The Rhetoric of “Leviathan”: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation. By David Johnston (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. xx, 2334p. $25.00). - Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition. By Jean Hampton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. xii, 299p. $42.50).

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 277-279
Author(s):  
Steven B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
The Social

Thomas Hobbes's Materialism, Language, and the Possibility of Politics

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Dungey
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
The Social

AbstractThomas Hobbes sought a reconstruction of philosophy, ethics, and politics that would end, once and for all, the bitter disputes that led to the English Civil War. This reconstruction begins with the first principles of matter and motion and extends to a unique account of consent and political obligation. Hobbes intended to produce a unified philosophical system linking his materialist account of human nature to his moral and political theory. However, his materialism gives rise to a set of perceptions, imagination, and desires that contribute to the chaos of the state of nature. The sort of person that emerges from Hobbes's materialist anthropology is unlikely to be able to make the necessary agreements about common meaning and language that constitute the ground of the social contract. Therefore, Hobbes's materialism frustrates the very purpose for which it is conceived.

Egoism, Reason, and the Social Contract

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. P. Martinich
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Civil State ◽  
The Social

Bernard Gert’s distinctive interpretation of the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes in his recent book may be questioned in at least three areas: (1) Even if Hobbes is not a psychological egoist, he seems to be a desire egoist, which has the consequence, as he understands it, that a person acts at least for his own good in every action. (2) Although there are several senses of reason, it seems that Hobbes uses the idea that reason is calculation of means to ends; while such calculation sets intermediate goals, reason itself does not set ultimate ends. (3) Hobbes’s political theory is best understood as a form of social contract theory because subjects covenant among themselves to authorize the sovereign to protect them; authorization has the consequence that subjects give some of the their rights to the sovereign; but this gifting of rights is not the essence of the origin of the civil state.

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