Outline of Part 1, Ch. 1-6 Leviathan

David Banach

Leviathan (1651): The book is an attempt to give a scientific account of the state based on these new principles, and then, once we have seen how the machine works, to determine its proper function and how we might control it. Science allows us to tame the leviathan.

A. Introduction: Life is merely the motion of matter, hence we may create artificial life, as in a machine. The state is just such an artificial creation, a Leviathan (or monstrous beast). Hence, we can determine its nature and natural mode of operation using scientific principles.

B. Part I. Of Man: Before proceeding to account for how the state arises from its parts according to the laws of nature, through the formation of a social contract by which men voluntarily give over part of their liberty to the state in return for protection, Hobbes must give an account of the basic laws that govern the operation of the parts of the Leviathan (humans) and how these laws relate to the laws that govern the parts of humans (matter in motion).

1. Ch. 1. Of Sense: When we sense an object some motion in the object is transmitted into us. Sense is the motion caused in us through the action of external objects on the sense, not the reception of some internal form or species from the object.

2. Ch. 2. Of Imagination: All motion has inertia, or the tendency to remain in motion, so the motion set up in our mind by the action of objects on the sense remains after the object is gone. All imaginations, or thoughts, and memories are the decaying patterns of motion left over from sensation. Understanding is the name given to thoughts caused by and associated with language.

3. Ch. 3. Of the Train of Imaginations. Mental Discourse, or thinking, is a sequence or train of such thoughts, sometimes random and wandering, sometimes regulated and controlled by our desires. Our thoughts are nothing but the sequence of these patterns of motion having their origin in the senses, hence. our thought is limited to those things we have sensations of. We cannot form an idea of something infinite.

4. Ch. 4. Of Speech. Speech is the application of names to thoughts. We understand speech when the name produces in us the same conception or motion to which the name is meant to apply. hence definition is necessary for significant speech. Speech can be meaningless through lack of definition or inconsistent definition.

5. Ch. 5 Of Reason. Reasoning is like a reckoning or calculation of the consequences of thoughts. it follows rules, similar to the laws of nature, governing the connection and sequence of thoughts. Many of the problems with reasoning springs from absurd, or meaningless, speech, where we use words that have no meaning, no sense impression, that corresponds with them. There are numerous sources of absurd speech that involve using undefined terms or that involve the confusion of a name for one type of thing with that of another, or that involve the use of made up terms for made-up entities, such as occult natures, of which we have no sensation.

6. Ch 6. Of Voluntary Motions and Passions: All Voluntary actions begin with a small motion or endeavor. Two important classes of these are appetites, or desires, and aversions. We experience these as pleasure or pain and we judge the objects or causes of these feelings good or bad. All the motives of actions are such motions in the mind, or appetites and aversions. The play in the mind of many such motives is called deliberation, and the one that wins out, the last appetite in deliberation, is called the will. A choice is the result of the mechanical interplay of motions in the mind.