Hobbes établit une distinction entre signes certains et signes incertains, qui correspond à la distinction entre science et prudence. Mais il précise toutefois que les signes de la science ne sont pas tous certains, ni infaillibles. Cette recommandation n’est pas tant une critique de la science, qu’une mise en garde adressée à ceux qui renoncent à leur jugement naturel et s’en remettent aveuglément à l’autorité des livres. La certitude dépend donc d’un bon usage des signes de la part du sujet (...) qui connaît ou interprète. Hobbes affirme ainsi le primat du sujet ou de l’esprit dans la constitution du signe et sa manipulation. La différence entre signes certains et signes incertains ne dépend pas seulement du type de signes, mais également des conditions de l’interprétation. Cette solution s’impose si l’on comprend la définition de Hobbes selon laquelle il n’y a de signe que pour et par un sujet, comme une définition générale s’appliquant à tout type de signe. On pourra alors rendre compte de la certitude ou de l’incertitude des signes à partir de la manière dont le sujet fait usage des signes dans le calcul des conséquences. À cet égard, la distinction entre consécutions de l’imagination et consécutions de la raison joue un rôle au moins aussi essentiel que la distinction entre signes naturels et signes d’institution : s’il est vrai que l’imagination dépend de l’ordre aléatoire des perceptions, alors que les calculs de la raison se fondent sur des signes arbitraires, la notion de consécution apparaît comme le fondement de toute activité portant sur les signes, puisque tout signe, qu’il soit naturel ou conventionnel, suppose un rapport posé ou effectué par l’esprit. L’originalité de Hobbes consiste notamment à envisager le signe comme un rapport entre deux événements, entre un conséquent et un antécédent : plutôt que le rapport entre une présence et une absence, c’est la notion d’ordre qui est au cœur de la pensée hobbesienne du signe. (shrink)

Hobbes établit une distinction entre signes certains et signes incertains, qui correspond à la distinction entre science et prudence. Mais il précise toutefois que les signes de la science ne sont pas tous certains, ni infaillibles. Cette recommandation n’est pas tant une critique de la science, qu’une mise en garde adressée à ceux qui renoncent à leur jugement naturel et s’en remettent aveuglément à l’autorité des livres. La certitude dépend donc d’un bon usage des signes de la part du sujet (...) qui connaît ou interprète. Hobbes affirme ainsi le primat du sujet ou de l’esprit dans la constitution du signe et sa manipulation. La différence entre signes certains et signes incertains ne dépend pas seulement du type de signes, mais également des conditions de l’interprétation. Cette solution s’impose si l’on comprend la définition de Hobbes selon laquelle il n’y a de signe que pour et par un sujet, comme une définition générale s’appliquant à tout type de signe. On pourra alors rendre compte de la certitude ou de l’incertitude des signes à partir de la manière dont le sujet fait usage des signes dans le calcul des conséquences. À cet égard, la distinction entre consécutions de l’imagination et consécutions de la raison joue un rôle au moins aussi essentiel que la distinction entre signes naturels et signes d’institution : s’il est vrai que l’imagination dépend de l’ordre aléatoire des perceptions, alors que les calculs de la raison se fondent sur des signes arbitraires, la notion de consécution apparaît comme le fondement de toute activité portant sur les signes, puisque tout signe, qu’il soit naturel ou conventionnel, suppose un rapport posé ou effectué par l’esprit. L’originalité de Hobbes consiste notamment à envisager le signe comme un rapport entre deux événements, entre un conséquent et un antécédent : plutôt que le rapport entre une présence et une absence, c’est la notion d’ordre qui est au cœur de la pensée hobbesienne du signe. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. In addition, it presents the fundamentals of his beliefs about language, epistemology, and an extensive treatment of revealed religion and its relation to politics. Beginning with premises that were sometimes controversial, such as that every human action is caused by the agent's desire for his own good, Hobbes derived shocking conclusions, such as that the civil government enjoys absolute control (...) over its citizens and that the sovereign has the right to determine which religion is to be practiced in a commonwealth. Hobbes's contemporaries recognized the power of the arguments in Leviathan and many of them wrote responses to it. Selections from books by John Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Edward Hyde, George Lawson, William Lucy, Samuel Pufendorf and Thomas Tenison are included in this edition. Leviathan is divided into four parts: In the first part, Of Man, Hobbes presents a view of human beings and of the natural world in general that is materialistic and mechanistic. In the second part, Of Commonwealth, he defends the theory of absolute sovereignty, the view that the government has all the political power and has the right to control any aspect of life. In the third part, Of a Christian Commonwealth, he critiques concepts like revelation, prophets, and miracles in such a way that it becomes doubtful whether they can be rationally justified. In the fourth part, Of the Kingdom of Darkness, he explains various ways in which priestly religion has corrupted religion and transgressed the rights of the sovereign. In this revised edition of Hobbes's classic work, A.P. Martinich improves Hobbes's punctuation for the sake of clarity. He has also added new notes for readers, extensive cross references, and substantial part of Hobbes's reply to Bramhall's The Catching of Leviathan. (shrink)

