Hobbes

Life and Works

. . Human Nature
. . Society
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Internet Sources
Thomas Hobbes

Even more than Bacon, Thomas Hobbes illustrated the transition from medieval to
modern thinking in Britain. His Leviathan effectively developed a vocabulary for
philosophy in the English language by using Anglicized versions of the technical
terms employed by Greek and Latin authors. Careful use of words to signify common
ideas in the mind, Hobbes maintained, avoids the difficulties to which human
reasoning is most obviously prone and makes it possible to articulate a clear
conception of reality. (Leviathan I 4)

For Hobbes, that conception is bound to be a mechanistic one: the movements of

physical objects will turn out to be sufficient to explain everything in the universe.
The chief purpose of scientific investigation, then, is to develop a geometrical account
of the motion of bodies, which will reveal the genuine basis of their causal
interactions and the regularity of the natural world. Thus, Hobbes defended a
strictly materialist view of the world.

Human Nature

Human beings are physical objects, according to Hobbes, sophisticated machines all
of whose functions and activities can be described and explained in purely
mechanistic terms. Even thought itself, therefore, must be understood as an instance
of the physical operation of the human body. Sensation, for example, involves a series
of mechanical processes operating within the human nervous system, by means of
which the sensible features of material things produce ideas in the brains of the human
beings who perceive them. (Leviathan I 1)

Human action is similarly to be explained on Hobbes's view. Specific desires and

appetites arise in the human body and are experienced as discomforts or pains which
must be overcome. Thus, each of us is motivated to act in such ways as we believe
likely to relieve our discomfort, to preserve and promote our own well-being.
(Leviathan I 6) Everything we choose to do is strictly determined by this natural
inclination to relieve the physical pressures that impinge upon our bodies.
Human volition is nothing but the determination of the will by the strongest present
desire.

Hobbes nevertheless supposed that human agents are free in the sense that their
activities are not under constraint from anyone else. On this compatibilist view, we
have no reason to complain about the strict determination of the will so long as we are
not subject to interference from outside ourselves. (Leviathan II 21)

As Hobbes acknowledged, this account of human nature emphasizes our animal

nature, leaving each of us to live independently of everyone else, acting only in his or
her own self-interest, without regard for others. This produces what he called the
"state of war," a way of life that is certain to prove "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short." (Leviathan I 13) The only escape is by entering into contracts with each other
mutually beneficial agreements to surrender our individual interests in order to
achieve the advantages of security that only a social existence can provide.
(Leviathan I 14)

Human Society

Unable to rely indefinitely on their individual powers in the effort to secure

livelihood and contentment, Hobbes supposed, human beings join together in the
formation of a commonwealth. Thus, the commonwealth as a whole embodies a
network of associated contracts and provides for the highest form of social
organization. On Hobbes's view, the formation of the commonwealth creates a new,
artificial person (the Leviathan) to whom all responsibility for social order and public
welfare is entrusted. (Leviathan II 17)

Of course, someone must make decisions on behalf of this new whole, and that
person will be the sovereign. The commonwealth-creating covenant is not in essence a
relationship between subjects and their sovereign at all. Rather, what counts is the
relationship among subjects, all of whom agree to divest themselves of their native
powers in order to secure the benefits of orderly government by obeying the dictates
of the sovereign authority. (Leviathan II 18) That's why the minority who might prefer
a different sovereign authority have no complaint, on Hobbes's view: even though
they have no respect for this particular sovereign, they are still bound by their contract
with fellow-subjects to be governed by a single authority. The sovereign is nothing
more than the institutional embodiment of orderly government.
 Since the decisions of the sovereign are entirely arbitrary, it hardly matters where
they come from, so long as they are understood and obeyed universally. Thus,
Hobbes's account explicitly leaves open the possibility that the sovereign will itself be
a corporate persona legislature or an assembly of all citizensas well as a single
human being. Regarding these three forms, however, Hobbes himself maintained that
the commonwealth operates most effectively when a hereditary monarch assumes the
sovereign role. (Leviathan II 19) Investing power in a single natural person who can
choose advisors and rule consistently without fear of internal conflicts is the best
fulfillment of our social needs. Thus, the radical metaphysical positions defended by
Hobbes lead to a notably conservative political result, an endorsement of the
paternalistic view.

