/lit/ - Literature

>>13736592
Hobbes was better than Hume but still isn't good.

>>13736597

Because it implies that Hume isn't good, this FPWP can be dismissed out of hand.

>>13736597
I agree better than Hume. Hobbes is definately worth mentioning. His social contract theory has to be one of the most comprehensive outlines I've read.

>>13736603
This

that's a nice leviathan you got there tommy. would be a shame if someone slew it.

>>13736671
Ahh the revamped Switz longing, version of an original masterpiece

>>13736603
The entire enlightenment was trash. Return to reddit, Pinker.

>>13736592
And life in society is any better?

>>13736735
Society gives many advantages that nature cant offer

>>13736671
based

>Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short
sounds like my diary desu

>>13736832
>My sex life

>>13736592
Better than miserable, effiminate and long.

>>13736924
>miserable, effiminate and long
Why are you describing my penis?

>>13736592
Too bad the State of Nature in any Enlightenment conception never existed.
>>13736697
Based and Redpilled.

>>13736942
It didnt have to exist. It was just a notion that the reader either accepts or rejects as the primitive state of man.

>>13736942
>the state of nature never existed
why do brainlets continue to misunderstand state of nature arguments? What's next:
>n-no one actually signed the social contract!

>>13737088
Pic has to be unrelated. I'm not a nihilist. I just think it's absurd to assume that all men are rational individuals and that morality and statecraft comes from reason and self-interest alone.

>>13736592
fuck off tom, life's good. maybe try going out for a bit eh?

>>13737088
>n-no one actually signed the social contract!
not wrong

>>13736592
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/violence-is-reality/

>>13737101
Humans are rational beings

>>13737220
I declare this statement false based on pure gut feeling

>>13737229
If humans arent rational beings then how is human behavior predictable

>>13737101
Hobbes never suggested that people were purely rational, but that they possessed instrumental rationality i.e. an understanding of how to achieve a particular end. Hobbes lists a bunch of things which cause conflict between people near the start of Leviathan: Pride, Greed, Anger, Lust, Envy, all of which aren't "rational" in the traditional sense of the term. The state of nature argument is really just a hypothetical scenario which is meant to demonstrate what would happen if (bearing Hobbes' theory of human nature) there was suddenly no sovereign "to hold them all in awe". From this hypothetical he draws that a sovereign power is necessary for the most basic function of society and upon which all else is built: self-preservation. What this was really all about was giving a highly divided polity (considering England's civil war which was sparked by many rival factions, religious and political) a reason they could all agree upon to submit to a single sovereign. That is, to preserve their own life.
I agree with you that self-preservation and self-interest is too "low" a sentiment to build anything which can properly be called politics on, but saying that "the state of nature never existed" misses the point as none of the authors claimed it literally existed. You should rather say "Hobbes' conception of human nature is wrong" or "Society cannot/is not be formed on self-interest alone" or "an all powerful sovereign which is founded on self-interest is just a corrupted monarchy AKA tyranny, and so cannot be the basis of legitimacy" (which is what Rousseau said).
And yes, pic was unrelated.

>>13737371
Thanks for making that clear. I read Leviathan some time ago, but I don't recall too much specifically. What I do remember is the fact that I analyzed the book from a literal autistic perspective, so it made me interpret the State of Nature as Hobbes presenting a universal infallible claim as opposed to a proposition or theory. It was also the first philosophical treatise I read, so it may have been a bad start.

>>13737245
Predictable behavior isn't an indicator of rationality if people predictably act and think in irrational fashions.

>>13737506
I guess this would be true but not likely

Bump

>>13736777
>we live in a society