Thomas Hobbes, the unity of scientific & moral wisdom

Abstract

There can be no doubt that Thomas Hobbes intended to create a complete philosophical system. In recent years, piecemeal analysis has ignored that intention and reduced his philosophy to an unsystematic jumble of irreconcilable parts. It is generally believed that Hobbes's mechanistic physics is at odds with his notorious egoistic psychology, and that the latter cannot support his prescriptive moral theory. In this book Gary B. Herbert sets forth an entirely new interpretation of Hobbes's philosophy that takes seriously Hobbes's original systematic intention.