Disarming the prophets. Thomas Hobbes and predictive power

Abstract

Disarming the Prophets (by Kinch Hoekstra) - ABSTRACT: Kinch Hoekstra takes up another question related to supposed revelatory experience, namely, the claim to prophesy, and, more particularly, why Hobbes’s concern with it grows during the decade after 1640, what varieties of it preoccupy him and what his responses are to them. Of central importance for Hobbes was his contemporaries’ concern with biblical prophecy, both radical and royalist. Trying to pluck its political sting, Hobbes argues that apocalyptic prophecy is a form of madness but more broadly seeks to place the interpretation of scripture solidly within the purview of the sovereign. By blunting the belief in prophecy, Hobbes disarms the prophet.

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