Abstract
Hobbes didn’t know L’Homme of Descartes when he outlined his materialism, and controversies that opposed them (on optics and Meditationes) did not directly relate to physiology. However, this was probably the area where they were the closest. That’s why we here propose to trace the scheme of the Hobbesian physiology and its sources to estimate to what extent they are related or not to Descartes, or whether (which we support here) they seek common sources.
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Notes
- 1.
Hobbes again urged these points in dedicatory epistle of the First Draught of the Optiques (1645–6) and in Six Lessons, and added that Walter Warner took him the idea that images are subjective (1656). Anyway the letter to Newcastle on 16 October 1636, in which Hobbes rejected sensible species, and developed a theory of the propagation of light by the milieu (a letter containing a critic of Galileo) already claimed obviously that light and colours are nothing but effects of a motion within the brain.
- 2.
Concerning Hobbesian criticism of Dioptrics, see J. Bernhardt, “La Dioptrique de Descartes dans le Tractatus opticus II”, in Revue Internationale de Philosophie, n°129, 1979; M. Blay, “Genèse des couleurs et modèles mécaniques dans l’oeuvre de Hobbes”, Thomas Hobbes. Philosophie première, théorie de la science et politique, Paris, PUF, 1990. For an accurate reading of the optique of Hobbes: J. Bernhardt, “Hobbes et le mouvement de la lumière”, in Revue d’histoire des sciences, n°30, 1977; J. Médina, introduction and commentary of the optique of De Homine, in the critical edition and French translation, dir. J. Terrel, Parin, Vrin, 2015, and “Hobbes’s Geometrical Optics”, in Hobbes Studies, vol. 29–1, april 2016. See also A. Lupoli, “Optics, Simple Circular Motion and Conatus”, ibid.; F. Giudice, “Optics in Hobbes’s Natural Philosophy”, ibid.
- 3.
Concerning these objections, see E. Curley, “Hobbes contre Descartes”, in Descartes. Objecter et répondre, Paris, PUF, 1994; J. Terrel, “Le matérialisme de Hobbes dans les Troisièmes Objections”, in Hobbes et le matérialisme, dir. J. Berthier, A. Milanese, Paris, Editions matériologiques, 2016.
- 4.
We will not analyse the relation between Hobbes and Descartes in general. See also E. Marquer, “Ce que sa polémique avec Descartes a modifié dans la pensée de Hobbes”, and A. Bitbol-Hesperies, “L’Homme de Descartes et le De Homine de Hobbes”, in Hobbes, Descartes et la métaphysique, Paris, Vrin, 2005. The second paper gives many elements for an accurate comparison. The author considers however out of discussion that Cartesian thought is anterior and decisive to explain the beginning of Hobbesian physiology and natural philosophy. That is precisely the point we want to question.
- 5.
J. Terrel, Hobbes. Vies d’un philosophe, PUR, 2008.
- 6.
Correspondence, ed. N. Malcolm, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994, vol. I, p. 33, we have modernized spelling.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Not the first, because its content was already in De Corpore.
- 9.
Op. cit.
- 10.
Also before, without any doubt, but we do not know much about 1644 (Hobbes worked on his Critique of De Mundo, till the middle of 1643), because of lack of preserved correspondence. We only know that Hobbes ended his Cogitata physico-mathematica, published by Mersenne in 1644, took a close look at Descartes’s Principia philosophiae and received reactions to his De Cive, first published, in a short version, in 1642.
- 11.
About corpuscularism, long present in England (Thomas Harriot and also Francis Bacon can give testimonies), see R. H. Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966; B. Gemelli, Aspetti dell’atomismo classico nella filosofia di Francis Bacon et nel seicento, Leo S. Oschki, 1996. Percy’s and Welbeck’s circles were not foreign to the transmission of Hariot’s works: in 1631, Warner published the Artis analyticae praxis of Thomas Hariot, and John Wallis wrote on 20 July 1683 that at least a part of Hariot’s papers were once in Hobbes’s hands. See K. Schuhmann, Hobbes. Une chronique, Paris, Vrin, 1988. Here we have the factual reasons why he was late interested in Harvey: Hobbes found contributors to achieve a project of which he long perceived the difficulty.
