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"Hobbes's philosophical project is bound up with a rational reconstruction of knowledge. At what point did this reconstruction become associated with a first philosophy that was intended to explicate the most basic concepts and principles of knowledge ? Did the development of the first philosophy coincide with the formulation, at the end of 1636 or the beginning of 1637, of a complete system of philosophy: corpus, homo, civis, which was to lead to Elementa philosophiae, or did it come later ? Did the first philosophy have something to do with the logic that Hobbes was questioned about in Kenelm Digby's letters ? It is difficult to give firm answers to these questions because the dating of the manuscripts marking the successive stages of the composition of the first philosophy is for the most part uncertain.
However the idea of a first philosophy dawned on Hobbes, the content and function of this subject are clear. Long before the completion of De corpore (1655), the Anti-White (1643) had defined the term "first philosophy" and had specified the purpose and scope of this branch of learning. The threefold definition was spelt out with reference to Aristotle. Criticizing White's thesis that philosophy should not be treated according to a method of logic, Hobbes writes :
Now, philosophy is the science of all general and universal theorems, concerning any subject the truth of which can be demonstrated by natural reason. Its first part, and the basis of all the other parts, is the science where theorems concerning the attributes of being at large are demonstrated, and this science is called First Philosophy. It therefore deals with being, essence, matter, form, quality, cause, effect, motion, space, time, place, vacuum, unity, number, and all the other notions which Aristotle discusses partly in the eight books of his Lectures on physics and partly in those other books which some subsequently called Ton meta ta physikd (where from First Philosophy got its present name Metaphysics).
If in this passage philosophy in general is defined simply by reference to the type of proposition it bears upon and by the faculty of mind it brings into play, irrespective of its purpose or methods, first philosophy and its status are, by contrast, precisely delimited. First, it is concerned with attributes of being in general. These attributes are more or less a throwback to Aristotle's categories. Second, its purpose is to provide a foundation for the other sciences, such as physics, ethics, and politics, that deal with particular existents. When Hobbes speaks of first philosophy in the Anti-White, he refers to Aristotle and his doctrine of the different senses of being.
But in 1643 the use and meaning of the terms "first philosophy" had also to be understood in relation to Descartes because two years earlier Hobbes had read Descartes's Meditationes de prima philosophia and had prepared a set of Objections. Not that Hobbes's first philosophy resembled Descartes's in content. On the contrary, Descartes's three fundamental propositions - of the immateriality of the soul, the existence of God (in the sense of the demonstrations that Descartes gives of it), and the distinction between mind and body - were all targets of Hobbes's criticisms in the Third Objections. Thus, Hobbes denied that there was an ego that grasped its own existence by means of an intellectual intuition. He insisted that res cogitans had to be conceived as a corporeal or material thing. Finally, there couldn't be a proof of the existence of God that proceeded from an idea of God, for we simply have no such idea.
Differing clearly from Descartes, Hobbes distances himself still further from those who think that first philosophy is some sort of supernatural science. Scipion Dupleix in particular had given the name "first philosophy" or "first science" to metaphysics, "inasmuch as it considers primary being, the being of beings, the primary causes and principles of things: which, on account of the excellence of its subject matter, is the first of all the sciences." But to define first philosophy in this way as a science above nature is, for Hobbes, to corrupt the sense of the term as well as to give a bad interpretation of the term "metaphysics."
It is in these terms that De corpore would exclude from the subject matter of philosophy the doctrine of the nature and attributes of God as well as whatever proceeds from revelation. These matters are excluded because they do not lend themselves to the application of natural reason." (pp.62-64)
"It is important to call attention to the two principal tasks assigned by De corpore to first philosophy: (i) to arrive at the most general and universal concepts in use in science; and (2) to state definitions of these concepts that are capable of serving as principles for all the special sciences. Exactly which highly general concepts are defined by first philosophy, and which philosophical operations do these definitions bring into play ? How far does first philosophy discharge its duty of providing foundations ? Can it provide a foundation for an ethical and political doctrine as readily as it provides one for a mechanistic physics ?
