134. Hobbes vs. Socrates

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) opens his masterpiece Leviathan (1651) with some startling claims that reduce life to a series of motions and mechanisms:

“Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer?”

For Hobbes everything is matter in motion determined to move exactly as it moves by the laws of nature. If this is the case then physics can explain everything: we no longer need to appeal to immaterial souls with their reason, purposes, and free choices.

Many centuries before, however, Plato (427-347), in his dialogue Phaedo (98c), has his character Socrates say something very different. Socrates is talking about how disappointed he was when he found out that Anaxagoras didn’t include any intelligent, purposeful direction of matter in his cosmology.  Rather, he tried to get intelligence and purposeful direction from the configurations of matter alone. But this, for Socrates, will not work:

“What expectations I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed! As I proceeded, I found my philosopher [Anaxagoras] altogether forsaking mind or any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person who began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he endeavoured to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones, as he would say, are hard and have joints which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture—that is what he would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is, that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, of enduring any punishment which the state inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking.”

Socrates recognizes that the material mechanisms of the body are a necessary condition of human action. But we cannot reduce human action to such mechanisms since (1) many of our actions can only be sufficiently explained by also including the purposes and reasons we have for acting and physical explanations delete purposes and have no need of reasons only causes; (2) we act in accordance with what we think is truly good or right and material facts are not moral phenomena at all; and (3) our souls make choices for which we can be responsible and materialism and determinism exclude souls and free will. Any theory of human action that fails to incorporate these three points will inevitably lead us to engage in “a very careless and idle mode of speaking.”

So was Hobbes’ radical reductionism of everything to physics a bit careless and idle? Or should we follow Hobbes and claim that even Socrates’ “better and nobler part”, that part that apparently chooses in accordance with reason and objective morality, is just a series of mechanisms in a very complex automaton? Are there other options?

Go here for my post that argues a determinist who prescribes we adopt determinism may be incoherent.

Go here for my post that argues a determinist who asserts the truth of determinism might self-refuting.

Go here for my post that explores how critical thinking may presuppose free will.

2 replies on “134. Hobbes vs. Socrates”

  1. Ian Bello on

    Hobbes has a valid argument of the idea that the world has functions comparable to machines, and if not for those wires and strings, the body would fall apart and die. A form of order is naturally required for the sake of survival, and it is these order that formed a body. After the bodywas formed, it would use its ability to make a personal gain or gain with other bodies to create a bigger body, more accurately a tribe and then a nation. Therefore, the formation of civilizations and societies are natural and are part of the survival of the fittest, But even with the formation of a nation, every life will always have their own desire for a personal gain, which reflects on the idea of survival of the fittest, and the only reason a nation was formed was to increase the chances of survival in a dangerous world. With the protection from nations, one could pursue and satisfy their wants, following the natural law of nature.

    However, even with all these facts and scientific researches, the world will always be filled with many mystery, and some scientific researches has a chance of being debunked. Even with so many evidence supporting claims that goes against free-will, those claims would require evidence, and then those evidence also need evidence, and so on the endless loop. The human senses has a straight forward method of knowing, such as leaves falling from trees and the climate growing colder meant winter is coming, there is no need for further evidence. Thus, science could not be a reliable source of knowing if free-will truly exist. And so comes Socrates, his claim is the choices humans make, and some choices would go against the idea of survival of the fittest, and it is the choices that were made determines one’s fate. For example, there is a Filipino martyr, Jose Rizal who chose to be executed by the Spanish, in spite of his allies freeing him and begging him to stay alive. During the execution, Jose Rizal faced forward to the shooters, making him get shot from the front, appearing like a hero not fearing death and would rather die for his country than live as a coward who failed his country. Another example are the people who chose to argue about the idea of Free-Will than to actually farm food and donate it to the community, or at least living in luxuries, and not end up being hated and killed off like Socrates.

    • Dwight Goodyear on

      Thanks for your helpful comments Ian. I really like your Jose Rizal example. I researched him a bit and learned a lot.

      Hobbes is certainly right that there are mechanisms which, as you note, provide order and enable us to survive. But I think it is mistaken to then argue that everything is mechanical and physical order is the only kind of order there is. So I agree with Socrates that material mechanisms are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for rational human action. What else needs to be added? For me, at least the soul and the ordered interrelationships of abstract entities such as propositions and universals. One of my reasons for thinking this, which connects to the free will issue, is that the activity of providing arguments for and against an issue, for example whether or not free will exists and whether neuroscience has disproven it, seems to imply substance dualism, free will, and various immaterial things that make objective truth possible such as universals, propositions, and the laws of logic. For a justification of these claims, see my post here.

      Thanks for reading…

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