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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
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Thomas Hobbes (/hɒbz/ HOBZ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory.[4] He is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy.[5][6]

Key Information

In his early life, overshadowed by his father's departure following a fight, he was taken under the care of his wealthy uncle. Hobbes's academic journey began in Westport, leading him to the University of Oxford, where he was exposed to classical literature and mathematics. He then graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1608. He became a tutor to the Cavendish family, which connected him to intellectual circles and initiated his extensive travels across Europe. These experiences, including meetings with figures like Galileo, shaped his intellectual development.

After returning to England from France in 1637, Hobbes witnessed the destruction and brutality of the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 between Parliamentarians and Royalists, which heavily influenced his advocacy for governance by an absolute sovereign in Leviathan, as the solution to human conflict and societal breakdown. Aside from social contract theory, Leviathan also popularized ideas such as the state of nature ("war of all against all") and laws of nature. His other major works include the trilogy De Cive (1642), De Corpore (1655), and De Homine (1658) as well as the posthumous work Behemoth (1681).

Hobbes contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, optics, theology, classical translations, ethics, as well as philosophy in general, marking him as a polymath. Despite controversies and challenges, including accusations of atheism and contentious debates with contemporaries, Hobbes's work profoundly influenced the understanding of political structure and human nature.

Biography

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Early life

[edit]

Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588 (Old Style), in Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England. Having been born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada, Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear."[7] Hobbes had a brother, Edmund, about two years older, as well as a sister, Anne.

Although Thomas Hobbes's childhood is unknown to a large extent, as is his mother's name,[8] it is known that Hobbes's father, Thomas Sr., was the vicar of both Charlton and Westport. Hobbes's father was uneducated, according to John Aubrey, Hobbes's biographer, and he "disesteemed learning."[9] Thomas Sr. was involved in a fight with the local clergy outside his church, forcing him to leave London. As a result, the family was left in the care of Thomas Sr.'s older brother, Francis, a wealthy glove manufacturer with no family of his own.

Education

[edit]

Hobbes was educated at Westport church from age four, went to the Malmesbury school, and then to a private school kept by a young man named Robert Latimer, a graduate of the University of Oxford.[10] Hobbes was a good pupil, and between 1601 and 1602 he went to Magdalen Hall, the predecessor to Hertford College, Oxford, where he was taught scholastic logic and mathematics.[11][12][13] The principal, John Wilkinson, was a Puritan and had some influence on Hobbes. Before going up to Oxford, Hobbes translated Euripides' Medea from Greek into Latin verse.[9]

At university, Thomas Hobbes appears to have followed his own curriculum as he was little attracted by the scholastic learning.[10] Leaving Oxford, Hobbes completed his B.A. degree by incorporation at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1608.[14] He was recommended by Sir James Hussey, his master at Magdalen, as tutor to William, the son of William Cavendish,[10] Baron of Hardwick (and later Earl of Devonshire), and began a lifelong connection with that family.[15] William Cavendish was elevated to the peerage on his father's death in 1626, holding it for two years before his death in 1628. His son, also William, likewise became the 3rd Earl of Devonshire. Hobbes served as a tutor and secretary to both men. The 1st Earl's younger brother, Charles Cavendish, had two sons who were patrons of Hobbes. The elder son, William Cavendish, later 1st Duke of Newcastle, was a leading supporter of Charles I during the Civil War in which he personally financed an army for the king, having been governor to the Prince of Wales, Charles James, Duke of Cornwall. It was to this William Cavendish that Hobbes dedicated his Elements of Law.[9]

Hobbes became a companion to the younger William Cavendish and they both took part in a grand tour of Europe between 1610 and 1615. Hobbes was exposed to European scientific and critical methods during the tour, in contrast to the scholastic philosophy that he had learned in Oxford. In Venice, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio, an associate of Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian scholar and statesman.[9]

His scholarly efforts at the time were aimed at a careful study of classical Greek and Latin authors, the outcome of which was, in 1628, his edition of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War,[10] the first translation of that work into English directly from a Greek manuscript. Hobbes professed a deep admiration for Thucydides, praising him as "the most politic historiographer that ever writ," and one scholar has suggested that "Hobbes' reading of Thucydides confirmed, or perhaps crystallized, the broad outlines and many of the details of [Hobbes'] own thought."[16] It has been argued that three of the discourses in the 1620 publication known as Horae Subsecivae: Observations and Discourses also represent the work of Hobbes from this period.[17]

Although he did associate with literary figures like Ben Jonson and briefly worked as Francis Bacon's amanuensis, translating several of his Essays into Latin,[9] he did not extend his efforts into philosophy until after 1629. In June 1628, his employer Cavendish, then the Earl of Devonshire, died of the plague, and his widow, the countess Christian, dismissed Hobbes.[18][19]

In Paris (1629–1637)

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Hobbes soon (in 1629) found work as a tutor to Gervase Clifton, the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, 1st Baronet, and continued in this role until November 1630.[20] He spent most of this time in Paris. Thereafter, he again found work with the Cavendish family, tutoring William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire, the eldest son of his previous pupil. Over the next seven years, as well as tutoring, he expanded his own knowledge of philosophy, awakening in him curiosity over key philosophic debates. He visited Galileo Galilei in Florence while he was under house arrest upon condemnation, in 1636, and was later a regular debater in philosophic groups in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne.[18]

Hobbes's first area of study was an interest in the physical doctrine of motion and physical momentum. Despite his interest in this phenomenon, he disdained experimental work as in physics. He went on to conceive the system of thought to the elaboration of which he would devote his life. His scheme was first to work out, in a separate treatise, a systematic doctrine of body, showing how physical phenomena were universally explicable in terms of motion, at least as motion or mechanical action was then understood. He then singled out Man from the realm of Nature and plants. Then, in another treatise, he showed what specific bodily motions were involved in the production of the peculiar phenomena of sensation, knowledge, affections and passions whereby Man came into relation with Man. Finally, he considered, in his crowning treatise, how Men were moved to enter into society, and argued how this must be regulated if people were not to fall back into "brutishness and misery". Thus he proposed to unite the separate phenomena of Body, Man, and the State.[18]

In England (1637–1641)

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Hobbes came back home from Paris, in 1637, to a country riven with discontent, which disrupted him from the orderly execution of his philosophic plan.[18] However, by the end of the Short Parliament in 1640, he had written a short treatise called The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. It was not published and only circulated as a manuscript among his acquaintances. A pirated version, however, was published about ten years later. Although it seems that much of The Elements of Law was composed before the sitting of the Short Parliament, there are polemical pieces of the work that clearly mark the influences of the rising political crisis. Nevertheless, many (though not all) elements of Hobbes's political thought were unchanged between The Elements of Law and Leviathan, which demonstrates that the events of the English Civil War had little effect on his contractarian methodology. However, the arguments in Leviathan were modified from The Elements of Law when it came to the necessity of consent in creating political obligation: Hobbes wrote in The Elements of Law that patrimonial kingdoms were not necessarily formed by the consent of the governed, while in Leviathan he argued that they were. This was perhaps a reflection either of Hobbes's thoughts about the engagement controversy or of his reaction to treatises published by Patriarchalists, such as Sir Robert Filmer, between 1640 and 1651.[citation needed]

When in November 1640 the Long Parliament succeeded the Short, Hobbes felt that he was in disfavour due to the circulation of his treatise and fled to Paris. He did not return for 11 years. In Paris, he rejoined the coterie around Mersenne and wrote a critique of the Meditations on First Philosophy of René Descartes, which was printed as third among the sets of "Objections" appended, with "Replies" from Descartes, in 1641. A different set of remarks on other works by Descartes succeeded only in ending all correspondence between the two.[21]

Hobbes also extended his own works in a way, working on the third section, De Cive, which was finished in November 1641. Although it was initially only circulated privately, it was well received, and included lines of argumentation that were repeated a decade later in Leviathan. He then returned to hard work on the first two sections of his work and published little except a short treatise on optics (Tractatus opticus), included in the collection of scientific tracts published by Mersenne as Cogitata physico-mathematica in 1644. He built a good reputation in philosophic circles and in 1645 was chosen with Descartes, Gilles de Roberval and others to referee the controversy between John Pell and Longomontanus over the problem of squaring the circle.[21]

Civil War Period (1642–1651)

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The English Civil War began in 1642, and when the royalist cause began to decline in mid-1644, many royalists came to Paris and were known to Hobbes.[21] This revitalised Hobbes's political interests, and the De Cive was republished and more widely distributed. The printing began in 1646 by Samuel de Sorbiere through the Elsevier press in Amsterdam with a new preface and some new notes in reply to objections.[21]

In 1647, Hobbes took up a position as mathematical instructor to the young Charles, Prince of Wales, who had come to Paris from Jersey around July. This engagement lasted until 1648 when Charles went to Holland.[21]

Frontispiece from De Cive (1642)

The company of the exiled royalists led Hobbes to produce Leviathan, which set forth his theory of civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. Hobbes compared the State to a monster (leviathan) composed of men, created under pressure of human needs and dissolved by civil strife due to human passions. The work closed with a general "Review and Conclusion", in response to the war, which answered the question: Does a subject have the right to change allegiance when a former sovereign's power to protect is irrevocably lost?[21]

During the years of composing Leviathan, Hobbes remained in or near Paris. In 1647, he suffered a near-fatal illness that disabled him for six months.[21] On recovering, he resumed his literary task and completed it by 1650. Meanwhile, a translation of De Cive was being produced; scholars disagree about whether it was Hobbes who translated it.[22]

In 1650, a pirated edition of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic was published.[23] It was divided into two small volumes: Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policie; and De corpore politico, or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politick.[22]

In 1651, the translation of De Cive was published under the title Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society.[24] Also, the printing of the greater work proceeded, and finally appeared in mid-1651, titled Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. It had a famous title-page engraving depicting a crowned giant above the waist towering above hills overlooking a landscape, holding a sword and a crozier and made up of tiny human figures. The work had immediate impact.[22] Soon, Hobbes was more lauded and decried than any other thinker of his time.[22] The first effect of its publication was to sever his link with the exiled royalists, who might well have killed him.[22] The secularist spirit of his book greatly angered both Anglicans and French Catholics.[22] Hobbes appealed to the revolutionary English government for protection and fled back to London in winter 1651.[22] After his submission to the Council of State, he was allowed to subside into private life[22] in Fetter Lane.[25]

Later life

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Thomas Hobbes. Line engraving by William Faithorne, 1668

In 1658, Hobbes published the final section of his philosophical system, completing the scheme he had planned more than 19 years before. De Homine consisted for the most part of an elaborate theory of vision. The remainder of the treatise dealt partially with some of the topics more fully treated in the Human Nature and the Leviathan. In addition to publishing some controversial writings on mathematics, including disciplines like geometry, Hobbes also continued to produce philosophical works.[22]

From the time of the Restoration, he acquired a new prominence; "Hobbism" became a byword for all that respectable society ought to denounce. The young king, Hobbes's former pupil, now Charles II, remembered Hobbes and called him to the court to grant him a pension of £100.[26]

