An architecture of fear: the relevance of Hobbes's tripartite contribution

Abstract

Hobbes's political philosophy forwards the advance of modernity: human emancipation can be realized through an enthusiastic development of science and technology. But that project is driven by human curiosity emerging from a sense of anxiety driven by Hobbes's insight – sustained too by Vico – that human beings can know only what they make. Tossed into a world not of their own making, human beings are thereby subject to fear of the unknown. But is that fear all of a piece? Against the prevailing view that fear can only be understood as arising from some specified cause, that is to say in indexical terms, the paper delineates, through an examination of Hobbes's writings – particularly his Leviathan – three such conceptions of fear. They are the iconic, indexical and intellective. They can then be related to each other in order to show their relevance as the basis for an organizing principle in social life as well as to our own precarious, political situation in the contemporary world.