Hobbes and the curiosity of the moderns.

Journal title RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Author/s Gianni Paganini
Publishing Year 2018 Issue 2018/3
Language Italian Pages 21 P. 397-417 File size 75 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2018-003002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

After examining the main theses supported by Blumenberg about the modern rehabilitation of curiosity, in this article the author focuses on two relevant absences from his book: Montaigne and Hobbes. The absence of the latter is particularly striking, because Hobbes was the most important theorist of curiosity in early modern philosophy, raising it to a typical characteristic of human nature; connecting it to the sciences, culture, and the arts; and making it the basis of methodology, language, and philosophy. It is curiosity and rationality that make man different from other animals; it is curiosity that makes a man different from his fellow men. A new scientific humanism was born with Hobbes when he abandoned the traditional anthropocentric concept based on metaphysical assumptions and founded human superiority on a peculiar passion such as curiosity and its consequences. Privileging curiosity meant that Hobbes turned out to be original in comparison to Aristotle, Descartes, and afterwards Spinoza, all of whom neglected or discredited curiosity in their theories of the passions in favor of admiration.

Keywords: Thomas Hobbes, Curiosity, René Descartes, Michel de Montaigne, Baruch Spinoza

  1. - AT: OEuvres de Descartes, 11 vols., ed. by Charles Adam et Paul Tannery, CNRSVrin, Paris 1964-1994.
  2. - EW: Hobbes, Th., The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Now First Collected and Edited by Sir William Molesworth, 11 vols. Bohn/ Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London 1839-1845; reprint: Scientia, Aalen 1962-1966.
  3. - Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by Noel Malcolm, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2012
  4. - Elements: Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of Law Natural and Politic, Edited with a preface and critical notes by Ferdinand Tönnies, Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., London 1889
  5. - Objectiones Tertiae: Thomas Hobbes, Objectiones Tertiae cum responsionibus Authoris, in AT, vol. VII, pp. 171-96
  6. - Hobbes 1973: Thomas Hobbes, De motu, loco et tempore= Critique du De mundo de Thomas White. Introduction, texte critique et notes par Jean Jaquot et Harold Whitmore Jones, Vrin, Paris, 1973
  7. - Hobbes 2010: Moto, luogo e tempo, introduzione, trad. it. e annotazioni di Gianni Paganini, UTET, Torino 2010.
  8. - Montaigne 1999: Michel de Montaigne, Essais, ed. Pierre Villey, Puf, Paris 1999
  9. - Spinoza, Ethica: Benedictus Spinoza, Ethica, in Id., Opera omnia, ed. Carl Gebhardt, Band II, Carl Winter-Verlag, Heidelberg 1925.
  10. - Barnouw 1989: Jeffrey Barnouw, Hobbes’s Psychology of Thought: Endeavours, Purpose and Curiosity, «History of European Ideas», 10 (1989), pp. 519-545. - Benedict 2001: Barbara Benedict, Curiosity. A cultural history of early modern inquiry, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2001.
  11. - Blumenberg 1966: Hans Blumenberg, Die Legitimität der Neuzeit, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M 1966.
  12. - Blumenberg 1973: Id., Der Prozess der theoretischen Neugierde, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M. 1973.
  13. - Bös 1995: Gunther Bös, Curiositas. Die Rezeption eines antiken Begriffes durch christliche
  14. Autoren bis Thomas von Aquin, Schoning, Paderborn-München 1995.
  15. - Céard 1986: Jean Céard (éd), La curiosité à la Renaissance¸ S.E.D.E.S., Paris 1986.
  16. - Cottegnies, Parageau, Thompson 2016: Line Cottegnies, Sandrine Parageau, John J. Thompson (eds.), Women and Curiosity in Early Modern England and France, Brill, Leiden 2016.
