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Empiricist Theories of SpaceHobbes on Space as Imaginary Space

Empiricist Theories of Space: Hobbes on Space as Imaginary Space [Hobbes’s first elaboration of his doctrine of space is directed against the traditional discussion of spatium imaginarium which Thomas White is indebted to in his De mundo dialogi tres (1642). Breaking with the scholastic mode of conceiving spatium imaginarium that considers it as an extracosmic space, Hobbes’s Anti-White (1642–1643) introduces a radically new notion of imaginary space, which identifies it with the very nature of any mental image. From this viewpoint, the paper outlines a difficulty in Hobbes’s criticism of White’s cosmology. In the Anti-White’s construction of the definition of space, the admission of an indefinite image of the whole world runs up against the problem that images are always particular for Hobbes, not universal. The author points out Hobbes’s attempts in De corpore (1655) to address this problem in the Anti-White’s definition. The paper emphasizes that, in connection with De corpore’s reshaping of the definition of space as imaginary space, the late scholastic dyad spatium imaginarium/spatium reale surviving in the Anti-White the redefinition of imaginary space against its traditional meaning is abandoned. Instead, the author argues, ‘real’ space is used in De corpore as a polemic tool against the identification of space with extension in White’s De mundo and Descartes’s Principia philosophiae. Accordingly, interpretations of Hobbes’s doctrine of space viewing it as the same from the Anti-White to De corpore distort Hobbes’s approach to the definition of space required as the first principle for natural philosophy.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Empiricist Theories of SpaceHobbes on Space as Imaginary Space

Part of the Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Book Series (volume 54)
Editors: Berchielli, Laura
Pécharman, Martine
Empiricist Theories of Space — Nov 4, 2020
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References (12)

Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
ISBN
978-3-030-57619-6
Pages
49 –78
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-57620-2_2
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Hobbes’s first elaboration of his doctrine of space is directed against the traditional discussion of spatium imaginarium which Thomas White is indebted to in his De mundo dialogi tres (1642). Breaking with the scholastic mode of conceiving spatium imaginarium that considers it as an extracosmic space, Hobbes’s Anti-White (1642–1643) introduces a radically new notion of imaginary space, which identifies it with the very nature of any mental image. From this viewpoint, the paper outlines a difficulty in Hobbes’s criticism of White’s cosmology. In the Anti-White’s construction of the definition of space, the admission of an indefinite image of the whole world runs up against the problem that images are always particular for Hobbes, not universal. The author points out Hobbes’s attempts in De corpore (1655) to address this problem in the Anti-White’s definition. The paper emphasizes that, in connection with De corpore’s reshaping of the definition of space as imaginary space, the late scholastic dyad spatium imaginarium/spatium reale surviving in the Anti-White the redefinition of imaginary space against its traditional meaning is abandoned. Instead, the author argues, ‘real’ space is used in De corpore as a polemic tool against the identification of space with extension in White’s De mundo and Descartes’s Principia philosophiae. Accordingly, interpretations of Hobbes’s doctrine of space viewing it as the same from the Anti-White to De corpore distort Hobbes’s approach to the definition of space required as the first principle for natural philosophy.]

Published: Nov 4, 2020

Keywords: Image; Imaginary space; Extension

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