ABSTRACT
The life of Thomas Hobbes was sociable, rich, pleasant, cultured and long. According to Bishop White Kennett, at this stage of his life Hobbes would have 'dinner' at about noon, and would then retire to his study 'with 10 or 12 pipes of tobacco lay by him'. He would then start 'smoking, and thinking, and writing for several hours'. Hobbes had other oddities. He was a hypochondriac. Hobbe's intellectual background was eclectic. It has often been observed that his early intellectual development owed much to his humanist training, that is, to his education in the classical languages of ancient Greek and Latin, and their literature and philosophy. Philosophical scepticism also influenced Hobbe's thought. The ancient form of this scepticism, professed by writers such as Carneades, Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus, sought to undermine the claims to knowledge made by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato and others.