- 12.
Fundamenta physices, 1646; Fundamenta medica, 1647.
- 13.
A part of the Cogitationes, 1646.
- 14.
For a study of the manner Hobbes, Petty and Bathurst reappraised and criticized Harvey and Descartes, see J. Medina, “Physiologie mécaniste et movement cardiaque: Hobbes, Harvey, et Descartes”, in Lecture de Hobbes, Paris, Ellipses, 2013, from whom we borrow many elements. For the idea of a mechanization of the thesis of Harvey by English physicians, after 1645, see R. G. Franck Jr., Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists, University of California Press, 1980; “Medecin”, in ed. Tyacke, The History of the University of Oxford, vol. IV, Oxford University Press, 1997.
- 15.
See M. Feingold, “The Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies”, in ed. Tyacke, The History of the University of Oxford, op. cit., pp. 413sq.
- 16.
Thomas Hobbes : Leben und Lehre, 3rd edition, Stuttgart, 1925.
- 17.
Introduction and commentary to his edition and French translation of Short Tract, Paris, PUF, 1988.
- 18.
See our arguments in A. Milanese, “Sensation et phantasme dans le De Corpore: que signifie, chez Hobbes, fonder la philosophie sur la sensation?”, in Lumières, n°10, 2007.
- 19.
See “Robert Payne, the Hobbes Manuscripts, and the ‘Short Tract’”, in Aspects of Hobbes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2002. He gives a summary of the controversies concerning this text. See also a study to which N. Malcolm also refers, by T. Raylor, “Hobbes, Payne, and A Short Tract on First Principles”, The Historical Journal, 44, 2001, pp. 29–58.
- 20.
As was shown by Richard Tuck in 1988, and T. Raylor and N. Malcolm agree.
- 21.
As was already shown by K. Schuhmann.
- 22.
Astronomia pars Optica, 1604.
- 23.
Dioptrice, 1611.
- 24.
See M. Feingold, “An early Translator of Galileo and a friend of Hobbes: Robert Payne of Oxford”, in ed. North and Roche, The Light of Nature: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science Presented to A. C. Crombie, Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff, 1985, pp. 265–280; “The Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies”, op. cit., p. 414.
- 25.
Hobbes often mentioned Copernic. See for instance Decameron physiologicum (1678), chap. IX for his statute of beginners of modern physics.
- 26.
Despite his reputation of late philosopher: accepting mechanism and becoming a philosopher, in the systematic meaning of the term, are different things, even if Hobbes did not make this difference when he wrote in his autobiographies that, in 1634, when he met Mersenne, he was then counted as a “philosopher”.
- 27.
See J. Medina, in De Homine, op. cit.
- 28.
See N. Malcolm, “Hobbes and the Royal Society”, in Aspects of Hobbes, op. cit. This article has also the merit to contribute to demolish the wrong image, partly due to his quarrel with Boyle seen from Boyle’s side, of a philosopher opposed to experimentation. See also J. Terrel about the political context of the genesis of this reputation, “Hobbes et Boyle: enjeux d’une polémique”, in La philosophie naturelle de Boyle, dir. M. Dennehy and C. Ramond, Paris, Vrin, 2009.
- 29.
See W. Pagel, William Harvey’s Biological Ideas, Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers, 1967
- 30.
About Bathurst and this collaboration with Hobbes, see J. Medina, “Physiologie mécaniste et mouvement cardiaque: Hobbes, Harvey, et Descartes”, op. cit.
- 31.
Concerning Hobbes, De Homine, chap. 1, and concerning Bathurst, Praelectiones tres de respiratione (1655–6), unpublished while Bathurst was alive, and published by T. Warton, in The Life and literary Remains of Ralph Bathurst, 1761.
- 32.
About the heart and respiration, see J. Medina, “Physiologie mécaniste et mouvement cardiaque: Hobbes, Harvey, et Descartes”, op. cit. See also R. Garau, “Springs, Nitre, and Conatus. The Role of the Heart in Hobbes’s Physiology and Animal Locomotion”, in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2016.
