CPA Run — Thomas Hobbes — Version 1.0
CPA Run — Thomas Hobbes — Version 1.0
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) v1.2. Instrument architecture: Dave Kelly. Corpus opened for this run: the CPA v1.2 instrument document.
Result in brief: five Contrary, one Partially Aligned (C4), Full Dissolution.
What Is the Classical Presupposition Audit?
The Classical Presupposition Audit identifies the presuppositions a named public figure must hold in order to argue as he does, and audits those presuppositions against the six classical commitments: substance dualism, libertarian free will, ethical intuitionism, foundationalism, correspondence theory of truth, and moral realism. The subject of analysis is the figure’s own argumentative record. The CPA issues findings about what that record requires at the level of embedded presupposition, and about what those presuppositions entail for an agent who takes up his framework as a governing account of his condition. It issues no findings about his inner life, his sincerity, or the correctness of his scholarship or policy.
Subject and Locus
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). The locus is Leviathan (1651) alone. His other works are outside it.
Step 0 — Protocol Activation
- Hobbes’s text was opened. Chapters 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 14, 15, 21, 29 and 46 were read from an online text through an extraction step. The quotations are as returned and have not been checked against a printed text.
- Corpus: the CPA v1.2 instrument document was opened. No document on its corpus list was opened. Governing propositions are taken from §IV.
- Input fit: a named figure with a published argumentative record.
Self-Audit — Step 0:
- Is the corpus in view? Partly; the exception is recorded here and ruled under Rulings on This Run.
- Are the sources restricted to the figure’s own record? Yes.
- Has a prior conclusion been stated or implied? Yes. Before the run it was said that Hobbes holds nearly all the counter-commitments. That is declared and set aside.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 1.
Step 1 — Presupposition Profile
Stage A — Argumentative Record Summary. Six presuppositions are load-bearing.
P1 — Everything that exists is body, and passion is motion within the body. “That which is not body is no part of the universe” (ch. 46). Appetite and aversion are “small beginnings of motion within the body of man” (ch. 6). The move: his whole account of the passions.
P2 — The will is the last appetite, and liberty is the absence of outside hindrance. “In deliberation, the last appetite, or aversion, immediately adhering to the action... is that we call the will” (ch. 6). “Liberty and necessity are consistent,” since every act of will proceeds “from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain” (ch. 21). The move: covenants made in fear are binding (ch. 14).
P3 — Good and evil are names for what a man desires and shuns. “There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves” (ch. 6). There is no “summum bonum” (ch. 11). The move: with each man his own measure, the natural condition is war (ch. 13).
P4 — Moral rules are theorems about the means of self-preservation. They are “but conclusions or theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves” (ch. 15). The virtues are good as “the way or means of peace.”
P5 — Truth belongs to speech, and reasoning is reckoning with agreed names. “True and false are attributes of speech, not of things” (ch. 4). Reason is “reckoning... of the consequences of general names agreed upon” (ch. 5).
P6 — Before a common power there is no right or wrong, and under one the law is the measure. “Where no law, no injustice” (ch. 13). “The measure of good and evil actions is the civil law,” and “the law is the public conscience” (ch. 29).
Stage B — Domain Mapping. There are four domains: body and mind (P1), will (P2), value and morals (P3, P4, P6), and language and science (P5). One mechanism runs through all four. Two tensions were mapped and joined:
- Eternal laws against relative good. The laws of nature are “immutable and eternal” (ch. 15), yet nothing is good “simply and absolutely” (ch. 6). Hobbes joins them himself: the laws are theorems about means.
- Natural liberty against necessity. He joins these too (ch. 21).
No Inconsistent finding is available. The expository exception is not invoked.
Self-Audit — Step 1:
- Are the presuppositions drawn from his own record? Yes.
- Was the load-bearing test applied? Yes; his scripture reading and his theory of sovereignty are excluded.
- Was charity applied? Yes, to both tensions.
- Were domain variations mapped? Yes.
- Was the expository exception handled? Not invoked.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 2.
Step 2 — Commitment Audit
C1 — Substance Dualism: Contrary. P1 leaves no inner self distinct from the body. It is load-bearing, since P2 and P3 are built on the passions as bodily motions.
