Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T05:25:14.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

John Locke, ‘Hobbist’: of sleeping souls and thinking matter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Liam P. Dempsey
Liam P. Dempsey*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, Canada
*
Email: liam.dempsey@kpu.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I consider Isaac Newton’s fevered accusation that John Locke is a ‘Hobbist.’ I suggest a number of ways in which Locke’s account of the mind–body relation could plausibly be construed as Hobbesian. Whereas Newton conceives of the human mind as an immaterial substance and venerates it as a finite image of the Divine Mind, I argue that Locke utterly deflates the religious, ethical, and metaphysical significance of an immaterial soul. Even stronger, I contend that there is good reason to suspect that Locke is a crypto-materialist, at least with respect to human beings, and in this respect, could reasonably be labeled a ‘Hobbist.’

Keywords

NewtonLockeHobbesmaterialismdualismmortalismmindconsciousnessperson
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , 2017 , pp. 454 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond, Philip. 1994. Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511584695CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balibar, Étienne. [1998] 2013. Identity and Difference: John Locke and the Invention of Consciousness. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bennett, Jonathan, and Remnant, Peter. 1978. “How Matter Might at First Be Made.” In Canadian Journal of Philosophy, edited by Jarrett, C. E., King-Farlow, J., and Pelletier, F. J., supp. vol. 4, 1–11. Guelph: Canadian Association for Publishing in Philosophy.Google Scholar
Brewster, David. [1855] 1965. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. 2 vols. London: Johnson Reprint Corporation.Google Scholar
Burns, Norman T. 1972. Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 10.4159/harvard.9780674731622Google Scholar
Calvin, John. [1542] 1851. Calvin’s Tracts. 3 vols. Translated by Beveridge, Henry. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society.Google Scholar
Copp, David. 1980. “Hobbes on Artificial Persons and Collective Actions.” The Philosophical Review 89 (4): 579–606. 10.2307/2184737CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cottingham, John. 1986. Descartes. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Liam. 2006. “Written in the Flesh: Isaac Newton on the Mind–body Relation.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (3): 420–441. 10.1016/j.shpsa.2006.06.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dempsey, Liam. 2009. “Thinking-Matter Then and Now: The Evolution of Mind-Body Dualism.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 26 (1): 43–61.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Liam. 2010. “An Early “Sensation-Based” Argument for Dualism.” Locke Studies 10: 159–177.Google Scholar
Dempsey, Liam. 2011. “‘A Compound Wholly Mortal’: Locke and Newton on the Metaphysics of (Personal) Immortality.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (2): 241–264. 10.1080/09608788.2011.555161CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dempsey, Liam. 2014. “Newtonian Idealism: Matter, Perception, and the Divine Will.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 52 (1): 86–112. 10.1111/sjp.2014.52.issue-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Descartes, René. 1985. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. 2 vols. Edited by Cottingham, J. G., Stoothoff, R., and Murdoch, D.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 1696. Socinianism Unmask'd. A Discourse Shewing the Unreasonableness …. London: J. Robinson at the Golden Lyon.Google Scholar
Foisneau, Luc. 2008. “Personal Identity and Human Mortality: Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz.” In Studies on Locke: Sources, Contemporaries, and Legacy, edited by Hutton, S. and Schuurman, P., 89–105. Dordrecht: Springer. 10.1007/978-1-4020-8325-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Force, James E. 1990. “Newton’s God of Dominion: The Unity of Newton’s Theological, Scientific, and Political Thought.” In Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology, edited by Force, J. E. and Popkin, R. H., 75–102. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 10.1007/978-94-009-1944-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Force, James E. 1994. “The God of Abraham and Isaac (Newton).” In The Books of Nature and Scripture, edited by Force, J. E. and Popkin, R. H., 179–200. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Force, James E. 1999. ““Children of the Resurrection” and “Children of the Dust:” Confronting Mortality and Immortality with Newton and Hume.” In Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin: Essays in his Honor, edited by Force, J. E. and Katz, D. S., 119–142. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabbey, Alan. 1982. “Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata: Henry More (1646–1671).” In Problems of Cartesianism, edited by Lennon, T. M., Nicholas, J. M., and Davis, J. W., 171–250. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
Gorham, Geoffrey. 2011. “How Newton Solved the Mind-Body Problem.” The History of Philosophy Quarterly 28 (1): 21–44.Google Scholar
Hall, Rupert and Hall, Marie Boas. 1995. “Newton and the Theory of Matter.” In Newton, edited by Cohen, I. B. and Westfall, R. S., 72–87. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Harding, Charles. 1895. “Overton, Richard.” In Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Lee, S., 285–287. London: Smith, Elder & Co.Google Scholar
Harvey, William. [1628] 1889. On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals. London: G. Bell and Sons.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. [1839] 1962. Elements of Philosophy Concerning Body, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. 11 vols. Edited by Molesworth, William. Aalen: Scientia.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. 1994. Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668. Edited by Curley, E.. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Hume, David. [1777] 1980. “Of the Immortality of the Soul.” In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the Posthumous Essays, edited by Popkin, R. H., 91–97. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Iliffe, Rob. 1995. ““That Puzleing Problem”: Isaac Newton and the Political Physiology of Self.” Medical History 39 (4): 433–458. 10.1017/S0025727300060361CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iliffe, Rob. 2007. Newton: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/actrade/9780199298037.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iliffe, Rob. Forthcoming. High Priest of Nature: The Religious World of Isaac Newton. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Janiak, Andrew. 2008. Newton as Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511481512CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolley, Nicholas. 1984. Leibniz and Locke: A Study of the New Essays on Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jolley, Nicholas. 2015. Locke's Touchy Subjects: Materialism and Immortality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737094.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried. 1875–90. Die Philosophische von G. W. Leibniz, 7 vol. Edited by Gerhardt, C. I.. Berlin.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1823. The Works of John Locke, new edition, corrected. 10 vols. London: Thomas Tegg.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1858. “‘Excerpt from Locke’s Journal, 20 April 1682’.” In Life and Letters of John Locke, edited by King, Lord, 128–130. London: H. G. Bohn.Google Scholar
