Words and Things in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes

托马斯·霍布斯哲学中的词语和事物

• 批准号: 2387544
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2387544
• 关键词: Words; Things; Philosophy; Thomas; Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was one of the most influential and controversial philosophers in seventeenth century Europe. His magnum opus, Leviathan (1651), is widely regarded as the most influential work of political philosophy written in English, and through the 1668 Latin edition it has had a tremendous influence on continental political philosophy as well. Leviathan remains a canonical text for historians and political scientists alike for its contribution to the theory of natural rights, social contracts, and political representation. In the field of intellectual history, Hobbes has acquired a special prominence, and was indeed one of the first subjects of the 'contextualist' method of historical writing through the work of Quentin Skinner. Yet this widespread interest in Hobbes' political thought has often led to the anachronistic impression that Hobbes was primarily, if not solely, a political philosopher. This does not reflect his seventeenth century reputation. Indeed, Hobbes was already in his sixties when Leviathan was published, and by that time had acquired a formidable reputation as a natural philosopher, logician, geometer, and translator. This was Hobbes as he was known to Galileo, Mersenne, Descartes, and Leibniz. In continental Europe, Hobbes was particularly notorious for his confrontation with Descartes and his followers over the role of language in mediating between the mind and the world. It is precisely this aspect of Hobbes' thought with which I am concerned. Dubbed by Leibniz as plusquam nominalis [more than a nominalist], Hobbes argued that 'reasoning depends on names', and that truth and falsehood were 'properties of speech, not of things.' These remarks generated considerable international controversy. In what would become a familiar complaint against Hobbes, Descartes asked 'if [Hobbes] admits that words mean something, why does he not want our reasoning to be about the something signified, rather than merely about words?' The prevailing concern was that the distinction between right and wrong, or reality and fiction, could be dismissed as mere linguistic convention on Hobbes' account. Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole devoted a section of their hugely influential logical textbook, La Logique, ou l'Art de Penser (1662), to refuting Hobbes' claims about language, referring to them as 'false opinions promoted by an Englishman.' Seth Ward went so far as to suggest that Hobbes' pronouncements on language were intended 'to teach that nothing is good or bad in itself.'Given the substantial attention paid to Hobbes' nominalism by his contemporaries, it is surprising that this aspect of Hobbes' thought remains largely unexplored by historians. As Cees Leijenhorst has noted, there remains no clear historical account of the character or development of Hobbes' conception of the relationship between words and things. It is because of this lacuna that there has been an unhealthy reliance in the historiography on polemical interpretations provided by Hobbes' contemporaries. A recent example of this trend can be found in The Early Modern Problem of Universals (2017), where Hobbes' nominalism is considered in two articles by Stewart Duncan and Stefano Di Bella. Both scholars begin from Leibniz' premise that Hobbes was a 'super-nominalist' (Leroy Loemker's dramatic translation of plusquam nominalis), and attempt to find passages in Hobbes' De corpore (1655) conformable to that description. This is a problematic methodology. It seems patent that the question for Hobbes scholars cannot be 'was Hobbes a supernominalist?', a term which he did not use and could not have anticipated. Instead, Hobbes' own intentions in advancing a linguistic account of reason, truth, and perception must be recovered. By contextualising Hobbes' most notorious texts on language within specific seventeenth century debates on the relationship between words and things, I would aim to provide a clear historical account of his nominalism.

托马斯·霍布斯（Thomas Hobbes）（1588-1679）是十七世纪欧洲最具影响力和最有争议的哲学家之一。他的大酒店（Magnum Opus）Leviathan（1651）被广泛认为是用英语写的最有影响力的政治哲学作品，通过1668年的拉丁版，它对大陆政治哲学也产生了巨大影响。利维坦（Leviathan）仍然是历史学家和政治科学家对自然权利，社会契约和政治代表理论的贡献的规范文本。在知识历史领域，霍布斯（Hobbes）获得了特殊的突出性，确实是昆汀·斯金纳（Quentin Skinner）的作品“情境主义”历史写作方法的第一批主题之一。然而，这种对霍布斯政治思想的普遍兴趣常常导致过时的印象，即霍布斯主要是政治哲学家，即使不是仅仅是政治哲学家。这并不能反映他17世纪的声誉。的确，霍布斯已经六十多岁了，当时利维坦出版了，到那时，霍布斯已经获得了自然哲学家，逻辑学家，地理表和翻译的巨大声誉。这是霍布斯（Hobbes），因为他是伽利略，梅尔森（Mersenne），笛卡尔（Descartes）和莱布尼兹（Leibniz）的所知。在欧洲大陆，霍布斯（Hobbes）与笛卡尔（Descartes）及其追随者有关语言在思想与世界之间进行调解方面的作用而尤为臭名昭著。我关心的正是霍布斯思想的这一方面。霍布斯（Hobbes）被莱布尼兹（Leibniz）称为加quam nominalis（不仅仅是名义主义者），他认为“推理取决于名字”，而真理和虚假是“言语的特性，而不是事物的特性”。这些言论引起了巨大的国际争议。在什么是对霍布斯的熟悉的抱怨中，笛卡尔问：“ [霍布斯]是否承认单词意味着某件事，为什么他不想让我们的理由是关于某些事物所含义的，而不仅仅是关于言语的呢？”普遍的担忧是，对与错，现实与虚构的区别可以被视为霍布斯的说法仅是语言惯例。 Antoine Arnauld和Pierre Nicole致力于其巨大影响力的逻辑教科书，La Logique，Ou L'Art de Penser（1662），以驳斥Hobbes关于语言的主张，称它们为“由英国人推动的虚假观点”。塞思·沃德（Seth Ward）甚至暗示了霍布斯（Hobbes）对语言的说法是指教导说，没有什么是好是坏。”````''引起了他的同时代人对霍布斯的名义主义的极大关注，令人惊讶的是，霍布斯思想的这一方面在很大程度上仍然没有被历史学家解释。正如Cees Leijenhorst所指出的那样，对霍布斯对单词与事物之间关系的构想的特征或发展的历史记录尚无清楚。正是由于这种空白，人们对霍布斯同时代人提供的辩论解释的史学对史学一直存在不健康的依赖。这一趋势的最新例子可以在《普遍现代的现代问题》（2017年）中找到，其中霍布斯的名义主义在斯图尔特·邓肯（Stewart Duncan）和斯特凡诺·迪·贝拉（Stefano di Bella）的两篇文章中被考虑。这两种学者都始于莱布尼兹的前提：霍布斯是“超级新手主义者”（勒罗伊·洛斯克（Leroy Loemker）的戏剧性翻译Plusquam nominalis），并试图在霍布斯（Hobbes）的de corpore（1655）中找到符合该描述的段落。这是一种有问题的方法。霍布斯学者的问题似乎不能是“霍布斯是一个超级医师？”，这是他没有使用且无法预料的术语。取而代之的是，必须恢复霍布斯（Hobbes）自己的意图来推进理性，真理和感知的语言解释。通过将霍布斯在十七世纪关于单词与事物之间关系的特定语言辩论中的最臭名昭著的文本，我的目标是对他的名义主义提供清晰的历史记载。