Chapter: ‘Hobbes’s Galilean Project: Its Philosophical and Theological Implications’

Gianni Paganini: Hobbes’s Galilean Project. Its Philosophical and Theological Implications’ in Daniel Garber and Donald Rutherford (eds.), Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Vol. VII (2015), pp. 1-46.

Abstract: This article focuses on De motu, loco et tempore (Anti-White) and shows the strong impact of Galilean science on Hobbes, not only for his scientific thought, but also for the construction of a new ‘first philosophy’ and for the treatment of theological topics. The context of Thomas White’s book (De mundo dialogi), the Aristotelian and Scholastic, especially Suarezian, background, and Cartesian philosophy as presented in the Objections and Replies to the Meditations are carefully explored in connection with Hobbes’s arguments. Finally, the author tries to demonstrate that in De motu Hobbes was not looking for a ‘fideist’ solution, but for some sort of ‘linguistic compromise’, according to his own conception of ‘first philosophy’ as ‘nomenclature.’ This ‘compromise’ was to be surpassed in the subsequent English Leviathan.