Abstract
Hobbes praises Galileo in the dedicatory epistle of De corpore, presenting the Italian scientist as a sort of Prometheus of physics for having uncovered the mysteries of the nature of motion. However, because of the central role played by the notion of movement in Hobbesian philosophy, we have to imagine that Galileo’s influence was not limited to the field of physics, but that it represented the very foundations of the mechanical image of the world developed by Hobbes.
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Notes
- 1.
See De corpore, Epistola dedicatoria, OL, I, n. pag.
- 2.
See Jesseph 2004, who specifies that the principles of Hobbes’ philosophy are rooted in the concepts elaborated by Galileo and, in particular, that Hobbes drew ‘the fundamental idea that the world is a mechanical system in which everything can be understood in terms of mathematically-specifiable laws of motion’ from the Italian scientist and philosopher (ibid., 191). For a detailed examination of this matter see Paganini 2010, 24 ff.; Paganini 2015. Interesting observations on the relationship between Galileo and Hobbes can also be found in Brandt 1928, esp. 77–84; Pacchi 1965, esp. 74–75; Gargani 1971, 50 ff., and 170–173. As regards the debt owed by Hobbesian physics to Galileo, see Leijenhorst 2004, which we will discuss in greater depth in the next chapter.
- 3.
Galileo to Fulgenzio Micanzio, 1 December 1635, OG, XVI, 355.
- 4.
After saying that he was in London to look for a copy of the Dialogue, which he was unable to find, Hobbes comments: ‘I heare say it is called in, in Italy, as a booke that will do more hurt to their Religion then all the bookes have done of Luther and Calvin, such opposition they thinke is betweene their Religion, and naturall reason, I doubt not but the Translation of it will here be publiquely embraced, and therefore wish extreamely that Dr Webbe would hasten it’. Hobbes to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, from London, 26 January [/5 February] 1634, CH, I, 19. The text of the translation, in two volumes, which is complete but was never published, is stored at the British Library: MS Harley 6230.
- 5.
See Giudice 2011; Bucciantini, Camerota and Giudice 2012, 133–159. Richard Blackbourne, in his biography of Hobbes, writes that Hobbes actually had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Galileo in Pisa and that the two of them developed a firm friendship (see Blackbourne, Vitae Hobbianae Auctarium, OL, I, xxviii). However, the passage contains several inaccuracies: firstly, Galileo was not in Pisa at the time, but under arrest at his villa in Arcetri. What is more, the presumed encounter between the pair must have been quite brief, since by 26 December 1635, Hobbes and Cavendish were already in Rome, staying at the Jesuit English College. See Schuhmann 1998, 47.
- 6.
See Vita Carmine Expressa, OL, I, lxxxix. See also above, ‘Introduction.’
- 7.
- 8.
Hobbes to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, from Paris, 16 [/26] October 1636, CH, I, 38. See Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, OG, VII, 102. The first to identify the reference to Hobbes in the first day of the Dialogue was Brandt. See Brandt 1928, 145.
- 9.
Hobbes to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, from Paris, 16 [/26] October 1636, CH, I, p. 38. Hobbes’ ‘Galilean’ position must also have been shared by Sir William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, as can be deduced from an earlier letter from Hobbes to William Cavendish, where he wrote that he shared the Lord’s opinion ‘That the variety of thinges is but the variety of locall motion in ye spirits or invisible partes of bodies. And That such motion is heate.’ Hobbes to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, from Paris, 29 July/8 August 1636, CH, I, 33.
- 10.
- 11.
See Boyle, The Origine of Formes and Qualities. In Boyle 1999–2000, V, 284–285. On this aspect of Boyle’s thought see Anstey 2000, 15–112. Kargon claimed that the mechanist philosopher did not ‘create’ the distinction between primary and secondary qualities from scratch, but had instead relegated some of the Aristotelian qualities to the level of secondary qualities. See Kargon 1966. As we will see further on in the chapter and in Chapter 6, the translation of Aristotelian language and concepts in order to adapt them to the requirements of mechanism are aspects peculiar both to Galileo and Hobbes’ thinking. Regarding the importance of the distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary qualities’ in reference to the translation of the natural reality into quantifiable terms that can be expressed mathematically, see Crombie, ‘The primary and secondary qualities in Galileo Galilei’s natural philosophy’, (1969). In Crombie 1990, 323–343. On the importance of the distinction for the genesis of modern science and the central role played by Galileo’s The Assayer in the development of the concept of the primary or essential qualities of bodies, see Gaukroger 2006, 326 ff. Sorell and Leijenhorst observe that the Lockean distinction between primary and secondary qualities is not present in Hobbesian thinking since, according to Hobbes, reality is composed purely of bodies in motion and every quality is simply a phantasia in the sentient being. See Sorell 1986, 79 and Leijenhorst 2007, esp. 93. In a certain sense (as we will see later on), their intuition is correct, as Hobbes reduces the ‘primary qualities’ to just one: corporality. Nevertheless, I feel it is less credible to state that Hobbes would support a position similar to that of Berkeley: ‘that apparent form and extension vary with the perceiver just like secondary colors such a color, which means that size and other primary qualities cannot be in the alleged external substance either’. (Ibid.).
- 12.
TO II, chap. I, § 23, fol. 203r/159 (my trans.): ‘Ego cum de natura diaphani cogitarem, consideravi imprimis omnem notitiam quam habere possumus qualitatum sensibilium, derivari ab obiectorum in organa sensum actione; sensum autem esse motum in partibus cerebri; non potui effugere conclusionem hanc, diversitatem qualitatem sensibilium provenire a diversitate motuum.’ See also ibid. chap. IV, § 16, fol. 249r/209: ‘Cum autem id quod propter apparentiam externam appellatur Color, aliud non sit realiter praeter motum internum in partibus a fundo oculi ad Cor (in quo origo est omnis sensionis) propagatum, sequitur diversitatem colorum apparentium aliud non esse praeter diversitatem illorum motuum.’
- 13.
EL, Part I, chap. II, § 4, 3. See, in this regard, the words of the author of the Short Tract. Hobbes 1988a, 44: ‘Light, Colour, Heate, and other proper obiects of sense, when they are perceiv’d by sense, are nothing but the severall Actions of Externall things upon the Animal spirits, by severall Organs. and when they are not actually perceiv’d, then they be powers of the Agents to produce such actions. For if Light and heate were qualityes actually inherent in the species, and not severall manners of action, seing the species enter, by all the organs, to the spirits, heat should be seene, and Light felt. contrary to Experience.’ This passage provides further confirmation of the interest shown in Galileo by those who frequented the circle of Newcastle.
- 14.
- 15.
See EL, Part I, chap. II, § 8, 6. See De corpore, XXV, 10, OL, I, 329; Ibid. XXVII, 13, 374.
- 16.
EL, Part I, chap. II., § 9, 7 (my italics).
- 17.
Ibid., § 10, 7 (my italics).
- 18.
TO I, OL, V, 217: ‘Item dum carbo ignitus calefacit hominem, etsi neque carbo neque homo suo loco exeat, neque ideo moveatur, est tamen aliquid materiae sive corporis subtilis in carbone, quod movetur, et motum ciet in medio usque ad hominem; et est in homine stantei mmoto, motus aliquis in partibus internis inde generatus. Motus autem hic in partibus hominis internis est calor; et sic moveri, calefieri, hoc est pati; et motus ille qui est in partibus carbonis igniti, est actio ejus, sive calefactio; et sic moveri, calefacere’.
- 19.
See Aristotle, De Caelo, II, 289a, 24 ff. Eng. Trans. Aristotle 1986, 179–181: ‘Compare the case of flying missiles. These are themselves set on fire so that leaden balls are melted, and if the missiles themselves catch fire, the air which surrounds them must be affected likewise. These then become heated themselves by reason of their flight through the air, which owing to the impact upon it is made fire by the movement’.
- 20.
See Sarsi 1619 in OG, VI, 162.
- 21.
Galilei, Il saggiatore, OG, VI, 347; Eng. trans. in Drake 1957, 274.
- 22.
Anna Minerbi Belgrado underscored the presence of the distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ qualities in the Elements of law. See Minerbi Belgrado 1993, 11–13. Malcolm also has interesting things to say about this matter: see: Malcolm, ‘Robert Payne, the Hobbes Manuscripts, and the “Short Tract”.’ In Malcolm 2002, 122 ff.; Malcolm, ‘Hobbes and Spinoza’. Ibid., 27–52; esp. 29. See also Anstey 2013, esp. 248–250.
- 23.
Galilei, Il saggiatore, OG, VI, 347–348, my italics; Eng. trans. Drake 1957, 274.
- 24.
Ibid.; Eng. trans. ibid.
