Hobbes a very short introduction
- New Delhi Oxford University Press 2002
- xv, 148
Hobbes's reputation was paradoxical. He was hostile to dogmatism of every kind, yet he was seen as a brusque dogmatist. He was hostile to the intellectual authorities of the churches, but yet he wanted his own philosophical works to be the authoritative texts within the universities. The Conclusion tries to explain this paradox by placing Hobbes within a wider paradox, one which is possibly inherent to scepticism or liberalism. A central question remains: if we lose all confidence in the truth of existing beliefs, how can we live? Instead of scepticism, Hobbes offered a type of science: looking closer we find that his science is of an extremely exiguous kind.