Thomas Hobbes

Materialist of the social contract — the state as escape from the war of all against all.

EmpiricismEarly ModernEnglish1588–1679 CE◦ Wiltshire (England)16th century CE

Overview

An English philosopher whose Leviathan is the founding text of modern political philosophy. A thoroughgoing materialist, Hobbes held that everything, including thought, is matter in motion. Writing amid the English Civil War, he argued that without a common power humans fall into a 'state of nature' — a war of all against all in which life is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. To escape it, people rationally consent to surrender their liberty to a sovereign whose absolute authority secures peace: the social contract.

What they supported — and why

Materialism and mechanism

SupportedEverything that exists is body in motion; sensation, thought, and desire are motions in the body.

WhyOnly bodies can act and be acted upon, so a consistent natural philosophy must explain even mind mechanically.

The state of nature is a war of all against all

SupportedWithout a common power, rough equality and scarcity make life a perpetual war of everyone against everyone, and life 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'.

WhyAbsent enforcement, each person's right to self-preservation and mutual fear make conflict inevitable, and no security or civilization is possible.

The social contract and the sovereign

SupportedPeople rationally agree to give up their natural liberty to an absolute sovereign who enforces peace and law.

WhyOnly an undivided, overawing power can guarantee the security that everyone most wants, so submitting to it is the rational price of peace.

Causes championed

Civil peace and security
A rational, secular basis for political authority
A materialist science of human nature

Issues wrestled with

What is human nature without government?
Why should we obey the state?
Is everything, including mind, material?

Hurdles faced

The chaos of the English Civil War
Charges of atheism and materialism; his books condemned

Works & books

2 catalogued. Status shows how much survives to today.

Leviathan

Survives

c. 1651 CE

His masterwork on human nature, the state of nature, and the social contract.

De Cive; The Elements of Law

Survives

Earlier statements of his political and moral philosophy.

Read the texts free

9 of Thomas Hobbes’s works are free to read in full — public-domain English editions on Project Gutenberg, matched from Gutenberg’s own catalogue.

LeviathanRead here →The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 01Read here →The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 02Read here →The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 03Read here →The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04Read here →The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 05Read here →The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 06Read here →The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 07Read here →The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian WarreRead here →

Every edition online — Open Library catalogues 405 works & editions, 30 of them free to read in full.

Open LibraryBrowse every edition & scan →Project GutenbergAll free ebooks →

The influence network

See Thomas Hobbes in the map →

Influenced by

Influenced

In their words

“The life of man [in the state of nature is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
— Leviathan

Legacy

He founded modern political philosophy on a secular, rational contract and gave materialism its boldest early modern statement.

Follow their questions

This thinker is a stop on these paths through philosophy.

What is a just society? →Why obey the state? →