Mortal gods : science, politics, and the humanist ambitions of Thomas Hobbes / Ted H. Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, Ted H., 1965- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.

Hobbes, Thomas.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (346 p.)

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

According to the commonly accepted view, Thomas Hobbes began his intellectual career as a humanist, but his discovery, in midlife, of the wonders of geometry initiated a critical transition from humanism to the scientific study of politics. In Mortal Gods, Ted Miller radically revises this view, arguing that Hobbes never ceased to be a humanist. While previous scholars have made the case for Hobbes as humanist by looking to his use of rhetoric, Miller rejects the humanism/mathematics dichotomy altogether and shows us the humanist face of Hobbes’s affinity for mathematical learning and practice. He thus reconnects Hobbes with the humanists who admired and cultivated mathematical learning—and with the material fruits of Great Britain’s mathematical practitioners. The result is a fundamental recasting of Hobbes’s project, a recontextualization of his thought within early modern humanist pedagogy and the court culture of the Stuart regimes. Mortal Gods stands as a new challenge to contemporary political theory and its settled narratives concerning politics, rationality, and violence.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

2 The Humanist Face of Hobbes’s Mathematics, Part 1

3 Constraints That Enable the Imitation of God

4 King of the Children of Pride: The Imitation of God in Context

5 Architectonic Ambitions: Mathematics and the Demotion of Physics

6 Eloquence and the Audience Thesis

7 All Other Doctrines Exploded: Hobbes, History, and the Struggle over Teaching

8 The Humanist Face of Hobbes’s Mathematics, Part 2: Leviathan and the Making of a Masque-Text

9 Conclusion

Appendix: Who Is a Geometer?

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780271068237

027106823X

9780271055466

0271055464

9780271056852

0271056851

9780271055978

0271055979

OCLC:

780532258