- 25.
Ibid.; Eng. trans. ibid., modified.
- 26.
Galileo’s expression is reused almost verbatim by Hobbes, in TO II, where he states that species are ‘nihil nisi verba’. See TO II, chap. I, § 10, fol. 197v/151. See Médina 2015, 131 and note.
- 27.
Galilei, Il saggiatore, OG, VI, 350; Eng. trans. Drake 1957, 276–277.
- 28.
See Aristotle, De Anima, II, 6, 418a 8–22; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Pars I, quaestio 78, art. 3. On the relationship between the Aristotelian-scholastic distinction and Galileo: Crombie, ‘The primary and secondary qualities in Galileo Galilei’s natural philosophy’; Shea 1970, esp. 23–24. See also the interesting observations by Redondi 2009, 66 ff., on Ockham and the distinction between intentiones primae and secundae.
- 29.
EL, part. I, chap. VIII, § 1, 33.
- 30.
In EL, part I, Chapt. 8, § 2, 32–33, Hobbes writes: ‘Sounds that differ in any height, please by inequality and equality alternate, that is to say, the higher note striketh twice, for one stroke of the other, whereby they strike together every second time; as is well proved by Galileo, in the first dialogue concerning local motions, where he also sheweth, that two sounds differing a fifth, delight the ear by an equality of striking after two inequalities.’ Cf. Galilei, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, OG, VIII, 147.
- 31.
See TO I, OL, V, 220–221.
- 32.
MLT, XXXV, 1, 387–388; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 422, largely modified (my italics).
- 33.
Ibid., XXVII, 1, 312. On the issues of identifying the body with the ens or, that which occupies an imagined space, and on the conceptual distinction between ens and essentia, see Pécharman 1992, 35 ff. On the real space/imagined space distinction and the relative relationships of these two concepts with the fundamental idea of Hobbesian philosophy, i.e. that of body, see Bernhardt 1990, and Schuhmann 1992.
- 34.
MLT, XXVII,1312, modified
- 35.
Ibid., VII, 3, 146–147: ‘Ut autem quid sit materia prima facilius intelligamus, sciendum est primo corpus & materiam, sive corporeum & materiale, hoc est quicquid spatio quod imaginamur subest, idem esse, vocari autem corpus simpliciter, materiam autem quando comparatur cu meo quod ex ipsa factum est, ut lignum simpliciter corpus dicitur, idem autem quatenus ex eo fit scamnum, materia scamni appellatur. Deinde consideranda est materia sub paucis mutationibus, ut ex iis intelligatur quid sit materia omnium.’
- 36.
See Pécharman 1992, 41 ff.
- 37.
Hobbes’ concept of accident has been extensively discussed and conflicting interpretations of it have been given, some of which are more ‘phenomenalist’ and others more ‘realist’ (we will return to this topic in the following paragraph). See Malherbe 1984, 76 ff. and Malherbe 1989; Leijenhorst 2002, 155–162; Lupoli 2006, 101–138; Paganini 2008, 221 ff.; Milanese 2013, 53–54.
- 38.
MLT, XXVII, 1, 313; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 312, modified.
- 39.
Ibid., 314.
- 40.
Hobbes suggests several times in the work that this matter, incapable of generation and incorruptible, must necessarily be eternal. See, for example, MLT, V, 3, 130, where Hobbes also argues that ‘Materia tamen eius, in qua consistit natura corporis, non interit: sicut vini cotyla infusa oceano, quanquam desinat esse vinum, non tamen desinit esse corpus.’
- 41.
- 42.
See, MLT, XXVII, 1, 313.
- 43.
Tom Sorell emphasizes the dramatic difference between the Hobbesian position and the Aristotelian concept of substance and accident, see Sorell 1986, 51–52.
- 44.
De Principiis (National Library of Wales, Ms. 5297), Appendix II, MLT, 452.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Hobbes clarifies that the expression ‘accidentia in corpore inesse’ could be misleading because it suggests the presence of quality inside the object: ‘When we say accidentia in corpore inesse, it must to be understood as if something were contained in the body: for example, as if redness were in blood as blood is in a bloody cloth i.e. ut pars in toto, for so an accident were also a body; but as magnitude, rest, motion etc. in that which is magnum, quiescens, motum, so every other accident is in his subject.’ Ibid., 453. This passage is transferred almost whole into the final version of Chapter 8 of De corpore, OL, I, 92–93.
- 47.
De Principiis (National Library of Wales, Ms. 5297), Appendix II, MLT, 457: ‘The production or destruction of any accident is the cause that the subject is said to be changed, but only of the form that it is said to be generated or corrupted (destroyed)’.
- 48.
Ibid.: ‘The common matter of all things which the philosophers call materia prima is not a distinct body from all other bodies nor one of them but a name only, signifying a body to be considered without considering any form or any accident except only magnitude or extension and aptitude to receive form and accident. So as materia prima is corpus universale i.e. a body considered universally whereof it cannot be said that there is no form or no accident, but in which it may be said no form or accident besides quantity and aptitude to receive form or accident is considered i.e. brought into argument or account.’ Cf. Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione, I, 5320b; Metaphysics, E, 1029b.
- 49.
See Schuhmann 1992, 75–76, who stresses that these are accidents of size, extension and local motion, without, however, mentioning the ‘Galilean’ roots of these concepts.
- 50.
For this reason, I consider Sorell and Leijenhorst’s suggestion only partially correct, and it should be interpreted in the light of these additional considerations, with respect to the ‘essential’ accidents of bodies.
- 51.
See Terrel 1994, 72 ff.
- 52.
MLT, I, 1, 105; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 23, modified.
- 53.
Ibid., XXVII, 1, 312, Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 311 modified (my italics).
- 54.
See Malherbe 1989, 21–23
- 55.
See Minerbi Belgrado 1993, 63.
- 56.
De corpore, VIII, 3, OL, I, 92; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 104.
- 57.
Ibid. Hobbes cites, though not word for word, Aristotle, Metaphysics, E, 2, 1026b.
- 58.
De corpore, VIII, 3, OL, I, 92–93; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 104 (my italics).
- 59.
Ibid., 93; Eng. Trans. 104–105.
- 60.
- 61.
De corpore, VIII, 4, OL, I, 93; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 105.
- 62.
Ibid., VIII, 5, 94; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 105.
- 63.
Ibid., I, 8, OL, I, 9; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 10.
- 64.
This aspect has been particularly highlighted by Schuhmann 1992, 72 ff.
- 65.
MLT, XII, 2, 189–190: ‘Iam si quaeratur de aliqua re nominatim, cuius nomen significat materiam determinatam, nulla habita ratione formae, identitas rei sumitur ab identitate materiae. Sin nomen significet formam determinatam nulla habita ratione materiae nisi quatenus ad formam necessario aliqua requiritur, identitas rei aestimatur per identitatem formae.’
- 66.
De corpore, VIII, 23, OL, I, 104; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 117.
- 67.
MLT, XXVII, 1; 311; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 311 modified.
- 68.
De corpore, VIII, 1, OL, I, 90–91; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 102.
- 69.
- 70.
Neo-Kantians, such as Cassirer, suggested there is a split in Hobbes’ philosophy between the empirical world of bodies and the hypothetical world of scientific discourse. See Cassirer 1922–1957, II, 46 ff. On this topic, see also Malherbe 1989, 24. For a critical overview of neo-Kantian interpretations of Hobbes’ materialism, see Milanese 2016.
- 71.
See TO I, OL, V, 217.
- 72.
See Leijenhorst 2005, esp. 118 ff.
- 73.
See MLT, XXVII, 2, 314–316. However, in all that pertains to the concept of ‘final cause,’ we should note that Hobbes includes the concept in the scope of his anthropology, where it is translated in mechanical terms (being physiologically included as an efficient cause). Barnouw 1990 argues that the Hobbesian interpretation of sensation is far from strictly mechanical. See also Barnouw 1989, esp. 55 ff. Lejienhorst gives a valid discussion of this orientation. See Leijenhorst 2007, 90.
- 74.
MLT, XXVII, 2, 315; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 314, modified
- 75.
De corpore, IX, 3; OL, I, 197–198; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 121–122.
- 76.
MLT, XXVII, 2, 315.
- 77.
Ibid., Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 314–315.
- 78.
On the need for the four causes: ‘material,’ ‘efficient,’ ‘formal,’ and ‘final,’ see Aristotle, Physics, II (B), 3, 194b, 16 ff.
- 79.
On the difference between the Hobbesian concept of cause and that in the Aristotelian tradition, see Leijenhorst 2002, 203 ff.
- 80.
- 81.
Ibid., XXVII, 1, 312–314.
- 82.
