Thomas Hobbes
Without a state, life would be a war of all against all, so people agree to submit to a powerful ruler who keeps the peace.
Placement
In the state of nature there is a war of all against all – only a social contract and a strong sovereign secure peace.
Key ideas
- State of nature
- Social contract
- Leviathan
Influence
Influenced by 3
Niccolò Machiavelli
influenced by disputed
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Niccolò Machiavelli › 1469–1527
Francis Bacon
influenced by ✓
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
Galileo Galilei
influenced by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Galileo Galilei › 1564–1642
Influenced 7
Baruch de Spinoza
influenced ✓
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 de Spinoza › 1632–1677
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
influenced ✓
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”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz › 1646–1716
David Hume
influenced
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)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
David Hume › 1711–1776
Ferdinand Tönnies
influenced
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Ferdinand Tönnies › 1855–1936
Carl Schmitt
influenced ✓
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”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Carl Schmitt › 1888–1985
Talcott Parsons
influenced
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Talcott Parsons › 1902–1979
Norberto Bobbio
influenced
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Norberto Bobbio › 1909–2004
Criticism
Criticized by 10
Margaret Cavendish influenced
influenced
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”
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Margaret Cavendish › 1623–1673
Anne Conway
criticised by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Anne Conway › 1631–1679
John Locke influenced
influenced ✓
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”
criticised by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
John Locke › 1632–1704
Shaftesbury
criticised by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Shaftesbury › 1671–1713
Montesquieu
criticised by
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
Evidence: AI draft
Montesquieu › 1689–1755
Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced
influenced
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”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
criticised by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Jean-Jacques Rousseau › 1712–1778
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Catharine Macaulay
criticised by
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”
Evidence: AI draft
Catharine Macaulay › 1731–1791
Mary Midgley
criticised by
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Mary Midgley › 1919–2018
Carole Pateman
criticised by
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)
Evidence: AI draft
Carole Pateman › b. 1940
Charles W. Mills
criticised by
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
Evidence: AI draft
Charles W. Mills › 1951–2021
Criticizes 2
Aristotle
criticised
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
Evidence: AI draft
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
René Descartes
criticised
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)
Evidence: AI draft
René Descartes › 1596–1650
Works
- 1651Leviathan
The only way out of the war of all against all: a covenant creating an absolute sovereign.
Position
Hobbes wanted to build political philosophy on the model of geometry and mechanics. Human beings are bodies in motion, driven by desire and above all by fear of violent death. Without a common power, life would be a war of all against all – “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Reason therefore leads people to a social contract in which they transfer their rights to a sovereign, the Leviathan, whose power must be undivided to guarantee peace. Hobbes grounded the state not on divine right but on the consent and interest of individuals. He thereby founded modern contract theory, with which Locke, Rousseau and Kant all argued.
Life & context
Born in Malmesbury in 1588, Hobbes studied at Oxford and spent much of his life as tutor and secretary to the Cavendish family. On his travels he met Galileo and the circle of Mersenne in Paris. Fearing the coming civil war, he fled to France in 1640, where he tutored the future Charles II. Back in England from 1651, he lived on, much disputed, until 1679.
Further main works
- The Elements of Law (1640)
- On the Citizen (De Cive) (1642)
- On Body (De Corpore) (1655)
- Behemoth (c. 1668)
Appears in
- Journey ‘What Is Just?’ · Stop 3 of 10
- Debate ‘Are We Free? Free Will in an Age of Neuroscience’
- Debate ‘War and Peace: When Is Armed Force Justified?’
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