HOBBESITY GALORE

[This is a delightful entry. Its delight is wholly courtesy of Hobbes himself, no thanks to me, except for being responsible for quoting some of his most hilarious, but also thoughtful and penetrating aphorisms. The title is of course totally mine, playing on his pet word Aristotelity, meaning asinine wisdom of the Aristotle-following, stuffed and brainless schoolmen of philosophy. This is not to suggest, of course, that I am using my term “Hobbesity” along those same lines, but I am surely having just as much fun with Hobbesity as Hobbes had with Aristotelity...]

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This entry is “merely” a collection of Hobbesian pearls of good sense, perspicacity, and his special brand of humor. Later on, perhaps I will write original comments for each of these pearls, but for now let them shine by themselves… And yes, one more thing… I was using The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1980) when compiling this admirable selection… And yes, another more thing! Some of the quotations in this entry are repeated, whenever necessary, in this and other sections, but not as centerpieces, as here, being contextually determined in making various philosophical points… Some, I repeat, not all!

“True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 4.]

“Geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind).” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 4.]

“Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 4.]

“They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that mislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 11.]

“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition that is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man… the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 13.]

“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 13.]

“Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.” [Leviathan Part i, Chapter 13.]

“They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy, so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy, which signifies the want of government; and yet I think no man believes, that want of government, is any new kind of government.” [Leviathan Part ii, Chapter 19.]

“The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.” [Leviathan Part iv, Chapter 47.]

“Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.” [Human Nature, ix.]