Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics by Philip Pettit (review)

102 for it with rigorous single-mindedness, Ms. Brant admits that ‘‘there is no grand narrative working from start to finish.’’ This lack of ideological direction, however , pleasingly allows her to elaborate on such topics as homosociality among the wits, the genealogy of eighteenthcentury emotions, criminal biographies, and the rhetoric of civic humanism (these include canonical authors, for example , Pope, Johnson, Sterne, and Chesterfield ). The result is a baggy, eclectic monster, but a satisfyingly rich and full one. If Ms. Bannet’s study, given its theoretical methodology, arrives at a predictable conclusion—the contribution of letters to the forging of national identity and empire—Ms. Brant’s surprises with its voluminous variety. Both volumes complement one another with a serendipitous symmetry. Eighteenth-Century Letters and British Culture is organized topically, with chapters devoted to the type of person writing the letter, such as parents, lovers , citizens, and travelers. Empire of Letters, on the other hand, generically explores such conventional types as the business letter, the letter of recommendation , letters of advice, praise, excuse , congratulations, consolation. Both books should become standard reference volumes—as well as points of departure for future investigation. Anthony W. Lee Arkansas Tech University PHILIP PETTIT. Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics . Princeton: Princeton, 2008. Pp. vi ⫹ 183. $32.95; $12.95 (paper, 2009). After a long period in which Hobbes was known primarily for his phrase describing ‘‘the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’’ (Leviathan) and was otherwise ignored, a surge of interest in him as a major thinker has brought about many books and articles. Mr. Pettit’s brief, incisive study will arouse the attention of political philosophers as well as historians and linguists . It is not a surprise to discover that issues raised by Hobbes concern the next century and beyond (Gulliver’s Travels, Tristram Shandy, or The Prelude recognize that language and society remain central concerns in the Enlightenment and in Romanticism). Reducing Hobbes to a set of essential basics presents a formidable challenge. Not least, there is the scandalous state of Hobbes editing, gallantly touched on by Mr. Pettit in a list of the texts he has used, which must be complemented by the Bibliography. Mr. Pettit is aware of the problems, but here treats Hobbes’s thinking as cut from one cloth, ignoring the subtle shifts over time. Specialists may protest, but generalists will appreciate the clarity with which he has organized basic elements, down to providing concluding summaries of the arguments. The key is Mr. Pettit’s claim that for Hobbes ‘‘human minds are made by words.’’ Consequently each of the chapters explores how words do so and how they cause problems for human beings. The first two chapters deal with minds and words. For Hobbes, only humans have invented words and learned how to use them, first privately and then publicly . The next three chapters deal with things people can do with words. They can ‘‘ratiocinate’’ or reason by putting words together, like numbers, namely by adding or subtracting them. Hobbes permitted no doubts about the possibility and the necessity of correct reasoning . 103 More than once, Mr. Pettit suggests that it was somehow inconsistent of Hobbes to use ordinary words in extraordinary ways. Mr. Pettit ascribes a ‘‘strategy of redefinition’’ to Hobbes’s early training in rhetoric. Hobbes’s contemporaries did complain about the redefinitions , but it is a bit unexpected to hear similar strictures echoed now when we are used to investigators from Freud to Peirce to Derrida deploying technical terms without apology. Hobbes had reason to employ words for novel concepts. Chapter Four explains how words ‘‘personate,’’ and Chapter Five, how they ‘‘incorporate.’’ Mr. Pettit has little tolerance for the Hobbesian position that persons and social bodies are made through language. He invents examples that mock the seriousness of the linguistic program. No authentic Hobbesian could personate with the sentence ‘‘Aunt Sally is an alien .’’ In a similar vein, the possibility of establishing corporate bodies imposes heavy obligations on the speakers. Close reference to Austin’s important How To Do Things With Words (1962) would be needed to see how sophisticated Hobbes’s analysis is. The final three chapters on...