De corpore, IX, 1, OL, I, 106; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 120.
- 83.
Ibid., IX, 3, 107; Eng. Trans. 121.
- 84.
In Chapter 6 of De corpore Hobbes defines philosophy as a solely causal knowledge. See OL, I, 59: ‘Itaque, scientia
, sive causarum est; alia cognitio omnis quae 
dicitur, sensio est vel a sensione remanens imagination sive memoria.’ - 85.
See Jesseph 2004, 191.
- 86.
TO I, OL, V, 217 (my trans.): ‘Omnis actio est motus localis in agente, sicut et omnis passio est motus localis in patiente. Agentis nomine intelligo corpus, cujus motu producitur effectus in alio corpore; patientis, in quo motus aliquis ab alio corpore generatur.’ See also MLT, V, 1, 128–129; MLT, XIV, 2, 202; De corpore, IX, 9, OL, I, 112. On the contrary, Aristotle conceived four types of change: 1) local motion, 2) increase and decrease, 3) alteration or change of quality, 4) the substantial change that takes place in the process of generation and corruption (see Aristotle, Physics, III, 1, 201a). See the footnote by Paganini, in Hobbes 2010, 291. On this subject see also Leijenhorst 2002, 179–181.
- 87.
Galilei, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, OG, VIII, 46 (my italics); Eng. trans. Galilei 2003, 20.
- 88.
Ibid. (my italics); Eng. trans. ibid., 21.
- 89.
Ibid.; Eng. trans. ibid., 20, modified. The Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze was known in the seventeenth century as Dialogi de motu, and Galileo used these title to refer to his last work. In fact, this title derives from the Latin treatise, De motu locali, which features in the third and fourth day. Moreover, it was Galileo himself who defined the work with those words, as demonstrated by a letter written in June 1637 to Lorenzo Realio, where Galileo mentions the Discorsi as his ‘libro de motu.’ See Galileo to Lorenzo Realio, 5 June 1637, OG, XVII, 100.
- 90.
See Galilei, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, OG, VIII, 190 ff.
- 91.
See Dijksterhuis 1961, esp. 348 ff.
- 92.
Regarding the fact that Galileo considered the tides to be crucial proof of the physical correctness of the Coperican system, see Altieri BiagiBiagi 1995, who indicated that the planned Dialogo sul flusso e reflusso del mare, which then became the Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, should have opened—as Galileo intended—with a discussion of the phenomenon of the tides. On tides see also Shea 1974, 217 ff.
- 93.
See Galilei, Discorso del flusso e del reflusso del mare, OG, V, 381 ff. It is interesting to observe that the analogy between the motions within a basin and the composition of movements to which the terrestrial sphere is subjected also features in one of Paolo Sarpi’s pensieri (thoughts) dating to c. 1595. See Sarpi 1996, pensiero 569, 424. See also Sosio 1995, esp. 305 ff.; Heilbron 2010, 216; Naylor 2014.
- 94.
- 95.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, OG, VII, 444; Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 486.
- 96.
In Galileo’s Dialogue (OG, VII, 445–446), Simplicio recalls a tract by ‘un certo prelato’ (a certain prelate), who said that the Moon ‘vagando per il cielo, attrae e solleva verso di sé un cumulo d’acqua, il quale la va continuamente seguitando, sì che il mare alto è sempre in quella parte che soggiace alla Luna’, but Sagredo brands these lucibrations as ‘fancies’ that should not credited.
- 97.
Ibid., 452.
- 98.
Ibid., 453–454.
- 99.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 486: ‘Il dire anco (come si riferisce d’uno antico matematico) che il moto della Terra, incontrandosi col. moto dell’orbe lunare, cagiona, per tal contrasto, il flusso e il reflusso, resta totalmente vano, non solo perché non vien dichiarato né si vede come ciò debba seguire, ma si scorge la falsità manifesta, atteso che la conversione della Terra non è contraria al moto della Luna, ma è per il medesimo verso: talché il detto e imaginato sin qui da gli altri resta, al parer mio, del tutto invalido.’ As underscored by Naylor, Galileo is aware that the phases of the moon and the tides coincide and tries to explain the phenomenon various times, through the composition of the rotations and revolutions of the planets. See Naylor 2007, 18 ff. See also the letters by Galileo to Fulgenzio Micanzio, dated 7 November 1637 and 30 January 1638 (OG, XVII, 214–215 and 269–271).
- 100.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 486; Eng. trans. Finocchiaro 2008, 268.
- 101.
Ibid., 470; Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 516.
- 102.
Galileo returned to the subject several times and, in a letter written to Micanzio in 1637, he even contemplates the movement of the Moon as being one of the causes of the phenomenon. See Galileo to Fulgenzio Micanzio, 7 November 1637, OG, XVII, 214–215). See Naylor 2007, 18 ff. See also Bucciantini 2003, 306 ff.
- 103.
MLT, XXIV, 1, 289, Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 278: “…sol quidem motu primum illo quo & terram, & lunam quotannis simul circumfert, deinde etiam motu illo quo omnia recta quadam undequaque eiaculatione illuminat. Terra autem in eandem non modo motu suo diurno aliquid potest, sed etiam influentia quadam tanquam magenticam, & praeterea vaporibus fortasse eousque elevatis’.
- 104.
See Horstmann 1998, 142 ff.
- 105.
MLT, XVI, 2, 211.
- 106.
- 107.
Cf. Astronomia nova, pars III, chap. XXXIII, in Kepler 1937—, III, 240: ‘Effluxus igitur, quemadmodum et lucis, immateriatus est; non qualis odorum cum diminutione substantiae, non qualis caloris ab aestuante fornace, et si quid est simile, quibus media implentur. Relinquitur igitur, ut quemadmodum lux, omnia terrena illustrans, species est immateriata ignis illius, qui est in corpore solis: ita virtus haec, planetarum corpora complexa et vehens, sit species immateriata ejus virtutis, quae in ipso sole residet, inaestimabilis vigoris, adeoque actus primus omnis motus mundani.’ See also Gargani 1971, 274–278.
- 108.
De corpore, XXVI, 8, OL, I, 354; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 434.
- 109.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 432; Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 471.
- 110.
Ibid., pp. 432–436; Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 470–475.
- 111.
- 112.
See Aristotle, Metaphysics, II, 3, 995a, 15–18; Eng. trans. Aristotle 1989, 95: ‘Mathematical accuracy is not to be demanded in everything, but only in things which do not contain matter. Hence this method is not that of natural science, because presumably all nature is concerned with matter. Hence we should first inquire what nature is; for in this way it will become clear what the objects of natural science are.’
- 113.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 436; Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 475.
- 114.
Ibid.; Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 475–476.
- 115.
De corpore, XXVI, 8, OL, I, 354.
- 116.
Ibid., Eng. Trans. EW, I, 434.
- 117.
- 118.
Ibid., XXX, 15, OL, I, 427; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 526.
- 119.
As we will see later on (see below, chap. III) Hobbes continuously reiterates his adhesion to an inertial concept of movement throughout the work. See, for example., De corpore, IX, 7, OL, I, 110–111; ibid., XXVI, 8, 354.
- 120.
Ibid. Eng. Trans. EW, I, 526–527.
- 121.
As we will see in the next chapter, Hobbes developed an analogous argument to explain the phenomenon of gravity. See below, chap. III, § 6.
- 122.
An interesting discussion also features further on in this paragraph to explain the attraction of the pole of the magnet to the terrestrial magnetic North. De corpore, XXX, 15, OL, I, 428–429, Eng. Trans. EW, I, 528–529.
- 123.
See Problemata Physica, OL, IV, 357–359 (Eng. Trans. Seven Philosophical Problems, EW, VII, 56–59); Decameron Physiologicum, ibid., 154 ff., although here Hobbes’ claims are much more hypothetical and less assertive compared to the earlier works.
- 124.
De corpore, XXX, 15, OL, I, 430; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 531: ‘In the first, second and third parts, where the principles of ratiocination consist in our own understanding, that is to say, in the legitimate use of such words as we ourselves constitute, all the theorems, if I be not deceived, are rightly demonstrated.’
- 125.
Ibid., 430–431; Eng. Trans. 531: ‘The fourth part depends upon hypotheses; which unless we know them to be true, it is impossible for us to demonstrate that those causes which I have there explicated, are the true causes of the things whose productions I have derived from them.’
- 126.
- 127.
De corpore, XXX, 15, OL, I, 431; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 531: ‘Nevertheless, seeing I have assumed no hypothesis, which is not both possible and easy to be comprehended; and seeing also that I have reasoned aright from those assumptions, I have withal sufficiently demonstrated that they may be the true causes; which is the end of physical contemplation. If any other man from other hypotheses shall demonstrate the same, or greater things, there will be greater praise and thanks due to him then I demand for myself, provided his hypotheses be such as are conceivable’.
