“From the two principal parts of our nature, Reason and Passion, have proceeded two kinds of learning, mathematical and dogmatical. The former is free from controversies and dispute, because it consisteth in comparing figures and motion only; in which things truth and the interest of men, oppose not each other. But in the later there is nothing not disputable, because it compareth men, and meddleth with their right and profit; in which as oft as reason is against a man, so oft will a man be against reason.”
—Thomas Hobbes, The Epistle Dedicatory to Elements of Law
A defining characteristic of Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy is the desire to bring the variability of human matters under the authority of mathematics’ knowable consistency. This Hobbesian desire—while no longer spoken of in Hobbesian terms—endures today and contributes to the conditions under which the contemporary world’s fetish for “generative AI” thrives.
Hobbes’s unspoken argument is human passions and dogmas could merge truth and interest if they serve unerring mathematical reason. His vision of science (laid out more fully in Leviathan) holds forth mathematical precision as the necessary foundation for a scientific method that gives humans power over nature’s causes and effects to produce a more peaceful and prosperous world. The “social sciences” are heirs to Hobbes’s ambitions. They rely on mathematics to reveal humanity’s true interests when their passions drive them into conflict and war.
The opposition between reason and passion as a cause for war is not a novel discovery. If we look at Plato’s Euthyphro, we see Socrates draw his interlocutor to concede that while humans do not become angry with each other and go to war over any “judgment” (krisis) related to numbers, weights, and measures, the same cannot be said in judgments about what is just, noble, and good. Raised in a world shaped by Hobbes’s assumptions, today’s students often conclude that it is impossible to reach definitive judgments about moral questions. Like Hobbes, they prefer the certainty of mathematical judgments and wish moral judgments would operate by the same rules.
Though Plato and Hobbes see a similar discrepancy between mathematical and moral judgments, they do not derive the same conclusion. Indeed, unlike Hobbes, Plato leaves the matter unresolved. If the text offers us any clues into what Plato might think, it’s in the unspoken kinship between mathematical “calculation/reasoning” (logismos) and the “speech/reason” (logos) through which both Socrates engages his interlocutor and Plato composes his texts. There is some logos at work in both mathematical and moral reasoning, though they operate on different terms.
There is another layer to the distinction between Hobbes and Plato that takes us closer to the heart of what should horrify us about every step “forward” in the development of “generative AI.” For Plato and Aristotle, the formation of human “character” (ēthos) depends on the dialogue between logos and “passion” (pathos). The formation of good character is less about logos ruling passion and more about the two living together with some musical harmony. The principles at the heart of this friendship are not mathematical, though one’s own perception of them in and through logos is akin to the perception of mathematics’ principles.
It is no accident that “generative AI’s” attempts to imitate human speech and reasoning produce content devoid of human character. “AI” derives from a series of calculations applied to its analysis of human language. It relies on an unerring form of numerical calculation to produce imitations of human judgment in written works. These imitations are dispassionate. To the Hobbesian mind, this is a scientific victory. To an ancient Greek mind, such dispassionate imitations are inhuman and without character.
Why, then, is Hobbesian inhumanity desirable? Behind Hobbes’s scientific philosophy is the fear of war and the desire to produce peace at any cost. Treat humans as if they are matter in motion and it is possible to convince them that it would be better if they acted less human. Hobbes purchases peace and prosperity at the price of immense reductivism.
Of course, for Hobbes’s scientific philosophy to have ever gained traction, it must not escape our notice that he had to rely on logos to make his case. To those who have more expansive senses of philosophy and life, it is easy to see through the violently constraining horizons of Hobbesian thought. The present danger from “generative AI,” however, is that we are witnessing people throw away their capacities to think beyond whatever this technology spits out to them.
What produces this self-negating human character? Under what conditions did it form? And what could reverse the contemporary lunge towards it? The Greeks offer a helpful starting point. Could we, if only for a short time, look seriously into our natural human capacity for logos and the passions we experience? If we could do this, it might be possible to recover something that perpetually risks being lost throughout all of humanity’s existence: the capacity to love ourselves.