Talk:Hobbes–Wallis controversy

The bit about De Homine - something of a stranger here, needs to go back to the main Hobbes article. It is saying that vol. 3 of Hobbes's trilogy was something of a flop, I think. His Titus Alone? Charles Matthews (talk) 22:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe it is. De Homine consisted for the most part of an elaborate theory of vision, whose fundamental importance in relation to his political philosophy has often been overlooked is incomprehensible to me. If DH is mostly about vision, it can't be of fundamental importance to his politics. Still, one to be argued about over at Hobbes William M. Connolley (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Meanwhile, There is no doubt that at the personal level Wallis behaved badly (as was widely conceded at the time) doesn't look like a fair summary. As far as I can tell, the important thing abot this entire controversy is that Hobbes was *wrong* and Wallis right. The article doesn't really say this. Is that because its mostly taken from history books written by folks who don't really understand the maths? some kind of analysis of what Hobbes actually said, and the errors he made, would be interesting William M. Connolley (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a citation from a very distinguished historian, though. I have to chide you on POV here - Hobbes was indeed wrong about squaring the circle, but the controversy can't be reduced to that, actually. As I hope to demonstrate by building this article up, with contemporary material. The old EB text was just hopeless as far as that was concerned, and there are quite a few complaints about that type of approach in the current historical literature. Put it this way - if Hobbes was just a loser, why would anyone write a whole scholarly book about it? Anyway, watch this space. Basically the whole article needs to be updated. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly one of the things that was going on is like this: Hobbes was an atomist, and Hobbes believed geometry was kinematics, so a line was really the path of an atom. So didn't have infinitesimal width. This is obviously going to have a somewhat bizarre effect when it comes to calculus. He also came close to inventing the ray in optics (though this is one of the issues raised in the controversy). We'll see what references I can come up with. It may be a fair amount of work to get this in shape. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Progress report

 * The context is better explained.
 * Apparently Hobbes produced a dozen proofs in all. It is not clear to me what level of detail on those is appropriate.
 * There is a whole book by Allen Debus on the Webster-Ward debate. This sounds like a topic for another article, but first Seth Ward (bishop) needs plenty of work.
 * On Hobbes and the Royal Society there seem to be around four views current. Skinner's view is mentioned. Noel Malcolm's view seems quite close to that of Jon Parkin (not yet mentioned in detail). The Shapin-Schaffer view is more about the on-principle things. My feeling is that the Malcolm-Parkin view is the main axis of current scholarship, but it's a complex explanation. (The Latitudinarians were natural supporters of "mechanical philosophy", so basically pro-Hobbes; on the other hand they were intermediate between the "high" orthodox Anglicans and "low" Presbyterians/non-conformists; and again per Joseph Glanvill they wanted to be seen as the middle way between scepticism (bad) and dogmatism (Hobbes). So they were for having the cake of mechanical philosophy, which was the RS party line, but cleaned up by keeping Hobbes at arm's length. The doctrine of experimentation seems secondary, therefore, but it was the clear blue water.) I want to clean up the Glanvill article, but keep getting distracted at present.

Charles Matthews (talk) 10:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Errors in De Corpore, in the mathematical sections - the article still doesn't say what the errors were. Hobbes took care to remove some mistakes exposed by Wallis - but what were they? Argh! Am I really going to have to read De C and find out? (mind you, this is but a minor frustration - thanks for your efforts at improving this article) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Inflicted
The word "inflicted" appears in the third paragraph. It is not clear who the subject is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.149.124.102 (talk) 14:34, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Amir Alexander's book
The subject of this page was recently dealt with in detail in the latest book by Amir Alexander and it is worth including a mention. Tkuvho (talk) 10:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World, Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2014. ISBN 978-0-374-17681-5.173.72.63.96 (talk) 05:22, 22 November 2016 (UTC)Scott Palmström

Duplicated text?
Does the quote in the section "Controversy over foundational matters" contain duplicated text ("whose properties ... whose properties ...")? MarkMLl (talk) 10:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

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