Hobbes’s Materialist Agenda

This is a meticulously researched and carefully wrought study of the epistemological and ontological quandaries Hobbes navigated while engaging challenges posed by Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. Bardin gives a fascinating analysis of the compromises Hobbes makes vis à vis his materialist metaphysics for the sake of securing political stability. -- Samantha Frost, University of Illinois
The history of philosophy is conducted in many ways, some painstaking but short on engagement with big issues, while other approaches take a broader perspective, but miss out on the detail of historical scholarship. The best histories combine the two, merging scholarly detail with theoretical daring. This work is exemplary in combining meticulous scholarship with incisive political and philosophical judgment on what was important about theoretical responses to the new mechanical sciences. Andrea Bardin is an exciting scholar, who knows Hobbes well, and he is fully versed in debates on materialism and idealism. He sees Hobbes as a materialist, whose materialism and political theory were undermined by the temptations of a foundational reading of the new mechanism. This book will prove vital in our readings of Hobbes and materialism. -- Gary Browning, Oxford Brookes University