Thomas Hobbes Hour and Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Philosophers do not get too much exposure in mass entertainment but there are some exceptions. Aristotle was briefly portrayed in two motion pictures on the life of Alexander the Great, insofar as Aristotle was AtG's tutor and mentor.

But philosophy as such is rarely exposed and shown. One exception is the science fiction movie -The Day the Earth Stood Still- (1950 version with Michael Rennie). Here you see Hobbes' Leviathan plain and undiluted. It is the robot Gort. Gort is one of a race of robots constructed by human(oids) to enforce the peace. Once activated the Gort-race could not be turned off. Gort (and his ilk) were God in a box, ready to smite the unrighteous, those who make war or violate the rights of their fellows. In the motion picture, Gort was shown as a servant of Klaatu, but in fact Gort was the Master, just as Hobbes would have it. In the novel by Harry Bates, the true situation was shown, but the folks who made the movie knew the public would not favor a story in which The Machine was the master of Man. In any case the point was made although without attribution to Thomas Hobbes, one of the great philosophers who wrote in the English language. I like Hobbes. He is devoid of mawkish sentimentality. He is a hard nose.

Klaatu Barada Nicto!

Bob Kolker

PS. While I am at it, I will ask any of you in the know, what Rand thought of Hobbes. Any answer is greatly appreciated.

Post 1

Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 7:12am

While I am at it, I will ask any of you in the know, what Rand thought of Hobbes. Any answer is greatly appreciated.

Ayn Rand wrote little or nothing about Hobbes specifically. She addressed him indirectly in her remarks about materialism and nominalism. The latter is indexed in ITOE and the Lexicon.

Peikoff wrote this: "This does not mean that Objectivists are materialists. Materialists�men such as Democritus, Hobbes, Marx, Skinner�champion nature but deny the reality or efficacy of consciousness" (OPAR, 33).

In his article on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy Peikoff included Hobbes along with Leibniz, Hume and Kant as advocates of said dichotomy.

Post 2

Saturday, June 21, 2008 - 9:18am

Hobbes never denied the efficacy of consciousness or mind. It is men who construct Leviathan, not Nature. In order to ordain an overseer to enforce order and peace, one must be aware of danger and strife. That requires consciousness.

Bob Kolker

Post 3

Sunday, June 22, 2008 - 6:23am

Philosophy is behind everything, so any film can have a hidden theorist. Would Destination Moon (Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon) be based on Inquiry into the Weatlh of Nations or perhaps the works of William Graham Sumner?

It might be argued that Gort was only the a member of the soldier cast of a society ruled by an implicit philosopher-king. As I read the top post, I thought maybe the book, Leviathan was on Prof. Jacob Barnhardt's desk or something. Alas.

I do agree with the general point: Plato aside, perhaps Leviathan is the best offer.

Klaatu Barada Nicto! I always heard that as the SVO construction "Gort, Klaatu barada nicto!" Gort, Klaatu needs help. It was a good thing that she did not have to click and scrape like a Chirpsithtra. Though Darryl Hannah's delphinese was nice in Splash, it was foley work.

Post 4

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - 4:16pm

Bob K.,

Hobbes denied the efficacy of conceptual awareness indirectly. He viewed the "mind" as a passive sensory organ. Here's a Hobbes quote:

Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

Do you see how Hobbes views the "mind" as a passive sensory organ, by saying that the mental power/mental faculty of gained prudence gets bestowed on the minds of men equally, via equal time and experience? Here's another Hobbes quote showing this assumed passivity of consciousness:

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

Post 5

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - 6:21pm

Ed writes:

Do you see how Hobbes views the "mind" as a passive sensory organ, by saying that the mental power/mental faculty of gained prudence gets bestowed on the minds of men equally, via equal time and experience?

I respond:

You left out equal application. Some apply themselves more than others and the outcomes differ.

Bob Kolker

Post 6

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - 6:28pm

Ed:

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

Me:

He is a materialist reductionist. My kind of guy. For the same reason he is not your kind of guy.

Since the conception is presumably caused by speech, the understander, must choose his speech. Nothing passive about this. Hobbes obviously equates words and concepts. I don't happen to agree, but words and concepts are closely related.

