The Scope of the Study

This is a study of the seriousness of the absurd. It arises from attempts to re-conceptualize the history of early modern philosophy through explorations of the philosophic persona; a notion as pivotal in the past as it is marginal now. The principal proposition explored here is that due attention to this persona helps explain how satire could be an idiom of philosophizing, being used to shape and maintain an intellectual community. In Part I, I discuss Hobbes as a satirist and the manner in which he was hoist with his own petard. In Chapter 1 something of his persona is revealed through his satiric impulse and his adumbration of the qualities needed for philosophy. In Chapter 2 the contours and implications of this self-image become more apparent through the praise of him in the face of critique and through satiric critique itself. In Part II, I shift attention to those who came together as the Scriblerians, centrally Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot, and to their invention of a lunatic philosophical persona. The label ‘Scriblerian’ will need to be used with caution, but qualification will come in the context of argument. Chapter 3 outlines the Scriblerian features of the ‘modern’ philosopher; Chapter 4 concentrates on the specific issues explored through it, human identity, the language of philosophers and the materialism still strongly associated with ‘the monster of Malmesbury’. So in Chapter 5 I turn to the Scriblerians’ negative image of that quintessential modern philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, but also to the ground they shared with him in their attitudes to the importance of absurdity in marking the limits of philosophy, and the role of satire in exposing it. What follows is neither a continuous history of early modern philosophy, nor a study of satire as such. Within the limited context of discussing the contested nature of philosophy, the change of focus from Hobbes to the Scriblerians, is from satire as an occasional aspect of argument to being a full-scale means of raising philosophical issues. In effect, the case put forward examines two sides of the same coin: from endorsing those who would restore a satiric dimension to Hobbes, it supports those who would take the Scriblerians seriously.