This paper investigates the development of Hobbes’s theory of imagination and its unique intervention in the scientific debates of the seventeenth century. I argue that this intervention is designed to solve a tension between Hobbes’s scientific and political commitments. His scientific commitments led him to take the imagination seriously. While unorthodox in many ways, Hobbes was working within the predominant scientific framework of his time, which can be traced back to Aristotle and Galen. The same framework, however, was used for (...) naturalistic explanations for prophecy. This posed a problem for Hobbes, who was equally committed to the advances of science and to guarding against the political threat posed by prophets. I argue that Hobbes’s theory of imagination solves this tension by constructing a scientific account of imagination that is loyal to the leading scientific ideas while ruling out any potential use of imagination in the natural explanation of prophecy. (shrink)

Both Michael Oakeshott and Carl Schmitt were deeply preoccupied with what Oakeshott called ‘the experience of living in a modern European state’; both felt that the state's proper origins and trajectory had not been grasped, that proper statehood had profoundly been put into doubt in the twentieth century, and that state authority and legitimacy needed to be shored up in an age of ‘mass politics’. Not surprisingly, then, both developed their conception of political association with and sometimes against Hobbes. Both (...) profoundly disagreed with conventional readings of Hobbes as propounding a materialist or ‘scientistic’ philosophy. Most importantly, both consistently de‐emphasized, or entirely discounted, Hobbes's contractualism – they cut off any possible route from Hobbes's thought to liberal theories of explicit or tacit consent. Instead, both stressed a concern with the cultural preconditions of political order. Oakeshott's civil association turned out to be an idealized picture of modern European individualism as a unique civilizational achievement that sustained a very limited state whose authority could only be acknowledged, rather than contested. Schmitt, on the other hand, advocated a deeply authoritarian fusion of political and religious elements, a sort of neo‐Erastian dictatorship as the solution to the problem of political order. Idiosyncratic as these visions might appear, they in fact sum up two ways of thinking about political order still prevalent today: the notion that liberal democracy is only for the West; and the idea that, ultimately, political cohesion depends on a shared religious mentality. (shrink)

v. 1. Editorial introduction -- v. 2. The English and Latin texts (i) -- v. 3. The English and Latin texts (ii).

Hobbes is often portrayed as a thinker who anticipated modern constructivist ideas of fiction and representation according to which reality is simply a social construction. This article questions t...

