The elements of representation in Hobbes : aesthetics, theatre, law, and theology in the construction of Hobbes's theory of the state

Author(s)

    • Brito Vieira, Mónica

Bibliographic Information

The elements of representation in Hobbes : aesthetics, theatre, law, and theology in the construction of Hobbes's theory of the state

by Mónica Brito Vieira

(Studies in the history of political thought / edited by Terence Ball, Jörn Leonhard, Wyger Velema, v. 2)

Brill, 2009

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-273) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Commentators have traditionally constructed Hobbes's thinking on representation too narrowly, as a self-contained area of his political theory. This book challenges this orthodoxy of Hobbes scholarship, which owes less to Hobbes's thought than to contemporary preconceptions of what counts as political thinking. In her powerful and original analysis, Monica Brito Vieira mines neglected strands of Hobbes's theory of representation, and reinstates it in a much wider pattern of Hobbes's theorizing about human thought and action in relation to widely varied images, roles and fictions. The result is a compelling portrait of how man's natural power to form representations through the imagination and artifice underpins his capacity to break away from nature, and fashion a world that best suits his needs.

Table of Contents

Introductory Note List of Figures Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Editions Introduction 1. Aesthetic Representation Introduction Resemblance vs. Representation Representations or Perceptual Images Images of God The Sovereign as Image Images of Saints The Eucharist: Presence or Representation? Metaphors as Representations The Representation of Objects in Perspective Conclusion 2. Dramatic Representation Introduction: Hobbes and the Theatre The Man and the Person The World as Stage Dis/simulating with Others Actors and Hypocrites Religious Play-Acting and the Power of Crowds 'Quixotic' Personalities and Republican Men Theatre of Politics The Powers of Theatre The Politics of Theatre Conclusion 3. Juridical Representation Introduction The Elemental View Representation by Fiction The State as Person Representing the Covenant into Being The Representativeness of the Sovereign Parliament as Representation The Dangers of Subordinate Representation The State's Many Guises Conclusion 4. Representation in Theology Introduction Three Persons as Three Representatives Three Persons as Three Roles Revisions in Response to Critics The Trinity as Political Analogy Conclusion Bibliography Index

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