J. Weinberger, "Hobbes's Doctrine of Method," American Political Science Review, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Dec. 1975).

Excerpt:

The rise of modern political science is usually associated with the rise of modern natural science and scientific method. It is often noted that Hobbes was the first modern thinker to apply the new science of nature to the study of politics and, therefore, that Hobbes was the first to argue for the use of scientific method in the study of politics. It is generally agreed that Hobbes’s teaching is somehow unified by his novel use of a comprehensive method. However, with respect to the two basic parts of his teaching-his doctrine of nature
and his doctrine of man and society-the character of this unity has been the subject of important controversy.

According to one interpretation, it is thought that because of Hobbes’s novel application of the new scientific method, his mechanistic, antimetaphysical doctrine of matter in motion is the sole foundation for his doctrine of man and politics. Implicit in this interpretation is the understanding that if Hobbes’s political teaching is governed by the new scientific method, it cannot but be physicalist and a doctrine of moral relativism. According to another interpretation, it is thought that Hobbes’s doctrine of man and politics must be simply independent from and prior to his materialistic, antimetaphysical doctrine of nature. Implicit in this interpretation is the understanding that since Hobbes’s political teaching is moral and so neither physicalist nor relativistic, the methodological unity of Hobbes’s teaching must be superficial at best.

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