Hobbes

Modern philosophy

The celebrated author of Leviathan is one of the most illustrious representatives of English political philosophy. He was among the first philosophers to engage with the notion of the state of nature and the social contract — the foundation of civil society that allows us to emerge from it. Yet it would be reductive to regard him solely as a political thinker. His thought is far broader in scope, encompassing logic, physics and metaphysics.

Bibliography

Here are the essential books if you want to better understand the thought of this author:

Martinich, A. P. (1992). The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Parkin, Jon, (2007), Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Shapin, Steven and Schaffer, Simon (1995). Leviathan and the Air-Pump. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Skinner, Quentin (2008). Hobbes and Republican Liberty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Strauss, Leo (1936). The Political Philosophy of Hobbes; Its Basis and Its Genesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Biography: Life of Hobbes

Youth: Travel and Latin

Hobbes was born in 1588 at Westport in England. The son of a vicar, he was a precocious child who had already mastered Latin and Greek by the age of six. He studied at Oxford University, where he developed a particular interest in the great Latin authors (Euripides, Thucydides...).

After graduating, he became a tutor to young members of the English nobility. To further their education, he travelled across Europe with them — France, Italy, Germany... These journeys broadened his horizons and shaped him intellectually.

In 1630, he immersed himself in Euclid and developed a passion for geometry.

During his time in Paris, he gradually forged connections with the learned circles of the day.

His reflections led him to conceive of motion as the universal principle underlying physical, psychological, moral and political reality alike — a physicalism that would become a defining feature of his thought.

In 1640, Hobbes moved to Paris to escape the political turmoil gripping England — the struggle for power between King and Parliament. This exile lasted eleven years.

In Paris

In his first work, the Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, he sided with the King, establishing a necessary connection between power and law on the one hand and the Sovereign on the other. Its circulation remained limited, but it began to earn him a degree of recognition.

In 1641, Hobbes engaged with Descartes, who had just published his Meditations on First Philosophy and whose arguments he sought to challenge — a challenge Descartes answered in the objections appended to the work.

Hobbes submitted his celebrated counter-arguments, the Third Objections, through their mutual friend Mersenne. This provoked the fury of the great French thinker, who eventually wanted nothing further to do with Hobbes.

In 1642 he wrote De Cive, in which he elaborated on the notion of the state of nature. He also became mathematics tutor to the future King Charles II — a prestigious appointment that prompted him to deepen his knowledge of the subject.

The Return of the Philosopher

In 1650, his exile came to an end and he returned to England. His major work, Leviathan, was published shortly after: in it, he grounded political power not in tradition or religion, but in a pact made among the members of society to escape the state of nature.

These ideas caused a scandal, and he found himself attacked by Oxford theologians, physicists, mathematicians and academics alike. Accused of atheism, he also faced mockery from fellow mathematicians who ridiculed certain of his demonstrations.

Five years later, he published De Corpore, which set out an innovative conception of logic as a form of calculus, underpinning an equally original primary philosophy and physics.

In 1658, he published De Homine, in which mathematics continued to occupy a prominent place — and which drew fresh criticism, particularly regarding his treatment of squaring the circle.

Disgrace

When Charles II came to power, Hobbes was naturally received at Court, as a long-standing supporter of the monarchy and former tutor to the King. But his many enemies eventually gained the upper hand, and he was forced to withdraw from public life. He escaped prosecution only by promising the King that he would write no further works on politics or religion.

He left London to live with friends, and occupied himself with minor works, including an autobiography in Latin.

In 1679, he suffered a paralysis and died at Hardwick, in Derbyshire.

Main Works

Elements of Law, Natural and Politic
Philosophicall Rudiments concerning Government and Society
Human Nature
Leviathan
De Corpore
De Homine