The king was important in protecting Hobbes when, in 1666, the House of Commons introduced a bill against atheism and profaneness. That same year, on 17 October 1666, it was ordered that the committee to which the bill was referred "should be empowered to receive information touching such books as tend to atheism, blasphemy and profaneness... in particular... the book of Mr. Hobbes called the Leviathan."[27] Hobbes was terrified at the prospect of being labelled a heretic, and proceeded to burn some of his compromising papers. At the same time, he examined the actual state of the law of heresy. The results of his investigation were first announced in three short Dialogues added as an Appendix to his Latin translation of Leviathan, published in Amsterdam in 1668. In this appendix, Hobbes aimed to show that, since the High Court of Commission had been put down, there remained no court of heresy at all to which he was amenable, and that nothing could be heresy except opposing the Nicene Creed, which, he maintained, Leviathan did not do.[28]

The only consequence that came of the bill was that Hobbes could never thereafter publish anything in England on subjects relating to human conduct. The 1668 edition of his works was printed in Amsterdam because he could not obtain the censor's licence for its publication in England. Other writings were not made public until after his death, including Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England and of the Counsels and Artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1662. For some time, Hobbes was not even allowed to respond to any attacks by his enemies. Despite this, his reputation abroad was formidable.[28]

Hobbes spent the last four or five years of his life with his patron, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, at the family's Chatsworth House estate. He had been a friend of the family since 1608 when he first tutored an earlier William Cavendish.[29] After Hobbes's death, many of his manuscripts would be found at Chatsworth House.[30]

His final works were an autobiography in Latin verse in 1672, and a translation of four books of the Odyssey into "rugged" English rhymes that in 1673 led to a complete translation of both Iliad and Odyssey in 1675.[28]

Death

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Tomb of Thomas Hobbes in St John the Baptist's Church, Ault Hucknall, in Derbyshire

In October 1679 Hobbes suffered a bladder disorder, and then a paralytic stroke, from which he died on 4 December 1679, aged 91,[28][31] at Hardwick Hall, owned by the Cavendish family.[30]

His last words were said to have been "A great leap in the dark", uttered in his final conscious moments.[32] His body was interred in St John the Baptist's Church, Ault Hucknall, in Derbyshire.[33]

Political theory

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According to Christopher Hill:

Hobbes found official political thought dominated by the idea that government was to be obeyed because ordained of God; and he substituted the theory that the state was instituted by man for his own convenience, and that it should be obeyed because the consequences of disobedience can be demonstrated to be more disagreeable than obedience, in almost all cases. That is to say, expediency, not morality, is for Hobbes the motive for political obedience.[34]

Hobbes, influenced by contemporary scientific ideas, had intended for his political theory to be a quasi-geometrical system, in which the conclusions followed inevitably from the premises.[9] In his theory, the state or society cannot be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows the view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent. This particular view owes its significance to it being first developed in the 1630s when Charles I had sought to raise revenues without the consent of Parliament, and therefore of his subjects.[9] Hobbes rejected one of the most famous theses of Aristotle's politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen.[35] It is perhaps also important to note that Hobbes extrapolated his mechanistic understanding of nature into the social and political realm, making him a progenitor of the term "social structure".

Leviathan

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Main article: Leviathan (Hobbes book)
Frontispiece of Leviathan

In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality.[36] Much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes). The description contain one of the best-known passages in English philosophy, which describes the natural state humankind would be in, were it not for political community:[37]

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.[38]

The preface of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, read in his original Latin adaptation, with English subtitles

In such states, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to comfortable living, and the hope of being able to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population and a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some right[39] for the sake of protection. Power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted, because the protector's sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign:[40] "he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self is impossible". There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion. He argues that any division of authority would lead to internal strife, jeopardizing the stability provided by an absolute sovereign.[41][42] According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers, even the words.[43]

Opposition

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John Bramhall

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In 1654 a small treatise, Of Liberty and Necessity, directed at Hobbes, was published by Bishop John Bramhall.[22][44] Bramhall, a strong Arminian, had met and debated with Hobbes and afterwards wrote down his views and sent them privately to be answered in this form by Hobbes. Hobbes duly replied, but not for publication. However, a French acquaintance took a copy of the reply and published it with "an extravagantly laudatory epistle".[22] Bramhall countered in 1655, when he printed everything that had passed between them (under the title of A Defence of the True Liberty of Human Actions from Antecedent or Extrinsic Necessity).[22]

In 1656, Hobbes was ready with The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, in which he replied "with astonishing force"[22] to the bishop. As perhaps the first clear exposition of the psychological doctrine of determinism, Hobbes's own two pieces were important in the history of the free will controversy. The bishop returned to the charge in 1658 with Castigations of Mr Hobbes's Animadversions, and also included a bulky appendix entitled The Catching of Leviathan the Great Whale.[45]

John Wallis

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Further information: Hobbes–Wallis controversy

Hobbes opposed the existing academic arrangements, and assailed the system of the original universities in Leviathan. He went on to publish De Corpore, which contained not only tendentious views on mathematics but also an erroneous proof of the squaring of the circle. This all led mathematicians to target him for polemics and sparked John Wallis to become one of his most persistent opponents. From 1655, the publishing date of De Corpore, Hobbes and Wallis continued name-calling and bickering for nearly a quarter of a century, with Hobbes failing to admit his error to the end of his life.[46] After years of debate, the spat over proving the squaring of the circle gained such notoriety that it has become one of the most infamous feuds in mathematical history.

Religious views

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The religious opinions of Hobbes remain controversial as many positions have been attributed to him and range from atheism to orthodox Christianity. In The Elements of Law, Hobbes provided a cosmological argument for the existence of God, saying that God is "the first cause of all causes".[47]

Hobbes was accused of atheism by several contemporaries; Bramhall accused him of teachings that could lead to atheism. This was an important accusation, and Hobbes himself wrote, in his answer to Bramhall's The Catching of Leviathan, that "atheism, impiety, and the like are words of the greatest defamation possible".[48] Hobbes always defended himself from such accusations.[49] In more recent times also, much has been made of his religious views by scholars such as Richard Tuck and J. G. A. Pocock, but there is still widespread disagreement about the exact significance of Hobbes's unusual views on religion.

As Martinich has pointed out, in Hobbes's time the term "atheist" was often applied to people who believed in God but not in divine providence, or to people who believed in God but also maintained other beliefs that were considered to be inconsistent with such belief or judged incompatible with orthodox Christianity. He says that this "sort of discrepancy has led to many errors in determining who was an atheist in the early modern period".[50] In this extended early modern sense of atheism, Hobbes did take positions that strongly disagreed with church teachings of his time. For example, he argued repeatedly that there are no incorporeal substances, and that all things, including human thoughts, and even God, heaven, and hell are corporeal, matter in motion. He argued that "though Scripture acknowledge spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning thereby without dimensions and quantity".[51] (In this view, Hobbes claimed to be following Tertullian.) Like John Locke, he also stated that true revelation can never disagree with human reason and experience,[52] although he also argued that people should accept revelation and its interpretations for the same reason that they should accept the commands of their sovereign: in order to avoid war.

While in Venice on tour, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio, a close associate of Paolo Sarpi, who had written against the pretensions of the papacy to temporal power in response to the Interdict of Pope Paul V against Venice, which refused to recognise papal prerogatives. James I had invited both men to England in 1612. Micanzio and Sarpi had argued that God willed human nature, and that human nature indicated the autonomy of the state in temporal affairs. When he returned to England in 1615, William Cavendish maintained correspondence with Micanzio and Sarpi, and Hobbes translated the latter's letters from Italian, which were circulated among the Duke's circle.[9]

Works

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  • 1602. Latin translation of Euripides' Medea (lost).
  • 1620. "A Discourse of Tacitus", "A Discourse of Rome", and "A Discourse of Laws". In The Horae Subsecivae: Observation and Discourses.[53]
  • 1626. "De Mirabilis Pecci, Being the Wonders of the Peak in Darby-shire" (publ. 1636) – a poem on the Seven Wonders of the Peak.
  • 1629. Eight Books of the Peloponnese Warre, translation with an Introduction of Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.
  • 1630. A Short Tract on First Principles.[54][55]
    • Authorship doubtful, as this work is attributed by important critics to Robert Payne.[56]
  • 1637. A Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique[57]
    • Molesworth edition title: The Whole Art of Rhetoric.
    • Authorship probable: While Schuhmann (1998) firmly rejects the attribution of this work to Hobbes,[58] a preponderance of scholarship disagrees with Schuhmann's idiosyncratic assessment. Schuhmann disagrees with historian Quentin Skinner, who would come to agree with Schuhmann.[59][60]
  • 1639. Tractatus Opticus II (also known as Latin Optical Manuscript).[61][62]
  • 1640. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic
    • Initially circulated only in handwritten copies; without Hobbes's permission, the first printed edition would be in 1650.
  • 1641. Objectiones ad Cartesii Meditationes de Prima Philosophia 3rd series of Objections.
  • 1642. Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Tertia de Cive (Latin, 1st limited ed.).
  • 1643. De Motu, Loco et Tempore[63]
    • First edition (1973) with the title: Thomas White's De Mundo Examined.
  • 1644. Part of the "Praefatio to Mersenni Ballistica". In F. Marini Mersenni minimi Cogitata physico-mathematica. In quibus tam naturae quàm artis effectus admirandi certissimis demonstrationibus explicantur.
  • 1644. "Opticae, liber septimus" (also known as Tractatus opticus I written in 1640). In Universae geometriae mixtaeque mathematicae synopsis, edited by Marin Mersenne.
    • Molesworth edition (OL V, pp. 215–248) title: "Tractatus Opticus".
  • 1646. A Minute or First Draught of the Optiques (Harley MS 3360)[64]
    • Molesworth published only the dedication to Cavendish and the conclusion in EW VII, pp. 467–471.
  • 1646. Of Liberty and Necessity (publ. 1654)
    • Published without the permission of Hobbes.
  • 1647. Elementa Philosophica de Cive
    • Second expanded edition with a new Preface to the Reader.
  • 1650. Answer to Sir William Davenant's Preface before Gondibert.
  • 1650. Human Nature: or The Fundamental Elements of Policie.
    • Includes first thirteen chapters of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic.
    • Published without Hobbes's authorisation.
  • 1650. The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (pirated ed.)
    • Repackaged to include two parts:
      • "Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policie," ch. 14–19 of Elements, Part One (1640)
      • "De Corpore Politico", Elements, Part Two (1640)
  • 1651. Philosophicall Rudiments concerning Government and Society – English translation of De Cive[65]
  • 1651. Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil
  • 1654. Of Libertie and Necessitie, a Treatise
  • 1655. De Corpore (in Latin)
  • 1656. Elements of Philosophy, The First Section, Concerning Body – anonymous English translation of De Corpore
  • 1656. Six Lessons to the Professor of Mathematics
  • 1656. The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance – reprint of Of Libertie and Necessitie, a Treatise, with the addition of Bramhall's reply and Hobbes's reply to Bramahall's reply.
  • 1657. Stigmai, or Marks of the Absurd Geometry, Rural Language, Scottish Church Politics, and Barbarisms of John Wallis
  • 1658. Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Secunda De Homine
  • 1660. Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae hodiernae qualis explicatur in libris Johannis Wallisii
  • 1661. Dialogus physicus, sive De natura aeris
  • 1662. Problematica Physica
    • English translation titled: Seven Philosophical Problems (1682)
  • 1662. Seven Philosophical Problems, and Two Propositions of Geometry – published posthumously
  • 1662. Mr. Hobbes Considered in his Loyalty, Religion, Reputation, and Manners. By way of Letter to Dr. Wallis – English autobiography
  • 1666. De Principis & Ratiocinatione Geometrarum
  • 1666. A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (publ. 1681)
  • 1668. Leviathan – Latin translation
  • 1668. An answer to a book published by Dr. Bramhall, late bishop of Derry; called the Catching of the leviathan. Together with an historical narration concerning heresie, and the punishment thereof (publ. 1682)
  • 1671. Three Papers Presented to the Royal Society Against Dr. Wallis. Together with Considerations on Dr. Wallis his Answer to them
  • 1671. Rosetum Geometricum, sive Propositiones Aliquot Frustra antehac tentatae. Cum Censura brevi Doctrinae Wallisianae de Motu
  • 1672. Lux Mathematica. Excussa Collisionibus Johannis Wallisii
  • 1673. English translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
  • 1674. Principia et Problemata Aliquot Geometrica Antè Desperata, Nunc breviter Explicata & Demonstrata
  • 1678. Decameron Physiologicum: Or, Ten Dialogues of Natural Philosophy
  • 1679. Thomae Hobbessii Malmesburiensis Vita. Authore seipso – Latin autobiography
    • Translated into English in 1680

