This book provides an introduction to the life and thought of Thomas Hobbes. Chapter one is a short biography, dealing with the Civil War, Hobbes' exile in France, his relations with Mersenne, Gassendi, and Descartes, his Erastian views about the Church and his awkward status in the Restoration England of his old age. In chapter two the author gives an account of Hobbes' conception of the physical world, as set out in the neglected treatise "De Corpore". After outlining Hobbes' mechanistic and materialistic conception of Nature in general, the author proceeds in chapter three, to introduce the Hobbist theory of human nature, and gives a partial and qualified defence of Hobbes' universal determinism and psychological egoism. In chapter four the essential problem of political philosophy is posed.
- ISBN10 1855060884
- ISBN13 9781855060883
- Publish Date 1 December 1991
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 30 June 2005
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Thoemmes Continuum
- Edition Facsimile of 1904 ed
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 254
- Language English