Hobbes argued that the commonwealth secures the liberty of its citizens. Genuine
human freedom, he maintained, is just the ability to carry out one's will without
interference from others. This doesn't entail an absence of law; indeed, our agreement
to be subject to a common authority helps each of us to secure liberty with respect to
others. (Leviathan II 21) Submission to the sovereign is absolutely decisive, except
where it is silent or where it claims control over individual rights to life itself, which
cannot be transferred to anyone else. But the structure provided by orderly
government, according to Hobbes, enhances rather than restricts individual liberty.

Whether or not the sovereign is a single heredetary monarch, of course, its

administration of social order may require the cooperation and assistance of others.
Within the commonwealth as a whole, there may arise smaller "bodies politic" with
authority over portions of the lives of those who enter into them. The sovereign will
appoint agents whose responsibility is to act on its behalf in matters of less than
highest importance. Most important, the will of the sovereign for its subjects will be
expressed in the form of civil laws that have either been decreed or tacitly accepted.
(Leviathan II 26) Criminal violations of these laws by any subject will be
appropriately punished by the sovereign authority.

Despite his firm insistence on the vital role of the sovereign as the embodiment of
the commonwealth, Hobbes acknowledged that there are particular circumstances
under which it may fail to accomplish its purpose. (Leviathan II 29) If the sovereign
has too little power, is made subject to its own laws, or allows its power to be divided,
problems will arise. Similarly, if individual subjects make private judgments of right
and wrong based on conscience, succomb to religious enthisiasm, or acquire excessive
private property, the state will suffer. Even a well-designed commonwealth may, over
time, cease to function and will be dissolved.

Thomas Hobbes was born in London in 1588. He received his

college education at Oxford University in England, where he
studied classics. Hobbes traveled to other European
countries several times to meet with scientists and to study
different forms of government. During his time outside of
England, Hobbes became interested in why people allowed
themselves to be ruled and what would be the best form of
government for England. In 1651, Hobbes wrote his most
famous work, entitled Leviathan. In it, he argued that people
were naturally wicked and could not be trusted to govern.
Therefore, Hobbes believed that an absolute monarchy - a
government that gave all power to a king or queen - was
best.

Hobbes believed that humans were basically selfish

creatures who would do anything to better their position.
Left to themselves, he thought, people would act on their evil
impulses. According to Hobbes, people therefore should not
be trusted to make decisions on their own. In addition,
Hobbes felt that nations, like people, were selfishly
motivated. To Hobbes, each country was in a constant battle
for power and wealth. To prove his point, Hobbes wrote, "If
men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always
carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?"

Governments were created, according to Hobbes, to

protect people from their own selfishness and evil. The best
government was one that had the great power of a leviathan,
or sea monster. Hobbes believed in the rule of a king
because he felt a country needed an authority figure to
provide direction and leadership. Because the people were
only interested in promoting their own self-interests, Hobbes
believed democracy - allowing citizens to vote for
government leaders - would never work. Hobbes wrote, "All
mankind [is in] a perpetual and restless desire for power...
that [stops] only in death." Consequently, giving power to
the individual would create a dangerous situation that would
start a "war of every man against every man" and make
life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
 Despite his distrust of democracy, Hobbes believed that a
diverse group of representatives presenting the problems of
the common person would, hopefully, prevent a king from
being cruel and unfair. During Hobbes' lifetime, business
began to have a big influence on government. Those who
could contribute money to the government were given great
status, and business interests were very powerful. In order
to offset the growing power of business, Hobbes believed
that an individual could be heard in government by
authorizing a representative to speak on their behalf. In fact,
Hobbes came up with the phrase "voice of the people," which
meant that one person could be chosen to represent a group
with similar views. However, this "voice" was merely heard
and not necessarily listened to - final decisions lay with the
king.