Posthumous works

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  • 1680. An Historical Narration concerning Heresie, And the Punishment thereof
  • 1681. Behemoth, or The Long Parliament
    • Written in 1668, it was unpublished at the request of the King
    • First pirated edition: 1679
  • 1682. Seven Philosophical Problems (English translation of Problematica Physica, 1662)
  • 1682. A Garden of Geometrical Roses (English translation of Rosetum Geometricum, 1671)
  • 1682. Some Principles and Problems in Geometry (English translation of Principia et Problemata, 1674)
  • 1688. Historia Ecclesiastica Carmine Elegiaco Concinnata

Complete editions

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Molesworth editions

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Editions compiled by William Molesworth.

Thomae Hobbes Malmesburiensis Opera Philosophica quae Latina Scripsit, 5 vols. 1839–1845. London: Bohn. Reprint: Aalen, 1966 (= OL)
Volume Featured works
Volume I Elementorum Philosophiae I: De Corpore
Volume II Elementorum Philosophiae II and III: De Homine and De Cive
Volume III Latin version of Leviathan.
Volume IV Various concerning mathematics, geometry and physics
Volume V Various short works.
The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, 11 vols. 1839–1845. London: Bohn. Reprint: London, 1939–; Aalen, 1966 (= EW)
Volume Featured Works
Volume 1 De Corpore translated from Latin to English.
Volume 2 De Cive.
Volume 3 Leviathan
Volume 4
  • TRIPOS; in Three Discourses:
    1. Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policy
    2. De Corpore Politico, or the Elements of Law
    3. Of Liberty and Necessity
  • An Answer to Bishop Bramhall's Book, called "The Catching of the Leviathan"
  • An Historical Narration concerning Heresy, and the Punishment thereof
  • Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes
  • Answer to Sir William Davenant's Preface before "Gondibert"
  • Letter to the Right Honourable Edward Howard
Volume 5 The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, clearly stated and debated between Dr Bramhall Bishop of Derry and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury.
Volume 6
  • A Dialogue Between a Philosopher & a Student of the Common Laws of England
  • A Dialogue of the Common Law
  • Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England, and of the Counsels and Artifices By Which They Were Carried on From the Year 1640 to the Year 1660
  • The Whole Art of Rhetoric (Hobbes's translation of his own Latin summary of Aristotle's Rhetoric published in 1637 with the title A Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique)
  • The Art of Rhetoric Plainly Set Forth. With Pertinent Examples For the More Easy Understanding and Practice of the Same (this work is not of Hobbes but by Dudley Fenner, The Artes of Logike and Rethorike, 1584)
  • The Art of Sophistry
Volume 7
  • Seven Philosophical Problems
  • Decameron Physiologicum
  • Proportion of a straight line to half the arc of a quadrant
  • Six lessons to the Savilian Professors of the Mathematics
  • ΣΤΙΓΜΑΙ, or Marks of the absurd Geometry etc. of Dr Wallis
  • Extract of a letter from Henry Stubbe
  • Three letters presented to the Royal Society against Dr Wallis
  • Considerations on the answer of Dr Wallis
  • Letters and other pieces
Volume 8 History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated into English by Hobbes.
Volume 9
Volume 10 The Iliad and The Odyssey, translated by Hobbes into English
Volume 11 Index

Posthumous works not included in the Molesworth editions

[edit]
Work Published year Editor Notes
The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (1st complete ed.) London: 1889 Ferdinand Tönnies, with a preface and critical notes
"Short Tract on First Principles".[66]

Pp. 193–210 in Elements, Appendix I.

Attributed by important critics to Robert Payne
Tractatus opticus II (1st partial ed.)

pp. 211–226 in Elements, Appendix II.

1639, British Library, Harley MS 6796, ff. 193–266
Tractatus opticus II (1st complete ed.)

Pp. 147–228 in Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 18

1963 Franco Alessio Omits the diagrams
Critique du 'De mundo' de Thomas White Paris: 1973 Jean Jacquot and Harold Whitmore Jones Includes three appendixes:
  • De Motibus Solis, Aetheris & Telluris (pp. 439–447: a Latin poem on the movement of the Earth).
  • Notes in English on an ancient redaction of some chapters of De Corpore (July 1643; pp. 448–460: MS 5297, National Library of Wales).
  • Notes for the Logica and Philosophia prima of the De Corpore (pp. 461–513: Chatsworth MS A10 and the notes of Charles Cavendish on a draft of the De Corpore: British Library, Harley MS 6083).
Of the Life and History of Thucydides

pp. 10–27 in Hobbes's Thucydides

New Brunswick: 1975 Richard Schlatter
Three Discourses: A Critical Modern Edition of Newly Identified Work of the Young Hobbes (TD)

pp. 10–27 in Hobbes's Thucydides

Chicago: 1975 Noel B. Reynolds and Arlene Saxonhouse Includes:
  • A Discourse upon the Beginning of Tacitus pp. 31–67.
  • A Discourse of Rome, pp. 71–102.
  • A Discourse of Law, pp. 105–119.
Thomas Hobbes' A Minute or First Draught of the Optiques: A Critical Edition University of Wisconsin-Madison: 1983 - PhD dissertation Elaine C. Stroud British Library, Harley MS 3360
Of Passions

pp. 729–738 in Rivista di storia della filosofia 43

1988 Anna Minerbi Belgrado Edition of the unpublished manuscript Harley 6093
The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes (I: 1622–1659; II: 1660–1679)

Clarendon Edition, vol. 6–7

Oxford: 1994 Noel Malcolm

Translations in modern English

[edit]
  • De Corpore, Part I. Computatio Sive Logica. Edited with an Introductory Essay by L C. Hungerland and G. R. Vick. Translation and Commentary by A. Martinich. New York: Abaris Books, 1981.
  • Thomas White's De mundo Examined, translation by H. W. Jones, Bradford: Bradford University Press, 1976 (the appendixes of the Latin edition (1973) are not enclosed).

New critical editions of Hobbes's works

[edit]
  • Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes, Oxford: Clarendon Press (10 volumes published of 27 planned).
  • Traduction des œuvres latines de Hobbes, under the direction of Yves Charles Zarka, Paris: Vrin (5 volumes published of 17 planned).

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Thomas Hobbes

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Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher whose materialist metaphysics and absolutist political theory profoundly influenced modern thought, emphasizing the necessity of undivided sovereign authority to escape the violent "state of nature" characterized by perpetual conflict among self-interested individuals.
His most famous work, Leviathan, published in 1651 amid the English Civil War, articulates a social contract wherein rational agents surrender rights to an absolute sovereign—be it monarch or assembly—to secure peace, order, and protection from anarchy.
Hobbes's mechanistic materialism reduced human behavior, cognition, and society to motions of material bodies, rejecting immaterial souls or divine intervention in favor of empirical, causal explanations grounded in sense perception and geometry.
These ideas, forged in response to religious strife and political upheaval, defended royalist absolutism against parliamentary rebellion, earning Hobbes exile, accusations of atheism, and enduring debate over the balance between liberty and coercive state power.

Biography

Early Life and Family Background

Thomas Hobbes was born prematurely on 5 April 1588 in Westport, a parish adjoining in , . He later attributed his early delivery to his mother's anxiety over the approaching , stating in his verse that she "gave birth to twins: myself and fear." Hobbes had an older brother, , born around 1586, and a younger sister, though details of his siblings' lives remain sparse. His father, also named Thomas Hobbes, served as of the parishes of Charlton and Westport but was described as uneducated and hot-tempered. In 1604, following a public brawl with another local clergyman outside his church, the elder Hobbes fled , abandoning his family and leaving them in financial distress. With his father's departure, young Hobbes came under the guardianship of his , Francis Hobbes, a prosperous and glover who resided nearby and provided for his nephew's upbringing and early education. Little is documented about Hobbes's mother beyond her connection to the local of , to whom his father had been wed. The family's modest clerical status offered limited stability, exacerbated by the father's irresponsibility, which biographers like later characterized as contributing to Hobbes's independent and skeptical worldview from an early age. This unstable household environment, marked by abandonment and reliance on extended kin, shaped Hobbes's initial years before his formal schooling commenced.

Education at Oxford

Thomas Hobbes matriculated at Magdalen Hall (now part of College) at the in approximately 1603, at the age of fifteen. The institution, a modest hall rather than a grand college, provided lodging and instruction within the broader university framework dominated by late medieval scholastic traditions. The curriculum at during Hobbes's time centered on the and quadrivium, with heavy emphasis on Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, and as interpreted through scholastic lenses, alongside , , and rudimentary mathematics. Students engaged in disputations—formal debates rooted in syllogistic reasoning—and memorized texts from authorities like and , often prioritizing verbal dexterity over empirical observation or geometric rigor. Hobbes, already versed in classical languages from prior schooling, found this approach arid and obstructive to clear thinking, later decrying it in works such as (1651) for fostering "insignificant speech" and endless controversies detached from sensory evidence or practical utility. Despite his reservations, Hobbes completed the required coursework and received his degree in February 1608, upon which he departed without pursuing a master's. This education, while instilling a command of Latin and familiarity with ancient texts, reinforced Hobbes's preference for self-directed study and continental influences over university orthodoxy, shaping his eventual advocacy for a mechanistic, geometry-inspired method in .

