L’ottica politica di Hobbes

This essay analyses the close connection between Hobbes' optical theory and his political and moral philosophy. The first part offers a presentation of Hobbes' theory of light and vision, emphasizing that in it he establishes an ontological and epistemological distinction between material objects and our images of them. I will then analyse the consequences of this distinction for the Hobbesian theory of the passions and the subjectivity of values, and conclude by clarifying how Hobbes' doctrine of absolute sovereignty is a political solution he proposed to the problem of the perception of good and evil, that is, to the problem of perception as such