  17. - Daston 2002: Lorraine J. Daston, Die Lust an der Neugier in der frühneuzeitlichen Wissenschaft, in Krüger 2002, pp. 147-176.
  18. - Daston and Park 1998: Lorraine J. Daston, and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750, The MIT Press, New York 1998.
  19. - Ebbersmeyer 2012: Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (ed.), Emotional Minds. The passions and the limits of pure inquiry in early modern philosophy, De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2012.
  20. - Evans and Marr 2006: R.J.W. Evans and Alexander Marr, Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Ashgate, Aldershot 2006.
  21. - Ferrari et Gontier 2016: Emiliano Ferrari et Thierry Gontier (eds), L’Axe Montaigne-Hobbes. Anthropologie et politique, Classiques Garnier, Paris, 2016.
  22. - Houdard et Chaquin 1998: Sophie Houdard and Nicole Jacques-Chaquin (éds), Curiosité et libido sciendi de la Renaissance aux Lumières, ENS éditions, Fontenay-aux-Roses 1998.
  23. - Kambouchner 1995: Denis Kambouchner, L’Homme des passions. Commentaires sur Descartes, 2 vols., Albin Michel, Paris 1995.
  24. - Kenny 1998: Neil Kenny, Curiosity in Early Modern Europe Word Histories, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1998.
  25. - Kenny 2004: Id., The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004.
  26. - Krüger 2002: Klaus Krüger (Hrsg.), Curiositas. Welterfahrung und ästhetische Neugierde in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, Wallestein Verlag, Göttingen 2002.
  27. - Leigh 2013: Matthew Leigh, From Polypragmon to Curiosus. Ancient concepts of Curious and Meddlesome Behaviour, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013.
  28. - Paganini 1990: Gianni Paganini, Hobbes, Gassendi e la psicologia del meccanicismo, in Arrigo Pacchi (a cura di), Hobbes oggi, FrancoAngeli, Milano 1990, pp. 351-446.
  29. - Paganini 2010: Id., Thomas Hobbes e la questione dell’umanesimo, in Lorenzo Bianchi and Gianni Paganini, Le origini dell’umanesimo scientifico dal Rinascimento all’Illuminismo, Liguori, Napoli 2010, pp.135-158.
  30. - Paganini 2012: Id., «Passionate Thought»: reason and the passion of curiosity in Thomas Hobbes» in Ebbersmeyer 2012, pp. 227-256.
  31. - Paganini 2015: Id., Hobbes’s Galilean Project. Its Philosophical and Theological Implications, «Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy», 7 (2015), pp. 1-46.
  32. - Paganini 2016: Id., Hobbes, Montaigne et les animaux moraux, Ferrari and Gontier 2016, pp. 131-150.
  33. - Pettit 2008: Philip Pettit, Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind and Politics, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2008. - Pickave and Shapiro 2012: Martin Pickave and Lisa Shapiro (eds.), Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012.
  34. - Pomian 1990: Krzysztof Pomian, Collectors and Curiosity: Paris and Venice 1500-1800, engl. transl., Cambridge University Press, 1990.
  35. - Scribano 2017: Emanuela Scribano, Il controllo delle passioni. Ascesa e caduta della meraviglia da Descartes a Spinoza, «Ingenium», 11 (2017), pp. 151-161.
  36. - Skinner 2008: Quentin Skinner, Hobbes and Republican Liberty, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008.
  37. - Smith 2016: Justin E.H. Smith, The Philosopher. A History in Six Types, Princeton University Press 2016.
  38. - Tabb 2014: Kathryn Tabb, The Fate of Nebuchadnezzar. Curiosity and Human Nature in Hobbes, «Hobbes Studies», 27 (2014), pp. 13-34.
  39. - Zarka 1998: Yves Charles Zarka, La curiosité chez Hobbes in Houdard et Jacques-Chaquin 1998, pp. 157-166.

Gianni Paganini, Hobbes e la curiosità dei moderni in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 3/2018, pp 397-417, DOI: 10.3280/SF2018-003002