European Travels and Intellectual Formations

Upon completing his studies at in 1608, Hobbes entered the service of William Cavendish, the future second Earl of Devonshire, as a tutor and companion, which facilitated his initial extended travels abroad. In 1610, Hobbes accompanied the young Cavendish on a grand tour of , visiting , , and , during which he acquired proficiency in French and Italian and encountered the waning influence of Aristotelian amid emerging mechanical philosophies. These experiences broadened Hobbes's exposure to continental political institutions and intellectual currents, fostering a critical stance toward medieval traditions and sparking his interest in historical realism, as evidenced by his subsequent translation of ' History of the Peloponnesian War, completed around 1628 and published in 1629, which emphasized power dynamics over moralistic interpretations. In the 1630s, Hobbes undertook further travels, including a in 1634, where, at age 46, he met the 70-year-old in and engaged in discussions on and the nature of motion, profoundly shaping Hobbes's commitment to a materialist grounded in sensory experience and geometric deduction. This encounter reinforced Hobbes's rejection of immaterial substances and teleological explanations, aligning his views with Galileo's emphasis on quantitative laws of bodies in motion, which Hobbes later integrated into his physics and psychology. During a mid-1630s tour encompassing , Hobbes also connected with and , entering circles of natural philosophers that critiqued Cartesian dualism and promoted corpuscular theories, further solidifying his empiricist and nominalist rejection of abstract universals. These European sojourns catalyzed Hobbes's methodological shift toward a deductive science of politics modeled on Euclidean geometry, which he first systematically explored in unpublished manuscripts like The Short Tract on First Principles around 1630, attributing his geometric enthusiasm to observations of mathematical rigor abroad. While Hobbes critiqued aspects of Descartes's rationalism—evident in his later objections to the Meditations—the continental encounters underscored the causal primacy of material interactions over innate ideas or divine interventions, laying the groundwork for his later works on human nature as driven by appetites and aversions in a mechanistic universe.

Tutorship and Pre-Civil War Career in England

Upon completing his early European travels around 1615, Hobbes resumed his position in the Cavendish household at , serving as tutor and companion to William Cavendish (1590–1628), who succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Devonshire in 1618. In this role, he accompanied the earl on domestic journeys, managed scholarly correspondence, and facilitated access to intellectual circles, including a brief stint in the early 1620s as research assistant to , aiding in the compilation of observations until Bacon's death in 1626. These duties provided Hobbes with financial stability and leisure for self-study, though they involved administrative tasks such as estate oversight and political networking on behalf of the family. The deaths of the 1st (William Cavendish, 1552–1628) and 2nd Earl in 1628 prompted a temporary shift; Hobbes served as tutor to the son of Sir Gervase Clifton for approximately three years, from 1628 to 1631, before returning to the Cavendish service. Reinstated in 1631, he tutored the young William Cavendish (1617–1684), grandson of the 1st Earl and future 3rd Earl of Devonshire, whom he had known since infancy; Hobbes advanced from tutor to secretary, handling the earl's financial accounts, diplomatic letters, and parliamentary affairs with minimal routine demands that allowed extensive private reading. This position embedded him in the pro-monarchical , exposing him to the escalating conflicts between King Charles I and over taxation and royal prerogatives. A pivotal achievement was Hobbes's 1629 publication of the first English translation of ' History of the Peloponnesian War, rendered directly from the Greek; the work, dedicated to the , emphasized Thucydides' empirical rigor in chronicling factional strife and democratic excesses, implicitly critiquing contemporary English parliamentary agitation as a prelude to anarchy. In the 1630s, while based in , Hobbes immersed himself in , resolving Euclid's theorems independently after intense study from 1630 onward, and contributed short treatises on and motion, corresponding with European savants like on mechanistic philosophy. These pursuits, supported by the Cavendish and patronage, marked his transition from classical scholarship to systematic , though political tensions intensified; by 1640, his unpublished manuscript The Elements of Law Natural and Politic—defending undivided sovereign authority against divided powers—circulated among allies, heightening his vulnerability amid the collapse of Charles I's and the Short Parliament's convening.

Exile in Paris During the Civil War

In late November 1640, Hobbes fled for , prompted by fears of arrest amid escalating political strife between King Charles I and , exacerbated by his recent private circulation of The Elements of Law Natural and Politic (1640), which defended absolute and alienated parliamentary factions. He resided in Paris for the next eleven years, a period coinciding with the outbreak of the in August 1642, during which royalist forces clashed with parliamentarians, leading to the king's eventual defeat and execution in 1649. Upon arrival, Hobbes integrated into the intellectual circle led by Minim friar , a hub for natural philosophers where he engaged in debates on , motion, and metaphysics; through Mersenne, he corresponded with and critiqued René Descartes' (1641), submitting formal objections that rejected Cartesian dualism in favor of strict , while also discussing ideas with atomist on and sense perception. These interactions, spanning the early 1640s, sharpened Hobbes' mechanistic , though he clashed with Descartes over innate ideas and divine , viewing such notions as incompatible with empirical causation derived from bodily motion. In April 1642, Hobbes published Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertia (commonly , or "On the Citizen") in , the first public exposition of his civil philosophy, arguing from human equality and instincts to the necessity of an undivided to avert ; printed amid the war's onset, it circulated among European scholars but drew criticism from royalists for implying conditional obedience. Revised editions followed in 1647 (), reflecting feedback from Mersenne's network, yet the work's emphasis on contractual absolutism—prioritizing over divided authority—highlighted Hobbes' pragmatic royalism over ideological loyalty. From 1646 to 1648, Hobbes tutored the exiled of (later Charles II, aged 16–18), in mathematics during the prince's flight to after his father's capture; sessions focused on , which Hobbes used to model political deduction, though his influence waned as the prince preferred cavalier companions, and Hobbes' irreligious reputation grew suspect among Anglican exiles. This role provided patronage but exposed tensions: Hobbes' 1651 Leviathan, drafted in and published in London, advocated submission to de facto powers (including the post-1649), alienating royalists who saw it as betrayal, prompting Anglican attacks on his and leading to his dismissal from the future king's circle by late 1651. Exacerbated by recurring health ailments—including strangury (urinary issues) from 1647 and fears of assassination amid Parisian plots—Hobbes departed for in 1651, submitting to Cromwell's regime for security, a move consistent with his doctrine that trumps factional allegiance in . Throughout the exile, afforded intellectual freedom absent in war-torn , enabling Hobbes to synthesize travels' with deductive rigor, though royalist sources later minimized his contributions, reflecting partisan grudges over his perceived .

Return to England and Later Years

In 1651, shortly after the publication of Leviathan, Hobbes returned to from his eleven-year in , where he had tutored royalist exiles including the future Charles II amid fears of arrest for his political writings. To secure his safety under the Commonwealth government led by , he presented himself before the and pledged obedience, a move that drew accusations of opportunism from royalist critics who viewed it as a of monarchical . This submission allowed him to reside primarily with the at their estates, including , under whose patronage he had long worked. Following his return, Hobbes expanded his philosophical system with De Corpore (1655), addressing metaphysics and the nature of body as the foundation of knowledge, and De Homine (1658), focusing on human physiology and perception to complete his intended trilogy begun with De Cive (1642). He also composed Behemoth around 1668, a historical analysis of the English Civil War's causes rooted in religious and parliamentary ambitions, though it remained unpublished until 1682 due to its sensitive content critiquing factionalism. After the 1660 Restoration, Charles II awarded him a £100 annual pension in recognition of past tutelage, yet Hobbes faced ecclesiastical backlash: the University of Oxford condemned Leviathan in 1666 for allegedly promoting irreligion, and he endured debates with clerics over sovereignty's primacy over ecclesiastical authority. In mathematics, Hobbes engaged in protracted disputes from the 1650s onward, particularly with mathematician , challenging Euclidean proofs, the possibility of , and methods, which he deemed fallacious and reflective of broader scientific overreach. These exchanges, continuing into the 1670s, highlighted his insistence on strict geometric deduction without reliance on unverifiable assumptions. In his eighties, Hobbes undertook translations of Homer's (published 1675) and (1675), rendering the epics into prose to emphasize their portrayal of heroic strife and counsel against democratic disorder. He resided at in his final years, dying there on December 4, 1679, at age 91 following a and urinary ailment.

Death and Final Reflections

Thomas Hobbes spent his final years residing with the at their estates, including in , where he continued intellectual pursuits amid declining health. In October 1679, he suffered from strangury, a disorder, followed by a paralytic stroke that led to his death on December 4, 1679, at the age of 91. His last words, as reported by contemporary , were "I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark," reflecting a materialist apprehension of mortality without reference to certainties. Among his late works, Hobbes composed a brief in Latin verse in 1672 and completed English verse translations of Homer's in 1675 and in 1676, demonstrating sustained engagement with classical literature despite advancing age and ongoing polemics against clerical critics who accused him of . These efforts underscore his commitment to empirical and mechanistic worldview, undeterred by institutional opposition from church authorities seeking to suppress his materialist . Hobbes was buried at St John the Baptist Church in Ault Hucknall, near , under a tombstone bearing an inscription he purportedly authored himself: "Hidden here are the bones of Thomas Hobbes of , who was born on 5th in the year 1588, on the very same day on which the set sail. He died on December 4th 1679, having lived for 91 years and 8 months. He was a virtuous man, and for his reputation for learning, the brightest ornament of this church." This epitaph encapsulates his self-perception as a learned figure whose longevity spanned turbulent historical events, from the Armada's threat— which he claimed induced his premature birth—to the Restoration, prioritizing intellectual legacy over theological conformity.

Philosophical Foundations

Materialist Ontology and Nominalism

Hobbes maintained that the universe consists solely of material bodies endowed with the capacity for local motion, rejecting any immaterial substances or entities as explanatory principles in natural philosophy. In his view, all phenomena, including sensory experiences, arise from the mechanical interactions of these bodies: external objects press upon the organs of sense, generating motions that propagate through the body to the brain and heart, thereby producing phantasms or mental images. This materialist framework extends to vital functions, which Hobbes attributed to the ceaseless motion of blood and spirits initiated at conception and continuing until death, without invoking incorporeal souls or forms. Such an ontology precluded the existence of incorporeal substances like angels or a separate human soul, positing instead that even intellectual operations—such as —are sequences of material motions decaying from original sense impressions. Hobbes critiqued Aristotelian and Cartesian alternatives for introducing non-extended, immaterial principles that violate the principle of sufficient reason in a corporeal world, arguing that motion alone suffices to account for change, causation, and generation across all domains. God's existence, while acknowledged as the primary cause, fits within this scheme as the infinite corporeal source of all motion, though Hobbes subordinated theological speculation to empirical and mechanical inquiry. Complementing this materialism, Hobbes adhered to , denying the independent reality of universals and asserting that only particular bodies exist, with universal terms serving merely as names or conventional labels applied to resemblances discerned by the . In The Elements of Law (1640), he explicitly stated that "there is nothing universal but names," rejecting scholastic notions of real essences or universal forms subsisting extra animam as fictions that foster metaphysical disputes without grounding in sensory particulars. Names, for Hobbes, function as "marks" or signs of individual conceptions, enabling and communication; when aggregated to denote classes (e.g., "man" for similar bodies), they impose an artificial unity absent in nature itself. This stance underpinned Hobbes's critique of equivocal language in and , where ambiguous universal terms invite endless contention by masquerading as discoveries of inherent similarities rather than impositions. By reducing universals to linguistic conventions, Hobbes aligned with , ensuring that definitions and propositions derive from definable names traceable to sense data, thus avoiding the illusions of substantial forms that he saw as breeding civil through interpretive rivalries. and thus interlock in Hobbes's system: without abstract, immaterial universals, all and must conform to the concrete motions of bodies, rendering a prelude to mechanistic and political stability.

