Hobbes Homework 1

Michelle Piccolino

MPT 2:30pm

Homework #2 Lev. Chapters 5-8

January 24, 2017

1. What is Hobbes’ definition of reason?

Hobbes’ definition of reason can be found through the following quotation “when man reasoneth, he does nothing else but conceive a sum total, from addition of parcels; or conceive a remainder, from subtraction of one sum from another: which, if it be done by words, is conceiving of the consequence of the names of all the parts, to the name of the whole; or from the names of the whole and one part, to the name of the other part” (Hobbes 22).

2. According to Hobbes, how can a person attain reason?

Hobbes states that a reason is not born with people or achieved through experience alone, like sense, memory, or prudence. Instead, people can attain reason “by industry” (Hobbes *). They can do this by “first in apt imposing of names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly method in proceeding from the elements, which are names, to assertions made by connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogisms, which are the connexions of one assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call science” (Hobbes 25).

3. Does nature provide a standard of right (meaning here ‘correct’) reason?

Hobbes writes the following about whether nature provides a standard of right reason “as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord set up for right reason the reason of some arbitrator, or judge, to whose sentence they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever: and when men that think themselves wiser than all others clamour and demand right reason for judge, yet seek no more but that things should be determined by no other men's reason but their own, it is as intolerable in the society of men, as it is in play after trump is turned to use for trump on every occasion that suit whereof they have most in their hand. For they do nothing else, that will have every of their passions, as it comes to bear sway in them, to be taken for right reason, and that in their own controversies: bewraying their want of right reason by the claim they lay to it” (Hobbes 23).

4. How does Hobbes define “glory”?  How does he define “vainglory”?

Hobbes defines glory as, “joy arising from imagination of a man's own power and ability is that exultation of the mind” (Hobbes 34). Hobbes goes on to say that if glory is “which, if grounded upon the experience of his own former actions, is the same with confidence: but if grounded on the flattery of others, or only supposed by himself, for delight in the consequences of it, is called vainglory: which name is properly given; because a well-grounded confidence begetteth attempt; whereas the supposing of power does not, and is therefore rightly called vain (Hobbes 34).

5. Does Hobbes say much about pity?  Later in the semester, we will compare Hobbes on pity with what Rousseau says about pity or compassion.

Hobbes says that “grief for the calamity of another is pity; and ariseth from the imagination that the like calamity may befall himself; and therefore is called also compassion, and in the phrase of this present time a fellow-feeling: and therefore for calamity arriving from great wickedness, the best men have the least pity; and for the same calamity, those have least pity that think themselves least obnoxious to the same” (Hobbes 32).