Linguistic ambiguity and social conflict in Hobbes

Paolo Castaldo

doi:10.4396/2024067C

Paolo Castaldo

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4396/2024067C

Parole chiave: Language, Equivocation, Abuse of Speech, Controversies, Conflict

Abstract

In this paper I will examine the relationship between speech and social conflict in Hobbes’s philosophy. I shall focus especially on equivocation, which Hobbes assumes
as one of the main causes of social conflict. The paper aims to show that equivocation should be distinguished from other forms of ambiguous speech, such as metaphor and inconstancy, and, on the other hand, it tries to highlight some controversial aspects underlying Hobbes’s approach to the question of equivocation.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Biletzki, Anat (1997), Talking Wolves, Kluwer, Dordrecht.

Castaldo, Paolo (2020), Logica Laurentiana. Lorenzo Valla e la linguistica riforma della metafisica e della dialettica, Aracne, Roma.

Castaldo, Paolo (2018), «Fallacie e ‘incuria loquendi’ nella logica di Lorenzo Valla», in Atti dell’Accademia di Scienze morali e politiche, vol. 128, pp. 129-143.

Duncan, Stewart (2011), «Hobbes, Signification, and Insignificant Names», in Hobbes Studies, vol. 24, pp. 158-178.

Duncan, Stewart (2019), «Hobbes on the Signification of Evaluative Language», in Hobbes Studies, vol. 32, pp. 159-178.

Hobbes, Thomas (1839), De corpore, in W. Molesworth (ed.), The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vol. 1., Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Hobbes, Thomas (1969), The Elements of Law Natural and Politic, ed. by F. Tonnies, Routledge, London.

Hobbes, Thomas (1994), Leviathan, ed. by E. Curley, Hackett, Indianapolis.

Hobbes, Thomas (1998), Man and Citizen, ed. and trans. by B. Gert, Hackett, Indianapolis.

Hoekstra, Kinch (2005), «The End of Philosophy. The Case of Hobbes», in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 105, pp. 22-60.

Holden, Thomas (2016), «Hobbes on the Function of Evaluative Speech», in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 46, n. 1, pp. 123-144.

Johnston, David (1986), The Rhetoric of Leviathan. Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Kretzmann, Norman, Kenny, Antony, Pinborg, Jean, Stump, Eleonore (eds.) (1982), The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 1100-1600, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Pécharman, Martine (2016), Hobbes on Logic, or How to Deal with Aristotle’s Legacy, in Martinich A.P., Hoekstra K. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hobbes, Oxford University

Press, Oxford, pp. 21-59.

Pettit, Philip (2008), Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press, Princeton-Oxford.

Ricci, Fiammetta (2020), «Abusi linguistici e disordine politico in Thomas Hobbes. Linguaggio e potere nell’epoca delle fake news», in Heliopolis, vol. 18, n. 1, pp. 27-38.

Rico, Francisco (1993), El sueño del humanismo, Alianza, Madrid.

Silver, Victoria (1996), Hobbes on Rhetoric, in T. Sorell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 329-245.

Skinner, Quentin (1996), Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Whelan, Frederick G. (1981), «Language and Its Abuses in Hobbes’ Political Philosophy», in The American Political Science Review, vol. 75, pp. 59-75.