A metaphysics of vision: on the origins of Thomas Hobbes’s political and moral philosophy

The aim of this essay is to show the close link that exists between Hobbes's optical theory and his political and moral philosophy. To do this, I will begin with an account of his theory of light and vision, pointing out how it implies an ontological and epistemological difference between material objects and our images of them. I then analyze the consequences of this distinction for the Hobbesian theory of passions and subjectivity of values, and conclude by clarifying how Hobbes's doctrine of absolute sovereignty is a political solution that he proposed to the problem of the perception of good and evil, that is, to the problem of perception as such.