HIST II

Today we looked primarily at Hobbes and Descartes touching on Shakespeare following the argument Harold Bloom gives that modern self-reflection begins with Hamlet, but noticing also Pope John Paul II's argument that it was Descartes and his Cogito ergo sum that brought about the modern philosophical movement into the Enlightenment. Memory and Identity is the title of that book. (I did not explore why John Paul thought of this as an evil turn - but it was because it develops into a Culture of Death. Self Reflecting modern individuals are intrinsically selfish.) Reading Hobbes Leviathan I pointed out the similarity much of his thought has to do with B. F. Skinner's Behaviorism and discussed how selecting a jury can often be the crucial part of a case when the cultural viewpoint of the individuals selected determine whether or not they feel the person charged should be punished for being a free agent or considered innocent because any of us in like circumstances would have done exactly the same thing. Being free for Hobbes means not being restrained from doing what a person naturally wants to do as a result of a chain of causes. There is no miracle of free agency at all. He is a Determinist. The class ended with a quiz question concerning how Hobbes managed to keep his head from being chopped off considering his comments on religion in the Leviathan.