Mortal Gods : : Science, Politics, and the Humanist Ambitions of Thomas Hobbes / / Ted H. Miller.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn State University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
• VerfasserIn: Miller, Ted H.,
• Place / Publishing House: University Park, PA : : Penn State University Press, , [2021]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (344 p.) :; 4 illustrations

According to the commonly accepted view, Thomas Hobbes began his intellectual career as a humanist, but his discovery, in midlife, of the wonders of geometry initiated a critical transition from humanism to the scientific study of politics. In Mortal Gods, Ted Miller radically revises this view, arguing that Hobbes never ceased to be a humanist. While previous scholars have made the case for Hobbes as humanist by looking to his use of rhetoric, Miller rejects the humanism/mathematics dichotomy altogether and shows us the humanist face of Hobbes's affinity for mathematical learning and practice. He thus reconnects Hobbes with the humanists who admired and cultivated mathematical learning-and with the material fruits of Great Britain's mathematical practitioners. The result is a fundamental recasting of Hobbes's project, a recontextualization of his thought within early modern humanist pedagogy and the court culture of the Stuart regimes. Mortal Gods stands as a new challenge to contemporary political theory and its settled narratives concerning politics, rationality, and violence.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 The Humanist Face of Hobbes's Mathematics, Part 1 -- 3 Constraints That Enable the Imitation of God -- 4 King of the Children of Pride: The Imitation of God in Context -- 5 Architectonic Ambitions: Mathematics and the Demotion of Physics -- 6 Eloquence and the Audience Thesis -- 7 All Other Doctrines Exploded: Hobbes, History, and the Struggle over Teaching -- 8 The Humanist Face of Hobbes's Mathematics, Part 2: Leviathan and the Making of a Masque-Text -- 9 Conclusion -- Appendix: Who Is a Geometer? -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index