Hobbes the constructivist

Dr. Jackson made an interesting observation in class that I would like to further explore in this blog entry

Hobbes seems to give a nod to a constructivist approach in his exploration of language. "Seeing then that truth consistith in the right ordering of names, in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need remember what every name he uses stand for; and to replace it accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words; as a bird in lime-twigs; the more he struggled the more he belimed."(page 22)

Here Hobbes both acknowledges that language is a tool for understanding the world and that different understandings of language can lead to different understandings of reality. In this way, language is the tool that constructs our reality.

As CC pointed out, 400+ years later Foucault would build on this observation (I don't know weather Foucault was influenced by Hobbes or not, but he definitely took the exploration of language much further) and traced the history of how various concepts are understood--punishment, sexuality, the academy, ect...

Hobbes, unlike Foucault, has a normative component to his exploration of language. Hobbes, instructs that those who seek precise truth be sure to learn and the correct usage language. This implies that there is a way that language ought to be understood—this contrast with Foucault’s instance on abandoning the normative.

It also reflects the broader intellectual climates in which these authors wrote. The enlightenment is generally characterized as a search for truth based on reason where as post modernity is generally associated with the contextualization of truths.

I also found it interesting, as PTJ pointed out, that Hobbes makes a distinction between the way that humans interact with each other in the state of nature and the way that governments interact with each other. Hobbes believes that, although there is no over-arching state government, states do not exist in a “state of nature,” according to Hobbes, states can engage in diplomatic relationships, contracts, with each other.