Empiricist Epistemology

Hobbes posited that the foundation of all human knowledge derives exclusively from sensory experience, rejecting any innate ideas or conceptions independent of sensation. In Leviathan (1651), he argued that "there is no conception in a mans mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten by the organ of sense," emphasizing sense as the "Originall" of all thoughts. This view aligns with his materialist ontology, where external bodies generate sense through physical pressure on organs—such as taste and touch directly, or sight and hearing mediately via mediums like air—transmitting motion to the heart and brain, thereby producing "phantasms" or mental representations. These phantasms constitute the raw material of , with arising as the "decay" of impressions and as their retention over time. Hobbes dismissed Aristotelian notions of involving immaterial "apparitions" or , insisting instead on a mechanistic process grounded in corporeal motion, where the mind has no independent intellectual faculty but operates entirely through derived sensory data. Consequently, abstract concepts emerge not from innate rational but from compounding and comparing sensory experiences, regulated by to form general terms—reflecting his nominalist stance that universals exist only as names without real essences. This empiricist framework extended to error and truth: errors stem from mistaking decaying senses for original ones or abusing names through , while truth requires precise definitions derived from observed effects. In (1655), Hobbes further clarified that even geometric knowledge, though deductive, presupposes experiential origins in the senses for axioms and definitions, underscoring his commitment to rooted in observable phenomena rather than a priori faculties. By privileging sensory causation over speculative metaphysics, Hobbes' approach aimed to ground in verifiable causes, anticipating later British empiricists while integrating it with his broader mechanistic worldview.

Deductive Method from Geometry

Hobbes sought to emulate the deductive rigor of in his philosophical inquiries, viewing it as a model for achieving through definitions, axioms, and logical from first principles to conclusions. In , as Hobbes understood it, proceeds synthetically or compositively: beginning with precise definitions of primitive terms like points and lines, from which theorems are derived via necessary deductions, yielding infallible results untainted by empirical ambiguity. This method contrasted sharply with the analytic approach of resolving complex effects back to simpler causes, which Hobbes reserved for or generation rather than demonstration. His enthusiasm for this approach stemmed from encounters with mathematical texts during travels in , particularly after 1628, when he examined Euclid's Elements and recognized geometry's freedom from the "vanity and arrogance" of disputatious philosophies reliant on uncertain sense data. In the introduction to (1651), Hobbes praised as "the only science that it hath pleased hitherto to bestow on mankind," noting that it commences by "settling the significations of their words" through definitions, thereby enabling ratiocination without the errors plaguing other disciplines where terms lack fixed meanings. He observed that even the least astute individuals correct geometric errors upon demonstration, underscoring the method's self-evident compulsion. Hobbes systematized this geometric deduction in (1655), the foundational volume of his philosophical trilogy on body, man, and citizen. There, he applied the compositive method to logic and : defining "body" as that which occupies through motion, then deducing attributes like , magnitude, and place via propositions akin to geometric theorems. For instance, from axioms about straight lines and motion, he derived conclusions on figures' properties, integrating with physics to explain phenomena causally rather than descriptively. This mixed mathematical framework—blending pure geometric principles with observed facts—aimed to uncover "true causes" in nature, prioritizing demonstrable necessity over mere correlation. In moral and political philosophy, Hobbes extended the method to human affairs, treating civil science as a deductive enterprise parallel to geometry. Definitions of passions, self-preservation, and equality serve as axioms from which laws of nature emerge as theorems, culminating in the social contract's imperatives. By 1640 in The Elements of Law, and refined in De Cive (1642) and Leviathan, he demonstrated how apparent effects like societal conflict resolve into sovereign authority as the efficient cause of peace, mirroring geometric construction from primitives to complex figures. This ambition for apodictic certainty, however, presupposed nominalist precision in naming to avert scholastic equivocation, though Hobbes acknowledged geometry's superiority in avoiding the passions that distort non-mathematical reasoning.

Human Nature and Psychology

The State of Nature as War

In Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651), the denotes the pre-political condition of humankind absent any overarching capable of imposing peace and restraining individual actions. Hobbes asserts that this absence fosters a perpetual state of , encapsulated in the Latin phrase (""), wherein each person views every other as a potential adversary due to the fundamental lack of security and enforceable agreements. He derives this from the material reality of human vulnerabilities, where no external power prevents recourse to force for self-protection or gain. Hobbes clarifies that war in this context extends beyond sporadic battles to encompass a sustained toward conflict, stating: "For WARRE, consisteth not in battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by BATTELL is sufficiently known, and no further regards of the Law of ." This manifests as continual mutual suspicion and readiness for violence, akin to gladiators perpetually armed and watchful, rendering cooperative endeavors untenable. Without a common enforcer, promises hold no binding force, as individuals prioritize immediate survival over long-term pacts, perpetuating insecurity. The consequences of this warlike state are dire: no industry flourishes, for its produce remains liable to seizure; no or commodious building occurs; no systematic knowledge of , timekeeping, , or letters develops; and itself dissolves into isolation. Hobbes summarizes human existence therein as "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short," dominated by unremitting fear of violent death rather than productive or communal pursuits. This depiction, grounded in Hobbes' observation of the English Civil War's chaos (1642–1651) and extrapolated deductively from human psychology, underscores his causal argument that inevitably breeds mutual destruction absent coercive order.

Passions, Self-Preservation, and Equality

Hobbes viewed human passions as the internal beginnings of voluntary motion, stemming from the body's vital and animal spirits, which propel endeavors either toward objects (appetite) or away from them (aversion). Appetite signifies an approach to something deemed good or future pleasure, while aversion denotes a retreat from perceived evil or pain; these form the basis of all desires and fears, with innate examples including hunger and the aversion to harm, and others arising from deliberation or experience. He classified passions mechanistically, equating them to small beginnings of motion within the body, akin to physical forces, rather than immaterial souls or divine infusions. Central to Hobbes's is the passion of , which he posited as the foundational drive governing in the . This instinct manifests as a "right of ," granting every to use their power for preservation as they judge fit, without prior obligation to others. overrides other passions when in conflict, as fear of death compels individuals to prioritize survival, leading to the authorization of in to secure this end. Hobbes asserted the natural equality of men, grounded in comparable physical and mental faculties that render no one overwhelmingly superior. Even the strongest or wisest cannot secure themselves against others without alliances, as the weakest can conspire, ambush, or employ tools to inflict lethal harm, establishing a rough parity in vulnerability. This equality, derived from empirical observation of human capabilities rather than fiat, fosters mutual diffidence and necessitates defensive postures, as each perceives others as potential threats to their preservation.

Causes of Conflict: Competition, Diffidence, and Glory

In Thomas Hobbes's (1651), Chapter 13 identifies three principal causes of quarrel in the , arising from human nature's self-interested drives: , diffidence, and glory. These motives propel individuals into conflict, as "in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel," each fostering invasion or defensive absent a sovereign authority. Hobbes argues that without a common power to enforce peace, these causes render human interactions a "war of all against all," where force and fraud predominate over industry or trust. Competition drives conflict for material gain, as Hobbes explains: "The first maketh men invade for gain; and 'tis the first use of that men acquire in one another." In a resource-scarce environment, individuals seek to secure scarce —land, commodities, or labor—leading to preemptive strikes, since "if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies." This extends to conquest for broader , as accumulators of power or wealth provoke and retaliation, perpetuating cycles of over economic advantage rather than mere survival. Diffidence, or mistrust, motivates defensive aggression for safety, stemming from the recognition that others pose existential threats. Hobbes notes, "The second [cause], for safety; and 'tis consequently that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called ." Individuals, fearing , accumulate power not for gain but to deter attacks, as "he that hath the use of arms as much as any other... [must] seek to take away the power of using arms from others to secure himself." This preemptive logic—rooted in uncertainty about others' intentions—escalates minor suspicions into , as mutual precludes alliances or restraint. Glory incites conflict for reputation and trivial honors, often the most irrational trigger: "The third [cause], for reputation; and is generally called pride or vain glory." Hobbes observes that men quarrel over opinions, precedence, or revenge for insults, seeking dominance to affirm superiority, even when stakes are negligible, as "sudden anger... proceedeth from the apprehension of some injury done... [leading to] fighting for trifles." This passion amplifies disputes into vendettas, undermining peace by prioritizing status over utility, and explains why even equals contest for unshared vanities like titles or precedence in assemblies. Collectively, these causes—grounded in passions like —ensure that, without , human equality in vulnerability breeds perpetual hostility rather than .

Political Philosophy

Social Contract and Authorization

In Hobbes's political philosophy, the constitutes the foundational mechanism for escaping the 's , wherein rational individuals, motivated by the instinct for , enter into a mutual covenant to establish a . This agreement entails the collective surrender of natural rights to all things, which in the state of nature permit unlimited self-governance and defensive violence, in exchange for the sovereign's protection against internal strife and external threats. The contract's purpose is explicitly the of peace, as Hobbes delineates in , where the end of obedience is "the of the safety of every particular man in the ." The core of this institution lies in the act of authorization, whereby each participant covenants with every other: "I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like manner." This formulation, drawn from Leviathan Chapter 17, unifies the multitude into a single artificial person—the sovereign—endowed with the collective power and will of all subjects. Through authorization, subjects own the sovereign's decisions and actions as their own, rendering obedience a matter of rational self-interest rather than mere submission, since resistance would imply self-contradiction and undermine the protective unity achieved. Sovereignty arises by institution through this voluntary concord, distinct from sovereignty by acquisition via conquest, though both necessitate undivided authority to avert dissolution. Authorization proves irrevocable, as any attempt to retract consent fragments the commonwealth's unity, propelling participants back into the insecure state of nature where life remains "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes contends that partial or conditional obedience invites factionalism and civil war, justifying the sovereign's absolute, perpetual power without division among branches or liability to subjects' judgment. This structure ensures the contract's efficacy, binding subjects perpetually unless the sovereign fails utterly in providing security, at which point natural right revives defensively but not offensively against the commonwealth.

Absolute Sovereignty and Its Justification

Hobbes posits that absolute sovereignty emerges from , wherein individuals in the mutually authorize a single person or assembly to represent their collective will, thereby creating an artificial person—the —endowed with the power to enforce peace and . This authorization transfers natural rights to the , except the inalienable right of , rendering the sovereign's actions attributable to all subjects as authors of the . The sovereign's authority is thus derived from consent aimed at escaping the warlike , where life lacks due to unchecked competition, diffidence, and glory-seeking. The justification for absolutism lies in the necessity of undivided and perpetual power to prevent discord; Hobbes contends that any division of —such as between branches or estates—invites contention among parts, mirroring the and risking dissolution into . For instance, he argues that a sovereign assembly must act unanimously, as implies a dissenting minority with pretensions to equal , undermining the common power. Similarly, mixed constitutions, where power is shared among , , and , fail because incompatible forms generate inevitable conflict over precedence, as evidenced by historical instabilities like the Roman Republic's fall. Absolutism ensures stability by concentrating all legislative, executive, judicial, and punitive powers in one entity, free from subjection to laws it issues, since laws are but commands to subjects. This framework prioritizes as the foundational motive: subjects obey not from moral duty but from rational fear of death and desire for commodious living, with the 's absolute enforcement guaranteeing covenant adherence. Hobbes acknowledges potential sovereign errors but maintains that no alternative mechanism for correction exists without reverting to , as subjects retain no right to resistance beyond immediate against personal harm. While he deems the most effective form for minimizing factionalism—owing to its singularity and inheritance stability—any undivided suffices, provided it monopolizes coercive power. Thus, absolutism is not arbitrary tyranny but a causal remedy to passions, substantiated by observations of pre-civil societies and Europe's religious wars, including the (1642–1651), which Hobbes witnessed as prelude to Leviathan's 1651 publication.