THOMAS HOBBES QUOTES

from Leviathan
1651
"For the laws of nature (as justice, equity, modesty, mercy,
and, in sum, doing to others as we woud be done to) of themselves,
without the terror of some power, to cause them to be observed,
are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality,
pride, revenge and the like.

"Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a

man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on
the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a
man's conscience and his judgement are the same thing, and as the
judgement, so also the conscience may be erroneous.

"Leisure is the mother of philosophy."

Pt. I, ch. 1
"Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but
they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an
Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if
but a man."
Ch. 4
"...in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a
perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth
only in death.

"Man gives indifferent names to one and the same thing from the
difference of their own passions; as they that approve a private
opinion call it opinion; but they that mislike it, heresy: and yet
heresy signifies no more than private opinion."

Ch. 11
"In these four things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second
causes, devotions towards what men fear, and taking of things
casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of religion; which
by reason of the different fancies, judgements, and passions of
several men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different, that those
which are used by one man, are for the most part rediculous to
another."

Ch. 12
"During the time men live without a common power to keep them
all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as
if of every man, against every man.

"To this war of every man against every man, this also in
consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and
wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no
common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force,
and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.

"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual

fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish and short."

Ch. 13
"Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good,
and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and
evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in
different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different."

Ch. 15
"The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or
some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions."

Pt. II, ch. 27

"Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a
greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man."

Ch. 29
"Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with
mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin;
cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter."

Ch. 31
"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

attributed last words

Thomas Hobbes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Hobbes" redirects here. For other people called Hobbes, see Hobbes (disambiguation).

For the Dean of Exeter, see Thomas Hobbes (priest). For those of a similar name, see Thomas
Hobbs.

Thomas Hobbes
Born 5 April 1588
Westport near Malmesbury,
Wiltshire, England

Died 4 December
1679 (aged 91)
Derbyshire, England

Alma Magdalen Hall, Oxford

mate
r

Era 17th-century philosophy

Regi Western Philosophers

on

Scho Social contract, classical

ol realism, empiricism, deter
minism, materialism, ethic
al egoism

Main Political philosophy,

 inter history, ethics, geometry
ests

Nota Modern founder of

ble the social
idea contract tradition; life in
s the state of nature is
"solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short"

Influences[show]

Influenced[show]

Thomas Hobbes (/hbz/; 5 April 1588 4 December 1679), in some older texts Thomas Hobbes
[a]
of Malmesbury, was an English philosopher who is considered one of the founders of
[1][2]
modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, which
established the social contract theory that has served as the foundation for most later Western
[3]
political philosophy. In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of
other fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, the physics of gases, theology, ethics, and
general philosophy.

Though on rational grounds a champion of absolutism for the sovereign, Hobbes also developed
some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality
of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil
society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based
on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do
[4]
whatever the law does not explicitly forbid. His understanding of humans as being matter and
motion, obeying the same physical laws as other matter and motion, remains influential; and his
account of human nature as self-interested cooperation, and of political communities as being based
upon a "social contract" remains one of the major topics of political philosophy.

Contents
[hide]

1Early life and education

2In Paris

3Civil war in England

 4Leviathan

5Opposition

o 5.1John Bramhall

o 5.2John Wallis

o 5.3Atheism

6Later life

7Works

8See also

9Notes

10References

11Sources

12Further reading

o 12.1General resources

o 12.2Critical studies

13External links
Early life and education[edit]
Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, on 5 April
[5]
1588. Born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada,
[6]
Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear." His childhood is
[7]
almost completely unknown, and his mother's name is unknown. His father, Thomas Sr., was
the vicar of Charlton and Westport. Thomas Hobbes, the younger, had a brother Edmund, about two
years older, and a sister. Thomas Sr. was involved in a fight with the local clergy outside his church,
forcing him to leave London and abandon the family. The family was left in the care of Thomas Sr.'s
older brother, Francis, a wealthy merchant with no family. Hobbes Jr. was educated at Westport
church from age four, passed to the Malmesbury school, and then to a private school kept by a
young man named Robert Latimer, a graduate of the University of Oxford. Hobbes was a good pupil,
and around 1603 he went up to Magdalen Hall, the predecessor college to Hertford College, Oxford.
[8][9][10][11]
The principal John Wilkinson was a Puritan, and he had some influence on Hobbes.

At university, Hobbes appears to have followed his own curriculum; he was "little attracted by the
scholastic learning". He did not complete his B.A. degree until 1608, but he was recommended by
Sir James Hussey, his master at Magdalen, as tutor to William, the son of William Cavendish, Baron
[12]
of Hardwick (and later Earl of Devonshire), and began a lifelong connection with that family.

Hobbes became a companion to the younger William and they both took part in a grand tour of
Europe in 1610. Hobbes was exposed to European scientific and critical methods during the tour, in
contrast to the scholastic philosophy which he had learned in Oxford. His scholarly efforts at the time
were aimed at a careful study of classic Greek and Latin authors, the outcome of which was, in
1628, his great translation of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, the first translation of
that work into English from a Greek manuscript. It has been argued that three of the discourses in
the 1620 publication known as Horea Subsecivae: Observations and Discourses, also represent the
[13]
work of Hobbes from this period.

Although he associated with literary figures like Ben Jonson and briefly worked as Francis
[14]
Bacon's amanuensis, he did not extend his efforts into philosophy until after 1629. His employer
Cavendish, then the Earl of Devonshire, died of the plague in June 1628. The widowed countess
dismissed Hobbes but he soon found work, again as a tutor, this time to Gervase Clifton, the son
of Sir Gervase Clifton, 1st Baronet. This task, chiefly spent in Paris, ended in 1631 when he again
found work with the Cavendish family, tutoring William, the eldest son of his previous pupil. Over the
next seven years, as well as tutoring, he expanded his own knowledge of philosophy, awakening in
him curiosity over key philosophic debates. He visited Florence in 1636 and was later a regular
debater in philosophic groups in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne.

In Paris[edit]

Thomas Hobbes
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 went on to conceive the system of thought to the elaboration of which he would devote his life.
His scheme was first to work out, in a separate treatise, a systematic doctrine of body, showing how
physical phenomena were universally explicable in terms of motion, at least as motion or mechanical
action was then understood. He then singled out Man from the realm of Nature and plants. Then, in
another treatise, he showed what specific bodily motions were involved in the production of the
peculiar phenomena of sensation, knowledge, affections and passions whereby Man came into
relation with Man. Finally he considered, in his crowning treatise, how Men were moved to enter into
society, and argued how this must be regulated if Men were not to fall back into "brutishness and
[citation
misery". Thus he proposed to unite the separate phenomena of Body, Man, and the State.
needed]

Hobbes came home, in 1637, to a country riven with discontent which disrupted him from the orderly
execution of his philosophic plan. However, by the end of the Short Parliament in 1640, he had
written a short treatise called The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. It was not published and only
circulated as a manuscript among his acquaintances. A pirated version, however, was published
about ten years later. Although it seems that much of The Elements of Law was composed before
the sitting of the Short Parliament, there are polemical pieces of the work that clearly mark the
influences of the rising political crisis. Nevertheless, many (though not all) elements of Hobbes's
political thought were unchanged between The Elements of Law and Leviathan, which demonstrates
that the events of the English Civil War had little effect on his contractarian methodology. However,
the arguments in Leviathan were modified from The Elements of Law when it came to the necessity
of consent in creating political obligation. Namely, Hobbes wrote in The Elements of Law that
Patrimonial kingdoms were not necessarily formed by the consent of the governed, while
in Leviathan he argued that they were. This was perhaps a reflection either of Hobbes's thoughts
about the engagement controversy or of his reaction to treatises published by Patriarchalists, such
[citation needed]
as Sir Robert Filmer, between 1640 and 1651.

