Theory of Knowledge

The whole of human knowledge is contained within the limits of sensation. Sensations are due to an external movement which generates an internal reaction in our organism. Concepts are representations of qualities common to several distinct sensations, which in speech are expressed by a common name (Nominalism). The mind operates on such concepts through analysis and synthesis, composing and dividing them into their elements. For example, by adding the concept of animality to that of rationality, we have the concept man; by subtracting from the concept man the concept of rationality, we have the concept animal. This system is pure mechanical nominalism.

Nevertheless, Hobbes does not deny the value of science, of knowledge of abstract causes. This science will be attained in fact as soon as we have an analytical knowledge of the elements and a synthetic understanding of their combinations. Thus Hobbes believed that he had saved science as an absolute value, even though such a value is only phenomenal, being an operation of the mind and not an objective contact with external reality.