The Impact Of Nominalism On Hobbes' S Political Philosophy

In the late middle ages, following the defeat of the Thomas conciliationism, the nominalism thoughts of scholastics, such as Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, increasingly become prosperous. Nominalist firstly laid the foundation theory of human nature for modern production of classical natural law, and then pushed the concept of natural rights to classical natural law scholars. Thomas Hobbes is one of these scholars, he regards the "personal rights" as the cornerstone of the community construction, sees the “natural reason” as the premise of human permanent peace, and therefore he is referred as the "founder of the modern political philosophy" by Leo Strauss. And the theme of this paper intends to study the function of nominalism in the building of Hobbes' political philosophy.The paper's main body is divided into six parts.The first part is an introduction,including the literature review, train of thought and the way of writing.The second part focuses on the investigation of the ideological background of Hobbes' political philosophy. This part will select the late medieval nominalist Ockham's philosophy, political philosophy thought as the research object, and then introduce Hobbes' thought background at this time.The third part will examine the inherit relationship between Hobbes and nominalism. This part tries to illustrate that it is the nominalism's "individualism" and "view on god" that directly lead to Hobbes' s theory of absolute sovereignty.The fourth part analyzed the subversion of the traditional political philosophy by the nominal theory. Traditional political philosophy regards the "natural teleology" and "rationalism" theory as its theoretical base, puts the development of people under "causa finalis"; In contrast, nominalism overturns traditional political philosophy through the philosophical "anti-teleology" and the highest human nature of "individualism". As a result, it has cleared the obstacles and paved the road of innovation for traditional philosophers which are similar to Hobbes.The fifth part will point out the function of nominalism in Hobbes' political philosophy. In other words, after nominalism removed obstacles, how the Hobbes laid his own political philosophy on the road of nominalism's building. This part will focus on Hobbes' s "human nature", "natural state", and "natural law" in three aspects, and this argument will illuminate the function of nominalism in Hobbes' political philosophy. Based on this, Hobbes established its political philosophy which based on "rights", and furthermore became "the founder of modern political philosophy".The last part is the conclusion, trying to clarify the the important role nominal theory plays in Hobbes' political philosophy.