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Experience is the accumulation of sense perceptions that exist in any one person’s memory. People with the most experience are often those with the most prudence, since they know the “most Signes [signs] to guesse by.” According to Hobbes, philosophy does not include knowledge that comes from experience or prudence, because such knowledge comes from memory, not from reason.
Experience Quotes in Leviathan
The Leviathan quotes below are all either spoken by Experience or refer to Experience. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
For the Thought of the warre, introduced the Thought of delivering up the King to his Enemies; The Thought of that, brought in the Thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again the Thought of 30 pence, which was the price of that treason: and thence easily followed that malicious question; and all this in a moment of time; for Thought is quick.
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Chapter 11 Quotes
And therefore the voluntary actions, and inclinations of all men, tend, not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life; and differ onely in the way: which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and partly from the difference of the knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce the effect desired.
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Chapter 20 Quotes
The skill of making, and maintaining Common-wealths, consisteth in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry; not (as Tennis-play) on Practise onely: which Rules, neither poor men have the leisure, nor men that have had the leisure, have hitherto had the curiosity, or the method to find out.
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Experience Term Timeline in Leviathan
The timeline below shows where the term Experience appears in Leviathan. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: Of Imagination
...but they have different names and different considerations. Multiple memories of many things is called experience, whereas imagination is only those things a person has previously perceived through sense organs. Imagination...
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Chapter 3: Of the Consequence or Trayne of Imaginations
Prudence can be false; however, those people with the most experience are often the most prudent, and such expectations rarely fail. This is because those with...
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Chapter 5: Of Reason, and Science
...as is the ability to sense objects and create memory, nor is reason accumulated through experience like prudence. Reason is obtained through the naming of things, established definitions, and the connections...
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Chapter 8: Of the VERTUES commonly called INTELLECTUAL: and their contrary DEFECTS
...called intellectual virtues. These can be either natural or acquired. Natural wit comes about through experience without structured education. When imagination is slow, it is known as “stupidity,” and these discrepancies...
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...blasphemous, and serious and light. When one’s thoughts have a specific purpose and contain much experience and memory, this is known as prudence, and prudence applied to unjust ends is called...
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Chapter 10: Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and Worthinesse
Actions coming from experience, discretion, wit, and science are honorable, as each of these are a form of power....
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Chapter 13: Of the Naturall Condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity, and Misery
...to claim superiority over another. Hobbes also admits that some people have more prudence and experience than others; however, this, too, suggests people are more equal than not, since with equal...
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Chapter 25: Of COUNSELL
...there are “in Engines, and Edifices, [and] the rules of Geometry,” Hobbes says, “all the experience in the world cannot equall his Counsell, that has learnt, or found out the Rule.”...
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Chapter 32: Of the Principles of CHRISTIAN POLITTIQUES
...in the supernatural power of God does not mean to abandon one’s senses or rational experience, as those, too, are gifts from God. In a Christian common-wealth, when something cannot be...
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