What does Hobbes say about imagination?

2.1 Sense and Imagination. Imagination is Hobbes’s next topic. His basic thought is that our sensations remain after the act of sensing, but in a weaker way: “after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it” (Hobbes 1651, 2.2).

What are Hobbes main points?

His main concern is the problem of social and political order: how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. He poses stark alternatives: we should give our obedience to an unaccountable sovereign (a person or group empowered to decide every social and political issue).

What is the meaning of the Leviathan Thomas Hobbes?

Hobbes calls this figure the “Leviathan,” a word derived from the Hebrew for “sea monster” and the name of a monstrous sea creature appearing in the Bible; the image constitutes the definitive metaphor for Hobbes’s perfect government.

What are Hobbes assumptions?

He assumes that people are sufficiently similar in their mental and physical attributes that no one is invulnerable nor can expect to be able to dominate the others. Hobbes assumes that people generally “shun death”, and that the desire to preserve their own lives is very strong in most people.

Why is Hobbes philosophy called materialism?

Hobbes was thus a mechanical materialist: He held that nothing but material things are real, and he thought that the subject matter of all the natural sciences consists of the motions of material things at different levels of generality.

What does Hobbes say about human nature?

Hobbes also considers humans to be naturally vainglorious and so seek to dominate others and demand their respect. The natural condition of mankind, according to Hobbes, is a state of war in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” because individuals are in a “war of all against all” (L 186).

Why is Hobbes important today?

He is sometimes considered the first great theorist of the modern state, and is probably most famous for having argued that subjects owe obedience to whoever is able to secure peace and order.

Did Hobbes support the divine right of kings theory?

Hobbes believed in the divine right of kings. Hobbes uses the term Leviathan to refer to democratic government. Hobbes says that in a state of nature, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Hobbes declares that under the law of nature, men need not perform their covenants.

What was Hobbes wrong about?

But moral and political philosophy work differently to political science. Hobbes is wrong to claim that because we create commonwealths, we can deduce the empirical consequences of different kinds of commonwealths. Hobbes misstates the place of empiricism in politics.

What did Hobbes believe was the purpose of government?

The sovereign would make and enforce the laws to secure a peaceful society, making life, liberty, and property possible. Hobbes called this agreement the social contract. Hobbes believed that a government headed by a king was the best form that the sovereign could take.

What is the Faculty of imagination according to Hobbes?

Moreover, Hobbes thinks that understanding is a sort of imagination. That is, the faculty of imagining is responsible for understanding, as well as for compounding images and for memory.

What does Hobbes say about the nature of the mind?

For Hobbes, the mind contains sense, imagination, and the workings of language, and no further rational faculty, such as the Cartesian immaterial mind that can grasp natures by clear and distinct perception. His story about sensation, the formation of ideas, and the workings of imagination is supposed to explain how some of our thought works.

Why does Hobbes start with a story?

Thus even in Leviathan, with its focus on political and religious matters, Hobbes starts with a story about the workings of the mind. The first six chapters work through issues about the senses, imagination, language, reason, knowledge, and the passions.

What does Hobbes talk about in Chapter 2 of Leviathan?

In chapter 2 of Leviathan Hobbes comes to these topics at a slightly surprising point. In the course of discussing the workings of imagination, he talks naturally enough about dreams. Emphasizing the occasional difficulty of distinguishing dreams from waking life, he turns to talk of visions.