Hobbes and the Iconography of the State

Quentin Skinner (University of Amsterdam, Queen Mary University of London)

Quentin Skinner:
Spinoza Lecture: Hobbes and the Iconography of the State

Agnietenkapel
Oudezijds Voorburgwal 229-231, 1012 EZ Amsterdam

All are welcome!

Prof. Quentin Skinner holds the Spinoza Chair of the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and is Barber Beaumont Professor
of the Humanities at Queen Mary, University of London.

Abstract:
Hobbes received a humanist education, in which one central element was the
study of rhetorical theories of persuasion and proof. According to the
rhetoricians, if we are attempting to induce belief we must know how to
arouse the emotions of our readers in addition to supplying them with
evidence and proof. One powerful method of persuasion was held to be that of
turning auditors into spectators by making them ‘see’ what is being argued.
These conceptions help to account for the rise to prominence in early-modern
humanistic literature of complex iconographical frontispieces. Hobbes
commissioned and helped to design three such frontispieces: the first for
his translation of Thucydides, the second for De cive and the third for
Leviathan (1651). The lecture examines the insights offered by these
illustrations into the character and development of Hobbes’s theory of the
state. 

Admission is free (no reservation required).

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