A Metaphysics of Vision: On the Origins of Thomas Hobbes’s Political and Moral Philosophy (2019)
Giudice, Franco (Author)
Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza
Volume: 54
Pages: 145-158
The aim of this essay is to show the close link that exists between Hobbes’s optical theory and his political and moral philosophy. To do this, I will begin with an account of his theory of light and vision, pointing out how it implies an ontological and epistemological difference between material objects and our images of them. I then analyse the consequences of this distinction for the Hobbesian theory of passions and subjectivity of values, and conclude by clarifying how Hobbes’s doctrine of absolute sovereignty is a political solution that he proposed to the problem of the perception of good and evil, that is, to the problem of perception as such.
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