Rhetoric and Philosophy in Hobbes' Leviathan Routledge Library Editions: 17th Century Philosophy Series

Originally published in 1991. This book explicitly examines rhetoric as the art of persuasion in the practical world, and as in the expression of thinking in the language a speaker uses. It presents Leviathan in terms of the philosophical character of the work considered through Hobbes? use of language to express and organise his thought. Throughout, the nature of the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy is discussed and the problems of language in philosophical understanding. The book is concerned with Hobbes? political philosophy and his views on figurative language, interest in literary theory and particularly his allegory. A special feature is the chapter on engraved title pages in Leviathan and other texts of the era.

Preface 1. The Notion of Rhetoric 2. Figurative Language in Philosophical Understanding 3. Hobbes on Language and Rhetoric 5. Hobbes and the Engraved Title-Page of Leviathan 6. Hobbes and Hooker 7. Allegory and Philosophy in Leviathan 8. Conclusion. Illustrations: Examples of Seventeenth-Century Engraved Title-Pages