A Taste of Reason and Anthropology in Hobbes, Compared with Descartes

"He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind: which though it be hard to do... yet...the pains left another, will be onely to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration" (End of introduction, Macpherson ed p83)

"That is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it" (Part I, Ch 3, Mac ed p. 96)

"For they do nothing els, that will have every of their passions, as it comes to bear sway in them, to be take for right Reason, and that in their own controversies: bewraying their want of right Reason, by the claym they lay to it" (I,5,112)

At the end of the introduction Hobbes seems to propose or presuppose an objective structure of man such that he can know Man-kind by knowing himself and such that other men can verify what he says in themselves. He also states explicitly in the introduction that "the similitude of the Passions, which are the same in all men...not the similitude of the objects of the Passions" (82-83). Descartes seemed to make a similar assumption that what worked for him was the correct method for good reasoning.

In part one, ch 3, Hobbes establishes that a constant ("regulated, guided") train of thought is only possible through the presence of desire. He suggests that in this way the end will be kept always in mind and wandering thoughts will be "quickly again reduced into the way" (96). This method of thought regulated by desire seems much different from the indifferent intellection of Descartes. We had even wondered if Descartes was an ascetic.

But in ch 5, Hobbes praises mathematical reasoning and insists that certain comes about much the way Descartes thought, with a building up of consequences (112). Hobbes characterizes the passions as being harmful to right reason (see third quote above).

To what extent does Hobbes presuppose or propose a common humanity, if he does? How does the desire that allows constant thought differ from passions? What is the place of desire in relation to reason for Hobbes? For Descartes? Who is closer to the truth?