Strong Wits and Spider Webs

This book offers an extended interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's philosophy of language. The author takes Hobbes's materialist claims very seriously, and shows how Hobbes's writings on language can be better understood when they are viewed as connected intimately to his materialism, and especially with his distinctive version of a materialist theory of mind. To develop her interpretation, the author uses contemporary work in philosophy of language, especially that of casual theorists, as well as recent developments in philosophy of mind to illuminate and explore Hobbesian positions. Resolutions are also offered to a number of long-standing objections to Hobbes's work, among them the well-known tension between Hobbes's conventionalism and his materialism.