The Use and Abuse of the Past: Hobbes on the Study of History

The use and abuse of the past: Hobbes on the study of history

WILLIAMR. LUND

I. Introduction

Students of Hobbes have often argued that he regarded the discipline of history with some disdain. At least after an early humanist phase, which may or may not have influenced his later political theory, Hobbes turned to a rationalism in which history was rigidly distinguished from, and very un- favorably compared to, abstract reasoning.' He moved quickly to base his political arguments on philosophy as he recognized that history could not generate the kind of causal, certain and timeless knowledge necessary to transcend mere prudence. Recently, David Johnston had modified this traditional picture a bit, arguing that Hobbes never doubted that history could yield true and causal information. However, he did replace history with philosophy as he recognized that the latter was not only an even more powerful source of knowledge, but also that it could be presented with sufficient rhetorical power to satisfy his didactic purposes.2 Much of this traditional and amended picture is both true and important. However, we also have occasional references to a Hobbes whose writings

I Those who argue that humanism had little impact on his later philosophy include J.W.N. Watkins, Hobbes's System of Ideas (London, 1973). On the way in which humanist themes shaped his political thought, see Sheldon Wolin, Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory (Los Angeles, 1970), and, perhaps most famously, Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis, trans. Elsa Sinclair (Chicago, 1952). 2 David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton, N.J., 1986), Ch. 1. While modifying it, Johnston holds the common view that Hobbes had two different attitudes to a single conception of history. Richard Ashcraft, "Ideology and Class in Hobbes' Political Theory," Political Theory 6 (1978): 39-41, points to a post-humanist conception of history but roots it completely in Hobbes's scientific conversion ignoring the impact of the historiographical novelties discussed below. reveal a relatively sophisticated historical understanding.3 To accommodate such voices and better understand what Hobbes actually said about history, I suggest two interpretive moves. The first is to recognize that he held two relatively distinct conceptions of that discipline. Numerous commentators have discussed his early humanist view; but we can also reconstruct a more mature conception that has been ignored both by those who emphasize his naturalism, and by those who argue that a "Renaissance attitude toward the past" with its assumption that history was "relevant to modern times" was a permanent feature of his thought.4 I argue instead that he gradually felt his way toward an account of history which denied its current utility but left it as an autonomous discipline for reconstructing causal knowledge about the past. While neither his central preoccupation nor explicitly developed, this post-humanist view carried him beyond the Renaissance and toward nineteenth-century "historism." Simply put, it tended toward the view that what happened in the past must be explained in terms of when it happened without reference to present needs or future predictions.5 The second step is to avoid treating this development as a mere corollary of his conversion to the methods or findings of modern science. We also need to situate Hobbes in what has been called, perhaps somewhat injudi- ciously, a "revolution" in the practice of history in Tudor and Stuart England. While religious and political protagonists generally assumed that the past was directly relevant to their disputes, a few historians were beginning to reject the static notion that "chronological change did not necessarily imply fundamental historical change."6 There seem to be suffi-

3 See, e.g., Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution (New York, 1967), pp. 291- 92 ; Keith Thomas, "The Social Origins of Hobbes's Political Thought," in K.C. Brown (ed.), Hobbes Studies (Oxford, 1965), p. 199; and J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitu- tion and the Feudal Law: A Reissue With a Retrospect (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 162-70. 4 Robinson A. Grover, "Individualism, Absolutism, and Contract in Thomas Hobbes' Political Theory," Hobbes Studies III (1990): esp. pp. 91-93. 5 George Nadel, "Philosophy of History Before Historicism," History and Theory III (1964): 291, distinguishes "historism" from "historicism," or the view that prior events have been leading up to the present and would continue in a predictable manner in the future. Pocock, Ancient Constitution, pp. 5-10 and Ch. IX, argues that a relatively modern historical understanding emerged well prior to the period usually focused on as the origin of "historism." 6 F. Smith Fussner, The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640 (New York, 1962), p. 299. See also Pocock, Ancient Constitution, and F.J. Levy, Tudor Historical Thought (San Marino, CA, 1967). A review of this literature which argues that the changes it portrays were an outgrowth of the Renaissance rather than a "revolution," is Joseph Preston, "Was There An Historical Revolution?," Journal of the History of Ideas XXXVIII (April, 1977): 353-364.