'There Goes HOBBS, the Atheist!' On Hobbes on Religion MacMillan, Alissa Amy creator 2013 vi, 271 p. born digital Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2013) Bagger, Matthew Director Larmore, Charles Reader Cladis, Mark Reader Lewis, Thomas Reader Brown University. Religious Studies sponsor theses Interpreters of Thomas Hobbes take two distinctive approaches to his views on religion, either rendering God foundational to his vision or giving primacy to human reason. The first see Hobbes as a necessarily religious or theological thinker while the second focus on his social contract, often neglecting his work on religion. While the latter engages a better reading of Hobbes, God a product of reason, language, and agreement, his views on religion need to be taken seriously on their own terms. "‘There goes HOBBS, the Atheist!' On Hobbes on Religion” looks to his work on the body, language and rationality, psychology, and the civil sphere, incorporating contemporary debates on naturalism in philosophy and religion, to elucidate the strengths and problems with Hobbes's religious, moral, and political visions and identify resources for our own study of religion. His materialism renders religion subject to the same epistemological constraints as science, limited in the kinds of ontological claims that can be made. His theory of language and rationality provides evidence that Hobbes sees features of human social practice as constitutive of the human being, a holistic vision, as we are formed in and through our sociality. His theory of language then shapes his account of religion, leading to a critique of uses of theological language. His account of the passions grounds his account of religion, stressing human psychology as key to making sense of practices like politics and religion. And his view of the political incorporates religion as part of the larger system, an alternative but less stable source of peace and security. Hobbes's work on religion also proves helpful for tackling our own questions, here pointing to ways Hobbes serves to question the viability of some current uses of the work of Robert Brandom as a resource for political or ethical projects. This dissertation argues that Hobbes provides a naturalized account of religion, one very much part of his holistic social vision, and his complete story of the human being and society offers us useful resources for our own task of getting the best possible naturalistic account of religious practices. Hobbes ReligionNaturalismHobbes, Thomas1588-1679 RPB 20131218 engEnglish10.7301/Z0QZ289BIn CopyrightCollection is open for research.dissertations