- 33.
De Homine, chap. 1, op. cit., Paris, Vrin, 2015.
- 34.
About the relation between Bacon and Hobbes, see J. Bernhardt, “Sur le passage de Fr. Bacon à Th. Hobbes”, Etudes philosophiques, n°4, 1985; R. Bunce, “Thomas Hobbes’ relationship with Francis Bacon – an introduction”, Hobbes Studies, vol. XVI, 2003; J. Terrel, “Comment Hobbes devient Hobbes”, in Lumières, n°10, 2007; A. Milanese, “L’histoire de la science et de ses institutions de Bacon à Hobbes: un héritage critique”, in Archives de philosophie, 77–1, 2014, et “Sur le passage de Bacon à Hobbes: un système et ses tensions”, in Philosophical Enquiries – revue des philosophies anglophones, n°4, 2015.
- 35.
See also A. Milanese, “‘History as psychology’: de quoi est faite une psychologie empiriste chez Bacon?”, in Dix-septième siècle, n°3, 2014.
- 36.
De anima et vita, 1538.
- 37.
Commentarius de anima, 1540.
- 38.
De humani corporis fabrica, 1543.
- 39.
See K. Park, “The organic soul”, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
- 40.
The difference is that, according to Bacon, this superiority is a sign that what Scriptures tell on that subject is believable, whereas, according to Telesio, this superiority is a way, for philosophy, to demonstrate that there is an immaterial soul.
- 41.
About Campanella and Hobbes, see E. Sergio, “Hobbes lecteur de Campanella: autour des sources cachées du matérialisme hobbésien”, in Hobbes et le matérialisme, op. cit.
- 42.
See J. Bernhardt, “La polémique contre la Dioptrique dans le Tractatus Opticus II”, op. cit.
- 43.
Correspondence shows an early interest in this subject, around Hobbes: on 17 October 1634, Warner asked Payne to deliver to Hobbes the problem of refraction. He also wanted what Mydorge had written on this subtect-matter, and he thought that Hobbes could obtain it, which shows that, in 1634, Hobbes knew well Mydorge and this kind of question. And, on 13 june 1636, Hobbes wrote (from Lyon) to Newcastle that Mydorge just sent to Charles Cavendish his treatise on refraction (Prodomi, books III and IV, which were to be published in 1639).
- 44.
On this point, see A. Milanese, “L’accès intellectual à Dieu chez Hobbes”, in Hobbes et la religion, Bordeaux, PUB, 2012.
- 45.
“Among every available phenomenon, the most admirable is to phaïnesthaï”, De Corpore, IV, 25, we translate.
- 46.
Elements of Law, I, 5, 9. In this occurrence, the phrase “read thyself” is the basis of the whole philosophy, because sensation is a mental act thanks to which the whole world appears.
- 47.
De Homine, chap. 2–9, and then 11–13.
- 48.
Ibid., chap. 11–15. And in Leviathan, introduction, the phrase “read thyself” is the basis of anthropology and political science.
- 49.
See for instance J.-L. Marion, “Hobbes et Descartes: l’étant comme corps”, in Hobbes, Descartes et la métaphysique, op. cit.: he reconstructed Hobbesian theory of knowledge on the basis of the Cartesian list of simple natures, but restricted to material simple natures.
- 50.
De Homine, dedicate.
- 51.
For an interesting political implementation of this idea of a Cartesian prism in the way Hobbes is read, and for the reasons why we should read more accurately Hobbesian anthropology today, see S. Frost, Lessons from a Materialist Thinker, Stanford University Press, 2008.
- 52.
The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (1936) and Natural Right and History (1953).
- 53.
G. Ryle, “Descartes’ myth”, in The Concept of Mind, Hutchinson, London, 1949.
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Milanese, A. (2016). Hobbes and Descartes on Anthropology: Is There a Debt of Hobbesian Anthropology to L’Homme?. In: Antoine-Mahut, D., Gaukroger, S. (eds) Descartes’ Treatise on Man and its Reception. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46989-8_15
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