Hobbes, Leviathan

Introduction

• begins with automata, production of artificial life from artifice; compared then to the Leviathan, the Commonwealth (7)
• reading; wisdom acquired not by reading books, but men; nosce teipsum, read thyself -- get to know men by reading mens actions and thoughts and comparing them to oneself; Hobbes says he is reading himself to better know mankind's nature

Of Speech

• printing not as great of an invention as letters; but letters not as great as speech
• "True and false are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood." (23)

absurdity: IV.13, V.5; "jingling of words" is "accounted folly" (VIII.10); speaking in tongues (VIII.27)

curiosity: VI.35, XI.25

not speech but body reveals passions (VI.56)

science is conditional knowledge, not absolute knowledge (VII.4); nature of belief (VII.5-7)

madness of the multitude (VIII.21, XI.20); against enthusiasm (VIII.25)

philosophical madness (VIII.27) -- like speaking in tongues

"Likewise there reigned a fit of madness in another Grecian city which seized only the young maidens, and caused many of them to hang themselves. This was by most then thought an act of the devil. But one that suspected that contempt of life in them might proceed from some passion of the mind, and supposing they did not contemn also their honour, gave counsel to the magistrates to strip such as so hanged themselves, and let them hang out naked. This, the story says, cured that madness." (VIII.25)

link between patronage economy and emergent capitalism seen in Hobbes' notion of honoring/dishonoring as the "value" of a man (see X.17-38); also X.50, honor of vestments is in the riches they're worth, not intrinsic to the garment

desire: XI.1

fundamental equality between men: XIII.1