This article evaluates the political implications of Thomas Hobbes’s extensive treatment of religion by taking up the motif of the Eucharist (and accompanying doctrine of transubstantiation) in Leviathan. Hobbes holds out transubstantiation as an exemplar of absurdity and an historical outgrowth of Christianity’s inauspicious meeting with pagan practices. At the same time, Leviathan contains allusions to eucharistic imagery in its narration of the generation of the “Mortal God,” the commonwealth, as the incorporation of a civil body. These conflicting sentiments are (...) illustrative of a wider tension running through Hobbes’s thought. Although Hobbes’s repudiation of superstition is well-known, it stands in stark contrast to Leviathan’s treatment of Christianity as an exemplar of “true” religion. The varied allusions to eucharistic doctrine illustrate how proper use might be made of a persistent “natural religiosity.” Both in its consonance with reason and its political logic, Christianity remains a politically constructive expression of “power invisible.”. (shrink)

Le Leviathan, en langue latine, qui se trouve ici traduit pour la premiere fois dans son integralite en francais, n'a vu le jour qu'en 1668, mais son contenu ne se reduit aucunement a la version anglaise publiee 17 ans auparavant. Au lieu de constituer une transposition fidele du texte de 1651, ce deuxieme Leviathan doit etre tenu, de plein droit, comme un autre Leviathan. La connaissance achevee de la philosophie politique de Hobbes exige ainsi de ne pas laisser ce texte (...) latin dans l'ombre du texte anglais. En effet, apres les critiques d'atheisme et d'opportunisme qui lui furent adressees, ce nouvel ouvrage premunit Hobbes contre toute accusation d'heresie, en dotant d'une fonction doctrinale essentielle le refus de subordonner le pouvoir politique au pouvoir ecclesiastique. Le Leviathan latin a ainsi pour originalite l'accentuation de la dimension theologico-politique de son enseignement moral et politique, d'ou le caractere indispensable de ce texte pour la connaissance de l'oeuvre de Hobbes. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Hobbes 's account of miracles in Leviathan. Four main theses are defended: that Hobbes affirms a single account of miracles, not several non-equivalent accounts, that Hobbes 's main objective is political – he wants to explain how the doctrine of miracles must be understood in order for it not to pose a threat to political stability, that Hobbes 's discussion is not designed to undermine the doctrine of miracles in its entirety, and (...) that Hobbes 's considered view of miracles is compatible with the modern scientific worldview to which he is committed. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Hobbes's account of miracles in Leviathan. Four main theses are defended: (i) that Hobbes affirms a single account of miracles, not several non‐equivalent accounts, (ii) that Hobbes's main objective is political – he wants to explain how the doctrine of miracles must be understood in order for it not to pose a threat to political stability, (3) that Hobbes's discussion is not designed to undermine the doctrine of miracles in its entirety, and (...) (4) that Hobbes's considered view of miracles is compatible with the modern scientific worldview to which he is committed. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes took a new look at the ways in which society should function, and he ended up formulating the concept of political science. His crowning achievement, Leviathan, remains among the greatest works in the history of ideas. Written during a moment in English history when the political and social structures as well as methods of science were in flux and open to interpretation, Leviathan played an essential role in the development of the modern world. This edition of Hobbes' landmark (...) work is based on the original text. It incorporates the author's own corrections and retains the period spelling and punctuation, offering both flavorful authenticity and the utmost clarity of expression. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes' timeless account of the human condition, first developed in The Elements of Law (1640), which comprises Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, is a direct product of the intellectual and political strife of the seventeenth century. His analysis of the war between the individual and the group lays out the essential strands of his moral and political philosophy later made famous in Leviathan. This first ever complete paperback edition of Human Nature and De Corpore Politico is also supplemented (...) by chapters from Hobbes' later work De Corpore and "The Three Lives," never before published together in English. (shrink)