When in November 1640 the Long Parliament succeeded the Short, Hobbes felt that he was in
disfavour due to the circulation of his treatise and fled to Paris. He did not return for 11 years. In
Paris, he rejoined the coterie about Mersenne and wrote a critique of the Meditations on First
Philosophy of Descartes, which was printed as third among the sets of "Objections" appended, with
"Replies" from Descartes, in 1641. A different set of remarks on other works by Descartes
succeeded only in ending all correspondence between the two.

Hobbes also extended his own works somewhat, working on the third section, De Cive, which was
finished in November 1641. Although it was initially only circulated privately, it was well received, and
included lines of argumentation that were repeated a decade later in Leviathan. He then returned to
hard work on the first two sections of his work and published little except a short treatise on optics
(Tractatus opticus) included in the collection of scientific tracts published by Mersenne as Cogitata
physico-mathematica in 1644. He built a good reputation in philosophic circles and in 1645 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.

Civil war in England[edit]

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, and when the royalist cause began to decline in mid-1644,
the king's supporters fled to Europe. Many came to Paris and were known to Hobbes. This
revitalised Hobbes's political interests and the De Cive was republished and more widely distributed.
The printing began in 1646 by Samuel de Sorbiere through the Elsevier press at Amsterdam with a
new preface and some new notes in reply to objections.

In 1647, Hobbes took up a position as mathematical instructor to the young Charles, Prince of
[15]
Wales, who had come over from Jersey around July. This engagement lasted until 1648 when
Charles went to Holland.

The company of the exiled royalists led Hobbes to produce Leviathan, which set forth his theory of
civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. Hobbes compared the State
to a monster (leviathan) composed of men, created under pressure of human needs and dissolved
by civil strife due to human passions. The work closed with a general "Review and Conclusion", in
response to the war, which answered the question: Does a subject have the right to change
allegiance when a former sovereign's power to protect is irrevocably lost?

Frontispiece from De Cive (1642)

During the years of composing Leviathan, Hobbes remained in or near Paris. In 1647, a serious
illness that nearly killed him disabled him for six months. On recovering, he resumed his literary task
and completed it by 1650. Meanwhile, a translation of De Cive was being produced; scholars
disagree about whether it was Hobbes who translated it.

In 1650, a pirated edition of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic was published. It was divided
into two small volumes (Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policie and De corpore
politico, or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politick). In 1651, the translation of De Cive was
published under the title Philosophicall Rudiments concerning Government and Society. Meanwhile,
the printing of the greater work proceeded, and finally appeared in mid-1651, titled Leviathan, or the
Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil. It had a famous title-page
engraving depicting a crowned giant above the waste towering above hills overlooking a landscape,
holding a sword and a crozier and made up of tiny human figures.

The work had immediate impact. Soon, Hobbes was more lauded and decried than any other thinker
of his time. The first effect of its publication was to sever his link with the exiled royalists, who might
well have killed him. The secularist spirit of his book greatly angered both Anglicans and French
Catholics. Hobbes appealed to the revolutionary English government for protection and fled back to
London in winter 1651. After his submission to the Council of State, he was allowed to subside into
private life in Fetter Lane.

Leviathan[edit]
Main article: Leviathan (book)

Frontispiece of Leviathan
In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and
creating an objective science of morality. This gave rise to social contract theory. Leviathan was
written during the English Civil War; much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity
of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes
postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature.
In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes
argues, would lead to a "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes). The description
contains what has been called one of the best known passages in English philosophy, which
[16]
describes the natural state humankind would be in, were it not for political community:

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and
consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be
imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as
require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no
society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man,
[17]
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
In such a state, people fear death, and lack both the things necessary to commodious living, and the
hope of being able to toil to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social
contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath
a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of
protection. Any power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted, because the protector's
sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The
[18]
individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign. "he that complaineth of
injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not
to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self is
[19]
impossible". There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion. According to
Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers.