De Corpore: Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Prima

De Corpore argues that all reality consists of bodies in motion, and that philosophy must proceed by the method of computation—adding and subtracting concepts derived from sense experience. It is the first part of Hobbes's intended trilogy, preceding De Homine (on human nature) and De Cive (on the commonwealth) . The work's four parts treat logic, first philosophy (space, time, body, causation), geometry, and physics. Hobbes's aim is to establish the materialist and nominalist foundations on which his account of human passion and political obligation depends. Without De Corpore's claim that only bodies exist and that reasoning is a kind of calculation with names, the political theory of De Cive and Leviathan would lack its metaphysical grounding.

Hobbes planned the trilogy as De Corpore, De Homine, then De Cive, but the treatises appeared in reverse order: De Cive in 1642, De Corpore in 1655, and De Homine in 1658 . The delay of De Corpore was partly due to Hobbes's entanglement in mathematical and theological controversies. Publication was further complicated by disputes over the English translation, Concerning Body. Schuhmann's philological analysis suggests the translation was not by Hobbes himself, despite some contemporary confusion . The work finally appeared in London in 1655, printed by Andrew Crooke . The reversed order means readers encounter the political conclusions before the philosophical premises, a sequence Hobbes did not intend.

De Corpore provoked immediate and sustained criticism. The Flemish scholar Guilelmus Moranus published Animadversiones attacking Hobbes's account of space, essence, accident, and motion . The treatment of causation in Part II was controversial because Hobbes argued that every event happens of necessity, leaving no room for genuine possibility. Seth Ward and others objected that Hobbes's necessitarianism was theologically and morally dangerous . The mathematical sections were refuted by John Wallis and others, making Hobbes's geometry an object of derision . Hobbes spent years responding to these attacks, and the controversy over necessity became entangled with his dispute with Bishop Bramhall. De Homine's delayed publication in 1658 was partly a result of these distractions.

Hobbes's method of computation is the procedure of adding and subtracting concepts, which he treats as the fundamental operation of reasoning. In Part I, 'Computatio sive Logica,' he reworks Aristotelian logic in accordance with his strict nominalism: universals are not real entities but names, and reasoning is the manipulation of names according to conventional definitions . This is why his critics, including Descartes and the Port-Royal logicians Arnauld and Nicole, accused him of making truth arbitrary and dependent on human convention . Hobbes's response is that while names are conventional, the motions of bodies that give rise to sense experience are not. Computation is the method by which the philosopher moves from the motions of external bodies to the names that signify them, and from those names to further conclusions.

De Corpore provides the metaphysical and methodological foundations that Leviathan presupposes but does not systematically defend. Leviathan begins with an account of sense, imagination, and speech that is compressed and rhetorically shaped; De Corpore treats the same topics with technical precision and within a broader materialist framework that includes physics, geometry, and first philosophy. The relationship is one of grounding rather than supersession. Hobbes never abandoned the project of De Corpore, even after Leviathan became his most famous work. Readers who know Hobbes only through Leviathan will find here the argument for why reality must be understood as bodies in motion, and why that claim matters for politics—a question Leviathan addresses only in passing.

The first English translation, Concerning Body, appeared in 1656, though the identity of the translator is disputed and Schuhmann's analysis suggests Hobbes did not translate it himself . The Latin text was published in 1655 by Andrew Crooke in London . A modern English translation of Part I, Computatio sive Logica, was published in 1981 by Abaris Books, translated and with commentary by A. P. Martinich, edited by I. C. Hungerland and G. R. Vick . This edition is the standard scholarly resource for the logical sections. For the full work, readers must rely on the 1656 Concerning Body or the Latin text in the Molesworth edition. The translation history matters because the 1656 English version has been shown to contain errors and stylistic choices that may not reflect Hobbes's intentions.