Thomas Hobbes
Peace is not given by nature: it has to be built by covenant.
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and humanist translator who spent most of his long life in the service of the Cavendish family and eleven years in exile in Paris during the civil wars. In The Elements of Law, De Cive and Leviathan he argued that without a common power human beings fall into a war of every one against every one, and that reason directs them to authorize an undivided sovereign who keeps the peace. He also defended a mechanical account of nature, mind and language, and his views on religion made him one of the most attacked writers of his age.
Why should free and equal human beings obey a power they have created themselves?
The essentials
A life in dates
Biography- 1588Birth at Westport
- 1629Thucydides in English
- 1642De Cive in Paris
- 1651Leviathan and return
- 1679Death at Hardwick Hall
Biography
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and humanist translator who spent most of his long life in the service of the Cavendish family and eleven years in exile in Paris during the civil wars. In The Elements of Law, De Cive and Leviathan he argued that without a common power human beings fall into a war of every one against every one, and that reason directs them to authorize an undivided sovereign who keeps the peace. He also defended a mechanical account of nature, mind and language, and his views on religion made him one of the most attacked writers of his age.
Philosophy
Without a common power to keep them in awe, equal and mutually fearful human beings live in a condition of war of every one against every one: not constant fighting, but a known disposition to fight that leaves no room for industry, culture or trust.
Reading guides
Original introductions to enter the works, discover their central questions and take the reflection further.
Bibliography
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
Who came before, who came after.
Above the timeline, each solid arc marks a documented reading, back in time or forward; dotted arcs pair kindred questions.
A first reading.
From war to covenant
Follow the argument of Leviathan from the natural condition of mankind to the authorization of a sovereign, and look for the point where the subject’s obligation ends.
LeviathanWolves, gods and citizens
Read De Cive as the first political system Hobbes published, from the laws of nature to the place of religion in a commonwealth.
On the Citizen (De Cive)Passions, reason and the body politic
See how The Elements of Law builds a political argument on an analysis of the passions and on the hope of a science of justice.
The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic