Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 A summary biography of Hobbes
- 2 Hobbes's scheme of the sciences
- 3 First philosophy and the foundations of knowledge
- 4 Hobbes and the method of natural science
- 5 Hobbes and mathematics
- 6 Hobbes on light and vision
- 7 Hobbes's psychology
- 8 Hobbes's moral philosophy
- 9 Hobbes's political philosophy
- 10 Lofty science and local politics
- 11 Hobbes on law
- 12 History in Hobbes's thought
- 13 Hobbes on rhetoric
- 14 Hobbes on religion
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Hobbes and mathematics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 A summary biography of Hobbes
- 2 Hobbes's scheme of the sciences
- 3 First philosophy and the foundations of knowledge
- 4 Hobbes and the method of natural science
- 5 Hobbes and mathematics
- 6 Hobbes on light and vision
- 7 Hobbes's psychology
- 8 Hobbes's moral philosophy
- 9 Hobbes's political philosophy
- 10 Lofty science and local politics
- 11 Hobbes on law
- 12 History in Hobbes's thought
- 13 Hobbes on rhetoric
- 14 Hobbes on religion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Posterity has not looked admiringly on Hobbes's ventures into mathematics. Modern historians, aware that the untutored philosopher made no contribution to the subject and that he claimed success in problems now known to be insoluble, tend to view his efforts with dismay or to pass over them in silence. Jean-Etienne Montucla set the pace by publishing (1758) a large two-volume history of mathematics that contrives not to mention Hobbes even once. Later writers, when they have noticed him at all, have often exhibited only the unrepentant circle-squarer or the obtuse opponent of his century's revolutionary application of algebra to geometrical problems. Julian Lovell Coolidge's enchanting book on the mathematics of “great amateurs” gives chapters to such peripheral figures as Piero della Francesca the painter and Denis Diderot the man of letters, but finds no space for the author of Leviathan. Petr Beckmann's history of the number Л - a number that, as we shall see, figures implicitly in much of Hobbes's geometry - introduces the philosopher's name only to dismiss it with a sneer.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes , pp. 108 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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