A cornerstone of modern western philosophy, addressing the role of man in government, society and religion In 1651, Hobbes published his work about the relationship between the government and the individual. More than four centuries old, this brilliant yet ruthless book analyzes not only the bases of government but also physical nature and the roles of man. Comparable to Plato's Republic in depth and insight, Leviathan includes two society-changing phenomena that Plato didn't dare to dream of -- the rise of (...) great nation-states with their claims to absolute sovereignty, and modern science, with its unprecedented analytic power. To Hobbes, the leviathan -- a mythical sea creature described in the Old Testament -- represented his central thesis: that the state must be strong in order to control and protect its citizens. Even today, Hobbes's thesis in Leviathan is debated among scholars and philosophy aficionados around the globe. One of the earliest attempts at a genuinely scientific understanding of politics and society in their modern form, this book also remains one of the most stimulating. In his timeless work, Hobbes outlines his ideas about the passions and the conduct of man, and how his theories are realized in every individual. Addressing free will and religion, Hobbes constructs an intelligent argument for the basis of religion within government and how to organize a peaceful and successful Christian commonwealth. Like Plato's Republic, this book contains ideas on psychology, ethics, law, language, and religion that continue to challenge modern thinkers and exercise a profound influence on Western thought. A classic treatise of philosophy, Leviathan is critical reading for anyone who wishes to examine the human mind through the prisms of government and society. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel interpretation of the political implications of Hobbes’s theory of imagination and his solution to the threat posed by the imagination to political stability. While recent work has correctly identified the problem the imagination poses for Hobbes, it has underestimated the severity of the problem and, accordingly, has underestimated the length to which the Hobbesian sovereign will have to go in order to solve it. By reconstructing Hobbes’s account of sleep and the operation of the imagination (...) during sleep, this paper argues that the Hobbesian sovereign who seeks to solve the problem of the imagination must maintain his subjects in a ‘state of sleep,’ by preventing any kind of new inputs from disturbing their imagination. This solution suggests that the citizens of the Leviathan state are not sleeping sovereigns, but rather sleeping subjects. (shrink)

To read Hobbes on his own terms is to discover a provocative rival to contemporary perspectives on morals and politics, one that challenges widely shared assumptions about the roots of our rights and calls into question common conclusions about the scope of political authority in a society based on the consent of the governed. At the same time, it is to encounter a complement to contemporary perspectives on the liberal state, one that offers a distinctive and powerful basis for the (...) political order that conforms to reason and secures the conditions under which human beings with differing conceptions of the best life can pursue happiness as they each understand it. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher, remembered today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory. He also contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, geometry, physics of gases, theology, ethics, general philosophy, and political science. He was one of the main philosophers who founded materialism. He visited Florence in 1636 and later was a regular debater in philosophic groups (...) in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne. Hobbes's first area of study was an interest in the physical doctrine of motion and physical momentum. Despite his interest in this phenomenon, he disdained experimental work as in physics. He built a good reputation in philosophic circles and in 1645, he was chosen with Descartes, Gilles de Roberval and others, to referee the controversy between John Pell and Longomontanus over the problem of squaring the circle. His other works include: The Elements of Law Natural and Politic (1640) and De Cive (The Citizen): Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society (1651). (shrink)

De Cive (On the Citizen) is the first full exposition of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, the greatest English political philosopher of all time. Professors Tuck and Silverthorne have undertaken the first complete translation since 1651, a rendition long thought (in error) to be at least sanctioned by Hobbes himself. On the Citizen is written in a clear, straightforward, expository style, and in many ways offers students a more digestible account of Hobbes's political thought than the Leviathan itself. This (...) new translation is both accurate and accessible, and is itself a significant scholarly event: it is accompanied by a full glossary of Latin terms, a chronology, bibliography, and an expository introduction. Throughout the editors have emphasised consistency in the translation and usage of Hobbes's basic conceptual vocabulary, respecting Hobbes's own concern for accurate definition of terms. (shrink)

De Cive ("On the citizen") is one of Thomas Hobbes's major works. "The book was published originally in Latin from Paris in 1642, followed by two further Latin editions in 1647 from Amsterdam. The English translation of the work made its first appearance four years later (London 1651) under the title 'Philosophicall rudiments concerning government and society'."The work anticipates themes of the better-known Leviathan. The famous phrase bellum omnium contra omnes ("war of all against all") appeared first in De Cive.