- 128.
Ibid., 431; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 531. Strangely, this sort of ‘indirect criticism’ targeted at Kepler was ignored by Horstmann in his well documented and interesting article on the relationship between Kepler and Hobbes. See Horstmann 1998, 149 ff.
- 129.
The theme of the conceivability of the hypotheses is also taken up again in the Dialogus physicus (OL, IV, 247; Eng. In Shapin and Schaffer 1985, 356), where Hobbes considers ‘is his not the rule for all hypotheses, that all things that are supposed must all be of a possible, that is, conceivable, nature?’
- 130.
Decameron Physiologicum, EW, VII, 102.
- 131.
In an interesting article on the importance of Galilean kinematics, as an element that made a decisive contribution to the development of the scientific revolution and that would be inherited by the great philosophers of the seventeenth century (including Hobbes), John Henry emphasized the central role played by Galileo’s theory of tides, which features extremely mechanistic connotations, associated with the rejection of Kepler’s theory (and of every notion of occult qualities). It is of fundamental importance because it is rooted in Galileo’s mechanism. The convergence with Hobbes’ scientific writings on the subject seems to confirm this idea in my opinion. See Henry 2011, 3–36 (meanwhile, the observations advanced by the author in the second part of the article and inspired by Koyré’s interpretation are less convincing).
- 132.
Decameron Physiologicum, EW, VII, 155 (my italics).
- 133.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 453–454: ‘Concludiamo per tanto, che sì come è vero che il moto di tutto il globo e di ciascuna delle sue parti sarebbe equabile ed uniforme quando elle si movessero d’un moto solo, o fusse il semplice annuo o fusse il solo diurno, così è necessario che, mescolandosi tali due moti insieme, ne risultino per le parti di esso globo movimenti difformi, ora accelerati ed ora ritardati, mediante gli additamenti o sottrazioni della conversion diurna alla circolazione annua. Onde se è vero (come è verissimo, e l’esperienza ne dimostra) che l’accelerazione e ritardamento del moto del vaso faccia correre e ricorrere nella sua lunghezza, alzarsi ed abbassarsi nelle sue estremità, l’acqua da esso contenuta, chi vorrà por difficultà nel concedere che tale effetto possa, anzi pur debba di necessità, accadere all’acque marine, contenute dentro a i vasi loro, soggetti a cotali alterazioni, e massime in quelli che per lunghezza si distendono da ponente verso levante, che è il verso per il quale si fa il movimento di essi vasi? Or questa sia la potissima e primaria causa del flusso e reflusso, senza la quale nulla seguirebbe di tale effetto.’
- 134.
See EL, pars I, chap. II, §10, 7; TO I, OL, V, 217.
- 135.
The phenomenon of the tides occupies a good part of Chapt. XVI and all of Chapt. XVII in De motu, loco et tempore. Here, Hobbes primarily puts forward his counter-objections to White’s criticism of Galileo’s Dialogue. See MLT, 210–214.
- 136.
Ibid., XVI, 2, 210–211.
- 137.
Ibid., 211; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 172, modified.
- 138.
Ibid.
- 139.
Ibid., XVII, 6; 220.
- 140.
Galileo deemed that the moon formed part of a system hinged upon the revolution of the earth (and the other planets). Within this macro-system, the earth and moon constitute a sort of micro-system, so that the moon follows the earth in its revolutions (daily and annual), which are not perfectly synchronous. According to Galileo, the fact that the movement of the moon coincides with the movements of the tides derives from this fact. See Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 477 ff.
- 141.
De corpore, XXVI, 10, OL, I, 356, Eng. Trans. EW, I, 437.
- 142.
When discussing sunspots in his Dialogue, Galileo advanced the theory that the sun rotated around its own axis (See Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 79), as he had claimed more explicitly in his History and Demonstration concerning Sunspots (Galilei, Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti, Letter II, OG, V, 117), where he wrote that ‘il corpo del Sole è assolutamente sferico; secondariamente, ch’egli in sé stesso e circa il proprio centro si raggira portando seco in cerchi paralleli le dette macchie, e finendo una intera conversione in un mese lunare in circa, con rivolgimento simile a quello de gli orbi de i pianeti, cioè da occidente verso oriente.’ In his Astromia Nova (in Kepler 1937—, III, 34), Kepler had already supposed that the sun rotates around its axis and that this movement, together with the action of the species, produced the revolution of the planets, but he explained it by referring to ‘speciem immateriatam corporis sui, analogam speciei immateriatae lucis suae’. On the analogies between Kepler and Galileo regarding this subject see: Applebaum and Baldasso 2001. On the influence of these Galilean ideas on the genesis of ‘simple circular motion’ in Hobbes, see Henry 2016, 25 ff.
- 143.
See De corpore, XXVI, 6, OL, I, 349. Horstmann 1998, 139 ff. supposes that the source of this Hobbesian theory is Kepler, but I think it is more likely that here Hobbes is referring to the texts of Galileo, because the Italian scientist’s name is cited directly.
- 144.
See TO II, fol. 198v/153.
- 145.
Ibid.: ‘Non erit igitur absurdum existimare, siquidem sol causa sit conversionis terrae annuae, eiusmodi quoque motum esse in Sole, praesertim cum motum quendam esse in sole circa Axim Ecclipticae observaverit Galilaeus neque putandum sit temere esse quod in tanta coelorum amplitudine nullum inveniatur Corpus quod circumvolvatur per aliam orbitam praeter Ecclipticam vel ab Eccliptica parum digredientem.’
- 146.
See Copernicus 2015, II, 74 ff.
- 147.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 452; Eng. trans. Finocchiaro 2008, 257.
- 148.
In section 4 of Chapter 6 of De motu, loco et tempore, Hobbes includes the theory of simple circular motion deriving from the writings of Copernicus, which returns in a more complete and comprehensive form in De corpore. See MLT, VI, 4, 137–139.
- 149.
De corpore, XXI, 1, OL, I, 258 Eng. Trans. EW, I, 317–318.
- 150.
Dialogus physicus sive de natura aeris, OL, IV, 251–252; Eng. trans. Shapin and Schaffer 1985, 360: ‘he [Hobbes] assumes another hypothesis, this one, that the earth has its own motion, due to its own nature or creation, which is also simple, circular. And from this supposition he demonstrates clearly many things about natural causes; and indeed, what that may be you will understand thus. Take up a basin in your hand, in whose bottom is a little water … Could you not move the water by moving the basin, so that it ran in a circle, raising itself a little around the concave surface of the basin?’.
- 151.
Seven Philosophical Problems, EW, VII, 13. See also Problemata Physica, OL, IV, 313. Here the matter is discussed in a different and more comprehensive way than in De corpore and Dialogus physicus, because Hobbes explored the issue of the coincidence of the high tide with the phenomena of the new moon and the full moon, that is to say direct interaction between the moon and earth. See Seven Philosophical problems, EW, VII, 15.
- 152.
Hobbes refers to a passage from De fluxu et refluxu mari. See Bunce 2003, 57–58.
- 153.
Problemata Physica, OL, IV, 317: ‘…sed (Bacon) motus aquae causam adscribit motui diurno primi mobilis, qui motus primi mobilis, cum sit in circulo cujus centrum est centrum terrae, propellere aquam non potest. Etiam Galileus causam aestuum horum terrae motui cuidam adscribit: quem motum terrae habere non potest, nisi sol, terra, et luna solido aliquo vinculo connecterentur, tanquam in fune pendulo totidem pilae plumbeae.’ Interestingly, Hobbes seems to echo an explanation put forward by Galileo himself, in the fourth day of his Dialogue, where he used the example of the weight hanging from a string to explain the phenomenon of the tides. See Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, OG, VII, 475 ff.
- 154.
Decameron physiologicum, EW, VII, 109–111. See also ibid., 100–102, where Hobbes goes back to the model he had put forward in De corpore, in which the sun, by moving around its axis, causes the motion of all the other planets and, as an indirect result, their satellites too.
- 155.
In the light of the themes analysed in the previous chapters, I feel that the roots of Hobbes’ mechanism should be sought in the ‘Galilean’ premises of his philosophy. Because of this, I disagree with Garber 2013, 13–5, who considers Galileo as essentially extraneous to mechanism. Garber bases this claim on two arguments: a supposed debt of the Italian scientist to Aristotelian mechanics and the infinitesimal conception of matter sketched out by Galileo in his Discourses, which would necessarily make him extraneous to corpuscularism. As regards the former, it should be observed that Galileo tackles a number of Aristotelian themes, but he certainly does not come up with the same responses. Meanwhile, as regards the latter, Galileo has a very complex concept of matter, although, in any case, the ‘infinitesimal’ structure of matter in the Discourses is far from invalidating the arguments on the qualities of bodies in The Assayer and is based on a ‘corpuscular’ (broadly speaking) concept of matter.
- 156.
- 157.
Galileo Galilei to Elia Diodati, 23 January 1638, OG, XVII, 262 (my italics): ‘… io ho un buon numero di problemi e questioni spezzate, tutte, al mio consueto, nuove e con nuove dimostrazioni confermate. Sono ancora sul tirare avanti un mio concetto assai capriccioso; e questo è il portar, pur sempre in dialogo, una moltitudine di postille fatte intorno a’ luoghi più importanti di tutti i libri di coloro che mi ànno scritto contro et anco di qualch’altro autore e in particolare di Aristotele, il quale nelle sue Questioni Meccaniche mi dà occasione di dichiarare diverse proposizioni belle, ma molto più ancora me ne dà nel trattato De incessu animalium, materia piena di cose ammirabili, come quelle che son fatte meccanicamente dalla natura.’ See Camerota 2004, 561. This passage leads me to disagree with Alan Gabbey, who claims that in Galileo there is no sense of mechanism in the sense of the term used by Boyle. See Gabbey 2004, 15.
- 158.
For a global overview of mechanism in the seventeenth century it is always useful to refer to: Dijksterhuis 1961, 287–491, who devotes plenty of space to Galileo, while overlooking Hobbes. See also Garber and Roux 2013.
- 159.
See EL, part 1, chapt. 2–9, 3–48.
- 160.
Despite Hobbes’ intention to present his thinking as a unitary system, we need to underscore the problems associated with this approach. Hobbes’ thinking cannot be considered as a perfectly uniform and joined structure, which unfolds seamlessly from philosophy all the way through to politics. In this regard, see Malcolm 1990. Now in Malcolm 2002, 146–155. See also Gert 1996, who shows very clearly how Hobbes’ concept of matter is not really at the basis of his political philosophy, but itself a ‘psychological’ analysis of human passions.
- 161.
MLT, XXVII, 326–327. In his Elements and Tractatus Opticus I Hobbes only ascribed sensation to the brain, while in his Tractatus Opticus II (see TO II, fol. 240v/199) and in De motu, loco et tempore the heart constitutes the primary origin of the reaction to sensible motion.
- 162.
For an analysis of the concept of passion in Hobbesian philosophy see Gert 1989, and, above all Tricaud 1992. The importance of the passions as a link between anthrolopology and politics in Hobbes has primarily been underscored by Strauss (see Strauss 1952, 11–27) and Pacchi 1987 (now in Pacchi 1998, 79–95). See also Sorell 1986, 87 ff. The importance attributed by Hobbes to the notion of passion is demonstrated not only by Hobbes’ extensive discussion of it in Chapter 6 of Leviathan (see Hobbes 2012, 79–97), but also by a manuscript dating to around 1644, which constitutes a sort of draft of the aforementioned chapter in Leviathan. See Hobbes 1988b.
- 163.
De homine, OL, II, 103–110.
- 164.
Hobbes 2012, 78.
- 165.
Ibid., 26.
- 166.
See EL, part I, chapt. VIII, § 1, 31.
- 167.
MLT, XXX, 4, 350–351; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 366, largely modified.
- 168.
See Jesseph 2016, esp. 78 ff.
- 169.
Hobbes 2012, 78.
- 170.
Ibid.
- 171.
See below, chap. 3.
- 172.
De corpore, XV, 2, OL, I, 177; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 206.
- 173.
MLT, XXX, 27, 361; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 380: ‘Voluntas est ultimus actus deliberantis; qui quidem ultimus actus, si appetitus sit, est voluntas faciendi. Si fuga sit, est voluntas non faciendi. Et sicut non intelligitur voluntas in eo qui adhuc deliberat, sic neque deliberatio in eo qui voluit.’
- 174.
Ibid., XXX, 29, 361: ‘Volontarium est nomen quod competit solis actionibus. Actio voluntaria ea. est ad cuius causam requiritur agentis voluntas; voluntas ipsa ergo voluntaria non est, quia non est actio; neque nisi absurde & ridicule potest aliquis dicere “Volo cras sic velle,” vel “Volo cras habere voluntatem faciendi hoc aut illud,” si enim dicere possum “Volo velle,” quidem, & “Volo velle velle” & sic in infinitum.’
- 175.
Ibid., XXX, 30, 362; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 381–382, modified.
- 176.
As regards the development and limitations of Hobbesian necessitarianism see Zarka 2004, 249–262.
- 177.
MLT, XXXIII, 2, 377: ‘Liberum proprie dicitur in animalibus, quod cum habeat coeteram potestatem agendi omnem, voluntatem tamen nondum habet. In rebus autem inanimatis liberum est & dicitur quod non impeditur quominus faciat quicquid ex natura eius facere potest, sic aqua libere decurrit quae ripis, neque obstaculo alio externo fluere prohibetur. Neque tamen nesciunt qui sic loquuntur, decurrere aquam vi gravitatis suae, id est per necessitatem naturalem. Confitentur ergo libertatem non opponi necessitati internae, sed impedimento externo: sic etiam ii qui hominibus libertatem agendi tribuunt, non ignorant quaedam esse quae homines non possunt velle, qualia sunt quae videntur pessima sibi, & quaedam, quae non posssunt nolle, qualia sunt quae videntur optima sibi facta esse. Non tamen ideo negant eos libere & per electionem agere; nam & electionis (sicut aliarum rerum omnium) causa aliquis existit, eaque necessaria, neque qui necessario eligit, ob id minus eligit, nisi etiam dicamus lapidem non cadere quia necessario cadit.’ These reflections are taken up again in Chapter 37, see MLT, 401 ff.
- 178.
This concept can also be noted in De corpore, OL, I, 113–115.
- 179.
MLT, XXXV, 4, 388; Eng. Trans. 423.
- 180.
Ibid., XXXV, 6, 389; Eng. Trans. 424.
- 181.
Ibid.
- 182.
Ibid., XXXV, 10, 391.
- 183.
Ibid., XXXVIII, 1, 412: ‘Vera & unica causa quare res humanas casu geri homines arbitrantur, videtur esse haec, quod ignorant earum causas integras & necessarias; si enim qui causarum omnium
, sive concursum ad effectum aliquem futurum producendum praesciret, nunquam illum effectum fortuito, sed ex necessitate, eventurum affirmaret; quod enim aliquis futurum certo scit ex certitudine scientiae, certe, id est non fortuito, eventurum pronuntiaret … Cum itaque eventus omnes propter causas suas necessarii sint, sequitur ut non alia de causa fortuiti videantur, quam quod eorum causas omnes non percipimus.’ - 184.
Of Liberty and Necessity, EW, IV, 273.
- 185.
Ibid., 274.
- 186.
Ibid.
- 187.
Ibid., 275.
- 188.
See Leijenhorst 2005, 79–119.
- 189.
See Paganini 2004, 323.
- 190.
See Aristotle, Physics, II (B), 194b ff.
- 191.
See De corpore, IV, 4, OL, I, 104.
- 192.
Ibid., IX, 3, 107–8; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 121–122.
- 193.
Ibid., IX, 7, 110; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 125.
- 194.
- 195.
De corpore, XXV, 8, OL, I, 324; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 397–398.
- 196.
On the importance of the mathematization of nature with regards to the genesis of mechanism, see Koyré, ‘Du monde de l’“à-peu-près” à l’univers de la precision’. Now in Koyré 1981, 341–362. See also Crombie 1953, 274 ff. Alfred Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall’s historical text was one of the first critical studies that stressed the importance of the Assayer for the mathematization of nature; see Hall and Boas Hall 1964, 166 ff. See also Palmerino 2010.
- 197.
- 198.
The intellectual debate that has grown around this question started from Alexandre Koyré’s historical essay published in French in 1939 (Koyré 1966), which focused on Platonic elements in Galileo’s work. According to Koyré, in Galileo’s writings, deductive, speculative reason dominates a great deal over the experimental element. Koyré’s thesis, though widely debated and critically analyzed, still has an enormous impact.
- 199.
