Epistemological Status of Thomas Hobbes's Scientia Civilis

It is well known that Thomas Hobbes in his works on political and civil life claimed the construction of the demonstratively certain civil science (Scientia civilis). However, what amounts to certainty and demonstration in his political treatises is still a highly debated question among the researchers. The main problem of the present work can be formulated as follows: what is the epistemological status of the “foundation” of Hobbesian civil science, that is, of his model of “human nature”? The basic thesis of the present work is that Hobbes proposes the “self-evidence” model of certainty in addition to the model of certainty based on the “verum-factum” principle in his civil science. The “self-evidence” model of certainty is an epistemological grounding of the “dynamic model of social agency”, that is, of the theoretical construction of “human nature” by Hobbes in his civil science. On the other hand, “dynamic model of social agency” can be explicated by way of analysis of modal notions in Hobbesian “system of sciences”. The “self-evidence” model of certainty (which is an epistemological basis of Hobbesian “Read thyself” maxim) implies the discovery of the undeniable signs of the social dynamics in the experience of the readers of his civil science. Such a dynamics leads to the radical uncertainty of the social and the impossibility of contracts outside of the situation of coercive power.