Language and Its Abuses in Hobbes' Political Philosophy

As in Hobbes' view it is principally the capacity for speech that distinguishes men from even the social animals, so it is in verbal and doctrinal controversies that he usually finds the sources of conflict and sedition. Hobbes analyzes—in the hope of doing away with them—a variety of what he regards as abuses of language, such as metaphor, equivocation, eloquence, and absurdity, which are especially productive of political disorder. He also offers models and, in his own political philosophy, examples of the proper uses of language as science and counsel, which he believes are necessary to the establishment and governance of well-ordered commonwealths in the modern world, characterized as it is by widespread learning and disputatious habits. In the pursuance of his project, however, Hobbes himself is paradoxically forced to resort to the eloquence which he otherwise condemns, and his own observations on language provide grounds for doubts about the success of his enterprise.