Hobbes on Laughter

It has been common to read Hobbes as having an egoistic psychology, and those who have discussed his remarks about laughter (notably Heyd, Watkins and Hutcheson) have taken them to support that interpretation, dealing only rather briefly with what Hobbes actually says about laughter. I argue that Hobbes did not have an egoistic psychology, and that a more detailed consideration of his remarks about laughter, putting them in the context of other things he says, shows that they are consistent with his not having an egoistic psychology. His concern with laughter is as the expression of a passion, and specifically with a passion aroused by somebody's attempt to dishonour one, recognition of which fact changes the inferences we can reasonably draw from his remarks about laughter, given his more general claims about human nature.     

Authorization and the Right to Punish in Hobbes

This article answers questions about the consistency, coherence, and motivation of Hobbes's account of the right to punish. First, it develops a novel account of authorization that explains how Hobbes could have consistently held both that the subjects do not give the sovereign the right to punish and also that they authorize the sovereign to punish. Second, it shows that, despite appearances, the natural and artificial elements of Hobbes's account form a coherent whole. Finally, it explains why Hobbes thought it was important to establish the sovereign's right to punish apart from the sovereign's power to punish.     

Freedom, Unfreedom and Skinner's Hobbes

In an array of writings stretching over the better part of two decades, Quentin Skinner has repeatedly challenged the modern conception of negative liberty developed by Isaiah Berlin and many other theorists. He has sought to draw attention to some once vibrant but now largely peripheral traditions of thought—especially the civic-republican or neo-Roman tradition—in order to highlight what he sees as the limitedness and inadequacies of the currently dominant ways of thinking about freedom. The present essay will endeavor to defend one important aspect of the modern understanding of negative liberty against Skinner's strictures, and will challenge Skinner's reading of Thomas Hobbes.     

Rethinking Thomas Hobbes on the Passions

There is widespread scholarly disagreement whether Hobbesian passions are or involve a type of cognition (i.e., imagination). This largely overlooked disagreement has implications for our understanding of Hobbesian deliberation. If passions are intrinsically cognitive, then, because Hobbesian deliberation is a series of alternating passions, deliberation would appear to be intrinsically cognitive as well. In this paper, I bring to light this overlooked disagreement and argue for a non-cognitive reading of Hobbesian passions, according to which, a passion is an appetite or aversion caused by, but distinct from, an imagination of a future good or harm.     

霍布斯人权思想论要

托马斯·霍布斯是 17世纪英国伟大的哲学家和政治思想家。他在对科学理论探索的过程中 ,揭露、批判了封建专制制度和天主教会压迫、摧残人民的罪恶 ,积极倡导关于人的自由权、财产权、平等权和安全权等思想 ,对英国、法国的资产阶级革命的发展产生重要的影响     

简论近代政治的正当性:以霍布斯的利维坦为例

政治理想主义与政治现实主义是西方政治理论两个最悠久的传统。霍布斯在深刻洞察人性的基础上,在“利维坦”中建立了这两种思想方式的结合点。自然权利是利维坦的核心,从而也是近代政治正当性的基础。     

Speaking of God after the Death of God

Abstract :  This article affirms the ability to talk about God in the twenty‐first century 40 years after God died (according to Death‐of‐God theologians) in the 1960s. It does so by an appeal to the proper combination of mystery and revelation ideally expressed in the paradox that God reveals Godself as hidden. The language of God's revealed hiddenness comprises a "middle way" which avoids the extremes of theological hubris on the one hand and atheism or unbelief on the other, making it possible to speak today of God in a faithful yet humble manner.