Thomas Hobbes
Sans État, la vie serait une guerre de tous contre tous ; les gens conviennent donc de se soumettre à un souverain puissant qui maintient la paix.
Repères
Dans l’état de nature règne la guerre de tous contre tous – seuls un contrat social et un souverain fort garantissent la paix.
Idées clés
- État de nature
- Contrat social
- Léviathan
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Influence
Influences reçues de 3
Nicolas Machiavel
influencé par contesté
The link is disputed; it rests on three discourses in Horae Subsecivae (1620), attributed to the young Hobbes by computer analysis, which read Tacitus in a Machiavellian vein. N. B. Reynolds and A. W. Saxonhouse (eds.), Thomas Hobbes: Three Discourses (1995); Horae Subsecivae (1620)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Nicolas Machiavel › 1469–1527
Francis Bacon
influencé par ✓
Hobbes served Bacon as secretary in his last years, taking down his thoughts and helping translate Essays into Latin (Aubrey); how far Bacon shaped him is debated. J. Aubrey, Brief Lives, “Thomas Hobbes”; SEP “Thomas Hobbes”
Francis Bacon › 1561–1626
Galilée
influencé par
Hobbes visited Galileo in 1636 and, in the dedication of De Corpore (1655), praised him for opening the gate of natural philosophy through the nature of motion. T. Hobbes, De Corpore (1655), Epistle Dedicatory; SEP “Thomas Hobbes”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Galilée › 1564–1642
A influencé 7
Baruch Spinoza
a influencé ✓
Spinoza took Hobbes’ thesis that natural right extends as far as power (Theological-Political Treatise, 1670), but kept natural right intact in the civil state (letter to Jelles, 1674). B. Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670); letter to J. Jelles (1674); SEP “Spinoza’s Political Philosophy”
Baruch Spinoza › 1632–1677
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
a influencé ✓
The young Leibniz wrote to Hobbes in 1670 and built his early physics on Hobbes’ conatus, the beginning of motion (Theory of Abstract Motion, 1671). G. W. Leibniz, letter to T. Hobbes (1670); Theoria motus abstracti (1671); SEP “Leibniz’s Philosophy of Physics”
Attestation: aussi dans Wikidata · Wikidata
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz › 1646–1716
David Hume
a influencé
Paul Russell (1985) argued that the scope and plan of Hume’s Treatise (1739–40) were modelled on Hobbes’ Elements of Law (1640); the thesis is debated. P. Russell, “Hume’s Treatise and Hobbes’s The Elements of Law”, Journal of the History of Ideas 46 (1985); The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise (2008)
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
David Hume › 1711–1776
Ferdinand Tönnies
a influencé
Tönnies edited Hobbes’s Elements of Law and Behemoth (1889), wrote a Hobbes monograph (1896) and modelled his Gesellschaft, an association of calculating individuals, partly on Hobbes. F. Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887); Hobbes Leben und Lehre (1896); T. Hobbes, The Elements of Law and Behemoth, ed. F. Tönnies (1889)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Ferdinand Tönnies › 1855–1936
Carl Schmitt
a influencé ✓
Schmitt took Hobbes’s ‘auctoritas, non veritas facit legem’ as the formula of decisionism (Politische Theologie, 1922) and later examined the Leviathan as a failed political symbol (1938). C. Schmitt, Politische Theologie (1922); Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes (1938); SEP “Carl Schmitt”
Attestation: aussi dans Wikidata · Wikidata
Carl Schmitt › 1888–1985
Talcott Parsons
a influencé
Parsons made the ‘Hobbesian problem of order’, why society does not dissolve into a war of all against all, the starting point of his action theory (1937). T. Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937); T. Hobbes, Leviathan (1651); SEP “Thomas Hobbes”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Talcott Parsons › 1902–1979
Norberto Bobbio
a influencé
Bobbio edited Hobbes’s De cive in Italian (1948) and read him as the founder of the modern natural-law model of the state (Thomas Hobbes, 1989). N. Bobbio, Thomas Hobbes (1989); T. Hobbes, Elementi filosofici sul cittadino, ed. N. Bobbio (1948); N. Bobbio and M. Bovero, Società e stato nella filosofia politica moderna (1979)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Norberto Bobbio › 1909–2004
Critique
Critiques reçues de 10
Margaret Cavendish a influencé
a influencé
Through her husband’s circle, which included Hobbes, Cavendish shared his view that nature is wholly material, but made matter self-moving and perceptive (Philosophical and Physical Opinions, 1655). M. Cavendish, Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1655); Philosophical Letters (1664); SEP “Margaret Lucas Cavendish”
Attestation: brouillon IA
critiqué par
Cavendish rejected Hobbes’s account of perception as pressure transmitted from objects to the organs, holding that perceiving matter patterns the object by its own motions (Philosophical Letters, 1664). M. Cavendish, Philosophical Letters (1664), Part I (letters on Hobbes); SEP “Margaret Lucas Cavendish”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Margaret Cavendish › 1623–1673
Anne Conway
critiqué par
Conway rejected Hobbes’s materialism, including his claim that God is corporeal, holding that body as Hobbes conceives it could neither think nor feel (Principles, 1690, ch. 9). A. Conway, Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae (1690), ch. 9; SEP “Anne Conway”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Anne Conway › 1631–1679
John Locke a influencé
a influencé ✓
Locke’s early Two Tracts on Government (1660–62) defended an absolute magistrate close to Hobbes; later he kept the state of nature and consent but denied reading Hobbes closely. J. Locke, Two Tracts on Government, ed. P. Abrams (1967); replies to Stillingfleet (1697–99); SEP “Locke’s Political Philosophy”