Leviathan is both a magnificent literary achievement and the greatest work of political philosophy in the English language. Permanently challenging, it has found new applications and new refutations in every generation. This new edition reproduces the first printed text, retaining the originalpunctuation but modernizing the spelling. It offers exceptionally thorough and useful annotation, an introduction that guides the reader through the complexities of Hobbes's arguments, and a substantial index.

This revised Broadview Edition of Hobbes's classic work of political philosophy includes the full text of Part I (Of Man), Part II (Of Commonwealth), and the Review and Conclusion. The appendices, which set the work in its historical context, include a rich selection of contemporary responses to Leviathan. Also included are an introduction, explanatory notes, and a chronology of Hobbes's life. Please note that the Broadview Edition of the complete Leviathan also remains available.

This Broadview edition of Hobbes's classic work of political philosophy includes the full text of Part I (Of Man), Part II (Of Commonwealth), and the Review and Conclusion. The appendices, which set the work in its historical context, include a rich selection of contemporary responses to Leviathan. Also included are an introduction, explanatory notes, and a chronology of Hobbes's life. Please note that the Broadview Edition of the complete Leviathan also remains available.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Desire and Ethics in Hobbes's Leviathan:A Response to Professor DeighAccording to the "orthodox" interpretation of Hobbes's ethics, the laws of nature are the products of means-end thinking. According to the "definitivist" interpretation recently offered by John Deigh, the laws of nature are generated by reason operating on a definition of "law of nature," where the content of this definition is given by linguistic usage.2 I aim to accomplish two (...) things in this note. First, I want to locate as clearly as possible the point at which the orthodox and definitivist interpretations must disagree. Second, I want to show that once the claim on which these interpretations disagree is made clear, it is the orthodox interpretation that turns out to be the superior.31.Deigh takes as the initial test case for the various interpretations of Hobbes's moral theory the passage in chapter fifteen of Leviathan commonly known as "the reply to the fool." The fool, it will be recalled, argues that the precept that covenants be kept is not a rule of reason; Hobbes argues that the fool's "specious reasoning is neverthelesse [End Page 259] false," for to break a valid covenant is to violate a dictate of reason.4 Deigh summarizes his criticism of the orthodox interpretation of this passage as follows.On [the orthodox] interpretation, the dispute between Hobbes and the Fool concerns the deliverances of reason when reason is exercised in the service of self-interest, that is, when its exercise consists in determining the fittest means to achieving the ends set by egoistic desires. Such an exercise falls outside of the definition of reason that Hobbes gives in chapter five. It exemplifies strategic or means-to-end thinking and not deduction. Indeed, it corresponds to what Hobbes, in chapter three, defines as seeking... Hence, the orthodox interpretation of the laws of nature implies that Hobbes, in expounding the laws of nature, went back on the notion of reason he defined in chapter five. It implicitly attributes a fundamental inconsistency to Hobbes's philosophy.5The laws of nature—among which is the rule requiring the keeping of covenants6 —are held by Hobbes to be precepts of reason.7 Hobbes deems them, collectively, a science,8 by which he means that they are the deliverances of reason that pertain to a specific subject-matter.9 But, argues Deigh, Hobbes understands reason in a very specific way, a way that is distinct from the sort of means-end thinking that Hobbes describes in detail in chapter three and labels "seeking." Thus the orthodox interpretation of Hobbes's moral theory is at odds with Hobbes's own conception of the laws of nature individually as dictates of reason and collectively as the science of the true moral philosophy.It is of course true that the sort of thinking that Hobbes calls "seeking" and the sort of thinking that Hobbes calls "reasoning" are fundamentally different. Seeking takes its origin from experience: we have seen certain events following other events, and we retain a trace of that experience in imagination. Thus when we have some desire, there arises "the Thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we ayme at; and from the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean; and so continually, till we come to some beginning within our power."10 Those that are able to engage in this sort of thinking well are prudent,11 and on Hobbes's view, humans with comparable experience will exhibit a comparable degree of prudence.12 And because seeking requires only desire to regulate thought and some experience of events succeeding other events, there is nothing distinctively human about this form of thinking, and indeed Hobbes acknowledges that prudence is common to humans and other animals.13 By contrast, the process that Hobbes calls "reasoning" [End Page 260] is characterized independently of desire. All that is essential to reasoning is that it involves the drawing of consequences that follow from sentences formed from aptly-defined general terms.14 Thus all deliverances of reason are, either explicitly or implicitly, conditional in form: necessarily, if p... (shrink)

`the state of men without civil society is nothing else but a mere war of all against all.' Thomas Hobbes was the first great philosopher to write in English. His account of the human condition, first developed in The Elements of Law, which comprises Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, is a direct product of the intellectural and political strife of the seventeenth century. It is also a remarkably penetrating look at human nature, and a permanently relevant analysis of the (...) fears of self-seeking that result in the war of `each against every man'. In The Elements of Law Hobbes memorably sets out both the main lines of his general philosophy, later augmented in De Corpore, and the moral and political philosophy later made famous in Leviathan. Copies of Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, until 1889 printed as separate works, are rare antiques or scarcely less rare scholarly texts; this is the first complete popular edition. It is here supplemented by chapters from De Corpore and Three Lives, two from Hobbes's original Latin. These have never before been published together in English. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Aussi ancienne, par les sujets abordes, que l'histoire de la philosophie, la controverse qui opposa Thomas Hobbes a John Bramhall commenca lors d'une rencontre qui se deroula en 1645 et s'acheva par une publication qui eut lieu en 1682, alors que les deux adversaires etaient morts.Elle excita d'autant plus la verve de Hobbes que les questions de philosophie naturelle, de theologie et de theorie politique sur lesquelles elle roula et rebondit en plusieurs occasions etaient de celles dont il devait ecrire, (...) dans le Behemoth, qu'elles avaient ete la cause de tous nos malheurs recents, autrement dit de la revolution et de la guerre civile: le libre arbitre, les substances incorporelles, l'eternite, l'incarnation, l'heresie, la piete et le devoir d'obeissance au souverain. (shrink)

This paper considers the implications for education of a reworked ancient Greek ethics and politics of flourishing, where ‘flourishing’ comprises the objective actualisation of our intellectual, imaginative and affective potential. A brief outline of the main features of an ethics of flourishing and its potential attractions as an ethical framework is followed by a consideration of the ethical, aesthetic and political requirements of such a framework for the theory and practice of education, indicating the ways in which my approach differs (...) from other recent work in the field. I argue that the teaching of philosophy in schools and philosophical approaches to the teaching of other subjects are ideally suited to meet the pedagogic requirements of individual and communal flourishing so understood, contributing greatly both to the understanding of what a well-lived life might be, and to the actual living of it. I further argue that these requirements are not only derived from ancient Greek philosophy but are in turn especially well-served by the teaching and deployment of Greek philosophy itself. My claim is not that Greek philosophy has all the answers, or that other philosophers and philosophical approaches should be excluded; it is simply that Greek philosophy offers rich resources for those seeking to introduce children and young people to philosophy and to foster thereby their flourishing in both childhood and as adults. (shrink)

