Can language save Hobbes from a paradox?

Authors

  • Sagid Salles

Keywords:

Thomas Hobbes. Theory of experience and thought. Language. Paradox.

Abstract

T. A. Heinrichs has claimed that Hobbes’s analysis of experience and thought gives rise to an apparent paradox. This paradox consists in the fact that Hobbes would have claimed to find out things that his theory implies that could not be discovered. In order to solve the problem, Heinrichs argues that Hobbes’s theory of experience and thought should be interpreted as based on his theory of language. In this paper it will be argued, contra Heinrichs, that the most plausible interpretation is that Hobbes based his analysis of language on his analysis of experience and thought. Thus, Heinrichs’s solution of the paradox must be rejected.

Author Biography

Sagid Salles

Graduado em filosofia pela Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto. Mestre e Doutor pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação Lógica e Metafísica da UFRJ, com sanduíche realizado na Universidade de Miami. Atualmente é professor substituto de filosofia na Universidade Federal do Amazonas. Interessa-se principalmente por filosofia da linguagem, metafísica e filosofia da lógica.

References

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DUNCAN, S. H. Signification and Insignificant Names. Hobbes Studies, v. 24, p.158–178, 2011.

ENGEL, S. M. Hobbes’s Table of Absurdity. The Philosophical Review, v. 70, n. 4, p. 533-543, 1961.

HEINRICHS, T. A. Language and Mind in Hobbes. Yale French Studies, n. 49, p. 56- 70, 1973.

HOBBES, Thomas. 1655. Concerning Body. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes; v. 1, 1839.

______. 1651. Leviathan. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, v. 3, 1839.

______. 1640. The Elements of Law Natural and Politic. Cambridge University Press, 1928.

MARTIN, R. M. On the Semantics of Hobbes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, v. 14, n. 2, p. 205-211, 1953.

MACINTOSH, J. J. Primary and Secondary Qualities. Studia Leibnitiana, v. 8, n. 1, p. 88-104, 1976.

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Published

2018-11-29

Issue

No. 20

Section

Artigos

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