maddison+coleman---thomas+hobbes



__Childhood__

//Born prematurely on April 5,1588, when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada(a fleet of spanish warship), Thomas Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear." His father, also named Thomas Hobbes, was the vicar (a clergyman in charge of a church) of Westport near Malmesbury in Gloucestershire, England. After being involved in a fight with another clergyman outside his own church, the elder Thomas Hobbes was forced to flee to London, England, leaving his wife, two boys and a girl behind.//

__Background__

Thomas Hobbes called for an all-powerful sovereign (the "Leviathan") Who would serve the interests of the larger political community (i.e. England) by holding it tightly together under his sovereign authority- in order to curb the kind of human wantonness experienced in the Wars of Religion. For Hobbe ssuch powerful rule was not to be founded on the ancient rule for "divine rights" of monarchs- but on the basis of the needs. even rights, of the //community to be served by such anall-powerful ruler.//

__Education__

The twenty year old future philosopher became a tutor to the Cavendish family. a well-known English family. This association provided him with a private library, foreign travel, and intro ductions to influential people. Hobbes learned to speak Italian and German and soon devoted his life to scholar pursuit.

__Career/Job__

Five years after graduating from Oxford he gained a job tutoring the son of the Earl of Lincolnshire and began an intense study of the greek and Roman classics, particularly poetry, history, and philosophy during his time as a tutor, the world of upper class society was opened to him and was able to travel abroad with his pupil and family.

__Achievements__

Hobbes was a rationalist, building his arguments on deductive design at a time in which English Science was moving more closely toward the Imperial method of truth-building, that is using inductive methods to validate hypothesis. He built strong metaphysical arguments in favor of a mechanics based vision of life.

__Influence on the World__

But he offered no empirical proof for his ideas—which was rapidly becoming the bottom line for scientific proof in England. Nonetheless, his ideas were so elegantly laid out that they provided a strong hypothetical foundation for subsequent research in this area—the kind that John Locke was soon to take up. Continental scholars, themselves still largely rationalist in bent, were less critical of his methodology. Indeed, Hobbes had a strong influence on Spinoza—though Spinoza took a much more secular approach than did Hobbes in his logical demonstrations (Hobbes inclined all things still to the will of God) **//. //**

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