Locke, John. [1700] 1979. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 4th ed. Edited by Nidditch, Peter H.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Locke, John. [1696] 1999. The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures. 2nd ed. Edited by Higgins-Biddle, J. C.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
MacDonald Ross, George. 2009. Starting with Hobbes. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. 1976. Problems from Locke. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 10.1093/0198750366.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, John. 2000. “Locke, Socinianism, “Socinianism”, and Unitarianism.” In English Philosophy in the Age of Locke, edited by Stewart, M. A., 111–182. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Raymond, and Barresi, John. 2003. “Introduction: Personal Identity and What Matters in Survival: A Historical Overview.” In Personal Identity, edited by Martin, R. and Barresi, J., 1–74. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
More, Henry. 1969. “The Easie, True, and Genuine Notion and Consistent Explication of the Nature of a Spirit.” In The Philosophical Writings of Henry More, edited by MacKinnon, F. I., 183–184. New York, NY: AMS Press.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 1850. ““1682 Letter to William Briggs.” In Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, edited by Edleston, J., 265–269. London: J. W. Parker.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 1959–77. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton. 7 vol. Edited by Turnbull, Herbert W., Scott, J. F., Rupert Hall, A., and Tilling, Laura. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 1983. Certain Philosophical Questions: Newton’s Trinity Notebooks. Edited by McGuire, J. E. and Tamny, Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 1995. Newton. Edited by Cohen, I. B. and Westfall, R. S.. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 1999. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Edited and translated by Cohen, I. B. and Whitman, A.. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 2004a. “De gravitatione.” In Newton: Philosophical Writings, edited by Janiak, Andrew, 12–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511809293CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 2004b. “Queries to the Opticks [1721].” In Newton: Philosophical Writings, edited by Janiak, Andrew, 127–140. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511809293CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nuovo, Victor, ed. 2012. John Locke: Vindications of the Reasonableness of Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Overton, Richard. [1643] 1968. Mans Mortalitie: Or, A Treatise proving Man (quatenus Animal rationale) a Compound wholly Mortal. Edited by Fisch, H.. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
Power, J. E. 1970. “Henry More and Isaac Newton on Absolute Space.” Journal of the History of Ideas 31 (2): 289–296. 10.2307/2708552CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, G. A. J. 1979. “Locke, Newton, and the Cambridge Platonists on Innate Ideas.” Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (2): 191–205. 10.2307/2709148CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. The Concept of Mind. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schliesser, Eric. 2011. “Newton’s Substance Monism, Distant Action, and The Nature of Newton’s Empiricism: Discussion of H. Kochiras “Gravity and Newton’s Substance Counting Problem”.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A 42 (1): 160–166. 10.1016/j.shpsa.2010.11.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney. 1982. “The Inverted Spectrum.” The Journal of Philosophy 79 (7): 357–381. 10.2307/2026213CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snobelen, Stephen D. 2001. “Socinianism, Heresy and John Locke’s.” Reasonableness of Christianity Enlightenment and Dissent 20: 88–125.Google Scholar
Snobelen, Stephen D. 2004. “Lust, Pride and Ambition: Isaac Newton and the Devil.” In Newton and Newtonianism, edited by Force, J. E. and Hutton, S., 155–181. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic. 10.1007/1-4020-2238-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snobelen, Stephen D. 2005. “Isaac Newton, Socinianism and “The One Supreme God”.” In Socinianism and cultural exchange: the European dimension of Antitrinitarian and Arminian networks, 1650–1720, edited by Rohls, J. and Mulsow, M., 241–293. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Strawson, Galen. 2011. Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stuart, Matthew. 2013. Locke’s Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199645114.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamny, Martin. 1979. “Newton, Creation, and Perception.” Isis 70 (1): 48–58. 10.1086/352153CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thackray, Arnold. [1968] 1995. “Matter in a Nut-Shell: Newton’s Opticks and Eighteenth-Century Chemistry”. In Reprinted Newton, 87–96, edited by Cohen, I. B. and Westfall, R. S.. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Thiel, Udo. 1998a. “Personal Identity.” In The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, 2 vols., edited by Garber, D. and Ayers, M., vol. 1, 868–912. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thiel, Udo. 1998b. “Locke and Eighteenth-Century Materialist Conceptions of Personal Identity.” The Locke Newsletter 29: 59–83.Google Scholar
Thiel, Udo. 2011. The Early Modern SubjectSelf-Consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume, 2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199542499.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Ann. 2008. Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199236190.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Ann. 2010. “Animals, Humans, Machines, and Thinking Matter: 1690–1707.” Early Science and Medicine 15 (1–2): 3–37. 10.1163/138374210X12589831573027CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolhouse, R. S. 1982. “Reid and Stewart on Lockean Creation.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 20 (1): 84–90. 10.1353/hph.1982.0006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolhouse, R. S. 1988. The Empiricists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woolhouse, R. S. 2007. Locke: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, John. 1991. “Locke, Willis, and the Seventeenth-century Epicurean Soul.” In Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquility, edited by Osler, M. J., 239–258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511608353CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yolton, John W. 1983. Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Yolton, John W. 2004. The Two Intellectual Worlds of John Locke: Man, Person, and Spirits in the ‘Essay’. Ithaca, NY: Cornel University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar