Nelson, Alan, et al. Review of Philip Pettit's MADE WITH WORDS. NDPR (January 2009).

Pettit, Philip. Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2008. This book is about Hobbes's science of politics in the context of his materialistic theory of nature, including human nature. The focus is on Hobbes's definitive presentation of his system in Leviathan, but Pettit frequently cites other writings too. In Leviathan, Hobbes defined 'science' as the knowledge of the consequences of well chosen definitions. 'Politics', then, is the science of "politic bodies" that are constituted by humans. The first of Leviathan's four parts is accordingly devoted to Hobbes's science of the human being. The second part, "Of Commonwealth", is carefully based on the first. Books about Hobbes's philosophy typically acknowledge this by emphasizing the centrality of self-interest in the Hobbesian human being, but little connection has been made between the specific theories of biology and psychology found in Part I and the politics in Part II. It has fallen to Pettit to interpret Hobbes's politics as firmly and systematically rooted in the science of the human being. In Made with Words the task is brilliantly executed. Pettit develops an interpretation of Hobbes that places the influence of language at the center of his philosophy. For Pettit's Hobbes the whole of human life -- the mental, social, and political -- is built from matter with the addition of language. This much is fairly close to the surface of the texts; Pettit's novel interpretive claim is that once we have the basic material mind, each further step is made possible by, and crucially depends on, language. The first two chapters offer an interpretation of what Pettit takes to be Hobbes's two step account of the human mind. First, the mind common to humans and animals -- the natural mind -- is located in matter; second, the distinctly human mind -- marked by its capacity for general and active thought -- emerges from the natural mind through the addition of language. . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15126.