Pode a linguagem salvar Hobbes de um paradoxo?

Abstract

T. A. Heinrichs has claimed that Hobbes’s analysis of experience and thought gives rise to an apparent paradox. This paradox consists in the fact that Hobbes would have claimed to find out things that his theory implies that could not be discovered. In order to solve the problem, Heinrichs argues that Hobbes’s theory of experience and thought should be interpreted as based on his theory of language. In this paper it will be argued, contra Heinrichs, that the most plausible interpretation is that Hobbes based his analysis of language on his analysis of experience and thought. Thus, Heinrichs’s solution of the paradox must be rejected.