qui - maria vita romeo

e other Mandeville: the origins of a scandalous thought. Mechanism, ecc. 69
antor of truth and of methodological exactness. From Misomedon’s point
of view, body gains objectivity and has also, at the same time, an ontological
value. Indeed body allows the knowledge of itself and legitimates the
cognitive process, just because objectivity can be objectively perceived. e
senses rather than thought now are
guarantors of knowledge. Corporeality,
through the physiological mechanism
of the senses, allows the perception
of matter that can be thus objectified
and known through custom
and practice. Starting from Descartes’
positions, the shift to Hobbes’ conceptions
is significant and it can be
summarized as the passage from the
supremacy of thought to the primacy
of the senses. So there is a movement
from a philosophical model, which
aims at objectivity having subjectivity
as the starting point (Descartes), to
one which aims at objectivity starting
from the materiali ty/objectivity itself
(Hobbes), because the (perceiving)
subjectivity is based and comes from
Frans Hals, René Descartes.
the corporeality, that is materiality and so objectivity. 57 Here again there is
a devaluation of reason, which cannot find in thought a connection to a
specific substance—“res cogitans”—and for this it lacks an ontological legitimation
or uplifting. Reason is clearly related to thought, but thought
is referred to a physiological mechanism and so to corporeality and thus
to materiality. I point to what I said about “animal spirits,” which bring
back from the memory the stored images, previously created by the sens-
57 omas Hobbes wrote in the Leviathan: “ere is no other act of man’s mind, that I can
remember, naturally planted in him, so as to need no other thing, to the exercise of it, but to be
born a man, and live with the use of his five senses. ose other faculties […] are acquired and increased
by study and industry; and of most men learned by instruction, and discipline.” T. Hobbes,
Leviathan, vol. III, p. 16, in e English Works, 11 vols., ed. by W. Moleswort, Aalen, Scientia, 1966.