Chapter Two. Hobbes’s Natural Philosophy

This chapter examines Hobbes’s critique of the classical tradition. Although Hobbes directed much of his fire at scholasticism, the key target of his critique was Aristotle, whom he regarded as the most important source of the tradition he opposed. Hobbes’s critique of Aristotle consists of two main lines of argument—one moral-political, the other metaphysical—that ultimately prove to be connected. This chapter examines each line of argument on its own and then explores the connections between them.

Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Natural (archaeology) · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Scholasticism · History · Law · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought