Abstract
The relationship between Hobbes and scepticism was, right from the beginning, the subject of controversy: while the philosopher was still alive, Mersenne felt obliged to warn Sorbière against the illusion of finding “his” epoché and “Scepticae naeniae” in De cive, whereas from that book he could have learned “dogmaticam fiirmissimis innixam fulcris”.1 The discussion surrounding a possible influence of sceptical themes on Hobbes’ philosophy must naturally begin from his considerations of the fallacies of the senses, developed in the first few chapters of Elements. This problem is all the more important in Hobbes’ system since, without being an empiricist in the true sense, Hobbes took as his own two presuppositions, destined to emphasize the place of sensation in the construction of the system: on one hand he attributed to sense the role of the initial and indispensable stage of knowledge;2 on the other hand he believed that all subsequent phases of psychological life, from imagination to memory, from mental discourse to “conception” as such, derived from the prolongation or from the transformation of perceptions.3
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References
The editions of Hobbes’ works referred to are as follows: Hobbes, Thomas, The Elements of Law Natural and Politic, edited with a Preface and Critical Notes by Ferdinand Tönnies. Second Edition with a New Introduction by M.M. Goldsmith. London: 1969 (fiirst ed. 1889) [abbreviated: El.];
Hobbes, Thomas, De motu, loco et tempore, in Critique du “De mundo” de Thomas White, critical edition of an unpublished text, ed. by Jean Jacquot and Harold Whitmore Jones. Paris: Vrin, 1973 [abbreviated: De motu]; Hobbes, Th., Tractatus Opticus (Harley Ms. 6796, ff. 193–266), first complete edition by Franco Alessio, Rivista critica di storia della filosofiia, vol. 18, 1963, 147–228 [indicated as Tractatus Opticus II ];
Hobbes, Thomas, De cive: The Latin Version… A critical Edition by Howard Warrender. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983 [indicated as De cive];
Hobbes, Thomas, De Corpore. Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Prima, critical edition, notes, appendices and index by Karl Schuhmann. Paris: Vrin, 1999.
Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, edited with an introduction by C.B. Macpherson. London: Penguin Books, 1985 (indicated as Lev. — the dual pagination refers first to the 1651 edition and then to the modern edition indicated). For all other works, reference is to the two classical collections: Thomae Hobbes Malmesburiensis Opera Philosophica quae latine scripsit omnia in unum corpus nunc primum collecta studio et labore Gulielmi Molesworth, 5 volumes, London, 1839, second reprint Aalen 1966 [edition indicated as: OL, followed by the Roman numeral to designate the volume]; The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury; now first collected and edited by Sir William Molesworth, 11 volumes. London, 1839, second reprint Aalen 1966 [edition indicated as: EW, followed by the Roman numeral to designate the volume]. For the passage quoted in the text: De cive, p. 86: “Quantâ autem voluptate à nobis afficieris, quando videris nobilem illam Philosophiam, non minus quàm Euclidis Elementa demonstrari? Quàm libenter illi tuæ Epochœ, & Scepticis næniis renuntiaturus es, cùm dogmaticam firmissimis innixam fulcris fateri cogeris”.
See El. I, ii, 2, p. 3: “Originally all conceptions proceed from the actions of the thing itself, whereof it is the conception. Now when the action is present, the conception it produceth is called SENSE, and the thing by whose action the same is produced is called the OBJECT of sense”.
See El. I, i-v, pp. 1–17. For a representation of Hobbes’ psychology that stresses the analogies (as well as the differences) compared to an equally empiristic and mechanistic frame, such as that of Gassendi, I refer the reader to my previous work: Paganini, G., “Hobbes, Gassendi e la psicologia del meccanicismo”, in: Proceedings of the Conference “Hobbes oggi”. Milano: Franco Angeli Editore, 1990, ob. 351–445.
El. I, i,8,p. 2.
El. I, i, 7, p. 2.
El. I, i, 8, p. 2: “This imagery and representations of the qualities of things without us is that we call our cognition, imagination, ideas, notice, conception, or knowledge of them”.
El. I, ii, 3, p. 3. Examples of the sight and hearing follow: “And so the rest of the senses also are conceptions of several qualities, or natures of their objects”.
El. I, ii, 4, p. 3. An even worse paradox (“worse than any paradox”), indeed “a plain impossibility” is that resulting from imagining, as in scholastic theory and in part as still occurred in Short Tract, the existence of “species visible and intelligible” that come and go from the object (ibid., p. 3–4).
El. I, ii, 4, p. 4: “That the subject wherein colour and image are inherent, is not the object or thing seen”. “That that is nothing without us really which we call an image or colour”.
Ibid , p. 4.
This thesis is repeated continually. See for example El. I, ii, 9, p. 7: “That as in conception by vision, so also in the conceptions that arise from other senses, the subject of their inherence is not the object, but the sentient”. Compare this with the clause in El. I, ii, 4, p.
Naturally, the theme of sensory deceit played a pre-eminent role in the formation of the sceptical approach, both in antiquity and in the modern age. For the latter, fundamental works are those by Richard H. Popkin, of which see at least: The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press, 1979; The High Road to Pyrrhonism.
San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1980 and, more recently, some collective volumes edited by him: Popkin, R.H. and Schmitt, Ch.B., eds., Scepticism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1987; Scepticism in the History of Philosophy. A Pan-American Dialogue, Dordrecht-BostonLondon: Kluwer, 1996. On relations between Hobbes and the French circles most exposed to the penetration of sceptical ideas, see Popkin, History, cit., pp. 107, 130, 139, 214–17. Popkin has dedicated two specific essays, republished as the first two chapters in his book, on the relations between Hobbes and scepticism: The Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought. Leiden-New York-Kobenhavn-Köln: Brill, 1992 (Hobbes and Scepticism I, pp. 9–26; Hobbes and Scepticism II, pp. 27–49). More extensively in the second essay, Popkin has stressed the “political” result of scepticism, since the impossibility of establishing a certain “criterion” to distinguish the secular from the religious presumably induced Hobbes to defer to the civil authorities the publicly authorised definition of truth (“a special kind of scepticism, a political scepticism, in which there are no intellectual standards of truth and falsity, only political ones”, p. 45). With regard to this “radical kind of scepticism” (p. 48), the critical observations on religious phenomena and on the problems of Biblical exegesis, for which Hobbes earned the reputation of a subversive sceptic, appear to Popkin rather more timid and circumscribed, “slightly innovative” and compatible with offiicial versions of Christianity (see p. 43). The passages to which Popkin refers come from: De Cive, XVII, xii and Leviathan. Ch. V.
Galilei, G., Opere, ed. by A. Favaro, Firenze: G. Barbera, 1896, vol. VI, pp. 347–48.
El. I, ii, 7, p. 5: the reference is to the light, but the expression recurs other times in Hobbes’ writings. See for example Lev. I, i, p. 3/84, where Hobbes presents “Thoughts” as “a Representation or Apparence, of some quality, or other Accident of a body without us”. On the peculiarities of Lev., which superimposes an arbitraristic logic over the empirical psychology of El., see Pacchi, Arrigo, Convenzione e ipotesi nella filosofia naturale di Thomas Hobbes. Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1965, pp. 188–93. It is known that in De corpore the object “created” or “relocated” in space after the “fiicta universi sublatio” (De corpore, II, vii, 1, p. 75) is called “propter extensionem quidem Corpus, propter independentiam autem a nostra cogitatione subsistens per se, et propterea quod extra nos subsistit, existens” (II, viii, 1, p. 82).
El. I, ii, 10, p. 7. According to Richard Tuck (Tuck, Richard, “Hobbes and Descartes”. In: Rogers, G.A.J. and Ryan, Alan, eds., Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, pp. I 1–41, spec. p. 28–9) this is one of the fundamental passages that mark “the invention of modern philosophy”: the “great novelty” of Descartes, Gassendi and Hobbes consists in the “basic idea that we have immediate and veridical knowledge of our sense-impressions, and only our sense-impressions — there can be no comparable knowledge of the external world”’ (ibid., p. 30). I will go on to show that this “invention” was anticipated in numerous places in the re-elaboration of ancient sceptical sources by a “modern” like Montaigne.
El. I, ii, 7, p. 5: “That image and colour is but an apparition unto us of that motion, agitation, or alteration, which the object worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance in the head”. See the passage, identical almost to the letter, in I, ii, 5, p. 4: “That the said image or colour is but an apparition unto us of that motion, agitation, or alteration, which the object worketh in the brain or spirits, or some internal substance of the head”.
El. I, ii, 9, p. 7
El. I, ii, 10, p. 7. A very clear analysis of the phenomen or phantasm or representation as the result of a “radical heterogeneity between sensibility and the thing” may be found in: Zarka, Yves-Charles, La décision métaphysique de Hobbes. Conditions de la politique, second edition, Paris: Vrin, 1999, p. 33. See also p. 35: “Le phénomène n’est plus manifestation de l’être, au contraire, c’est désormais une représentation subjective qui ne ressemble pas à la chose”. Pacchi, op. cit., p. 233 finds in Hobbes’ analysis of perception “il riconoscimento della validità delle argomentazioni scettiche circa l’impossibilità della mente umana di afferrare la realtà ultima delle cose, al di là dell’involucro sensitivo immaginativo entro il quale essa opera”.
The Short Tract is published as an appendix to the Tönnies edition of Elements (see pp. l 93–210). On the (materialistic) theory of the species see the whole of Section 2 (pp. 197204). See also: Hobbes, Th., Court Traité des premiers principes. Texte, traduction et commentaire par Jean Bernhardt, Paris: P.U.F., 1988.
See of the Short Tract sect. 3, conclusion 2, p. 205: “Of Substances nothing is present to touch them but the Species of obiects, or the brayne qualified by these Species with active power to produce the similitude of those obiects whence they issue, or the soul”.
See sect. 3, conclusion 3, p. 206 on “Light, Colour, Heat, 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”. The “Phantasma” is defined: “an Action of the brayne on the Animal spirits by the power it receiveth from externall sensible things” (concl. 4, p. 206). Equally firm is the definition of sensation: “The Act of Sense is Motion of the Animal Spirits, by the species of the externall obiect, suppos’d to be present” (concl. 5, p. 207).
See El. I, iii, 5, p. 10: here “phantasma” designates the vivid image that competes with the sense for effectiveness (”another kind of imagination, which for clearness contendeth with sense”, as occurs when dreaming, or also after the action of the sense has been “long or vehement” (like the image that remains before the eyes after looking at the sun), or again the illusory images that appear in darkness: “whereof I think every man hath experience, but they most of all, that are timorous or superstitious”. On the use of the notion of “phantasma” in Hobbes, see the important essay by Yves-Charles Zarka, “Le vocabulaire de l’apparaître: le champ sémantique de la notion de phantasma”, in Zarka, Y.-Ch., ed., Hobbes et son vocabulaire. Paris: Vrin, 1992, pp. 13–29 (on the presence of the term in El. p. 20; Zarka tends nevertheless to exclude the pertinence of the sceptical source for the use of the terms “phenomenon” or “phantasm”: see art. cit. pp. 23–24). On the authenticity of Hobbes’ authorship of Short Tract, see the conclusive arguments in: Schuhmann K., “Le Short Tract, première oeuvre philosophique de Hobbes”, Hobbes Studies, vol. 8, 1995, pp. 3–36. To complete Zarka’s investigation, note that, together with the hypothesis of annihilation, already in the manuscript De principiis (National Library of Wales, Ms. 5297), that contains an early draft of De corpore (which dates to the period after the European journey of 1634–36, according to Mario Manlio Rossi, who published it: see Rossi, Mario Manlio, Alle fonti del deismo e del materialismo moderno. Firenze, 1942, pp. 103–94), the counterposition appears between the “phantasm” (surviving annihilation) and the “thing… that… existed or was without the mind” (I quote from the edition contained in the appendix to De motu, cit., p. 450, where this other phrase, in connection with magnitudes, motions, sounds, colours etc.” considered after the false annihilation, also appears: “though in truth they would be only ideas and phantasms internally happening and falling to the imaginant himself, nevertheless they would appear as if they were external and not depending upon the power or virtue of the mind”, ibid., p. 449). I point out the remarkable fact that the work by A.P. Martinich, Hobbes Dictionary. Cambridge (Mass.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, contains neither the entry “Phantasm” (only some reference under “dream”, p. 100 and “sensation’”, pp. 271–72), nor that of “Phenomenon” (this term does not even appear in the index at the end of the dictionary).
Hobbes, Tractatus opticus (Ms. Harley 6796, edited by Franco Alessio), in: Rivista critica di storia della fiilosofiia, vol. 18, 1963, 147: “Rerum naturalium tractatio a caeterarum scientiarum tractatione plurimum differt […]. Sed in explicatione Causarum naturalium, aliud genus principiorum necessario adhibendum est, quod vocatur Hypothesis sive suppositio. Cum enim quaestio instituta sit, de alicuius eventus sensibus manifesti (quod Phaenomenon appellari solet) causa efficiente, quae consistit plerumque in designatione seu descriptione alicuius motus, quem tale Phaenomenon necessario consequatur; cumque dissimilibus motibus produci Phaenomena similia non sit impossibile; potest fiieri ut ex motu supposito, effectus recte demonstretur, ut tamen ipsa suppositio non sit vera”. In the “Tractatus opticus” edited by Mersenne in his Cogitata Physico-Mathematica, Paris, 1644 (where it constitutes book VII of Optics) Hobbes rather uses the lexicon of the “phantasma”. See for example: “Est ergo lumen lucidi phantasma, sive imago concepta in cerebro”; “Lumen est phantasma a lucido. Idem sentiendum de coloribus, qui sunt lumen perturbatum” (OL V, p. 221). On the important role played by the considerations of optics and in general by the observations relating to the relativity of sensible data, in French circles (Charron, Mersenne, Gassendi) as well as in Hobbes and Descartes see: Tuck, Richard, “Optics and Sceptics: the philosophical foundations of Hobbes’s political thought”, in Leites, E., ed., Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 235–63 (spec. pp. 237–246). Tuck, in particular, believes that the first two chapters of Elements contain the general lines of Hobbes’ theory of knowledge and that “they make it clear that his starting point was a set of familiar sceptical arguments” (p. 251). In another essay, Tuck has argued the profiile of a”post-sceptical” Hobbes, above all in the areas of morals and law: “Grotius, Carneades and Hobbes”, Grotiana, new series, vol. 4, 1983, pp. 43–62 (for a more generic reading of relations between Hobbes and political scepticism, see Flathman, Richard E., Thomas Hobbes: Skepticism, Individuality and Chastened Politics. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1993, spec. pp. 2–3, 21–22, 52). In a review of the positions of Popkin and Tuck, Tom Sorell (Sorell, T., “Hobbes without doubt”, History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 10, 1993, pp. 12I-35) has denied the pertinence of sceptical arguments for understanding Hobbes’ philosophy: this appears to him rather to be “anti-Aristotelian” than “post-sceptical”. In particulars, Sorell believes that the arguments contained in El. I, ii, far from representing Hobbes’ reply to the hyperbolic doubt proposed by Descartes (as Tuck sustains), rather represent its complete misunderstanding, to the extent of denying its fundamental rules (“Far from rescuing anyone from the doubt, Hobbes’s arguments as reported by Tuck simply violates its groundrules”, p. 127). As I will try to show here, Descartes’ formulation of the doubt was neither the only one nor the most suggestive of Hobbes’ time: a classical, pre-Descartes formulation existed (not hyperbolic, indeed mixed with dogmatic forms) that, starting from the works of Sextus, through Plato’s Theaetetus, reached Montaigne and Charron and entered the early years of the 17th century — and if anything this is the background that Hobbes’ theory of knowledge looks to.
Often mentioned, Hobbes’ relationship with the French circle of “libertines” and their chief exponents (Naudé, La Mothe le Vayer, Patin, Sorbière) or their most important interlocutors (Gassendi, Mersenne), was rarely focused upon in a historically convincing way. Among the few exceptions (together with my essay on Gassendi, cit. supra n. 3 and my other article: “Hobbes, Gassendi et le De cive”, in Benitez, M., McKenna, A., Paganini, G., Salem, J., eds., Materia actuosa. Antiquité, Age classique, Lumières. Paris: Champion, 2000, pp. 183–206) see Skinner, Quentin: “Thomas Hobbes and his disciples in France and England”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 8, 1966, pp. 153–67.
See Pacchi, op. cit., p. 182. On relations with Mersenne and Gassendi see pp. 10–13; on the themes of the docta ignorantia and of the verum factum pp. 179–81; on the hypothetical nature of the foundations as “tentativo di superare l’impasse neo-pirroniana”, though recognising the validity and even denying the possibility of attaining “la realtà ultima delle cose”, pp. 232–33.
La Mothe Le Vayer, François, Dialogues faits à l’imitation des anciens. Paris: Fayard, 1988, p. 28–29. For an overview of the interpretations and texts of modern scepticism, I refer the reader to: Paganini, Gianni, Scepsi moderna. Interpretazioni dello scetticismo da Charron a Hume. Cosenza: Busento, 1991.
Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhonianae Hypotyposes (= P H) I, 36–1 6 3
P H I,38.
P H I, 39.
La Mothe, Dialogue, cit. p. 29.
PHI, 135–140.
See also P H I, 196 and 203.
P H I, 145 foll; La Mothe, Dialogue, cit., p. 29 ff.
“Vous avez eu raison de dire dés le commencement, que cette matiere s’estendoit jusques à l’infiiny; ce que vous avez rendu d’autant plus veritable, que n’ayant fait profession d’entrée d’examiner qu’un seul des dix moyens de vostre Epoché, vous n’avez laissé, ce me semble, de donner une forte atteinte à tous les autres, ayant fait de ce dixiesme à peu prés ce que vous disiez de celuy de la relation, qui les comprenoit tous en soy. Dont je ne doute point que vous ne donniez la cause au grand rapport et connexion qui se trouve des uns aux autres” (La Mothe, Dialogue, cit., p. 59). For an overview of the scepticism of La Mothe (with reference to the critical literature) I refer the reader to: Paganini, G., “‘Pyrrhonisme tout pur’ ou circoncis’? La dynamique du scepticisme chez La Mothe Le Vayer”, in McKenna, A. and Moreau, P.-F., eds., Libertinage et philosophie au XVIIee siècle, no. 2. Saint-Etienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 1997, pp. 7–31.
La Mothe, Dialogue, cit., p. 59.
La Mothe, Dialogue, cit., p. 61–62.
In this connection, see the important considerations made by Charlotte Stough, Greek Skepticism. A study in epistemology. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969, pp. 20 ff. — to be integrated with remarks by Mario Dal Pra, Lo scetticismo greco. Roma-Bari: Laterza, 19752, pp. 22 ff. that take up some observations by Giulio Preti on scepticism as a self-critical phase of philosophical realism: the latter places the object of cognition outside cognition, or at least distinguishes between an object immanent to cognition itself and an object transcendent and properly speaking real (see Preti, G., “Lo scetticismo e il problema della conoscenza”, Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, vol. 29, 1974, pp. 3–31, 123–43, 243–63). Marcel Conche holds that the position of a being in itself, of a nature of things, is typical of dogmatism and to the extent in which they reflected it, the tropes show themselves to be only “une machine de guerre antidogmatique” that takes its adversary’s very assumptions to better confute them. Thus Aenesidemus did not espouse the “phenomenalist split between being and appearing” (Conche, M., Pyrrhon ou de l’apparence. Villers sur Mer: Editions de Mégare, , , 1973 pp. 78–9 86–7)
P H I, 61. In the translation by R.G. Bury (Sextus Empiricus with an English translation, vol. I, Outlines of Pyrrhonism. London-Cambridge (Mass.): Heinemann-Harvard University Press, 1967, p. 39: “we must necessarily suspend judgement regarding the external underlying objects”.
See for example P H I, 1 l2: ôπoîov µεv “ε kαστov τ5v vύπoκειpεvv εKαστω Φфαίvεται pαbιov ίσϱ είπεîv, ôπoîov δε εστιv ovKετι (transl. Bury, cit., p. 67: “if it is easy to say what nature each of the underlying objects appears to each man to possess, we cannot go on to say what its real nature is”. On the distinction between being and appearing see the comment by Stough, op. cit., p. 23: “The distinction between phenomenon and existing object is parallel to that between “appears” and “is”; and epistemologically it marks a difference between the object as it is perceived and the object as it exists in some other circumstance, probably one independent of its being experienced”.
P H 1, 104. Transl. Bury, cit., p. 63: so that the existence or non-existence of our impressions is not absolute but relative”.
P H I, 135.
P H I, 144. Bury translates: “we are not able to state what nature absolutely belongs to eacn of the external objects”.
P H I, 87: but the opposition is recurrent, in the same terms. See for example I, 93, 123, 163 (in this last passage, Sextus opposes the object “as it appears” to “the object as it is for its nature”: ôπoîov µεv έστι τò vnoKε ίµεvov Kατα τήlv Φσιv ).
This is the conclusion of P H I, 163. Transl. Bury, cit., p. 93: “we are compelled to suspend judgement regarding the real nature of external objects”.
On the use of the term “phenomenon” by the ancient sceptics, see the comment by Stough, op. cit., p. 24 (which we follow here): “In the light of this new term, then, we may suppose that the phenomenon is what is experienced, as contrasted with the autonomous object. Since the latter is held to be what exists (έaτι, ππεΦvKε}, while the former is what appears (Φαίvεται), that is, what is apparent to us, it would seem to follow that the objects of our experience are the appearances of existents rather than the existent themselves”. On the meanings of the word “phenomenon” in Sextus Empiricus, see Janácek, Karel, Sextus Empiricus “ Sceptical Methods”. Praha: Universita Karlova, 1972, pp. 14, 49. 107.
As is known, the distinction between demonstrative science (declared impossible) that concerns the certain and evident knowledge of an object, on one hand, and a notion that is epistemologically weaker than science, limited to providing “notitiam quandam experimentalem et rerum apparentium”, is the object of the violent and anti-Aristotelian polemic put forth by Pierre Gassendi in Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos (in Opera omnia in sex tomos divisa…, Lugduni, Sumptibus Laurentii Anisson et Ioann. Bapt. Devenet, 1658 — anastatic reprint with introduction by Tullio Gregory, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann, 1964). On the meaning of “scientia quae vel experientiae vel apparentiae appellari possit” see in particular book II, exercitatio VI, entitled: “Quod nulla sit Scientia, et maxime Aristotelea”, pp. 192–210). On p. 207a Gassendi speaks of a “scientia experimentalis, et ut sic dicam apparentialis”. The work, which contains marked echoes of the anti-Aristotelian (Vives, Ramus) and sceptical (Gianfrancesco Pico, Charron) Renaissance tradition, was written between 1620 and ’24, but, while the author was still alive, only the first book was published — book I (1624) — whereas book II was only published with the posthumous edition of Opera in 1658. On the influence of the sceptical school, ancient and modern, on this phase of Gassendi’s thought, see Popkin, History, cit., pp. 101–103; Walker, Ralph, “Gassendi and Skepticism”, in Burnyeat, Myles, ed., The Skeptical Tradition. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press, 1983, pp. 319–36; Paganini, Scepsi moderna, cit., pp. 37–42.
See for example P H I, transl. Bury, cit. p. 17: “The criterion then, of the Sceptic School, is, we say, the appearance, giving this name to what is virtually the sense-presentation. For since this lies in feeling and involuntary affection, it is not open to question. Consequently, no one, I suppose, disputes that the underlying object has this or that appearance; the point in dispute is whether the object is in reality such as it appears to be”. On the “weak” nondogmatic meaning that the term “criterion”, generally rejected by Sextus when dealing with systematic philosophy, takes on in this particular context, see the observations of Stough, op. cit., pp. 142–43, where (with reference also to P H II, 14–18 and Adv. Math. VII, 29–35) the author distinguishes, of the word “criterion” in Sextus, “two main senses: that by which we judge reality and unreality (…), that is, the criterion of truth, and that which we use as a guide in ordinary life”. But also the first meaning of “criterion” presents three different senses: one more “general”, that concerns “every standard of apprehension” and thus the physical organs such as sight; another “special” and relative to all technical measurement of apprehension, such as the ruler or the compass, and yet another the most “special”, that is the “logical” supposed to provide a standard for the apprehension of nonevident objects. The sceptical attack chiefly concerns this last meaning of the term, the most philosophical and the most compromised with dogmatic doctrines.
Montaigne, Michel de, Les Essais, ed. by Pierre Villey. Paris: P.U.F., 1999, II, xii, Apologie de Raimond Sebond, vol. II, pp. 587–88.
Essais, cit., p. 590: “Nous avons formé une verité par la consultation et concurrence de nos cinq sens; mais à l’advanture falloit-il l’accord de huict ou de dix sens et leur contribution pour l’appercevoir certainement en son essence”. The essay by Conche on Montaigne’s philosophical thought is important: Conche, Marcel, Montaigne et la philosophie. Trefort: Ed. de Mégare, 1987 (and now on Montaigne’s interpretations: Mancini, Sandro, Oh, un amico! In dialogo con Montaigne e i suoi interpreti. Milano: Franco Angeli Editore, 1996. On the doctrine of the phenomenon, see in particular the paragraph “Scetticismo dottrinario e scetticismo fenomenologico”, pp. 256–78).
See for example Essais, cit., p. 599: “nous pouvons avouer que la neige nous apparoit blanche, mais que d’establir si de son essence elle est telle et à la verité, nous ne nous en sçaurions respondre”. Or again p. 599: “sont-ce, dis-je, nos sens qui façonnent de mesme de diverses qualitez ces subjects, ou s’ils les ont telles? Et sur ce doubte, que pouvons nous resoudre de leur veritable essence? ”.
Essais, cit., p. 600.
Essais, cit., p. 601.
Essais, cit., p. 601. In connection with this important passage of “Apologie”, Dumont has shown that it is a conciser adaptation, but one that is substantially faithful, of P H II, 7273. See Dumont, Jean-Paul, Le scepticisme et le phénomène. Essai sur la signiifiication et les origines du pyrrhonisme. Paris: Vrin, 1972, p. 44–45. It is singular to note that this important “discovery” of Dumont left almost no trace in later studies dealing with Montaigne’s philosophy (see, in confirmation of this lack, for example: Maclean, Ian, Montaigne philosophe. Paris: P.U.F, 1996, that also enhances the “topical” aspect of Montaigne’s Pyrrhonianism: see pp. 48–51).
Lev. I, ii, p. 5/88; “But the Greeks call it Fancy; which signifies apparence, anu is to one sense, as to another”.
Dumont, op. cit., pp. 8–9: “Le phénomène n’est pas une représentation subjective qui n’existerait que pour la pensée, ou pour l’imagination du sujet qui perçoit. Le phénomène est une réalité matérielle ou, si l’on préfère, un corps”.
P HI, 124.
P H I, 124. Transl. Bury, cit., p. 73: “The Sixth Mode is that based on admixture, by which we conclude that, because none of the real objects affects our senses by itself but always in conjunction with something else, though we may possibly be able to state the nature of the resultant mixture formed by the external object and that along which it is perceived, we shall not be able to say what is the exact nature of the external reality in itself”.
P H I, 128. Note that this “trope of the mixtures” also concerns the mind, or better the bodily seat of the hegemonical, be this the brain or the heart, since “the mind [διαcvoιa] itself adds a certain admixture of its own to the messages conveyed by the senses”, partly thanks to the “humours” present in the different parts of the body (transl. Bury, cit., p. 75). On this trope of mixtures, see Annas, Julia and Barnes, Jonathan, The Modes of Scepticism. Ancient Texts and Aodern Interpretations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 110–18.
[Hobbes], Objectiones tertiae, Ob. I, in: Descartes, René, Œuvres, ed. by Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, Paris: 1897–1913 [indicated as AT], vol. VII, p. 171 (Meditationes: Objectiones tertiae cum responsionibus authoris). For Hobbes “cogitare” was the equivalent of “habere phantasmata”: “Sum res cogitans; recte. Nam ex eo quod cogito, sive phantasma habeo, sive vigilans, sive somnians, colligitur quod sum cogitans” (ibid., p. 172).
This distinction is clearly outlined in Short Tract (see sect. 3, principles, 2: “By a Phantasma we understand the similitude or image of some external obiect, appearing to us after the externall obiect is removed from the Sensorium; as in Dreames”, ed. cit., p. 204) and maintained in El. I, iii, 1–10, pp. 8–12, where the definitions are given of “imagination” and “phantasm”, and the problem of the distinction between dreaming and waking is discussed.
AT VII, p. 191–92 (Ob. XIII.): “Vox haec, magna lux in intellectu, metaphorica est, nec igitur argumentativa. Unusquisque autem qui dubitatione caret, talem lucem praetendit, & habet propensionem voluntatis ad afffirmandum id de quo non dubitat, non minorem quàm qui revera scit. Potest ergo lux haec esse causa quare quis obstinate opinionem aliquam deefeendat vel teneat, sed non quòd sciat veram eam esse”.
Ibid., p. 171: “Ideoque si sensus nostros sine alia ratiocinatione sequamur, merito dubitabimus an aliquid existat, necne. Veritatem ergo huius Meditationis agnoscimus” (Ob. I).
Ibid., p. 171.
Plato, Theaetetus, 151e and ff. As far as I know, this reference to T heaetetus has not been indicated yet. Schuhmann, who has done praiseworthy research on the possible P laton ic sources of Hobbes’ thought, commented the passage in question thus: “It is difficult to estab lish which of Plato’s dialogues, next to the Symposion, were more or less known to Hobbes. When, for example, he objects to Descartes’ First Meditation that Plato a l ready had discussed “the unce rta inty of the se ns e- percept ions” (OL V, p. 251), he clearly has no specifc work in mind” (Schuhmann, Karl, “Hobbes and the poliica l thought of Plato and Ar is totle”, in Sorgi, G., ed., Politic a ediri tto in Hobbes. Milano: Giuffré, 1995, pp. 1–36 — the passage quoted is on p. 4). From the argum en ts put forth in this article, it is clear that Hobbes is referring to Theaetetus, whose doctrines — as we will see — had been succinctly reproposed in Montaigne’s Apologie.
Theaetetus, 152c.
Theaetetus, 152d. The formulation recurs in the same terms on 156e-157a.
Dumont, op. cit., p. 221.
Theaetetus, 152d.
Theaetetus, 157e-159c.
P H I, 216.
Theaetetus, 156a: ωξ τò παv xίvη1σϱ ήlv Kαì αλλo πapα τoûτo ovδεv.
Theaetetus, 160d. On 152d Socrates quotes a verse from Homer: “the ocean generator of the gods and their mother Teti” to say “that all things are none other than the products of flow and movement”.
Dumont (op. cit., p. 225–27) identifies “the most astute” undoubtedly with the followers of Protagoras. Their theory may be summed up as follows: if everything moves, if nothing other than movement exists, the two forms of this movement each have the power to act and to suffer, giving rise to infiinite “pairs of twins” constituted of two members, one sensible and the other sensation, that go to make up the fact of perception (see Theaetetus, 156a-157c).
See Theaetetus, 153a: “what appears to be is becoming, it is the movement that procures them”. For example “translation and friction” generate heat and both are “movements’’.
P H I, 218. Transl. Bury, cit., p. 131: “What he [Protagoras] states then is this — that matter is in flux, and as it flows additions are made continuously in the place of the effluxions, and the senses are transformed and altered according to the times of life and to all the other conditions of the bodies. He says also that the reasons of all the appearances [λóγovϱ τωv Φαιvoµεvv] subsist in matter, so that matter, so far as depends on itself, is capable of being all those things which appear to all”.
P H I, 218.
