Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan

Named after the biblical sea monster: the state as an overwhelming human artefact.

💡 Did you know? The „Leviathan“ is a biblical sea monster: Hobbes uses it as an image of the all-powerful state.

war of all against all

Life there: 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'

💡 Did you know? Without a state the „war of all against all“ reigns: life is then „solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short“.

Homo homini lupus

The proverb comes from the Roman playwright Plautus: Hobbes made it the emblem of his view of man.

💡 Did you know? „Man is a wolf to man“, without order everyone threatens everyone.

social contract

All transfer their power to a sovereign who guarantees peace and security in return: Locke and Rousseau built on this.

💡 Did you know? Out of fear of this chaos, people conclude a contract and transfer their power to a sovereign.

fear

His mother gave birth to him prematurely from fright at the approaching Spanish Armada in 1588.

💡 Did you know? In Hobbes, fear of violent death is the very motor of founding the state.

England

Born in Malmesbury in 1588, the son of a country clergyman.

💡 Did you know? Hobbes was reputedly born prematurely because his mother took fright at the Spanish Armada: he called „fear“ his lifelong twin.

Paris

Eleven years of exile: there he wrote 'Leviathan'; for a time he taught mathematics to the future King Charles II.

💡 Did you know? Before the English Civil War the royalist Hobbes fled to Paris, where he wrote the „Leviathan“.

peace and security

Protection for obedience: if the state can no longer protect, Hobbes says, the duty of obedience ends too.

💡 Did you know? In exchange for peace and security the citizens submit to the sovereign: the core idea of the modern state.

mechanics

Impressed by Galileo, he explained everything (even thought and feeling) as bodies in motion.

💡 Did you know? Hobbes wanted to explain man and state like a machine: in the spirit of the new mechanical science.

everyone was outraged

Too little divine right for the royalists, too materialist for the pious, too absolutist for the parliamentarians.

💡 Did you know? Oxford was still publicly burning his books in 1683.

the Iliad and Odyssey

He lived to 91: he considered exercise the best medicine and played tennis into old age.

💡 Did you know? In his 80s Hobbes still translated Homer's „Iliad“ and „Odyssey“ into English: mentally tireless to the end.

91

He died in 1679: his long life spanned Armada, civil war, republic and Restoration.

💡 Did you know? Hobbes lived to 91: an exceptionally great age for his time.

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher whose „Leviathan“ justified the state as the way out of the „war of all against all“.

💡 Did you know? The famous saying „Man is a wolf to man“ comes from him.