Causality in Hobbes: necessity and intelligibility

Authors

  • Celi Hirata

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2447-9012.espinosa.2010.89398

Keywords:

Causality, Necessity, Requisite, Mechanism, Law of inertia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the hobbesian thesis that every effect has a necessary cause, showing how he demonstrates it in different but complementary ways: firstly, by means of identification between entire, sufficient and necessary cause and the redefinition of concepts of power and act; secondly, through the subordination of the principle of bivalence to the necessary determination of events; and lastly, by affirming that only through a necessary cause, a cause that can operate only mechanically via contact, is possible to give the reason why the events have these spatial and temporal features instead of others. Therefore the mechanical and necessary cause becomes in Hobbes the unique legitimate type of explanation of phenomena and the general form of intelligibility.

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Author Biography

  • Celi Hirata
    Doutoranda do Departamento de Filosofia da Universidade de São Paulo

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Published

2010-08-15

Issue

No. 23 (2010)

Section

Artigos

License

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How to Cite

Hirata, C. (2010). Causality in Hobbes: necessity and intelligibility. Cadernos Espinosanos, 23, 33-58. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2447-9012.espinosa.2010.89398