The Scenic Imagination argues that the uniquely human phenomenon of representation, as manifested in language, art, and ritual, is a scenic event focused on a central object designated by a sign. The originary hypothesis posits the necessity of conceiving the origin of the human as such an event. In traditional societies, the scenic imagination through which this scene of origin is conceived manifests itself in sacred creation narratives. Modern thought is defined by the independent use of the scenic imagination to (...) create anthropological models of the origin of human institutions, beginning with the social contract scene in Hobbes’s Leviathan that puts an end to the reciprocal violence of the state of nature. Eric Gans follows the work of the scenic imagination in selected writings of twenty thinkers including Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Durkheim, Boas, and Freud and concludes his book with a critical examination of contemporary writing on the origins of religion and language. In the process, he demonstrates that the originary hypothesis offers the most cohesive explanation of the origin and function of these fundamental institutions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700A. P. MartinichJon Parkin. Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700. Ideas in Context, 82. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xi + 449. Cloth, $115.Parkin’s book covers the same period and much of the same material as John Bowle’s Hobbes (...) and his Critics (1951) and Samuel Mintz’s The Hunting of Leviathan (1962), but his scholarship is more extensive and significantly better than that of the earlier books. The scholarship is similar to that of Jeffrey Collins in Hobbes’s Allegiance and belongs to the same school of Cambridge contextualism. Parkin’s book contains good summaries of the books and pamphlets that were published about Hobbes’ political and religious philosophy from 1640 until 1700. While much of this material is known to Hobbes scholars, Parkin has discovered or brought into play a large number of other works. It is good to have all of this material discussed in one place.The book contains, in addition to an Introduction and Conclusion, seven chapters: 1. Reading Hobbes before Leviathan (1640–1651); 2. Leviathan (1651–1654); 3. The Storm (1654–1658); 4. Restoration (1658–1666); 5. Hobbes and Hobbism (1666–1675); [End Page 142] 6. Hobbes and the Restoration Crisis (1675–1685); and 7. Hobbes in the Glorious Revolution (1685–1700).Parkin’s explications of the arguments of Hobbes’ contemporaries, his judgments about their criticisms of Hobbes, and the nature of Hobbes’ own work are too often unsuccessful. He usually does not discuss the structures of the arguments at all, as if narrative is incompatible with analysis, and he often uses tendentious language where argumentation is needed. Parkin uncritically uses “success” words where a hedged phrase is needed. It is quite doubtful that “[Samuel] Ward showed that reason and philosophy” did not subvert “traditional natural ethics” (167; my italics) rather than only trying or purporting to show that. Also, Parkin rarely notices that Hobbes’ critics often misunderstood him. For example, they all think that Hobbes claims that the whole world was in the state of nature at one time. Parkin gives little or no indication that he understands that the state of nature is primarily a concept in a thought experiment (167). The primary lesson of the reception of Hobbes’ philosophy between 1640 and 1700 was that his critics thoroughly misunderstood it, but Parkin ultimately does not appreciate it (e.g., 411; cf. 2, 5, 9). Some critics thought that Hobbes was a republican. There is good evidence that some of his critics never read Hobbes. William Sherlock, for example, writing after the Glorious Revolution, rejects Hobbes’ imagined de facto-ism to embrace a supposedly non-Hobbesian consent theory. In the 1690s, Hobbes the atheist was a convenient bogy. Ironies abound. The nonjurors who railed against Hob-bes, now over a decade dead, and deplored the Toleration Act, were in fact supporting his preference for a strong national church. A good book could be written with the title From Hobbes to Hobbism (cf. 3–4). Parkin does not emphasize that Hobbes’ critics “often absorbed his ideas at the same time as they attacked him” (412).As for his interpretation of Hobbes’ philosophy, Parkin seems uncritically to accept the interpretations of Quentin Skinner, even where they are fairly obviously mistaken. For example, following some of Skinner’s early essays on Hobbes, Parkin says that Leviathan defended de facto theory (193), although later in the book, he seems not to accept this position (e.g., 362, 373). What Skinner ignored is a central feature of Hobbes’ philosophy, namely that no obligation is incurred except through some act of one’s own. This feature is incompatible with a central feature of de facto theory, namely, that a government is legitimate when it has the power to coerce. Parkin thinks that consent theory is a form of de facto theory (387, 412). Even Skinner in his