In his work Leviathan, Hobbes states that the knowledge about the surrounding world is acquired through five original senses of the body or object, “which presents the organ to each sense, either immediately, as in the taste and touch, or mediate, as in seeing, hearing, and smelling”. The sense is caused by the tension of the external things that press our eyes, ears, and other organs of sense to perceive the outside world. According to Hobbes, the universe is a plenum composed of matter within which the objects are colliding with each other thus exchanging the knowledge. In this respect, sense is the encounter of sensitive organs with external bodies.
Hobbes’s discussions over the origins of human knowledge of sense provoke some disputable issues. In particular, his assertion of a plenum being fulfilled with matter was opposed to the theory about the universe presented in the form of vacuum. Therefore, the notion of truth is also deducted from the process of the objects collapse and motion. Second, in this philosophical deliberation Hobbes also encounters the problem of knowledge acquisition by imparting this word with the term ‘representation’.
By investigating the phenomena of apparition, Hobbes comes to the conclusion that knowledge is derived from a chain of representations perceived by the senses and sensory experience, which is continuously changing. Arising from this, sense can be also defined as a motion initiated by the outward influence of the organ of sense, which, in its turn, is guided by inward factors. The deliberation on the senses triggered the creation of Hobbes’s theory of cognition, where all things and matters like imagination, recollection, and thought are reduced to the original perception, or sense. In this respect, imagination was called as “decaying sense” whereas memory can be also perceived through the sense when referring to it in the past.
The senses give rise to the process of thinking and reasoning and, therefore, it is impossible to admit that thinking and true knowledge exist independently in the form of universal truth. The consideration and definition of sense also influenced the Hobbes’s discussions on the problem of volition. Hence, volition and desire is presented as the result of the initial motions called endeavor. Analyzing Hobbes’s school of thought is centered around the consideration of sense derived from the physical perception of the outside world.