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Reading And Writing In The Text Of Hobbes's Leviathan, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Critics have often suggested that Hobbes is a paradigm case of a philosopher whose own style of writing violates the norms he sets down for rational discourse. Philosophy, he says, "professedly rejects not only the paint and false colors of language, but even the very ornaments and graces of the same." More specifically he says that metaphors must be "utterly excluded" from "the rigorous search of truth ... seeing they openly professe deceit, to admit them into counsel, or reasoning, were manifested folly.” Nevertheless, attention focuses on his flair for the dramatic or metaphorical, as in the great mise en …