We shall see that the answer to these questions is not straightforward and that the task of providing foundations calls upon resources that appear to be far removed from those of first philosophy. In order to make a wide-ranging investigation orderly, we shall conduct it under the following headings: (a) the content of the first philosophy: the principles of a foundation of knowledge; (b) the limits of application of the concepts of first philosophy: the unfinished foundation ; and (c) the return of theology: the foundation divided." (p.64)
-Yves Charles Zarka, "First philosophy and the foundation of knowledge", chapter 3 in in Tom Sorell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
"He says, in talking of phantasms involved in sense, we can only know "some ways and means by which they may be, I do not say they are, generated" [De Corp. ch. 25 [...] Hobbes was quite inventive to say that "phantasms seem to be without, by reaction of the endeavour outwards, so pleasure and pain, by reason of the endeavour of the organ inwards, seem to be within" [De Corp. ch. 25, 12 [...] Hobbes knew, however, that this was empirical speculation, and it should be distinguished from what would now be classified as his philosophical views concerning sense." (p.157)
"Hobbes's philosophical position is clearly and explicitly a materialist one. The mind consists of motions in the body. Hobbes did not know what these motions are like, nor do we, although we know more than Hobbes about these matters. Different aspects of the mind involve different motions; for example, "Sense, therefore, in the sentient, can be nothing else but motion in some of the internal parts of the sentient; and the parts so moved are parts of the organs of sense" [De Corp. ch. 25 [...] Hobbes defines imagination as "sense decaying, or weakened, by the absence of the object" [De Corp. ch. 25, 5 [...] This definition is often condescendingly quoted, but all that is of philosophical significance is that Hobbes regards imagination as a motion that is related to the motions of sense, an eminently sensible view. Sense is important to Hobbes, for he holds the standard empiricist view that "there is no conception in a man's mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by part, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original" {Lev. ch. 1 [...] Hobbes differs from standard empiricism in that he appreciates that language is included in that which was at first begotten upon the organs of sense, and he explicitly says of understanding that it is "nothing else but conception caused by speech" [Lev. ch. 4 EWIII 28; see also Lev. ch. 2 [...] Thus, to view Hobbes as holding that thought consists of a succession of phantasms, that is, pictures, is to impose on Hobbes the more restricted view of what counts as "begotten on the organs of sense" held by later empiricists. Hobbes, much more than other empiricists, recognized the extraordinary impact of language on thought, remarking that "A natural fool that could never learn by heart the order of the numeral words, as one, two, and three, may observe every stroke of the clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one, but can never know what hour it strikes" [Lev. ch. 4 [...]
Hobbes claims that his philosophical view of sense is a direct consequence of his materialist view. This is brought out most clearly when he uses the basic principle "that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless something else stay it" [Lev. ch. 2 [...] to explain imagination. This explanation consists primarily in making an analogy between present sense obscuring imagination in the way that the sun obscures the stars. This analogy may, however, lead to Hobbes's most interesting philosophical discovery concerning sense: that sense, or what we would call perception, requires variety. "Sense, therefore, properly so called, must necessarily have in it a perpetual variety of phantasms, that they may be discerned one from another" [De Corp. ch. 25, 5 [...] Hobbes points out that to see one thing continually and not to see at all both come to the same thing. But Hobbes, like all other materialist philosophers both before and after him, never provides a satisfactory account of phantasms or appearances, that is, an account of the fact that we are aware of something related to the motions of sense." (pp.157-158)
-Bernard Gert, " Hobbes psychology", chapter 7 in Tom Sorell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.157-
However the idea of a first philosophy dawned on Hobbes, the content and function of this subject are clear. Long before the completion of De corpore (1655), the Anti-White (1643) had defined the term "first philosophy" and had specified the purpose and scope of this branch of learning. The threefold definition was spelt out with reference to Aristotle. Criticizing White's thesis that philosophy should not be treated according to a method of logic, Hobbes writes :
Now, philosophy is the science of all general and universal theorems, concerning any subject the truth of which can be demonstrated by natural reason. Its first part, and the basis of all the other parts, is the science where theorems concerning the attributes of being at large are demonstrated, and this science is called First Philosophy. It therefore deals with being, essence, matter, form, quality, cause, effect, motion, space, time, place, vacuum, unity, number, and all the other notions which Aristotle discusses partly in the eight books of his Lectures on physics and partly in those other books which some subsequently called Ton meta ta physikd (where from First Philosophy got its present name Metaphysics).
If in this passage philosophy in general is defined simply by reference to the type of proposition it bears upon and by the faculty of mind it brings into play, irrespective of its purpose or methods, first philosophy and its status are, by contrast, precisely delimited. First, it is concerned with attributes of being in general. These attributes are more or less a throwback to Aristotle's categories. Second, its purpose is to provide a foundation for the other sciences, such as physics, ethics, and politics, that deal with particular existents. When Hobbes speaks of first philosophy in the Anti-White, he refers to Aristotle and his doctrine of the different senses of being.
But in 1643 the use and meaning of the terms "first philosophy" had also to be understood in relation to Descartes because two years earlier Hobbes had read Descartes's Meditationes de prima philosophia and had prepared a set of Objections. Not that Hobbes's first philosophy resembled Descartes's in content. On the contrary, Descartes's three fundamental propositions - of the immateriality of the soul, the existence of God (in the sense of the demonstrations that Descartes gives of it), and the distinction between mind and body - were all targets of Hobbes's criticisms in the Third Objections. Thus, Hobbes denied that there was an ego that grasped its own existence by means of an intellectual intuition. He insisted that res cogitans had to be conceived as a corporeal or material thing. Finally, there couldn't be a proof of the existence of God that proceeded from an idea of God, for we simply have no such idea.
Differing clearly from Descartes, Hobbes distances himself still further from those who think that first philosophy is some sort of supernatural science. Scipion Dupleix in particular had given the name "first philosophy" or "first science" to metaphysics, "inasmuch as it considers primary being, the being of beings, the primary causes and principles of things: which, on account of the excellence of its subject matter, is the first of all the sciences." But to define first philosophy in this way as a science above nature is, for Hobbes, to corrupt the sense of the term as well as to give a bad interpretation of the term "metaphysics."
It is in these terms that De corpore would exclude from the subject matter of philosophy the doctrine of the nature and attributes of God as well as whatever proceeds from revelation. These matters are excluded because they do not lend themselves to the application of natural reason." (pp.62-64)
"It is important to call attention to the two principal tasks assigned by De corpore to first philosophy: (i) to arrive at the most general and universal concepts in use in science; and (2) to state definitions of these concepts that are capable of serving as principles for all the special sciences. Exactly which highly general concepts are defined by first philosophy, and which philosophical operations do these definitions bring into play ? How far does first philosophy discharge its duty of providing foundations ? Can it provide a foundation for an ethical and political doctrine as readily as it provides one for a mechanistic physics ?
We shall see that the answer to these questions is not straightforward and that the task of providing foundations calls upon resources that appear to be far removed from those of first philosophy. In order to make a wide-ranging investigation orderly, we shall conduct it under the following headings: (a) the content of the first philosophy: the principles of a foundation of knowledge; (b) the limits of application of the concepts of first philosophy: the unfinished foundation ; and (c) the return of theology: the foundation divided." (p.64)
-Yves Charles Zarka, "First philosophy and the foundation of knowledge", chapter 3 in in Tom Sorell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
"He says, in talking of phantasms involved in sense, we can only know "some ways and means by which they may be, I do not say they are, generated" [De Corp. ch. 25 [...] Hobbes was quite inventive to say that "phantasms seem to be without, by reaction of the endeavour outwards, so pleasure and pain, by reason of the endeavour of the organ inwards, seem to be within" [De Corp. ch. 25, 12 [...] Hobbes knew, however, that this was empirical speculation, and it should be distinguished from what would now be classified as his philosophical views concerning sense." (p.157)
"Hobbes's philosophical position is clearly and explicitly a materialist one. The mind consists of motions in the body. Hobbes did not know what these motions are like, nor do we, although we know more than Hobbes about these matters. Different aspects of the mind involve different motions; for example, "Sense, therefore, in the sentient, can be nothing else but motion in some of the internal parts of the sentient; and the parts so moved are parts of the organs of sense" [De Corp. ch. 25 [...] Hobbes defines imagination as "sense decaying, or weakened, by the absence of the object" [De Corp. ch. 25, 5 [...] This definition is often condescendingly quoted, but all that is of philosophical significance is that Hobbes regards imagination as a motion that is related to the motions of sense, an eminently sensible view. Sense is important to Hobbes, for he holds the standard empiricist view that "there is no conception in a man's mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by part, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original" {Lev. ch. 1 [...] Hobbes differs from standard empiricism in that he appreciates that language is included in that which was at first begotten upon the organs of sense, and he explicitly says of understanding that it is "nothing else but conception caused by speech" [Lev. ch. 4 EWIII 28; see also Lev. ch. 2 [...] Thus, to view Hobbes as holding that thought consists of a succession of phantasms, that is, pictures, is to impose on Hobbes the more restricted view of what counts as "begotten on the organs of sense" held by later empiricists. Hobbes, much more than other empiricists, recognized the extraordinary impact of language on thought, remarking that "A natural fool that could never learn by heart the order of the numeral words, as one, two, and three, may observe every stroke of the clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one, but can never know what hour it strikes" [Lev. ch. 4 [...]
Hobbes claims that his philosophical view of sense is a direct consequence of his materialist view. This is brought out most clearly when he uses the basic principle "that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless something else stay it" [Lev. ch. 2 [...] to explain imagination. This explanation consists primarily in making an analogy between present sense obscuring imagination in the way that the sun obscures the stars. This analogy may, however, lead to Hobbes's most interesting philosophical discovery concerning sense: that sense, or what we would call perception, requires variety. "Sense, therefore, properly so called, must necessarily have in it a perpetual variety of phantasms, that they may be discerned one from another" [De Corp. ch. 25, 5 [...] Hobbes points out that to see one thing continually and not to see at all both come to the same thing. But Hobbes, like all other materialist philosophers both before and after him, never provides a satisfactory account of phantasms or appearances, that is, an account of the fact that we are aware of something related to the motions of sense." (pp.157-158)
-Bernard Gert, " Hobbes psychology", chapter 7 in Tom Sorell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.157-