critiqué par
Locke set the state of nature apart from the state of war and rejected absolute rule as its remedy (Second Treatise, 1689, §§19, 93); Hobbes is not named. J. Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1689), §§13, 19, 90–94; SEP “Locke’s Political Philosophy”
Attestation: brouillon IA
John Locke › 1632–1704
Shaftesbury
critiqué par
Shaftesbury rejected Hobbes’s picture of humans as solely self-interested, holding that natural affection for others and for the common good belongs to human nature (Sensus Communis, 1709). Shaftesbury, Sensus Communis (1709), II.1, III.1; An Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit (1699/1711); SEP “Lord Shaftesbury”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Shaftesbury › 1671–1713
Montesquieu
critiqué par
Montesquieu held against Hobbes that humans in nature would be timid; peace is the first natural law, and war begins with society (Spirit of the Laws, 1748, I.2–3). Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois (1748), I.2–3
Attestation: brouillon IA
Montesquieu › 1689–1755
Jean-Jacques Rousseau a influencé
a influencé
In The Social Contract (1762) Rousseau praised Hobbes as the only Christian author who dared to reunite the ‘two heads of the eagle’, state and church. J.-J. Rousseau, Du contrat social (1762), “De la religion civile”; SEP “Jean Jacques Rousseau”
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
critiqué par
Rousseau objected that Hobbes gave natural man the passions of social man and overlooked natural pity (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, 1755, Part I). J.-J. Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité (1755), Part I; SEP “Jean Jacques Rousseau”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Jean-Jacques Rousseau › 1712–1778
Tout afficher (10)Afficher moins
Catharine Macaulay
critiqué par
Macaulay’s Loose Remarks on Hobbes’s Philosophical Rudiments of Government (1767) rejected his case for absolute sovereignty and appended a sketch of a democratic constitution. C. Macaulay, Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be Found in Mr. Hobbes’s Philosophical Rudiments of Government and Society (1767); SEP “Catharine Macaulay”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Catharine Macaulay › 1731–1791
Mary Midgley
critiqué par
Midgley used ethology against Hobbes’s picture of humans as natural egoists: sociability and care are as much part of evolved human nature as competition (Beast and Man, 1978). M. Midgley, Beast and Man (1978); The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene (2010)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Mary Midgley › 1919–2018
Carole Pateman
critiqué par
Pateman held that Hobbes grants women natural equality and mothers original dominion, yet his civil order rests on their subjection by conquest and contract (The Sexual Contract, 1988). C. Pateman, The Sexual Contract (1988); “‘God Hath Ordained to Man a Helper’: Hobbes, Patriarchy and Conjugal Right”, British Journal of Political Science 19 (1989)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Carole Pateman › né(e) en 1940
Charles W. Mills
critiqué par
Mills noted that Hobbes, denying that the state of nature ever generally existed, located it among ‘the savage people in many places of America’ (The Racial Contract, 1997). C. W. Mills, The Racial Contract (1997); T. Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), ch. 13
Attestation: brouillon IA
Charles W. Mills › 1951–2021
Critiques adressées à 2
Aristote
a critiqué
Hobbes wrote that scarcely anything is more absurd than Aristotle’s Metaphysics or more repugnant to government than his Politics, attacking ‘separated essences’ (Leviathan, 1651, ch. 46). T. Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), ch. 46
Attestation: brouillon IA
Aristote › 384–322 av. J.-C.
René Descartes
a critiqué
Hobbes argued that a thinking thing might be corporeal and that we have no idea of God or of the soul in Descartes’ sense (Third Objections, 1641). Descartes, Meditationes (1641), Third Objections and Replies (AT VII 171–196)
Attestation: brouillon IA
René Descartes › 1596–1650
Œuvres
- 1651Léviathan
La seule issue à la guerre de tous contre tous : un pacte instituant un souverain absolu.
Position
Hobbes voulait bâtir la philosophie politique sur le modèle de la géométrie et de la mécanique. Les êtres humains sont des corps en mouvement, menés par le désir et surtout par la peur de la mort violente. Sans pouvoir commun, la vie serait une guerre de tous contre tous – « solitaire, besogneuse, pénible, animale et brève ». La raison conduit donc les gens à un contrat social par lequel ils transfèrent leurs droits à un souverain, le Léviathan, dont le pouvoir doit être indivis pour garantir la paix. Hobbes fonda l’État non sur le droit divin, mais sur le consentement et l’intérêt des individus. Il fonda ainsi la théorie moderne du contrat, avec laquelle Locke, Rousseau et Kant ont tous débattu.
Vie et contexte
Né à Malmesbury en 1588, Hobbes étudia à Oxford et passa une grande partie de sa vie comme précepteur et secrétaire de la famille Cavendish. Au cours de ses voyages, il rencontra Galilée et le cercle de Mersenne à Paris. Craignant la guerre civile qui approchait, il s’enfuit en France en 1640, où il fut le précepteur du futur Charles II. De retour en Angleterre à partir de 1651, il vécut encore, très discuté, jusqu’en 1679.
Autres œuvres principales
- Éléments de la loi naturelle et politique (1640)
- Du citoyen (De cive, 1642)
- Du corps (De corpore, 1655)
- Béhémoth (v. 1668)
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