P H I,219
Sextus discusses the affiinities and differences compared to Heraclitus’ approach in P H 210–212 (but see also Adv. Log. I, 126 sgg., 135–140, 349; II, 8, 286; Adv. phys. I, 337, 360; II, 232–233).
Montaigne, Essais, II, xii, (ed. cit., vol. II, p. 507). For the relations between Hobbes psychology and the neo-Epicurean tradition, I refer the reader to: Paganini, G., “Hobbes, Gassendi e la psicologia del meccanicismo”, cit
See Montaigne, Essais, II, xii, ed. cit., vol. II, pp. 601–604, in direct sequence with the part q p that most closely reflects the interpretation of P H; but note that already in the prologue to the sceptical excursus on the relativity of sensations, Montaigne sets up a series of emblematic convergences: Heraclitus-Democritus-Pyrrhonians-Cyrenaics (ibid., p. 587). It is remarkable that the conviction (ascribed to Democritus) about the purely phenomenalistic character of the qualities we attribute to objects is made to derive from Heraclitus “Sur ce mesme fondement qu’avoit Heraclitus et cette sienne sentence, que toutes choses avoient en elles les visages qu’on y trouvoit, Democritus en tiroit une toute contraire conclusion, c’est que les subjects n’avoient du tout rien de ce que nous y trouvions”. The classical example of honey, that sometimes appears sweet, sometimes bitter, follows; from this example, Democritus concluded “qu’il n’estoit ni doux ni amer”, whereas Pyrrhonian scepticism went much further: “Les Pyrrhoniens diroient qu’ils ne sçavent s’il est doux ou amer, ou ny l’un ny l’autre, ou tous les deux; car ceux-cy gaignent tousjours le haut point de la dubitation” (ibid, p. 587). Socrates, in Theaetetus, 160d, had already referred to the convergence between Heraclitus’ doctrine and before him Homer’s (“everything moves like the waters flowing”), Protagoras’ doctrine (”man is the measure of all things”) and Theaetetus’ theory of sensations (by which “the sensation becomes the science”): this realisation, he observes ironically, is Theaetetus’ “newborn” and Socrates’ “maieuma”.
See Montaigne, Essais, II, xii, ed. cit., vol. II, p. 601–602. Montaigne’s allusion to Theaetetus, 152e, is transparent: “Platon disoit que les corps n’avoient jamais existence, ouy bien naissance, estimant que Homere eust faict l’ocean pere des Dieus, et Thetis la mere, pour nous montrer que toutes choses sont en fluxion, muance et variation perpetuelle”. Montaigne’s inference is explicitly sceptical, despite the strong realistic connotations, of his whole description of universal movement: “Finalement, il n’y a aucune constante existence, ny de nostre estre, ny de celuy des objects. Et nous, et nostre jugement, et toutes choses mortelles, vont coulant et roulant sans cesse. Ainsin il ne se peut establir rien de certain de l’un à l’autre, et le jugeant et le jugé estans en continuelle mutation et branle” (p. 601). For the subsequent reference to “matiere coulante”, see p. 603.
Hobbes, Vita carmine expressa, OL I, p. lxxxix: “Phantasiae, nostri soboles cerebri, nihil extra; / Partibus internis nil nisi motus inest”. For biographical and intellectual events in Hobbes’ life, now see the useful book: Schuhmann, Karl, Hobbes une chronique. Cheminements de sa pensée, Préface de Y.-Ch. Zarka. Paris: Vrin, 1998. In general, the relationship Hobbes-Montaigne was completely founded on the neo-Pyrrhonist perspective (see in this sense the precise work by Pacchi, Conven ione…, cit., pp. 64–65, 98, 130, 179) neglecting the fact that the Essais effectively contained very much richer and more varied philosophical suggestions, among which Heraclitus’ mobilism and the materialistic motives (descending from Democritus and Lucretius) were not the least. Montaigne has recently been evoked for some references to the rhetorical doctrine of ethos or for the motive of the “difference of custom”: see Skinner, Quentin, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 128, 340. A fuller treatment of Hobbes’ debt to the themes of ethical relativism and moral scepticism inherent in the motive of the “paradiastole” (to which the technique of “rhetorical redescription” leads, with which vices are transformed into virtues and viceversa, depending on the orator’s interests or passions and those of his audience), may be found in the previous essay by Quentin Skinner: “Thomas Hobbes: rhetoric and the construction of morality”, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 76, 1990, pp. 1–61 (on Montaigne see above all pp. 27–28, 44–49). The evalation of p. 46, although it only concerns the “moral” and “anthropological” side of the relationship Hobbes-Montaigne, is important: “Hobbes has sometimes been portrayed as in some way “replying’ to Montaigne and other exponents of Pyrrhonian scepticism. While there may be something to be said for this interpretation of Hobbes’s philosophy of nature, it is important to stress that, when he comes to the question of human custom and law, he appears to be in complete agreement with the lines of argument laid out by Montaigne in his Apology”. And again p. 49: “Hobbes is no less sceptical than Montaigne about the possibility of gaining any general agreement about the right way to “see’ normative questions and apply evaluative terms”. According to Tuck, on the question of exterior obedience to State authority, Hobbes’ “post-sceptical theory” shares at least one feature of its path with “the sceptical theories of Montaigne and his followers” (Tuck, Richard, Hobbes. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 91; see also pp. 8–1 l, 20–21 , 55 andd nassim)
See Hobbes, Vita carmine expressa OL I, pp. lxxxix-xc: “Hic [Lutetiae] ego Mersennum novi, communico et illi / De rerum motu quae medlitats eram”
See the text of Praefatio in Mersenni Ballisticam in OL V, pp. 310–18, which corres onds, more briefly, to the text of De otu p 349 ff am in OL V, pp.P
OL V, p. 310, but the concept is recurrent; see ibia :”motus qui dominatur Praesens phantasma dici potest”.
See OL V, p. 309: “Ce rtum est enim fieri se ns ionem per ac t io ne m o bjectorum in organa sentiendi: cumque sensio tam actionem quam passionem arguat, quas vix a motibus distinguas, sensio defiiniri potest motus in partibus internis sentientis ab objecti motu in agenti sensorio effffectus”. The formulations of De Motu are analogous: “Incipiendum autem est à sensu […]. Sensio autem fiit per actionem obiectorum, etiam ipso fatente, in sensoria sive organa sentiendi; omnem autem actionem & passionem motus esse” (ed. cit. XXX, § 3, p. 349).
Objectiones tertiae, Ob. IV (AT VII p. 178).
Ibid., Ob. IX (AT VII p. 185): in connection with “substantia … (ut quae est materia subjecta accidentibus & mutationibus)”. Elsewhere, during the same polemic, Hobbes attributed this thesis to the “ancient Aristotelians”: “Differentia magna est inter imaginari, hoc est, ideam aliquam habere, & mente concipere, hoc est, ratiocinando colligere rem aliquam esse, vel rem aliquam existere. Sed non explicuit nobis D.C. in quo differunt. Veteres quoque Peripatetici docuerunt satis clare non percipi substantiam sensibus, sed colligi rationibus” (Ob. IV, AT VII p. 178). On Hobbes’ relationship with the Aristotelians, see: Leijenhorst, Cees, Hobbes and the Aristotelians. The Aristotelian Setting of Thomas Hobbes “s Natural Philosophy. Leiden-Utrecht: Zeno Institute of Philosophy, 1998, in part. Ch. IV Body and Accident”, pp. 161–200 (where, after having evoked the positions of Richard of Middletown, Alstedt and Scaliger, the author expresses the opinion that the reference should rather be interpreted as an allusion to “’younger’ rather than “older’ Aristotelians”, ibid., p. 174). In truth, Leijenhorst rather points up the originality of Hobbes’ position: “Therefore, the thesis that substances or bodies can only be known by reason does not have to do with the scholastic primum quoad nos / primum quoad natura distinction but is a logical consequence of Hobbes’s mechanistic doctrine of representation’’ (ibid., p. 175). On the inferential character of the knowledge of substances, see the observations by Pacchi, op. cit., pp. 83, 93–98, 233–34.
See De corpore, Ch. XXV, 1, ed. Schuhmann, pp. 267–80 (OL I, pp. 315–17). The § 1 records a massive use of the term “phenomenon”, both in Latin and in Greek: ”ex cognitis efffectibus sive phaenomenibus” (p. 267 1. 14–15), “ab effectibus Φαivopεvoιϱ” (1. 18), “a Phaenomenis sive effectibus naturae nobis per sensum cognitis” (p. 267 1. 26- p. 268 1. 1), “cognitio… Principia habet in Naturae Phaenomenis” (p. 268 1. 9), “huic parti … inscripsi Physicam sive de Naturae Phaenomenis. Phaenomena autem appellantur quaecunque apparent sive a Natura nobis sunt “ostensa” (p. 268, 11. 7–12), “Phaenomenωn autem omnium, quae prope nos existunt, id ipsum τò Φίvεσθαι est admirabilissimum” (p. 268, 11. 13–14). In the important chapter dedicated to method (Ch. VI “De Methodo”) Hobbes gives a defiinition of philosophy as the science of “phenomena or effects”: ”Philosophia est phaenomenn sive eeffffeectuum apparentium ex concepta productione sive generatione aliqua possibili” (§ 1, p. 57, 11. 21–2). Immediately afterwards, he clarifies that “Principia ,… scientiae omnium prima sunt phantasmata sensus et imaginationis” (p. 58, il. 4–5). On the fact that the phenomenon or the phantasm, not the object, is the referent of knowledge, it is important to see § 8, p. 63, 11. 24–26, where Hobbes clarifies that many difficulties derive exactly from this point “in Physica… ubi de phantasmatum sensibilium causis agitur, quae pro ipsis rebus, quorum sunt phantasmata, sese offerunt [et] plerisque imponunt”.
De corpore, XXV, 10, p. 277. Hobbes refers to that particular type of “phantasma” that is “lumen”, but his discourse then extends to include all the other senses. See 11. 16–17: “Illa enim [lumen, color], cum sint phantasmata, sentientis sunt, non ejus quod sentitur, accidentia”. The reason alleged is similar to that already quoted in El. and takes substance from observations about the apparent location of the phenomenon: “Hoc autem ex eo manifestum satis est, quod res visibiles in iis saepe apparent locis, in quibus eas non esse certo scimus, quodque diversis diverso apparent colore et pluribus simul locis apparere possunt” (11. 17–20). In this whole chapter, except for § l, the expression “phantasma” dominates, used to denominate all aspects of psychic life: from sensation (defiined as thus § in § 2, p. 269 11. 35–37: “Sensio est ab organi sensorii conatu ad extra, qui generatur a conatu ab objecto versus interna, eoque aliquamdiu manente per reationem factum phantasma”), to “phantasia” or “imaginatio” that is identical to a “phantasma” which remains “remoto… objecto” (§ 7, p. 272, ll. 25–28), or to “experience” (”Experientia autem est phantasmatum copia orta ex multarum rerum sensionibus”, § 8, p. 274, ll. 2–3), fiinally reaching the “animi discursus” (”Ortus perpetuus, tum sentientibus tum cogitantibus phantasmatum”, § 8, p. 274, II. 13–14).
De corpore, cap. VIII, 2, p. 84, 1. 4. In this paragraph, Hobbes reacts to the “objective” theory of the accident (shared by many: “Volunt tamen plerique dici sibi Accidens esse aliquid, scilicet partem aliquam rerum naturalium, cum revera pars earum non sit”, p. 83, 11. 16–18) and proposes one linked to the appearance of the same: “modum corporis, juxta quemn concipitur” (ibid., 11. 19–20), the definition being taken up again also at the end of the paragraph (”Defiiniemus igitur Accidens esse concipiendi corporis modum”, p. 84, 11. 34). Suitably, C. Leijenhorst, op. cit., pp. 184–87, has characterised Hobbes’ theory as a “phenomenalist … definition of accident”, though he points out that alongside it coexists a “realist, “causal’ definition”, by which accidents are made to derive causally as mechanical effects of motion. Under the fiirst meaning, which is that explicitly assumed by the philosopher, Hobbes equates phantasmata with accidents. By this token, the relation between substance and accident in the traditional ontological sense is reinterpretated as the relation between an external body and its appearance to us” (op. cit. p. 185).
De corpore, VII, 1, p. 75 - _ §
See also De corpore, XXV, 1, p. 267, 1. 26 (“a Ihaenomenis sive effectibus naturae ); § 10, p. 277, 11. 34–35 Hobbes deals with the “phantasmata” as objectorum in organa agentium effectus… producti in subjecto sentiente”.
On the “phantasmatis generatio” see for example De corpore, XXV, 4, p. 270.
It is the formulation of De corpore, VIII, 20, p. 92: “Corpora itaque et accidentia, sub quibus varie appparent, ita differunt, ut corpora quidem sint res non genitae, accidentia vero genita, sed non res”. This generation of the accidents, that are literally appearances (phenomena, here indicated as “species”) is described thus by Hobbes: “Philosophi igitur, quibus a ratione naturali discedere non licet, supponunt corpus generari aut interire non posse, sed tantum sub diversis speciebus aliter atque nobis apparere et proinde aliter atque aliter nominari” (ibid.).
An exemplary formulation of this position of Gassendi’s may be found in his Ad librum D. Edoardi Herberti Angli, De Veritate, Epistola, in: Opera, cit., t. III, pp. 411b-413b.
Mersenne, Marin, La verité des sciences. Contre les septiques ou Pyrrhoniens. Paris: chez Toussainct du Bray, 1625 (anastatic reprint: Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann Holzboog, 1969): livre I, chap. II, pp. 8–15. Note that in this work of 1625, Mersenne proposes, against the sceptical doubt, to make recourse to a sort of correction of the sense with the sense, a remedy that was to be accepted by Hobbes, at least in El. See Mersenne, op. cit., p. 20: “n’importe pas que l’oeil se trompe, car l’homme se corrige par les autres sens iusques A ce qu’il parvienne à la certitude necessaire A une vraye cognoissance”. See El. I, ii, 10, p. 7: “And this is the great deception of sense, which also is by sense to be corrected”. In the more mature phase of De corpore this corrective function of sense was left up to reason. On these forms of “constructive” scepticism (to follow the terminology introduced by Popkin) in Gassendi and Mersenne, see Paganini, G., Scepsi moderna, cit., pp. 37–40, 47–58.
De corpore, V I I I, 1, pp. 82–83.
De corpore, VIII, 23, p. 92: “Accidens autem, propter quod corpori alicui certum nomen imponimus, sive accidens, quod subjectum suum denominat, Essentia dici solet’”: See Leijenhorst’s comment, op. cit., p. 193: “Hobbes’s first innovation in this domain is the fact that he subsumes form and essence under the concept of accident”.
De corpore, VIII, 2, p. 83, 11. 19–20. This is a definition that Hobbes considers to be an alternative to the “realistic” theory of the accident (“Accidens esse aliquid, scilicet partem aliquam rerum naturalium”, p. 83, 11. 16–17) and that he shows he agrees with. In truth, K. Schuhmann found it again in Suarez, F., Disputationes Metaphysicae, Disp. XXXII, Sectio I, xxii sq. Hobbes’ version of the correct theory of the accident is enunciated immediately afterwards: quod idem est ac si dicerent Accidens esse facultatem corporis, qua sui conceptuun nohis imprimit” (p. 83, II. 20–21). The relationship between body and accident, from the perspective of a linguistic analysis of the proposition, is dealt with at length in Minerbi Belgrado, Anna, Linguaggio e mondo in Hobbes. Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1993, pp. 63–80; Zarka, op. cit., pp. 121–22 has stressed the “non-ontological” but rather “nominal” character of Hobbes’ notions of essence and accident.
De corpore, VIII, 3, p. 84: “quaedam accidentia abesse a corpore sine interitu ejus non possunt, nam corpus sine extensione aut sine figura omnino concipi non potest”. In this important paragraph, Hobbes clarifies in what sense “the accident is in a body” (”accidens in corpore inesse’”, without itself being “a body” (“corpus”): p. 84
See Leijenhorst, op. cit., all Ch. IV (“Body and Accident’”), pp. 161–99; see p. 161: “Now, at first sight this doctrine seems to have little in common with mainstream scholastic accounts. Nevertheless, Hobbes defends his theory of body and accident by profoundly reinterpreting the central concepts of Aristotelian hylemorphism”.
See in this connection the comments by C. Stough, op. cit., pp. 21 ff., which place the Pyrrhonian distinction in the context of a wider convergence between different lines of Greek thought: “So far the Skeptic position is quite orthodox. It originated within an intellectual context in which the appearance-reality dichotomy was so familiar as to be taken quite for granted” (ibid., p. 32).
De corpore, XXV, 2, p. 269: “Ostensum est praeterea motum nisi a moto et contiguo generari non posse” (Hobbes refers to De corpore, IX, 7, p. 97). He is thus able to link the appearance of the “phantasma” to the reality of motion: “Habemus ergo jam sensionis subjectum, nimirum illud, in quo insunt phantasmata, et partim etiam naturam ejus, nempe quod sit motus aliquis internus in sentiente” (ibid., p. 269).
The distinction between the generation and the changeability of “accidents”, on one hand, and on the other hand the stability of “matter”, are also commented in an important observation of De corpore, VI,8–9, pp. 63–64. See the annotation by C. Leijenhorst, op. cit., p. 173: “Other traditional qualifiications of substance Hobbes redefines in “representationalist” manner are those of suppositim and subiectum”. More in general, on the role of the principle of causality, see ibid., Ch. V(“Causality, Motion and Necessity”), pp. 201–252.
The radically sceptical result of Hobbes’ philosophy, determined by an extreme privacy both of its perceptive contents (the phantasms) and of the reason, has recently been dealt with by Michael Esfeld in his Mechanismus und Subjektivität in der Philosophie von Th. Hobbes. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1995 (see his emblematic conclusions on pp. 383–88). However, with regard to scepticism, the study lacks any historical contextualisation (to give some examples: Sextus Empiricus is never quoted, less still Gassendi; Montaigne only once in an incidental fashion) and this also explains why a presumed incapability of solving the “problem of the existence of the external world” is attributed with no doubt to Hobbes (”Aussenweltproblem’”, op. cit., p. 180 ff.); a problem that, however, neither he nor the exponents of ancient scepticism nor the representatives of 16th and 17th century Pyrrhonianism (with their always confirmed realistic assumptions) had never turned in those proto-Berkeleyan terms, as Esfeld on the contrary supposes. In general, the author of this study believes that the sceptical failure of Hobbes’ theory derives from a conflict between its claims of validity and the anthropological basis on which it is founded (see Esfeld, op. cit., pp. 132–33, 183). See the critical review of this book by K. Schuhmann, in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 6, 1998, pp. 478–81. For a closer examination of this same theme, see also my article: “Hobbes and the “Continental’ Tradition of Scepticism”, in Maia Neto, J.R. and Popkin, R.H., eds., Scepticism as a Force in Renaissance and Post-Renaissance Thought, Proceedings (forthcoming) of the UCLA Conference. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
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Paganini, G. (2003). Hobbes Among Ancient and Modern Sceptics: Phenomena and Bodies. In: Paganini, G. (eds) The Return of Scepticism. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 184. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0131-0_1
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