Comprehension of the ideas of T. Hobbes about miracles by Western researchers of the late 20th-21st centuries

The article is devoted to identifying the main trends in the comprehension by some leading Western researchers of the end of the 20th-21st centuries of the ideas of Hobbes about miracles, which he described in several writings. The article presents a detailed analysis of a representative number of scientific articles, essays, monographs of some contemporary Western researchers. The introduction describes the purpose, the task, relevance, scientific novelty of the article and the methods used. The first part analyzes the works of C. Altini, J. R. Collins, A. Cromartie, F. Lessay, B. Milner, G. H. Wright, J. Sommerville, S. Shapin, S. J. Schaffer. The second part analyzes the works of M. A. Bertman, E. M. Curley, A. P. Martinich, J. Whipple. At the end of the article the author has made the following conclusions. Firstly, it is noted that the most numerous group consists of works considered in the first part of the article; there the comprehension of the ideas of Hobbes about miracles is not of a special character and interweaves in the context of the analysis of religious-philosophical, religious-political and religious-theological ideas of Hobbes. It is indicated that, as a rule, the subject of attention in these works is not the whole complex of Hobbes's ideas about miracles, but only part of the ideas associated mainly with the reflections of the philosopher on the problems of 1) the purpose of miracles, 2) the essence of true and false miracles, 3) the role of the sovereign in the interpretation of miracles. It is stressed that the authors of these works almost never talk about it openly, but, judging by the context, they consider Hobbes's ideas about miracles to be ambivalent manifestations of either his theism undermined by freethinking or his receptivity to the ideas of deism and Protestantism. Secondly, it is noted that a smaller group consists of works considered in the second part of the article; there the comprehension of Hobbes's ideas about miracles is of a special character, or deepens the problem field of these special studies. The authors of such works comprehended the whole complex of Hobbes's ideas about miracles, transforming these ideas into a subject of a purposeful study. In a generalized form, acutely polemical assessments of the essence of Hobbes's ideas about miracles belonging to the aforementioned researchers are given. Thirdly, it is noted that Western researches of the end of the 20th-21st centuries created a good foundation for a further study of a number of the most important aspects of Hobbes's ideas about miracles. Among those, the author of the article marked problems of 1) connection of Hobbes's ideas about miracles with his freethinking, 2) determination of the place of Hobbes's ideas about miracles in the systems of his theistic, deistic and atheistic views, 3) the degree of influence of Hobbes's ideas about miracles on the relevant ideas of other English philosophers of the early modern period.

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