| − | '''Thomas Hobbes''' (1588-1679) was an English [[philosopher]], political theorist, historian, optical scientist, translator and classicist. Hobbes was notable as one of the founders of [[social contract]] theory, and a forerunner of British empiricism. As a [[materialism|materialist]], his concept of human existence excluded the [[soul]], with the [[mind]] being given a purely mechanical explanation. He was widely rumored during his lifetime to be an atheist, which was illegal in 16th century England. Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon and a contemporary of Hobbes', claimed that the philosopher was "a pander to bestiality" whose "doctrines have had so great a share of the debauchery of his Generation, that a good Christian can hardly hear his name without saying of his prayers."<ref>Samuel I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (Cambridge, 1962), 57. </ref> | + | '''Thomas Hobbes''' (1588-1679) was an English [[philosopher]], political theorist, historian, optical scientist, translator and classicist. Hobbes was notable as one of the founders of [[social contract]] theory, and a forerunner of British empiricism. As a [[materialism|materialist]], his concept of human existence excluded the [[soul]], with the [[mind]] being given a purely mechanical explanation. He was widely rumored during his lifetime to be an atheist, which was illegal in 16th century England. Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon and a contemporary of Hobbes', claimed that the philosopher was "a pander to bestiality" whose "doctrines have had so great a share of the debauchery of his Generation, that a good [[Christian]] can hardly hear his name without saying of his prayers."<ref>Samuel I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (Cambridge, 1962), 57. </ref> |
| | Hobbes saw matter in motion as the only reality. To him even consciousness and thought were but the byproducts of atoms moving in the brain.<ref>The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989</ref> | | Hobbes saw matter in motion as the only reality. To him even consciousness and thought were but the byproducts of atoms moving in the brain.<ref>The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989</ref> |