C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Contrary. P2 makes the will the appetite that happens to come last, in a chain of causes. Nothing originates with the agent. It is load-bearing for the bindingness of covenants made in fear.
C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Contrary. P4 grounds every moral rule in an external end, preservation, reached by inference. P6 sets private conscience aside for a public one.
C4 — Foundationalism: Partially Aligned. In structure he corresponds: science proceeds “from the first definitions” by consequence, on the model of geometry. The residual is that his foundations are “names agreed upon,” not self-evident truths, and in morals the base is a fact about appetite. Without the residual the finding would be Aligned.
C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Contrary. P5 places truth in speech, and P6 makes the law the measure of good and evil. On nature he does write as describing what is. By the charity ruling of 20 September 2026 the two are joined, not opposed: for him value claims have nothing in things to answer to.
C6 — Moral Realism: Contrary. P3 and P6 state it outright. The “eternal” laws are joined as above.
Recorded, not tested.
- Complete happiness is denied. Felicity is “a continual progress of the desire from one object to another” (ch. 11). This is against Th2 and 2*.
- One point of agreement. All men seek felicity, which is Th1.
Self-Audit — Step 2:
- Were all presuppositions audited? Yes.
- Was Non-Operative used to avoid a Contrary? No.
- Were findings distributed for balance? No.
- Were findings issued outside the corpus’s domain? None on sovereignty or contract.
- Would the same findings issue for a sympathetic figure? Yes.
- Was an Inconsistent finding considered? At C5 and C6, and resolved by joining.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 3.
Step 3 — Dissolution Finding
C1 and C2 are both Contrary.
Finding: Full Dissolution.
An agent who adopts the framework understands himself as a body moved by objects, and his choices as the last appetite in a chain of causes. No room is left for a self-governing rational faculty. This is a finding about the framework, not about Hobbes’s inner life, and it is not a political verdict.
Self-Audit — Step 3:
- Does the finding follow mechanically from Step 2? Yes.
- Is it stated of the framework? Yes.
- Is it philosophical, not political? Yes.
- Was any Inconsistent finding on C1 or C2 present? No.
Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 4.
Step 4 — Summary Finding
Part A — Commitment Pattern.
- C1 — Substance Dualism: Contrary
- C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Contrary
- C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Contrary
- C4 — Foundationalism: Partially Aligned
- C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Contrary
- C6 — Moral Realism: Contrary
Overall pattern: 0 Aligned, 1 Partially Aligned, 5 Contrary, 0 Inconsistent, 0 Non-Operative. The root divergence is C1, since the rest follow from P1. The one alignment is the structure of C4.
Part B — Dissolution Finding. Full Dissolution.
Part C — Agent-Level Implication. He takes himself to be a body in motion, his will to be his last appetite, and his good to be whatever he desires. Moral rules are advice of prudence. Where a law exists, it takes the place of his own judgment of good and evil. He keeps a method of strict derivation, with nothing morally true to derive from.
Corpus Boundary Declaration. No finding is issued on sovereignty, the contract, the best form of government, his reading of scripture, or whether his materialism is true.
Self-Audit — Step 4:
- Does the summary follow from the preceding steps? Yes.
- Is it free of political verdict? Yes.
- Is it addressed to the adopting agent? Yes.
- Is the boundary declared? Yes.
- Is the summary self-contained? Yes.
Self-Audit Complete. CPA run complete.
Rulings on This Run
- The locus stands: Leviathan only, ten chapters, read through an extraction step.
- The Step 0 exception stands: no document on the CPA corpus list was opened.
- The Political Application Constraint is read as not applying, since Hobbes is a philosopher and not a political figure. P6 is taken from his political chapters only as a claim about the agent’s judgment.
- C4 is Partially Aligned. Foundations that are agreed names do not make it Contrary.
- C5 is Contrary by joining, not Inconsistent.
- Sterling’s remark of 11 December 2008 sides with Hobbes on the self as the locus of choice, as against the group. It does not conflict with the C2 finding, which concerns origination; in the same post Sterling names determinism as the threat. The remark is given in Sterling on Hobbes: The Primary-Source Record.
Sources
Leviathan (1651), chapters 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 14, 15, 21, 29 and 46.
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
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