Do We Have Free Will?: Compatibilist View. The
Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes believes that the kind of freedom that is necessary for moral responsibility is consistent with determinism. As he says with characteristic terseness, "Liberty and necessity are consistent." Contemporary...
Is Mind Distinct from Body?: Hobbesian Materialism and the Mind
Seventeenth century materialists, led by British philosopher Thomas Hobbes, object to the idea of mind as a non-physical substance. For Hobbes the universe consists of "matter in motion," nothing else. If dualism struggles to account for how body an...
What is Real?: Materialist's View of Reality, The
Materialists maintain that only the physical world is real. This idea which dates back to Democritus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century B.C, rose to prominence during the Scientific Revolution. Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas H...
What Justifies the State?: Social Contract Theory
Thomas Hobbes, 17th century philosopher, characterized life without government as a "war of all against all" in which life is "nasty, brutish, and short." People agree to form a government simply to protect themselves from each other. This act of co...