Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 A summary biography of Hobbes
- 2 Hobbes's scheme of the sciences
- 3 First philosophy and the foundations of knowledge
- 4 Hobbes and the method of natural science
- 5 Hobbes and mathematics
- 6 Hobbes on light and vision
- 7 Hobbes's psychology
- 8 Hobbes's moral philosophy
- 9 Hobbes's political philosophy
- 10 Lofty science and local politics
- 11 Hobbes on law
- 12 History in Hobbes's thought
- 13 Hobbes on rhetoric
- 14 Hobbes on religion
- Bibliography
- Index
13 - Hobbes on rhetoric
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 A summary biography of Hobbes
- 2 Hobbes's scheme of the sciences
- 3 First philosophy and the foundations of knowledge
- 4 Hobbes and the method of natural science
- 5 Hobbes and mathematics
- 6 Hobbes on light and vision
- 7 Hobbes's psychology
- 8 Hobbes's moral philosophy
- 9 Hobbes's political philosophy
- 10 Lofty science and local politics
- 11 Hobbes on law
- 12 History in Hobbes's thought
- 13 Hobbes on rhetoric
- 14 Hobbes on religion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It is sometimes possible to catch philosophy “doing rhetoric” - which is to say seducing us with mere play of words - where it professes not to, thereby compromising its own claims to truth. Doing rhetoric means orchestrating a subtle slippage of meanings where philosophy has imposed distinctions, surreptitiously evading if not subverting philosophical categories and constraints, and asserting one sort of order but pursuing another. Hobbes offers a particularly tempting target for such criticism, inasmuch as he makes his science linguistic and formal rather than experimental and material. That is to say, he makes science a matter of how we use words. But there is also a considerable, indeed ancient history to this pastime of partitioning off philosophy from rhetoric, perhaps inaugurated by Plato, who depicts Socrates as opposing his sort of speech to the speech of the great Sophists Gorgias and Protagoras, as well as to such virtuoso orators as Lysias.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes , pp. 329 - 345Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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