collected essays, Visions of Politics, has backed off somewhat from his earlier view.Parkin writes, “One of the aims of this study has been... (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’s _Leviathan_ is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. Beginning with premises that were sometimes controversial, such as that every human action is caused by the agent’s desire for his own good, Hobbes derived shocking conclusions, such as that the civil government enjoys absolute control over its citizens and that the sovereign has the right to determine which religion is to be practiced in a commonwealth. Hobbes’s contemporaries recognized (...) the power of arguments in _Leviathan_ and many of them wrote responses to it; selections by John Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Edward Hyde, George Lawson, William Lucy, Samuel Pufendorf, and Thomas Tenison are included in this edition. _Leviathan _is divided into four parts: In the first part, Of Man, Hobbes presents a view of human beings and of the natural world in general that is materialistic and mechanistic. In the second part, Of Commonwealth, he defends the theory of absolute sovereignty, the view that the government has all the political power and has the right to control any aspect of life. In the third part, Of a Christian Commonwealth, he critiques concepts like revelation, prophets, and miracles in such a way that it becomes doubtful whether they can be rationally justified. In the fourth part, Of the Kingdom of Darkness, he explains various ways in which priestly religion has corrupted religion and transgressed the rights of the sovereign. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was the first great English philosopher and one of the most important theorists of human nature and politics in the history of Western thought. This superlative introduction explains Hobbes's main doctrines and arguments, covering all of Hobbes's philosophy. A.P.Martinich begins with a helpful overview of Hobbes's life and work, setting his ideas against the political and scientific background seventeenth century England. He then introduces and assesses, in clear chapters, Hobbes's contributions to fundamental areas of philosophy: * Epistemology (...) and metaphysics, in particular Hobbes's materialism and determinism and his relation to Descartes * Ethics and political philosophy, concentrating on Hobbes's most famous work, Leviathan and the theory of the social contract it advances * Philosophy of science, logic and language, considering Hobbes's theory of nominalism and his writing on rhetoric and the uses of language; * Religion, examining Hobbes's analyses ofrevelation, prophets and miracles. The final chapter considers the legacy of Hobbes's thought and his influence on contemporary philosophy. Additional features * Chapter summaries * Annotated further reading. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes was the first great English philosopher and one of the most important theorists of human nature and politics in the history of Western thought. This superlative introduction presents Hobbes' main doctrines and arguments, covering all of Hobbes' philosophy. A.P. Martinich begins with a helpful overview of Hobbes' life and work, setting his ideas against the political and scientific background of seventeenth-century England. He then introduces and assesses, in clear chapters, Hobbes' contributions to fundamental areas of philosophy: epistemology and (...) metaphysics, in particular Hobbes' materialism and determinism and his relation to Descartes ethics and political philosophy, concentrating on Hobbes' most famous work, _Leviathan,_ and the theory of the social contract it advances philosophy of science, logic and language, considering Hobbes' theory of nominalism and his writing on rhetoric and the uses of language; religion, examining Hobbes' analyses of revelation, prophets and miracles. The final chapter considers the legacy of Hobbes' thought and his influence on contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the famous image on Hobbes’ frontispiece of Leviathan provides a more honest picture of authority and of contract than is provided by today’s liberal images of free and equal persons, who are pictured as sitting round a negotiating table making a decision as to the principles on which to base laws. Importantly, in the seventeenth century, at the start of modern political thought, Hobbes saw no contradiction between contractual agreement and subordination. I will draw (...) out these arguments by comparing three images of politics that employ the human body: Hobbes’ frontispiece is compared firstly with an earlier picture of the state, the illustration of the Fable of the Belly, and then with a later Rawlsian image of the social contract described above. At stake is Hobbes’ view of two associated concepts: authorship and authority. I argue that Hobbes’ image is a vivid portrayal of a ‘persona covert’, akin to the feme covert, a wife characterised in common law as so dominated by her husband that she is imagined as being ‘covered’ by his body. (shrink)