarchal chain of being—God, the Supreme being, at the very top, on down to humans and animals and, finally, to lifeless matter, such as rocks and dirt (the nearly non-existent). Christians, of course, latched on to the idea to justify their own political hierarchy and gave humans a special place somewhere in the middle of this hierarchal chain, above the animals, but below angels.

Image

Everything has a place on the Great Chain of Being. For example, in the animal kingdom the lion is more noble than the dog, the dog more noble than the chicken, and so on. Among metals, gold was noblest and stood highest. Under the human hierarchy, the king is noblest and stood highest.

Similarly, it was supposed that the man stands at the head of the family, the woman and children under him. Just as a king ruled his subjects, the parent ruled the child, and the sun governed the planets.

So, you can definitely see vestiges of the Great Chain in Hobbes' Leviathan.

By the way, it may help to think of Leviathan as a scientific text at a time when the science wasn't very advanced. But I think Hobbes' instincts about the nature of Man and our state of war is mostly compatible with modern science. I'm seeing some amazing parallels to Dawkins' The Selfish Gene here. For example, Hobbes will go into the idea that even in our warlike state, we give special consideration to relatives. We now have a better understanding, or at least some plausible theories (gene-centrism and kin selection), that explains this apparent altruism. So I think Hobbes was right about a lot of things, even if he was right for the wrong reasons. Of course, he was right for the right reasons too. In Chapter I, he talks about the propensity of objects to stay in motion, anticipating Newton's laws of motions. "When a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it." (pg. 10).

One last random comment. Hobbes uses the term "fancy" to mean sensing something, not wanting it. This was tripping me up at first. All of our perceptions are derived from the senses and that process is internal. Thus, when we see, or smell, or hear an object, we fancy it. It is the person's internal experience of an external object.
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