Discuss why Hobbes can be referred to as an empiricist, a mechanist, and a materialist.
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher who is also referred to as the founder of British empiricism. He was friend of both Galileo and Descartes. He served as Bacon’s secretary for a short time. He was convinced with Galileo that universe consisted of matters and they move in terms of mechanical principles and physical objects. He was also one of the founders of modern political science and political philosophy.
Though Hobbes has supported and accepted the Descartes’s deductive method, he rejected inductive method of Bacon and the concept of innate ideas given by Descartes. According to him, ideas come only from the sense experience and innate ideas do not exist. He also rejected the existence of non-material mind given by Descartes and explained his concept of mind as the sum total of a person’s thinking activities.
Like Luther, Hobbes also believed that there is no place for free will. He explained human will as the action tendency that prevails, when number of conflicting tendencies occurs. He also believed that all that exists is matter and motion. From all of his ideas and views, he can be referred to as an empiricist, a mechanist and a materialist. It can be explained as follows:
i. He is an empiricist because he believed that the knowledge can be attained only through sense experiences.
ii. He is a mechanist as he believed that universe consisted of matters and motions and called humans as machines.
iii. He is a materialist because he rejected Descartes’s view on non-material mind and believed that all that exists was physical.