Remnants of Thomas Hobbes’ Aesthetic Philosophy

In addition to Literary Criticism, I am also taking History of Modern Philosophy. To the displeasure of most of my classmates, I’ve been examining texts with a more rhetorical and aesthetic eye. Perhaps this is because I have Literary Criticism in the morning, followed by History of Modern Philosophy in the afternoon. So far we have read Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (which those Rhetorical Methods and Approaches folks have also read) and Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. We are now reading Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan.

Leviathan is predominately an exploration of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. However, I think Hobbes’ “Introduction” to Leviathan speaks to the aesthetic philosophies we’ve been looking at in our class. Take a look at the first paragraph of the “Introduction,” with specific attention to how he may (or may not, I easily could be wrong!) invoke Platonic mimesis. Remember that although we may glean an aesthetic philosophy from this introduction, Hobbes’ most likely was discussing art as means to legitimize the man-made Leviathan, or sovereign ruler.

Hobbes wrote Leviathan in 1651, centuries before Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s 1807 “Phenomenology of Spirit” and 1835-38 “Lectures on Fine Art.” But I think you could argue that Hobbes and Hegel share a similar sort of Platonism. Both acknowledge art as representation, or mimesis, of some Idea or Beyond-ness, but their staunch empiricism gives value to what is man-made. Hobbes equates the artificial with the natural, giving the artificial man similar (if not increased) agency and importance to the natural man. Hegel perhaps takes said valuing farther, as he “asserts the superiority of human-made artistic objects to God-made natural ones.” (539)

If only my History of Modern Philosophy compatriots thought this was as interesting as I did. Oh well, that’s what I have you all for! What do you think? Are these fair claims?