Rights, Laws, and Obligations of Subjects

In Hobbes's , subjects retain the fundamental right of , which cannot be alienated through covenant, as agreements to forgo defense of one's body are void upon formation. This right permits resistance against direct threats to life, such as commands to or exposure to immediate without means of escape, but does not extend to defending , , or others against the . Beyond this, subjects surrender their natural right to all things by authorizing the as their representative, thereby forfeiting independent claims to govern themselves or judge the 's actions. The of subjects consists in the absence of external impediments to motion or action, particularly in realms where civil laws are silent or pretermitted, allowing in private matters such as of abode, diet, , and child-rearing, provided these do not contravene commands. Hobbes distinguishes this civil from the unbounded of the , emphasizing that much of subjects' depends on the sovereign's restraint in legislating, as excessive laws would replicate the constraints of natural war. Obligations of subjects arise from the social contract, wherein each declares, "I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man or assembly," binding all to obey the unconditionally so long as it maintains the power to protect them. This authorization renders the 's acts as if performed by each subject individually, eliminating grounds for resistance based on perceived , since the , as artificer of the , cannot wrong its own creation. Obligations cease if the loses protective capacity, such as through or dissolution, reverting subjects to natural rights. Civil laws, distinct from laws derived from reason, are defined as commands issued by the to subjects—via word, writing, or sufficient sign—for regulating external actions and annexing punishments for disobedience, with the intent to secure and defense. The remains unbound by these laws, as it holds legislative authority without reciprocal obligation, ensuring indivisible power to prevent . Subjects incur no from commands, even if arbitrary, because law's validity stems from the 's will, not moral equity independent of the .

Forms of Government and Stability

Hobbes classified commonwealths according to the of their representative, identifying three primary forms: , in which resides in a single individual; , where an assembly of select persons holds authority; and , characterized by vested in an assembly comprising all eligible members of the . In all forms, the must possess indivisible and absolute power to maintain order and prevent reversion to the , as division of authority invites conflict and instability. However, Hobbes contended that these forms differ in their capacity to sustain long-term stability, with proving most effective due to inherent structural advantages that minimize internal discord. The core of Hobbes's analysis lies in the mechanics of counsel and . In aristocratic or democratic assemblies, deliberations occur publicly among multiple voices, fostering competition, flattery, and factionalism that undermine unified action and expose the to manipulation by partial interests. A , by contrast, deliberates in or with private advisors of their choosing, achieving greater concord and , as the bears sole responsibility without the diffusion of accountability that plagues collective bodies. This singularity reduces the risk of , which Hobbes observed in England's parliamentary upheavals, where divided led to dissolution rather than resolution. Further bolstering 's stability is the alignment of the sovereign's personal interests with the commonwealth's . A , concerned for their own lineage and estate, avoids policies that endanger the state's , whereas assemblies—composed of mortals with competing ambitions—often prioritize short-term gains, imitating "the diseases of a natural body" through internal rivalries. Hobbes likened monarchical rule to divine unity, arguing it mirrors God's indivisible governance and enables swifter, less error-prone responses to threats, as assemblies deliberate slowly and dissolve into quarreling when unanimity fails. Empirical precedents, such as the instability of ancient democracies and aristocracies versus enduring monarchies, reinforced his view that best preserves the social contract's peace, though he allowed that any absolute form could suffice if unfractured. While Hobbes's preference for drew from pragmatic observation rather than dogmatic absolutism, critics have noted potential vulnerabilities, such as a single ruler's errors propagating unchecked; yet he countered that collective errors in assemblies amplify discord exponentially, historically precipitating greater calamities. Stability, in Hobbesian terms, demands not virtuous rulers but institutional designs that curb human like diffidence and glory-seeking, rendering the form least prone to sovereignty's erosion.

Leviathan: Core Text and Arguments

Composition, Structure, and Publication Context

Leviathan, Hobbes's magnum opus on , was composed primarily during his eleven-year exile in , where he resided from 1640 to 1651 as part of the household of the Earl of Devonshire and later as mathematical instructor to the Prince of Wales. The initial documented reference to its composition appears in a letter from May 1650, indicating that Hobbes was actively writing the manuscript in the immediate aftermath of the English Civil War's early phases, including the in January 1649. This period of political upheaval, marked by parliamentary victory and royalist defeat, profoundly influenced the text's emphasis on absolute sovereignty as a bulwark against , extending ideas from Hobbes's prior works like De Cive (1642). The full title, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, was published anonymously in in April 1651 by the bookseller Andrew Crooke, despite Hobbes's location in ; a prefatory letter dated April 15/25, 1651, from underscores its continental origins. Printed amid the Commonwealth's consolidation under Cromwell, the work's release in —rather than —reflected Hobbes's intent to address his homeland's instability directly, though it provoked immediate controversy for its perceived republican leanings and Erastian views on church-state relations. A Latin edition followed in 1668, with revisions to mitigate Anglican criticisms. Structurally, comprises an introduction, four main parts spanning 42 chapters, and an appendix added in later editions. Part I, "Of Man," examines human , senses, passions, and the as perpetual war. Part II, "Of Common-wealth," details , authorization of the , and forms of . Part III, "Of a Christian Common-wealth," interprets scripture to subordinate power to . Part IV, "Of the Kingdome of Darknesse," critiques , , and demonic influences as sources of civil discord. This geometric-method inspired organization—modeled on Euclidean deduction—aims to derive political conclusions rigorously from first principles of motion and .

Key Doctrinal Innovations

In Leviathan, Hobbes advanced his theory of through the innovation of , wherein individuals in the covenant among themselves to create an artificial person—the —represented by the . Unlike contractual models where the might be bound by agreements with subjects, Hobbes stipulated that the emerges from the : each person authorizes all future actions of the as if they were their own, thereby assuming responsibility for them and relinquishing any right to resistance except in immediate threats to life. This mechanism, detailed in Chapter 17, ensures the indivisibility of sovereign power, as division would revert society to , a point Hobbes reinforced by to the where vital functions require unified direction. Hobbes further innovated by conceptualizing the commonwealth as a "mortal god," an immense artificial man whose vitality derives from the unity of its members' wills under the sovereign's representation. This metaphor, illustrated in the work's frontispiece depicting the sovereign composed of countless citizens, underscored the constructed nature of political order, contrasting with organic or divine-right theories prevalent in absolutist thought. By framing sovereignty as institutional—arising from consent rather than mere conquest or inheritance—Hobbes provided a secular justification for obedience, applicable even in republics or assemblies, though he deemed monarchy most stable due to singular will. A doctrinal shift from (1642) appeared in Hobbes's intensified Erastianism, subordinating ecclesiastical authority entirely to the civil to avert the religious strife witnessed in the (1642–1651). In , Chapters 39 and 42 assert that the sovereign holds interpretive power over Scripture and , as independent clergy undermine unified akin to internal discord. This rejected apostolic or papal hierarchies endorsed tepidly earlier, positioning the sovereign as Christ's representative on earth within Christian commonwealths, thereby integrating spiritual and temporal power to secure peace. Hobbes integrated a mechanistic materialism into political doctrine, deriving human equality and conflict from sense impressions as motions, with self-preservation as the primary law of nature. This causal framework, expanded in Part I of Leviathan, explained passions and reason as computational processes, justifying absolute sovereignty as the artificial restraint on natural liberty's destructive tendencies—innovating beyond De Cive's focus by embedding politics within a comprehensive philosophy of motion and corpuscular theory. Such innovations prioritized empirical causation over scholastic abstractions, influencing subsequent realist political thought.

Immediate Reactions and Revisions

Leviathan was published in in April 1651, amid the political turbulence following the and the establishment of the . Its advocacy for absolute sovereignty, irrespective of the ruler's origin, drew sharp rebukes from exiles in , who viewed Hobbes's theory as undermining the and implicitly validating Parliament's usurpation under . Relations between Hobbes and Anglican clergy, previously cordial, soured rapidly, with accusations that the work promoted secular over spiritual authority. Presbyterians and other factions condemned Hobbes's Erastianism, which subordinated church governance and doctrine to the civil , as a to clerical independence and orthodox theology. His materialist depiction of and sense perception fueled charges of , with critics interpreting passages and divine as denying immaterial spirits and miraculous interventions. Though some contemporaries, including those favoring strong centralized power to avert , found value in its diagnosis of causes, the predominant response in the was defensive from defenders of traditional hierarchies, who grappled with its deduction of from rather than divine or customary bonds. Criticism intensified after the 1660 Restoration, culminating in 1666 when the House of Commons debated suppressing the book and the University of Oxford's convocation later prohibited its teaching. In response, Hobbes produced a revised Latin translation, Leviathan sive De materia, forma et potestate reipublicae ecclesiasitcae et civilis, published in Amsterdam in 1668 as part of his Opera philosophica omnia. This edition featured over 100 textual variants from the 1651 English original, including rephrasings of sensitive religious content—such as adjustments to discussions of papal power, scriptural sovereignty, and the nature of faith—to counter heresy allegations while retaining the mechanistic psychology and absolutist core. Notably, Hobbes excised the "Review and Conclusion" chapter, which reiterated the work's anti-sectarian thrust, and appended three new chapters critiquing misinterpretations of his views , eternal life, and ecclesiastical demons, thereby directly engaging accumulated objections. These modifications aimed to render the arguments more palatable to continental scholars and English authorities, emphasizing deductive rigor over provocative rhetoric, though they did little to quell long-term opprobrium from theological conservatives.

Other Works and Scientific Contributions

Early Treatises: Elements of Law and De Cive

The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, completed by Thomas Hobbes in May 1640, represented his initial systematic exposition of political philosophy, composed amid escalating conflicts between King Charles I and Parliament. Circulated privately in manuscript form among royalist supporters, it aimed to bolster absolutist arguments against parliamentary challenges, dividing into two parts: Human Nature, addressing psychological and ethical foundations from a materialist perspective, and De Corpore Politico, delineating the structure of commonwealths through covenant-based sovereignty. Hobbes posited that human desires and aversions drive behavior in a pre-political state of mutual insecurity, necessitating absolute authority to enforce peace, though the work remained unpublished officially until an unauthorized, edited version appeared in 1650. Building on Elements, Hobbes's (On the Citizen), first published in Latin from in 1642, refined and narrowed his framework to civil philosophy, emphasizing the citizen's relation to the state while excising broader metaphysical digressions. This treatise articulated as a transfer of natural rights to a for , arguing that under equates to absence of external impediments rather than democratic participation. Revised editions in 1647 from incorporated responses to critics, strengthening defenses of undivided against division of powers, which Hobbes deemed a recipe for . The progression from Elements to illustrates Hobbes's iterative development: the former integrated with in a comprehensive but diffuse manner, while the latter achieved concision, focusing on institutional stability and the sovereign's role in quelling passions that propel . Both works laid groundwork for absolutism by deriving from rational , rejecting Aristotelian in favor of mechanistic causality in human affairs, though 's public release—prompted by Hobbes's in —propelled his international notoriety as originator of modern civil science.