On the ‘compositive/resolutive method,’ used by Agostino Nifo and especially Jacopo Zabarella, see Randall 1961, 15–68, who suggests a comparison with its application in Galileo (Ibid., 55 ff.). Galileo refers specifically to compositive and resolutive methods in Considerazioni sopra ‘l discorso del Colombo, OG, IV, 520. It should, however, be noted that Neal Gilbert had ruled out Galileo’s close adherence to Paduan Aristotelianism and suggested a substantial difference between Zabarella’s and Galileo’s methods (see Gilbert 1963, 223–231. See also Schmitt, ‘Esperienza ed. esperimento: un confronto tra Zabarella e il giovane Galilei’ (1969). Now in Schmitt 2001, 25–64; Pastore Stocchi, 1976–1986, esp. 58–60). Antonio Banfi had long before distinguished Galileo’s speculative nature from the work of ‘erudite exegesis of Aristotelian texts and their commentaries’ found in authors like Zabarella and Cremonini. See Banfi 1964, 280.
- 200.
Edwards and Wallace have published one of Galileo’s early texts (see Galilei 1988), which addresses epistemological problems and includes comments to Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in use at the Jesuit’s Collegio Romano. The text is, however, for the most part, a transcription of the teachings given in the prestigious College and does not express Galileo’s mature epistemology. On this topic, see also Crombie 1975, and Carugo and Crombie 1983. More recently, the topic has been revisited in Laird 1997. Wisan 1978 considered different stages of Galileo’s epistemology. He argues that Galileo was originally influenced by late scholasticism, and that in a later period, he expressed a position similar to that of the ‘mitigated sceptics.’ He would later turn to an epistemological dimension shaped by the dialogue between empirical inquiry and rational speculation to then return to a ‘rationalist’ position in the Discourses.
- 201.
On this topic, a key reference is Galluzzi 1973, which specifically analyzes texts by Mazzoni, Biancani, Clavius, and other late sixteenth-century authors who were available to Galileo and who influenced him. This study clearly reveals Galileo’s true relationship with the earlier Platonism and Aristotelism, and his originality is evident when he decided to distance himself markedly from these philosophical traditions.
- 202.
- 203.
For instance, in Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari (1612), Galileo had already established a clear dividing line between the figure of the ‘pure astronomer’ and that of the ‘philosopher astronomer.’ Galilei, Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti, Letter I, OG, V, 102: ‘… quei deferenti, equanti, epicicli etc., posti da i puri astronomi per facilitar i lor calcoli, ma non già da ritenersi per tali da gli astronomi filosofi, li quali, oltre alla cura del salvar in qualunque modo l’apparenze, cercano d’investigare, come problema massimo ed. ammirando, la vera costituzione dell’universo, poi che tal costituzione è, ed. è in modo solo, vero, reale ed. impossibile ad esser altramente, e per la sua grandezza e nobiltà degno d’esser anteposto ad ogn’altra scibil questione de gl’ingegni specolativi.’
- 204.
Galileo is known to have especially coveted the title of natural philosopher, which was attributed to him after he moved from Padua to Florence. See Galileo Galilei to Belisario Vinta, May 7, 1610, OG, X, 353: ‘… quanto al titolo et pretesto del mio servizio, io desidererei, oltre al nome di Matematico, che S. A. ci aggiugnesse quello di Filosofo, professando io di havere studiato più anni in filosofia, che mesi in matematica pura.’ See also Camerota 2004, 186.
- 205.
Galilei, Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti, Letter I, OG, V, 102 (my italics). On Galileo’s interpretation of Copernicanism as the true and real description of the universe, see Torrini 1993. On Galileo’s awareness of himself as a natural philosopher, see Bucciantini 2003, 53 ff. Clavelin also notes that ‘nombreux sont les textes où Galilée affirme un réalisme sans equivoque.’ (see Clavelin 2001, 29 note).
- 206.
See Galilei, Lettera a Madama Cristina di Lorena, Granduchessa di Toscana (1615), OG, V, 316.
- 207.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, OG, VII, 78; Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 53–54, my italic.
- 208.
See, in particular, the epistle dedicatory and the preface to the readers in De cive, OL, II, 135 ff.
- 209.
See supra, chap. I.
- 210.
Hobbes (epistle dedicatory of 1647 ed.) De cive, OL, II, 136–138.
- 211.
See EL, part I, chapt. XIII, § 3, 65–66.
- 212.
MLT, XXIII, 1, 269–270.
- 213.
See the epistle dedicatory in De corpore, OL, I, not numbered; 61 ff.
- 214.
Six Lessons, EW, VII, (the epistle dedicatory), 184–185.
- 215.
There is an English translation of the text by Robert Payne, titled ‘Of the Profitt wch is drawn from the Art Mechanics & it’s Instruments. A Tract of Sig.r Galileo Galilei, Florentine’ (see infra, Appendix). The text is dated November 1636 and is in the British Library, MS Harley 6796, fol. 317–337 v et r. On the last page, it reads: ‘Raptim ex Italico in Anglicum sermonem transfusam. Novemb. 11, 1636, By Mr Robert Payen’, which means that Payne had received the Italian original, very likely through William Cavendish and Thomas Hobbes, who obtained it from Marin Mersenne (it is highly unlikely that they would have received it from Galileo himself, who was working diligently at the time on Discourses).
- 216.
- 217.
Galilei, Le Mecaniche, OG, II, 159; Eng. Trans. Galilei 1960, 149 (my italics).
- 218.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 128.
- 219.
Ibid., 128–129. Eng. trans. Finocchiaro 2008, 113–114 (my italics). Answering Simplicio’s perplexity, who stressed the recklessness of Salviati’s statement, this last one says: ‘Però, per meglio dichiararmi, dico che quanto alla verità di che ci danno cognizione le dimostrazioni matematiche, ella è l’istessa che conosce la sapienza divina; ma vi concederò bene che il modo col. quale Iddio conosce le infinite proposizioni, delle quali noi conosciamo alcune poche, è sommamente più eccellente del nostro, il quale procede con discorsi e con passaggi di conclusione in conclusione, dove il Suo è un semplice intuito: e dove noi, per esempio, per guadagnar la scienza d’alcune passioni del cerchio, che ne ha infinite, cominciando da una delle più semplici e quella pigliando per sua definizione, passiamo con discorso ad un’altra, e da questa alla terza, e poi alla quarta, etc., l’intelletto divino con la semplice apprensione della sua essenza comprende, senza temporaneo discorso, tutta la infinità delle passioni; … Il che né anco all’intelletto umano è del tutto incognito, ma ben da profonda e densa caligine adombrato, la qual viene in parte assottigliata e chiarificata quando ci siamo fatti padroni di alcune conclusioni fermamente dimostrate e tanto speditamente possedute da noi, che tra esse possiamo velocemente trascorrere.’ Ibid., 129.
- 220.
Hobbes to Sir Charles Cavendish, from Paris, Jan. 29, [Feb 8.] 1641, CH, I, 83. Interestingly, in this same letter, Hobbes analyzes and comments on several passages of Discourses (ibid., 82).
- 221.
After making a distinction between the realms of scientific and mathematical knowledge, in TO II, Chap. I, § 1, f. 193r/147, Hobbes writes: ‘In caeteris [i.e. the mathematical sciences] enim fundamenta sive principia prima demonstrandi alia neque requiruntur, neque admittuntur, quam definitiones vocabulorum, quibus excludatur Amphibologia. Eae primae veritates sunt, est enim definitio omnis, vera propositio; & prima; propterea quod definiendo, id est consentiendo circa vocabulorum usum, ipsi inter nos veram esse facimus. Si quidem enim nobis inter nos libuerit figuram hanc Δ Triangulum appellare, verum erit, figura illa Δ est Triangulum.’
- 222.
See Pacchi 1965. In my opinion, Gargani offers a more balanced interpretation of this issue, demonstrating the difference between the scientific perspective of authors like Hobbes and Descartes compared to that of the thinkers known as the ‘mitigated sceptics.’ See Gargani 1971, 173 ff. See also Malherbe 1984, 79 ff.; Sorell 1986, 46–47; Leijenhorst 2005; Paganini 2003.
- 223.
See Shapin and Schaffer 1985, esp. 80–153.
- 224.
For a more balanced interpretation of Hobbes’ relationships with Royal Society and the English scientific milieu of the time, see Malcolm, ‘Hobbes and the Royal Society’. Now in Malcolm 2002, 317–335; Terrel 2009, and Terrel 2013 (on the dual meaning of experience, as consequential experience based on the use of names and de facto experience, 68–69); Médina 2013, 160–162.
- 225.
EL, I, Chap. 5, § 4, 19: ‘By the advantage of names it is that we are capable of science’. Zarka 1999, 85–93 focuses a great deal on the nominalistic aspects of Hobbesian thinking (emphasizing the similarities and divergences of Hobbes’ philosophy of language with that of William of Ockham).
- 226.
EL, I, Chap. 5, §4, 22.
- 227.
See Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 218.
- 228.
MLT, I, 1, 105; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 23, modified. The topic appeared frequently in Descartes’ Objections and Meditations. See Objectiones Tertiae, AT, VII, 178.