Bob Kolker

Post 7

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 1:54pm

Bob,

Regarding "prudence" as experience equally bestowed onto those who spend equal time in life-tasks or endeavors, Hobbes is talking about folks who do similar things -- like folks who farm, or folks who are carpenters, etc. They all get bestowed the "farmers' prudence", or the "carpenters prudence," or whatever -- as long as they put in their time. You are reading into Hobbes something that isn't there -- people "focusing" the same amount; or different amounts. But that's not what Hobbes' words mean.

Regarding "understanding" as bestowed on us by words, Hobbes is reversing the order of conceptual thought so that he doesn't have to deal with the contradictions of his nominalism. He couldn't tell you where words come from. For him, words are those things that help us to understand. That's reversed and wrong. It's our conceptual understanding that gets finalized with a word. The thought and understanding comes beforehand, the words merely consolidate the process which has already been completed.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/25, 1:58pm)

Post 8

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 3:06pm

Ed Thompson wrote:

Regarding "understanding" as bestowed on us by words, Hobbes is reversing the order of conceptual thought so that he doesn't have to deal with the contradictions of his nominalism. He couldn't tell you where words come from. For him, words are those things that help us to understand. That's reversed and wrong. It's our conceptual understanding that gets finalized with a word. The thought and understanding comes beforehand, the words merely consolidate the process which has already been completed.

My purpose is not to defend Hobbes, but simply to challenge what you wrote. It would take a lot more time to discover and well understand what Hobbes wrote. You say Hobbes reversed the process and claim the word comes after the conceptual understanding. Here's the challenge.

Try imagining how you learned the concept dog as a child. Probably your first experience in the presence of a dog was your parents pointed to it and said "dog" or "this is a dog" or something similar. You later saw other dogs, and somebody again called the creature "a dog", even though it wasn't the same creature, or identical to it, that you saw earlier. Eventually, you figured out that all the various dogs were similar enough to warrant using the same word to refer to any of them. If this was the case, then your conceptual understanding came after learning the word "dog."

Possibly, you saw enough dogs before this happened. You had a wordless notion or image of what a dog looks like before you began recognizing other people using the word "dog" to refer to such a creature. In this case you might say you had some sort of conceptual understanding (a pre-concept?) of dog and the label "dog" came later.

Most likely you learned some words in the first way and some other words in the second way. You can also ponder all the new words you learned while going to school. I'm confident that you learned a lot of new words that you had no conceptual understanding of when you first heard them. My general point is that it isn't always the case that conceptual understanding comes first. As implied above, I don't know in detail what Hobbes said. However, if your claim about what he said is accurate, then what he said was not entirely wrong nor is your claim entirely correct.

For whoever coined the word dog (or its equivalent in another language) some sort of conceptual understanding came before the word. However, we have no idea who that was or when it happened.

Post 9

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 5:13pm

Merlin,

=========
For whoever coined the word dog (or its equivalent in another language) some sort of conceptual understanding came before the word.
=========

And that's all that I meant to communicate (that understandings precede all of the coining of words); though I guess my post wasn't clear enough to make this obvious.

Ed

Post 10

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 5:44pm

Here's the relevant Rand quote (ITOE, 11):

If a child considers a match, a pencil and a stick, he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ. The difference is one of measurement. In order to form the concept "length," the child's mind retains the attribute and omits its particular measurements. Or, more precisely, if the process were identified in words, it would consist of the following: "Length must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify as 'length' that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity."

The child does not think in such words (he has, as yet, no knowledge of words), but that is the nature of the process which his mind performs wordlessly.

Post 11

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 7:49pm

Ed, to what is post 10 supposed to be relevant? Do you know a child who coined the word "length"? Rand's example you quote is fallacious. You can see why in my article "Omissions and Measurement", which is linked in my profile. (I'm glad we are in the Dissent forum. (-: )

Briefly, there is a substantial difference between length as a quality and length as a measured quantity. The latter is far more sophisticated. Rand's description is mighty presumptuous -- knowledge of length as a quality does not imply knowledge of length as a measured quantity. The latter requires the ability to count and understanding what a unit of measurement is. In practical terms it requires knowing how to use a ruler or tape measure, something a child learns by being taught, at an age of 7 years or so, and not by discovering it on his or her own. Rand seemed oblivious of this fact. Jean Piaget was not, which you can read about in my article.

Post 12

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 8:13pm

Merlin,

Ed, to what is post 10 supposed to be relevant? Do you know a child who coined the word "length"?

You keep refining what I'm trying to say -- and making it more perfect. I guess I should say thanks. All I've been trying to accomplish, but have failed to do so perfectly, is to re-state the process of concept-formation (and how it ends, not begins, with a word).

Rand's example you quote is fallacious. You can see why in my article "Omissions and Measurement", which is linked in my profile.

Do you mean this?:
The Corruption of Measurement
by Merlin Jetton

I will read it but first I would like to make a remark (which I may rescind, if optimal) ...

... knowledge of length as a quality does not imply knowledge of length as a measured quantity. The latter requires the ability to count and understanding what a unit of measurement is.

My objection is that even a toddler can tell about sizes, can tell that some things are bigger than others, and would be appropriately more scared of a big Rottweiler dog rather than a little puppy. There is implicit measurement in that -- measurement that does not require a ruler or even anything like a ruler. All humans are constantly measuring things (without even explicitly trying to).

Ed

Post 13

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 8:26pm

Ed T. wrote:

Do you mean this?:
The Corruption of Measurement

No. The 2nd link under "Description".

My objection is that even a toddler can tell about sizes, can tell that some things are bigger than others, and would be appropriately more scared of a big Rottweiler dog rather than a little puppy. There is implicit measurement in that -- measurement that does not require a ruler or even anything like a ruler.

I disagree with the 2nd sentence. Why? Read my article.

Post 14

Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 12:35pm

I neglected to include Hobbes in that list the other day. Discussions of some of his ideas occur in Objectivity in the following places:

Thomas Hobbes

V1N3 3, 60, V1N4 7-9, 28, V1N6 97, 200, V2N3 83�84, V2N4 190

V1N6 200 is a letter we received from him at the close of Volume 1, a text I like to share:

To Philosophy

But whatsoever shall be the method you will like, I would very fain commend philosophy to you, that is to say, the study of wisdom, for want of which we have all suffered much damage lately. For even they, that study wealth, do it out of love to wisdom; for their treasures serve them but for a looking-glass, wherein to behold and contemplate their own wisdom. Nor do they, that love to be employed in public business, aim at anything but place wherein to show their wisdom. Neither do voluptuous men neglect philosophy, but only because they know not how great a pleasure it is to the mind of man to be ravished in the vigorous and perpetual embraces of the most beauteous world. Lastly, though for nothing else, yet because the mind of man is not less impatient of empty time than nature is of empty place, to the end you be not forced for want of what to do, to be troublesome to men that have business, or take hurt by falling into idle company, but have somewhat of your own wherewith to fill up your time, I recommend unto you to study philosophy.
�Thomas Hobbes

(Edited by Stephen Boydstun on 6/26, 12:41pm)

Post 15

Friday, June 27, 2008 - 5:49am

Merlin,

I read your article, which can be distilled down to two theses:

Your main thesis:
(1) you can't "measure" qualities (quantitatively); and some concepts, like "occupation" are entirely qualitative; therefore, we don't omit measurements, but merely "details," when forming concepts like "occupation"

Your minor thesis:
(2) really young kids don't omit measurements (because they don't measure in the precise and definite way that older kids and adults do)

I disagree with both theses, but will have to make a case for my different view later, when I have more time.

Ed

Post 16

Friday, June 27, 2008 - 6:50am

Ed, regarding your post 15:

That's a good part of it, but inaccurate enough to "start on the wrong foot."

1. You can't measure some qualities. By the way, I replaced occupation with book for my article in JARS. A book has the qualities of (1) what language it's written in and (2) the content of the book, like fiction or nonfiction, mystery, romance, children�s stories, math, evolution, etc. Please tell us how to measure those qualities.

2. No, my thesis is that really young kids don't measure period. In post 12 you gave the example of a toddler who could discern between different sizes of dogs and called it "implicit measurement". Are you willing to extend that claim to other animals, that they implicitly measure when they can discern a size difference? There is a huge gap between saying some quality is measurable by somebody not the subject and the subject being capable of measuring.

I'll be glad to read your comments when you are ready.

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 6/27, 7:19am)

Post 17

Friday, June 27, 2008 - 1:00pm

Merlin,

2. No, my thesis is that really young kids don't measure period.

I know, that's what I meant when I said they don't omit them (because they don't do them in the first place). I went farther than you with the same reasoning, in order to show where it leads. If young kids don't make measurements then they can't omit them -- come time for forming a concept. The upshot is that, if we follow Rand's dictum of measurement-omission (and take your argument as successful), then young kids can't form concepts -- because they don't even measure in the first place.

Are you willing to extend that claim to other animals, that they implicitly measure when they can discern a size difference?

Yes, but only in the perceptual realm. When a lion chases down a gazelle, she is implicitly measuring the speed, direction, and acceleration of the gazelle and plotting an intercept trajectory. She is doing this without any knowledge of, or proficiency with, math or numbers.

There is a huge gap between saying some quality is measurable by somebody not the subject and the subject being capable of measuring.

Right. A big difference between us is that your definition of "measure" is narrow (and science-based), and my definition is broad (philosophy-based). Rand spoke disparagingly about the post-moderns co-opting measurement as something only sciences do -- and then using that to support their whim that you can't measure love, etc.

1. You can't measure some qualities.

I understand your point, but I disagree. I think that your background in writing about the sciences biases you here. You seem to argue that measurement has got to be precise in order to exist (as "measurement"). This seems to leave out estimation, evaluation, and valuation. An example is the difference between night and day.

You can't measure the precise nano-second in which day turns into night (no one can), but that doesn't affect the veridicality of knowledge that noon is in the daytime (or that midnight is in the nighttime). We look to our watches as the standard of time-keeping and then we can measure whether it's day or night, and we can do this with essentially 100% accuracy (though not with 100% precision).

Take love and hate. Pick something in-between (like indifference). We rank them ordinally because, even though there's no exact number -- like no exact nano-second between night and day -- we can measure them with 100% accuracy. Another way to say this is that we can be certain not only that love is better than hate, but that indifference is in-between. If we further stratify the kinds of feelings folks have, we could continue this kind of successful ranking of them ordinally (because they're measureable on a standard).

(2) the content of the book, like fiction or nonfiction, mystery, romance, children�s stories, math, evolution, etc. Please tell us how to measure those qualities.

The level of fiction in a book is the difference between the depictions in the book and the way that reality is. We measure it's "fiction-ness" by checking to see if it corresponds to reality (and measuring how far it strays from reality). The level of mystery in a book is measured by the amount of evaluation-allowing information that is left out (usually until the end of the book). Etc. Etc.

Do you see how it is that I am able to propose that we can measure these qualities?

Ed

Post 18

Friday, June 27, 2008 - 6:11pm

The upshot is that, if we follow Rand's dictum of measurement-omission (and take your argument as successful), then young kids can't form concepts -- because they don't even measure in the first place.

Correct. p = concept-formation. q = measurement-omission. p implies q, per Rand. Hence, not-q implies not-p. In other words, there is something seriously wrong with Rand's dictum.

Rand spoke disparagingly about the post-moderns co-opting measurement as something only sciences do -- and then using that to support their whim that you can't measure love, etc.

No to the first part. She disparaged mystics who proclaim measurement to be the sole tool of science. (ITOE, 38) That's quite different. I say you can't measure love either, but you can rank it -- which is not at all mystical or whimsical.

You seem to argue that measurement has got to be precise in order to exist (as "measurement"). This seems to leave out estimation, evaluation, and valuation.

No. Measurement enables precision but it's not a requirement. Measurement requires a uniformly applied unit, comparing one magnitude to another of the same type (the unit), with the result in real numbers (ordinal don't count). I can approximately measure a distance by "stepping it off" and assuming each of my steps is 3 feet (the unit). Also, I can evaluate whether I like one kind of ice cream more than another without an act or thought of measuring.

Yes, but only in the perceptual realm. When a lion chases down a gazelle, she is implicitly measuring the speed, direction, and acceleration of the gazelle and plotting an intercept trajectory.

Does this dog implicitly and perceptually do calculus?

The level of fiction in a book is the difference between the depictions in the book and the way that reality is. We measure it's "fiction-ness" by checking to see if it corresponds to reality (and measuring how far it strays from reality). The level of mystery in a book is measured by the amount of evaluation-allowing information that is left out (usually until the end of the book). Etc. Etc. Do you see how it is that I am able to propose that we can measure these qualities?

Yes, by using "measure" whimsically. What's the unit in these cases? No need to answer, because there isn't one.

Like Ayn Rand wrote in Philosophical Detection, all philosophical con games count on using words as vague approximations.

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 6/27, 6:26pm)

Post 19

Friday, June 27, 2008 - 9:16pm