Historical and Analytical Works: Behemoth

Behemoth, subtitled The History of the Causes of the of , and of the Counsels and Artifices by Which They Were Carried On from the Year 1640 to the Year 1660, represents Thomas Hobbes's retrospective analysis of the English . Composed in the late 1660s, likely between 1668 and 1670, the manuscript circulated privately but remained unpublished during Hobbes's lifetime due to its politically sensitive content critiquing parliamentary and clerical factions. It appeared in print posthumously in 1682, edited and released by the London bookseller William Crooke, who had previously published Hobbes's . The work adopts a form, featuring two interlocutors labeled A (a knowledgeable figure representing Hobbes's views) and B (an inquisitive student), who dissect events through Socratic-style exchanges spanning approximately 200 sections. Divided into four parts, it chronicles: the summoning of the in 1640 and the erosion of royal authority; the outbreak and conduct of the wars from 1642 onward; the establishment of the under in 1649; and the interregnum's instability culminating in the Restoration of 1660. This structure allows Hobbes to interweave narrative history with causal explanations, emphasizing not mere chronology but the doctrinal origins of . Hobbes attributes primarily to the dissemination of erroneous political and theological doctrines that undermined sovereign authority, rather than economic grievances or structural flaws alone. He singles out Presbyterian clergy and university scholars for propagating ideas of divided , popular resistance, and independence, drawing from Aristotelian and Calvinist traditions that portrayed kings as elective rather than absolute rulers. For instance, Hobbes contends that seditious preaching in pulpits and schools fostered a false conception of as license to disobey laws, enabling factions like the Scots and Independents to exploit public ignorance during the 1640s crises over and the . Analytically, Behemoth applies Hobbes's materialist philosophy from Leviathan to empirical history, illustrating how unchecked opinions lead to the state of nature's violence within . He argues that the Parliament's artifices, such as the Grand Remonstrance of 1641 and the of 1643, succeeded by aligning doctrinal subversion with military force, but ultimately failed due to internal divisions among rebels lacking unified . Hobbes warns that similar vulnerabilities persist in mixed governments, advocating undivided absolutism to prevent recurrence, as evidenced by the Commonwealth's collapse amid factional strife by 1659. This historical demonstration reinforces his view that peace requires suppressing divisive interpretations of scripture and law by a single sovereign interpreter.

Optical, Mathematical, and Corpuscular Theories

Hobbes's corpuscular philosophy posited that the material world consists of insensible particles, or corpuscles, whose local motions and collisions in a void account for all natural phenomena, including sensation and physical change. This mechanistic framework, articulated in works like the early Short Tract on First Principles (c. 1630) and later in De Corpore (1655), drew from ancient atomism while emphasizing pressure and endeavor over intrinsic qualities, rejecting Aristotelian substantial forms in favor of quantifiable motion. In , Hobbes integrated corpuscular motion to explain and vision as complementary processes of . His principal optical , the A Minute or First Draught of the Optiques (1646), described not as emitted rays but as instantaneous transmission of motive through media like air or the eye's vitreous humor, with vision arising from corpuscular impacts on the . , in this view, resulted from varying speeds of corpuscular motion across media boundaries, challenging prevailing emission theories and of . Hobbes treated as a "mixed ," dependent on to demonstrate causal structures behind appearances, though his insistence on instantaneous and rejection of traditional ray geometries limited empirical alignment. Hobbes's mathematical endeavors aimed to purify for scientific application, viewing it as the study of abstract motions generative of figures, superior to algebraic symbolism. He claimed to resolve Euclidean inconsistencies and ancient conic sections problems, including the quadrature of the circle and duplication of the cube, through recomposed principles in works like . These assertions sparked the Hobbes-Wallis controversy (1655–1678), where mathematician refuted Hobbes's geometric solutions as erroneous and defended infinitesimal methods and nth roots against Hobbes's finitist critiques. Despite polemical exchanges in over 30 pamphlets, Hobbes's mathematical innovations found little acceptance, overshadowed by emerging and .

Religious and Ecclesial Views

Scriptural Interpretation and Erastianism

Hobbes maintained that the civil possesses the ultimate authority to interpret Holy Scripture, a position derived from his analysis of biblical texts emphasizing unified governance to avert schism and . In (1651), particularly in Chapter 33, he contended that private individuals or bodies lack the right to independent scriptural , as such historically fostered religious divisions, as evidenced by the English Civil War's Presbyterian and Independent factions. Instead, the , as the artificial person embodying the , must dictate doctrine, drawing on precedents where kings like exercised control over Levites and prophets. This interpretation aligned with Hobbes's materialist ontology, wherein spiritual claims yield to temporal enforcement for peace, rejecting allegorical excesses that could undermine state stability. Central to Hobbes's scriptural framework was his advocacy of Erastianism, the doctrine subordinating ecclesiastical power to civil authority, named after Thomas Erastus but systematized by Hobbes in response to post-Reformation conflicts. He argued in Chapter 42 that the "power ecclesiastic" is not distinct from civil power but an extension of it, with the sovereign holding both swords—temporal and spiritual—to enforce uniformity, as the depicts God's kingdom administered through earthly rulers post-apostolic era. This view echoed England's Act of Supremacy (1534), which vested supreme headship in the monarch, but Hobbes radicalized it by denying any independent clerical jurisdiction, including without sovereign consent, to eliminate dual loyalties that precipitated the 1640s upheavals. Critics, including royalists wary of absolutism, contested this as diluting divine ordinance, yet Hobbes substantiated it via scriptural literalism, such as interpreting St. Paul's epistles as mandating obedience to civil powers over angelic or prophetic intermediaries. Hobbes's exegesis further emphasized mortalism—the conditional immortality of the soul until resurrection—as biblically grounded in passages like 9:5 ("the dead know nothing"), countering immortal soul doctrines that he saw as fueling sectarian enthusiasm and papal pretensions to otherworldly rule. By vesting interpretive monopoly in the , Erastianism ensured that religious practice served political ends, with functioning as state-appointed teachers rather than autonomous arbiters, a causal mechanism Hobbes traced to biblical monarchies where priestly rebellion invited divine judgment. This subordination precluded toleration of dissenting interpretations, as toleration equated to permitting anarchy, per his reading of on subjection to higher powers. Empirical precedents, such as the Thirty Years' War's religious carnage (1618–1648), reinforced his prioritization of sovereign-enforced orthodoxy over confessional pluralism.

Critique of Enthusiasm, Miracles, and Sectarianism

In Leviathan (1651), Hobbes characterized enthusiasm as a form of madness arising from disordered passions, particularly melancholy, where individuals falsely claim direct or converse with spirits, mistaking internal phantasms for supernatural revelation. He argued that such claims, lacking external verification, serve vainglorious impostors who exploit credulity to gain followers, thereby undermining scriptural authority and sovereign order by promoting private judgments over public doctrine. This critique targeted radical Protestants and sectaries during the English Civil Wars (1642–1651), whose enthusiastic prophecies Hobbes saw as fueling and civil discord, as evidenced by the proliferation of independent congregations challenging episcopal and royal control. Regarding miracles, Hobbes defined them in Chapter 37 of as "admirable works of " beyond natural expectation, serving historically to authenticate prophets and establish divine kingdoms, such as those performed by and the apostles to compel obedience. He contended that true miracles ceased with the apostolic era, after the canon was fixed around 100 CE, because subsequent claims lack the sovereign or ecclesiastical certification required for credibility; without such validation, alleged miracles reduce to natural phenomena or deliberate deceptions, as seen in medieval cults or contemporary exorcisms. Hobbes emphasized that in a settled , miracles are superfluous for , since scripture alone suffices, and post-biblical assertions often mask political ambitions, exacerbating divisions as claimants compete for authority. Hobbes extended this skepticism to sectarianism, viewing the multiplication of religious factions—such as Presbyterians, Independents, and Anabaptists in 17th-century —as a primary cause of interpretive , where divergent private readings of scripture erode unified obedience and invite the "war of all against all" into spiritual realms. In Leviathan Chapters 18 and 42, he advocated Erastian absolutism, insisting the sovereign must dictate doctrine to suppress sects, as fragmented allegiances during the 1640s demonstrated how doctrinal pluralism invites foreign interference and domestic strife, with over 200 sects reportedly emerging by 1650. This stance prioritized causal stability over , positing that unchecked sectarian zeal, akin to , generates "darkness" through equivocal terms and feigned inspirations, resolvable only by state-enforced uniformity to preserve peace.

Defense Against Charges of Heresy

Hobbes encountered formal charges of heresy following the 1651 publication of , with critics such as Presbyterian minister Robert Sanderson and Bishop John Bramhall decrying his subordination of ecclesiastical authority to the sovereign and his mechanistic interpretation of scripture as atheistic or subversive to Christian . In 1666, amid Restoration efforts to suppress dissent, a parliamentary examined for heretical content, prompting Hobbes to burn unpublished manuscripts and compose defensive tracts to avert prosecution under lingering statutes like de haeretico comburendo. He argued that such laws lacked validity post-1641, as no sovereign had explicitly renewed capital penalties for doctrinal errors after I's concessions. In the 1668 Latin edition's Appendix to Leviathan, Hobbes redefined heresy not as any deviation from orthodox belief but as private philosophical opinions—akin to Hellenistic sects—that undermined civil obedience rather than core scriptural truths. He contended that heresy permeated the early church from its inception, citing patristic disputes as evidence that doctrinal diversity was normative, thereby relativizing contemporary accusations against his Erastian views. Hobbes maintained that true Christian faith required submission to the sovereign's interpretation of the Bible, positioning his political theology as a bulwark against sectarian chaos rather than heresy, and insisted that civil magistrates held exclusive interpretive authority to prevent interpretive anarchy. An unpublished manuscript, "An Historical Narration Concerning ," further defended by tracing the evolution of from apostolic tolerance to medieval persecutions, arguing that biblical precedent favored over civil penalties and that post-Reformation should prioritize state unity over doctrinal purity. Hobbes rejected charges of denying God's existence or miracles, affirming divine causation within a corpuscular framework while subordinating claims to natural reason under oversight. These arguments, echoed in responses to critics like Thomas Barlow, emphasized that historically served as a tool for power grabs, which his system neutralized by vesting doctrinal control in the secular ruler. Critics, including royalist divines, dismissed these defenses as sophistry masking , yet Hobbes' writings succeeded in forestalling formal condemnation, as and Restoration authorities prioritized political stability over theological vendettas. By framing as a threat to rather than inverted , he recast his doctrines as essential for peace, influencing later Erastian thought despite persistent clerical opposition.

