Thomas Hobbes Quotes on Knowledge
Hobbes's Leviathan and De Corpore present a thoroughgoing materialist epistemology: thought is nothing but motion in the brain, and reasoning is calculation — the addition and subtraction of names through which language permits humans alone to construct the artificial languages of philosophy and science. Knowledge for Hobbes is of two kinds: knowledge of fact (from sense and memory) and knowledge of consequence (from reasoning), with only the second deserving the title of philosophy. The framework grounds Hobbes's nominalism — only individual bodies exist, universals are nothing but names — and the political philosophy that derives the state's authority from the rational calculation of mutual advantage.
Quotes
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Attributed to Thomas Hobbes:
“Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.”
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“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.”
The First Part, Chapter 6, p. 26 -
“He that is to govern a whole nation must read in himself, not this or that particular man, but mankind.”
The Introduction, p. 2 -
“Give an inch, he'll take an ell.”
Liberty and Necessity (no. 111) -
“To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician , but that he should be mad.”
On the proposition that the volume generated by revolving the region under 1/x from 1 to infinity has finite volume. Quoted in Mathematical Maxims and Minims by N. Rose (1988) -
“On the proposition that the volume generated by revolving the region under 1/x from 1 to infinity has finite volume. Quoted in Mathematical Maxims and Minims by N. Rose (1988)”
To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician , but that he should be mad. -
“...in statu naturae Mensuram juris esse Utilitatem.”
In the state of nature, Profit is the measure of Right. | De Cive (1642) -
“For he that hath strength enough to protect all, wants not sufficiency to oppresse all.”
De Cive "Of the right of him, whether Counsell, or one Man onely, who hath the supreme power in the City" (1642) Ch. 6 -
“Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.”
Last words