- 229.
A discussion on the need for logic had already been addressed by Galileo at the beginning of the ‘first day’ of the Dialogue. Here Salviati emphasized the superiority of mathematical-geometric demonstration over Aristotelian metalogic. In De motu, loco et tempore, Hobbes appears to agree with Simplicio, saying that philosophy should be treated in a logical form. However, we should remember that Hobbes associated Euclidean geometry and logical demonstration (as Mersenne). In the epistle dedicatory of De corpore Hobbes presents geometry as the ‘true logic.’ De corpore, Epistola dedicatoria, OL, I, not numbered (first page of the dedicatory letter): ‘Scio philosophiae partem illam, quae versatur circa lineas et figuras, traditam nobis esse bene cultam a veteribus simulque verae logicae.’
- 230.
MLT, I, 3, 107; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 26, modified
- 231.
Ibid., XIV, 1, 201; Eng. Trans. 157.
- 232.
Ibid., 355 ff.
- 233.
See EL, Part I, Chap. VI, §§ 1–4, 24–6.
- 234.
Hobbes 2012, 124: ‘There are of knowledge two kinds; whereof one is knowledge of Fact: the other knowledge of the Consequence of one Affirmation to another. The former is nothing else, but Sense and Memory, and is Absolute Knowledge; as when we see a Fact doing, or remember it done; And this is the Knowledge required in a Witnesse. The later is called Science; and is Conditionall; as when we know, that, If the figure showne be a Circle, then any straight line through the Center shall divide it into two equall parts. And this is the Knowledge required in a Philosopher; that is to say, of him that pretends to Reasoning.’
- 235.
Ibid., 130–131. Hobbes’ definition of science, as we know, was influenced by the earlier philosophical tradition (Aristotelian-Scholastic), where scientia was understood as a strictly deductive knowledge. Yet, in Hobbes, as in other authors of the time, a new concept of science took shape, which escaped solely deductive reasoning, encompassing several aspects of the modern concept of science. He does not favor the experimental dimension but insists on the mathematization of nature. On the concept of scientia in Hobbes, see Jesseph 2010. On scientia in the early modern age, see Sorell et al. 2010, vii–viii. See also Garber 2010; Gaukroger 2010.
- 236.
According to Hobbes 2012, 130–131, history is in the realm of the knowledge of fact and differs from natural history, ‘which is the History of such Facts, or Effects of Nature, as have no Dependance on Mans Will; such as are the Histories of Metalls, Plants, Animals, Regions, and the like. The other, is Civill History; which is the History of the Voluntary Actions of men in Common-wealths’.
- 237.
De corpore, Epistola dedicatoria, OL, I, not numbered.
- 238.
In the Advancement of Learning Bacon actually argued that there was a fundamental need to study mathematics in the field of ‘mixed mathematics’. See Bacon, 1858–1874, III, 360. However, Bacon had a well-known general distaste for the constant application of mathematics to the study of natural philosophy. See Gaukroger 2001, 20–27.
- 239.
Dialogus physicus, OL, IV, 241.
- 240.
Ibid. Eng. Trans. Shapin and Schaffer 1985, 351: ‘Indeed, it is right not to believe in histories blindly. But are not those phenomena, which can be seen daily by each of you, suspect, unless all of you see them simultaneously?’. As Shapin and Schaffer have correctly pointed out, the distinction between experiment and observation seems outside of Hobbes’ mindset. Ibid., 139–143, and 146 ff.
- 241.
Dialogus physicus, OL, IV, 247; Eng. Trans. 362
- 242.
Hobbes indirectly references Aristotle, Physics, III, I, 200 b, 12 ff.
- 243.
Dialogus physicus, OL, IV, 273; Eng. Trans. Shapin and Schaffer 1985, 379.
- 244.
Galilei, Il saggiatore, OG, VI, 232. Eng. trans. Finocchiaro 2008, 183.
- 245.
On the mathematical order of the universe in Galileo, see Galluzzi 1979, which analyzes the topic with critical precision, including relating the topic of ‘essences.’
- 246.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 432.
- 247.
For the dialectic between ratio and experience in Galileo, a fundamental text is Galluzzi 1994. See also Stabile 2002, and Bucciantini 2003, 210. In some letters contemporary to the publication of the Discorsi e dimostrazioni necessarie intorno a due nuove scienze, Galileo suggested that the necessary demonstrations would be no less conclusive (demonstratively), even if empirical verification did not corroborate rational speculation. For example, in a letter to Pietro Carcavy (5 June 1637, OG, XVII, 90–91), about the fall of bodies, Galileo expresses himself as follows: ‘se l’esperienza mostrasse che tali accidenti si ritrovassero verificarsi nel moto dei gravi naturalmente descendenti, potremmo senza errore affermare questo essere il moto medesimo che da me fu definito e supposto, quando che no, le mie dimostrazioni, fabricate sopra la mia supposizione, niente perdevano della sua forza e concludenza; sì che come niente progiudica alle conclusioni dimostrate da Archimede circa la spirale il non ritrovarsi in natura mobile che in quella maniera spiralmente si muova’. This idea returns in another letter sent to Giovan Battista Baliani (7 January 1639, OG, XVIII, 12–13): ‘Ma tornando al mio trattato del moto, argomento ex suppositione sopra il moto, in quella maniera diffinito; siché quando bene le conseguenze non rispondessero alli accidenti del moto naturale de’ gravi descendenti, poco a me importerebbe, siccome nulla deroga alle dimostratione di Archimede il non trovarsi in natura alcun mobile che si muova per linee spirali.’
- 248.
Galileo Galilei to Fortunio Liceti, September 15, 1640, OG, XVIII, 249. Eng. trans. Drake 1978, 409.
- 249.
Ibid.
- 250.
- 251.
Galileo Galilei to Fortunio Liceti, 15 September 1640, OG, XVIII, 248; Eng. trans. Drake 1978, 409
- 252.
OG, XVIII, 248: ‘Io stimo (e credo che essa ancora stimi) che l’esser veramente Peripatetico, cioè filosofo Aristotelico, consista principalissimamente nel filosofare conforme alli Aristotelici insegnamenti, procedendo con quei metodi e con quelle vere supposizioni e principii sopra i quali si fonda lo scientifico discorso, supponendo quelle generali notizie il deviar delle quali sarebbe grandissimo difetto. Tra queste supposizioni è tutto quello che Aristotele c’insegna nella sua Dialettica, attenente al farci cauti nello sfuggire le fallacie del discorso, indirizzandolo et addestrandolo a bene sillogizzare e dedurre dalle premesse concessioni la necessaria conclusione; e tal dottrina riguarda alla forma del dirittamente argumentare. In quanto a questa parte, credo di havere appreso dalli innumerabili progressi matematici puri, non mai fallaci, [tal] sicurezza nel dimostrare, che, se non mai, almeno rarissime volte io sia nel mio argumenta[re] cascato in equivoci. Sin qui dunque io sono Peripatetico.’
- 253.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 75. Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 50.
- 254.
Ibid.
- 255.
Hobbes to William Candish, Earl of Newcastle, from Paris, 29 July/8 August 1636, CH, I, 33.
- 256.
TO II, Chapt. I, § 24, ff. 203r–203v/159: ‘… quaerenda erat hypothesis Conveniens, id est supponendus motus possibilis imaginabilis, et cui nullum absurdum consequeretur …’
- 257.
See Gargani 1971, 50 ff.
- 258.
MLT, XXX, 10, 352–353: ‘… siquidem processus fiat ab imaginatione causae ad imaginationem effectus, & ita deinceps versus finem (qui est semper effectus ultimus), vocatur animi discursus compositio,
; quod si contra procedatur ab effectu ad causam, & deinceps versus priora, vocatur resolutio, 
; utraque autemvocatur reminiscentia … Eadem haec reminiscentia mediorum ad finem, si quoties finem imaginamur, toties eundem mediorum ordinem percurreret imaginatio procedendo a causa ad effectum, ars diceretur & contra procedendo ab effectu ad causam, scientia causarum’. Hobbes attributes the compositive method to art, and the resolutive method to the ‘science of causes.’ Ibid., II, 8, 115. - 259.
TO II, Chap. I, § 1, f. 193r/147: ‘Cum enim quaestio instituta sit, de alicuius eventus sensibus manifesti (quod Phaenomenon appellari solet) causa efficiente.’
- 260.
Hobbes to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, from Paris, 29 July/8 Aug. 1636, CH, I, 33.
- 261.
