Thomas Hobbes and Contemporary Political Theory

1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
George E. G. Catlin
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes

“Experience Concludeth Nothing Universally”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily C. Nacol
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Root Cause

This chapter begins with Thomas Hobbes' intertwined theories of knowledge and politics, as they emerged from his experience of a violent civil war and fierce struggles over epistemological and political authority. Hobbes provokes an early modern engagement with the concept of risk in politics by positing uncertainty as the main problem that political theory and political order are meant to solve. For Hobbes, uncertainty is the root cause of violence and insecurity, and thus it becomes a target for elimination when he begins to think about how to construct a safe political community. The chapter reconstructs Hobbes' commitment to a science of politics modeled on geometry, emphasizing its certain character by contrasting it with other ways of knowing about politics that are more experiential, such as prudence.

MALCOLM’SLEVIATHAN: HOBBES’S “THING”

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-120
Author(s):  
JEFFREY COLLINS
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
General Editor ◽  
Fourth Decade ◽  
Influential Book ◽  
The University

The publication of the Clarendon edition of theWorks of Thomas Hobbesrecently entered its fourth decade. The monumental project has unfolded against shifting methodologies in the practice of intellectual history, and the edition's own history exemplifies these shifts. Its first general editor was Howard Warrender, who died in 1985 after a distinguished career as a professor of political theory at the University of Sheffield. Warrender was best known for thePolitical Philosophy of Hobbes: His Theory of Obligation. This influential book offered a deontological interpretation of Hobbes's theory of obligation, according to which the Hobbesian natural laws were to be understood as divine commands. Warrender's book appeared in 1957 and was resolutely textualist in its approach, exploring Hobbes's arguments in isolation and with considerable interpretive charity. His subject was the “theoretical basis” of Hobbes's writing, the importance of which might not be “historically conspicuous.”

Thomas Hobbes and the external relations of states

1979 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Forsyth
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
External Relations

Hobbes' conception of relations between states has attracted attention from two directions. Students of political theory who have focused on Hobbes have from time to time looked beyond their central preoccupations and noted briefly the relevance of his doctrine for the international arena. The external relations of Leviathan are for them on the fringe of Hobbes' theory. Students of international relations on the other hand invoke Hobbes' name frequently as a kind of shorthand for a particular approach to the international world, one that is also associated with Machiavelli, and usually called the ‘realist’ approach. By contrast with the political theorists, they tend to look from the outside into Hobbes’ theory and to ask whether and how far the ‘domestic’ situation of individuals in a Hobbesian state of nature bears an analogy with the ‘external’ situation of states in relationship to one another.

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.

Rethinking the sexual contract: The case of Thomas Hobbes

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-301
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Rustighi
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civil State ◽  
Sexual Contract ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Mother Child Relationship

Feminist scholars have long debated on a key contradiction in the political theory of Thomas Hobbes: While he sees women as free and equal to men in the state of nature, he postulates their subjection to male rule in the civil state without any apparent explanation. Focusing on Hobbes’s construction of the mother–child relationship, this article suggests that the subjugation of the mother to the father epitomizes the neutralization of the ancient principle of ‘governance’, which he replaces with a novel concept of ‘power’ as formally authorized command. This scrutiny leads to three main conclusions: (1) a radicalization of Pateman’s concept of ‘sexual contract'; (2) the acknowledgement that patriarchy is inseparable from the logic of political authority constructed by Hobbes; and (3) the claim that criticism of patriarchal rule requires an overall problematization of the mainstream conception of political participation we have inherited from modern political science.

Vainglory, Modesty, and Political Agency in the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes

2010 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie E. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Right

AbstractHistories of political theory have framed the story of the emergence of sovereign states and sovereign selves as a story about secularization—specifically, a story that equates secularization with self-deification. Thomas Hobbes's investment in modesty and humility demonstrates the need for, and the possibility of, an alternative secularization narrative. Scholars have long insisted that “vainglory” is a key term for the interpretation of Leviathan. But Hobbes's task is not complete once he has discredited vainglory. Hobbes must also envision, and cultivate, contrary virtues—and modesty is one virtue that Hobbes would cultivate. An analysis of Hobbes's attempt to redefine and rehabilitate the virtues of modesty shows that Hobbes warns against the temptation to self-deification. In Leviathan, the political task is not to enthrone humans in sovereign invulnerability, but rather to achieve the right balance between bodily security and consciousness of finitude.

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