Passion and Reason in Thomas Hobbes

Abstract

The study determines the relationship between passion and reason in Thomas Hobbes. The English thinker is considered as a rationalist as well as an irrationalist.
To explain this apparent paradox, the authors review his notions of passion and reason in the context of his materialistic and physicalistic philosophy. As well as, the connection with his nominalism and sensualism. Passions are shown as the principle of movement in men, thought being at its service. The rational process is described as part of a new logic, the one of calculus, or computation. The conclusion is that both topics are not clearly connected in Hobbes’s work despite his effort of making power, the strongest passion, the one that can introduce order in thought.