De corpore, XXX, 14, OL, I, 424–425: ‘Quis enim est ex sensibus nostris per quem judicamus esse aerem, quem neque videmus, neque audimus, neque gustamus, neque olfacimus, neque tangentes quidem cognoscimus esse aliquid? … Ratione autem corpus esse aliquod quod aerem dicimus, cognosci potest, sed unica, nimirum, quia sine medio corpore, corpora procul posita in sensoria nostra agere non possint, neque omnino sentiremus nisi contigua. Naturae ergo corporeae, absque ratiocinatione ab effectu, soli sensus idonei testes non sunt.’
- 262.
Galilei, Discorso delle comete, OG, VI, 47 (my italics). My translation.
- 263.
Galilei, Il saggiatore, OG, VI, 279. Eng. trans. Drake 1960, 233 ff.
- 264.
On the difficulty of translating highly mathematical arguments into the field of physics, see Giusti 1995. Regarding the ‘mathematization’ of nature, applied to the structure of matter, see the discussion in Chap. 4.
- 265.
Galilei, Il saggiatore, OG, VI, 279–281.
- 266.
Ibid., 281. Eng. trans. Drake 1960, 236–237.
- 267.
On this topic, see also Piccolino 2005, 27–37.
- 268.
Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 124. Eng. Trans. Galilei 2001, 99. Giudice pointed out an analogy and a quotation of this passage in § 2 of Chap. 1 of Tractatus Opticus II, where Hobbes compares the main cosmological theories (see Giudice 2016). I think Giudice was generally correct about Galileo’s influence on Hobbes’ method; however, in my opinion, that analogy is not very evident (for instance, a quite similar argument was made by Descartes and Gassendi. See Roux 1998, 20). On the contrary, I find striking similarities between an argument in another part of the same day of the Dialogue, and the argument in a passage of Chapter 7 of De motu, loco et tempore (see next page). Giudice also cites a passage of the optical treatise about the principle of the relativity of motion on a ship, (TO II, chap. IV, § 56, f. 264v/225) which refers to a comparable place on the second day of the Dialogue (Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, OG, VII, 141–143).
- 269.
Ibid., OG, VII, 86. Eng. trans. Galilei 2001, 61.
- 270.
Ibid.
- 271.
MLT, VII, 4, 147–148 Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 81, modified. See also ibid., XXIV, 1, 289.
- 272.
MLT, XXVI, 2, 309; Eng. Trans. Hobbes 1976, 305 (my italics).
- 273.
Ibid.
- 274.
In Leviathan, Hobbes reiterates that truth and falsehood only exist in relationship to discourse. See Hobbes 2012, chap. IV, 54–56: ‘For True and False are attributes of Speech, not of Things. And where Speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood … Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accordingly.’
- 275.
Ibid., chap. V, 72: ‘By this it appears that Reason is not, as Sense and Memory, borne with us; nor gotten by Experience onely, as Prudence is; but attayned by Industry; 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 Syllogismes, 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’.
- 276.
EL, Part I, chap. VI, §§ 1–4, 24–6.
- 277.
Hobbes 2012, 72.
- 278.
Ibid., 124.
- 279.
Ibid.
- 280.
- 281.
See Hobbes 2012, chap. IX, 130–132.
- 282.
As we know, Hobbes’ definition of philosophy in Leviathan is that of the ‘knowledge of consequences’ The study of the consequences of natural bodies, is ‘natural philosophy,’ while the study of the consequences of the political bodies is ‘civil, or political philosophy.’ (ibid).
- 283.
Ibid.
- 284.
Galilei, Il saggiatore, OG, VI, 350. Eng. trans. Drake 1957, 275.
- 285.
De corpore, Ad lectorem, OL, I, not numbered (first page of the dedicatory letter): ‘Mentis ergo tuae et totius mundi filia Philosophia in te ipso est; nondum fortasse figurata, sed genitori mundo qualis erat in principio informi similis. Faciendum ergo tibi est, quod faciunt statuarii qui materiam exculpentes supervacaneam, imaginem non faciunt, sed inveniunt.’
- 286.
Ibid., I, 2, OL, I, 2.
- 287.
Ibid., OL, I, 3.
- 288.
Ibid., III, 7, OL, I, 31–32.
- 289.
Ibid., VI, 1, OL, I, 58–59.
- 290.
Ibid., VI, 4, 61; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 68–69.
- 291.
Ibid., II, 9, OL, I, 17–18; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 20. On this topic, see Minerbi Belgrado 1993, 122.
- 292.
De corpore, VI, 5, OL, I, 62; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 69: “…causa enim eorum omnium universalis una, est motus’.
- 293.
Ibid., 61.
- 294.
- 295.
De corpore, XXV, 1, OL, I, 334–335.
- 296.
Ibid., 335; Eng. Trans. EW, I, 388.
- 297.
Ibid. VI, 6, OL, I, 62–63; Eng. Trans. 70.
- 298.
Ibid., 63.
- 299.
Ibid., not numbered, 62. Jesseph has investigated Hobbes’ mechanics, the foundation and premise of Hobbes’ philosophical system whose key elements are motion and mathematically quantifiable bodies. See Jesseph 2006.
- 300.
De corpore, VI, 6, 63.
- 301.
Ibid.
- 302.
Ibid., VIII, 3, 92–93. These thoughts draw from ideas found in the manuscript of De principiis, where he identifies an accident that was the essence of a specific body. See De Principiis (National Library of Wales, Ms. 5297), MLT, Appendix II, 457: ‘That accident for which we impose a certain name upon any body: or that accident which does denominate his subject is called the essence thereof.’
- 303.
De corpore, VI, 10, OL, I, 70; EW, I, 77.
- 304.
Ibid.: ‘Interea manifestum est quod in causarum investigatione partim methodo analytica partim synthetica opus est. Analytica, ad effectus circumstantias sigillatim concipiendas, synthetica ad ea. quae singulae per se efficiunt in unum componenda.’
- 305.
Six Lessons, EW, VII, 191: ‘Geometry is the science of determining the quantity of anything, not measured, by comparing it with some other quantity or quantities measured.’
- 306.
Ibid.: ‘I suppose, most egregious professors, you know already that by geometry, though the word import no more but the measuring of land, is understood no less the measuring of all other quantity than that of bodies.’
- 307.
See De homine, X, 5, OL, II, 93.
- 308.
Ibid., 93.
- 309.
Ibid. My translation.
- 310.
Zvi Biener has investigated Galileo’s attempt to apply his method of mathematization to reality as well as to matter, found in the first day of Discourses where Galileo focuses on the possibility (and need) to extend mathematical speculations to physics (and therefore the science of matter). Biener has argued that Galileo had a clear polemical target: the ideas that Niccolò Tartaglia had developed in Quesiti et inventioni diverse (1546). See Biener 2004, 267–269. Regarding Galileo’s relationships with the so-called mixed mathematics, I disagree with the conclusion reached by Machamer 1978, which would reduce Galileo the philosopher to the role of a mixed mathematician. The image that emerges from Galileo’ texts is that of a natural philosopher, as is clear from his conception of matter (see below, Chap. 4), which is the basis for his distinction between primary and secondary qualities of bodies. In my opinion, an analysis of Hobbes’ texts also suggests that this was Hobbes’ interpretation, and this is why he considered Galileo the greatest philosopher of all time.
- 311.
Galileo Galilei to Fortunio Liceti, January 1641, OG, XVIII, 295. Eng. Trans. Palmerino 2002, 30
- 312.
Seven Philosophical Problems, EW, VII, 3: ‘The doctrine of natural causes hath not infallible and evident principles.’
- 313.
Ibid., 4.
, sive causarum est; alia cognitio omnis quae 
dicitur, sensio est vel a sensione remanens imagination sive memoria.’
, sive concursum ad effectum aliquem futurum producendum praesciret, nunquam illum effectum fortuito, sed ex necessitate, eventurum affirmaret; quod enim aliquis futurum certo scit ex certitudine scientiae, certe, id est non fortuito, eventurum pronuntiaret … Cum itaque eventus omnes propter causas suas necessarii sint, sequitur ut non alia de causa fortuiti videantur, quam quod eorum causas omnes non percipimus.’
; quod si contra procedatur ab effectu ad causam, & deinceps versus priora, vocatur resolutio, 
; utraque autemvocatur reminiscentia … Eadem haec reminiscentia mediorum ad finem, si quoties finem imaginamur, toties eundem mediorum ordinem percurreret imaginatio procedendo a causa ad effectum, ars diceretur & contra procedendo ab effectu ad causam, scientia causarum’. Hobbes attributes the compositive method to art, and the resolutive method to the ‘science of causes.’ Ibid., II, 8, 115.References
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Baldin, G. (2020). Hobbes: Principles of Galilean Philosophy. In: Hobbes and Galileo: Method, Matter and the Science of Motion. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 230. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41414-6_2
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