Controversies and Contemporary Opponents

Debate with on and

The debate between Thomas Hobbes and John originated in 1645 amid the , when both men, as supporters, engaged over Hobbes' assertion of human actions as fully determined by prior causes, leaving no room for uncaused . , prompted by the Marquis of Newcastle, composed an initial critique of Hobbes' deterministic stance on liberty, emphasizing the necessity of free choice for . Hobbes responded privately in 1650 with his treatise Of Liberty and Necessity, arguing that all events, including volitions, follow necessarily from antecedent causes in a mechanistic , though this was published without his consent in 1654. countered in works such as A Brief View and Survey of the Dangerous and Pernicious Errors to Church and State in Mr. Hobbes's (1652) and subsequent Castigations (1656–1658), defending libertarian against what he saw as Hobbes' fatalism. Hobbes maintained a compatibilist view, defining not as but as the "absence of external impediments to motion," applicable even to determined agents whose internal deliberations culminate in the "last appetite" without outer . He rejected Bramhall's demand for "true " as self-caused action, deeming it absurd since causes must precede effects in a causal chain extending from or initial motions, rendering human will as much necessitated as a falling stone's trajectory. For Hobbes, arises not from metaphysical but from social covenants and consequences, such as deterrence through , independent of whether actions are causally inevitable. This position aligned with his broader materialist philosophy, where deliberation simulates choice but resolves predictably from desires and aversions shaped by prior experiences. Bramhall, drawing on scholastic and Arminian , insisted that genuine requires the power to act or refrain under identical circumstances, without extrinsic or intrinsic necessity dictating outcomes, as would nullify rational and . He argued that Hobbes' scheme undermines in and reward, since agents could not "help" their deeds if fully caused, reducing to mere mechanical responses unfit for accountable beings created in God's image. Bramhall further contended that Hobbes' external-impediment definition conflates physical freedom with volitional agency, ignoring internal essential for , , and divine commands, and accused it of implying divine co-authorship of . The exchange highlighted irreconcilable views on causation: Hobbes' necessitarian , where contingency exists only in of causes, versus Bramhall's affirmation of agent-caused exceptions to for voluntary acts. Hobbes rebutted scriptural appeals by interpreting biblical exhortations as prudential rather than indicative of , while Bramhall invoked them to affirm human exemption from natural necessity. The persisted until Bramhall's in 1663, with texts collected posthumously in volumes like Hobbes' English Works (1839–1845) and modern editions, influencing later compatibilist and libertarian discourses without resolution, as each upheld their framework against the other's experiential and definitional proofs.

Mathematical Polemics with John Wallis

In 1655, Thomas Hobbes published , the first part of his philosophical trilogy, which subordinated mathematics to and to , while claiming a proof for using only compass and straightedge constructions. This ancient problem, posed since antiquity, seeks a square of equal area to a given circle without transcendental methods; Hobbes's attempt relied on a novel interpretation of conic sections but contained a critical error in assuming equal areas from intersecting curves without rigorous proof. , appointed Savilian Professor of at in 1649 and a decipherer for during the Civil War, promptly critiqued Hobbes's in Elenchus Geometriae Hobbianae (1655), exposing flaws such as misapplications of Euclidean principles and overreliance on unproven equivalences. The exchange intensified as Hobbes, then aged 67, responded with Marcae sive Notae posthac apud G. I. W. dictas (1656), deriding Wallis's work as "absurd , rural language, Scottish church politics, and barbarisms," while reiterating his commitment to synthetic, symbol-free derived from motion and rejecting algebraic innovations as non-geometric. Wallis countered in Due Corrections for Mr. Hobbes (1656) and subsequent tracts, defending methods and arithmetical approaches to curves, which Hobbes dismissed as imprecise "scraps of arithmetic" unfit for true demonstration. Over the next two decades, the produced dozens of pamphlets, including Hobbes's failed attempts to duplicate the (1657) and trisect the angle, each refuted by Wallis, who leveraged the dispute to assail Hobbes's materialist and perceived rather than purely mathematical disagreement. Hobbes broadened his attacks to the nascent , founded in 1660, accusing its members of promoting uncertain "" over deductive certainty, and specifically targeting Wallis as its mathematical authority despite his Presbyterian background and role in Cromwell's regime, which Hobbes viewed as hypocritical given Wallis's later Restoration loyalty. Wallis, in works like Hobbius Heauton-timoroumenos (1666–1668), methodically dismantled Hobbes's constructions, emphasizing empirical verification and symbolic notation's utility, though Hobbes persisted in claims of victory through appeals to first principles of local motion. The feud persisted until Hobbes's death on December 4, 1679, at age 91, with no resolution; Hobbes's geometric efforts, while innovative in emphasizing physical intuition, failed empirically, underscoring his broader skepticism toward post-Euclidean developments like Descartes' analytics, which he saw as devolving into mere computation.

Political and Theological Critiques from Royalists and Presbyterians

Royalist critics, particularly those aligned with the restored Stuart monarchy, assailed Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) for undermining divine-right kingship through its contractual theory of sovereignty, which implied that allegiance could shift to de facto rulers like Oliver Cromwell, thereby justifying submission to parliamentary or republican authority during the Interregnum. Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, a key architect of the Restoration, composed a detailed refutation in his unpublished notes on Hobbes's De Cive (1642) and later formalized it in A Brief View and Survey of the Dangerous and Pernicious Errors to Church and State in Mr. Hobbes's Book Entitled Leviathan (circulated in manuscript by the 1660s and published posthumously in 1676), arguing that Hobbes's deduction of absolute sovereignty from a hypothetical state of nature eroded moral responsibility and traditional legal constraints on power, portraying the sovereign as unbound by divine or natural law. Clarendon's critique emphasized Hobbes's errors in subordinating ecclesiastical authority entirely to the civil sovereign (Erastianism), which Clarendon saw as weakening the Anglican church's independent spiritual role essential to royalist ideology, where the monarch served as defender of the faith under God's ordinance rather than as the sole interpreter of scripture. Theologically, Royalists like John , Bishop of Armagh and a staunch defender of episcopal hierarchy, condemned Hobbes's mechanistic and as incompatible with Christian , particularly in their 1640s debate revived in print after 1650, where Bramhall charged that Hobbes's denial of reduced humans to automata devoid of or accountability to , thus collapsing divine into causal necessity and rendering prayer or superfluous. Bramhall's The Catching of the Leviathan (1658) further lambasted Hobbes's portrayal of the as an artificial "mortal god" that supplanted ecclesiastical mediation, arguing it fostered irreligion by vesting interpretive power over doctrine in the sovereign, potentially enabling tyrannical control over consciences—a direct threat to the Anglican settlement Bramhall sought to restore under Charles II. Presbyterians, dominant in the and parliamentary alliances during the 1640s-1650s, mounted early campaigns to censor upon its 1651 release, viewing Hobbes's Erastian subordination of church governance to state authority as an assault on presbyterian synods' independence and scriptural discipline, which they deemed ordained by divine covenant rather than civil grant. Hobbes's explicit mockery of presbyterian preaching as "extempore" ranting inspired by false inner spirits, rather than orderly scripture, fueled demands for suppression, as detailed in petitions to the and later councils, where critics like those aligned with the ejected clergy accused him of promoting sectarian by denying clerical corporations any jural personality separate from the . Theologically, Presbyterians rejected Hobbes's materialist reduction of spirits, angels, and the soul to corporeal motions, interpreting it as Hobbist atheism that invalidated of the Pentateuch and prophetic authority, core to their ; this led to calls for Hobbes's prosecution for , culminating in the 1666 parliamentary bill (defeated) to burn publicly alongside other "impious" works. Despite shared absolutist leanings against radical Independents, Presbyterians saw Hobbes's framework as enabling sovereign caprice over , contrasting their vision of checked by presbyterian assemblies enforcing uniformity.

Legacy and Interpretations

Influence on Enlightenment and Social Contract Theorists

Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) pioneered the as a rational mechanism for escaping the anarchic , where self-interested individuals, roughly equal in power, engage in perpetual conflict driven by competition, diffidence, and glory, necessitating surrender of natural rights to an undivided for mutual security. This framework, grounded in a mechanistic view of human motivation akin to physical laws, provided a secular, deductive basis for political , diverging from medieval divine-right theories and influencing later theorists who adapted its hypothetical consent model while rejecting its absolutist conclusions. Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–1694), in naturae et gentium (1672), incorporated Hobbes's emphasis on self-preservation and contractual obligation but tempered it with a of innate socialitas (sociability), arguing that requires not just avoidance of harm but affirmative duties toward others, thus moderating Hobbes's egoistic premises into a more cooperative system that bridged to Enlightenment voluntarism. Pufendorf critiqued Hobbes's ambiguity in terms like "right" while retaining the analytical tool of the to derive duties, influencing figures like Christian Thomasius and Christian Wolff in their syntheses. John Locke (1632–1704), in Two Treatises of Government (1689), explicitly invoked Hobbes's and methodology but reconceived the former as inconvenient rather than bellicose, governed by rational that preserves life, liberty, and property, enabling a consent-based government with and a right of resistance against breaches of trust—directly countering Hobbes's indivisible as a recipe for tyranny. Locke's modifications, informed by the of 1688, popularized the contract as justifying limited, accountable rule, though he shared Hobbes's empirical focus on human passions requiring institutional checks. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), in Du contrat social (1762), rejected Hobbes's portrayal of natural man as inherently aggressive, positing instead an originally solitary and compassionate being corrupted by societal inequalities and property, yet adopted the contract to legitimize alienating individual wills to a "" for true —transforming Hobbes's security-oriented pact into a participatory that prioritized moral regeneration over mere order. This inversion highlighted Hobbes's enduring provocation: his stark realism on human egoism spurred idealist responses, yet his contractual logic underpinned revolutionary claims to popular authority during the of 1789. Broader Enlightenment figures, including and Hume, engaged Hobbes's ideas indirectly through these mediators; Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748) critiqued absolute power while echoing Hobbesian concerns over factional instability, and Hume questioned the historical plausibility of original contracts but affirmed tacit consent for stability, reflecting Hobbes's causal emphasis on fear and interest as drivers of obedience. Despite widespread condemnation of Hobbes's as atheistic—evident in bans of Leviathan in (1683) and —his theory's rigor compelled rational reconstruction, establishing discourse as central to Enlightenment debates on legitimacy, though often sanitized of its authoritarian edge to align with emerging liberal constitutionalism.

Hobbesianism in Realism and State Theory

Hobbes' conception of the state of nature, outlined in Leviathan (1651), posits a condition of perpetual conflict among individuals driven by self-preservation and competition, necessitating an absolute sovereign to enforce peace through undivided authority. This framework underpins Hobbesianism in political realism, particularly in international relations theory, where the absence of a global enforcer mirrors domestic anarchy, leading states to prioritize survival amid mutual suspicion. Classical realists, such as E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau, invoked Hobbesian premises of human nature—marked by fear, glory-seeking, and power maximization—to explain interstate rivalry as inevitable, rejecting idealistic notions of perpetual harmony. In state theory, Hobbesianism advocates for as an artificial construct emerging from a covenant wherein subjects alienate natural to a Leviathan-like , indivisible and perpetual, to avert dissolution into . This absolutism, justified by the causal logic that divided powers invite factionalism—as evidenced by England's Civil War (1642–1651)—prioritizes effective governance over moral constraints or checks and balances. Hobbes argued that the sovereign's commands, not divine right or popular alone, constitute , ensuring stability through if necessary, a view echoed in modern analyses of state consolidation under existential threats. Critics within realist scholarship contend that Hobbesianism is selectively interpreted in international theory, as Hobbes accommodated limited interstate cooperation via treaties and principles, without endorsing a perpetual global or precluding ethical restraints on . Nonetheless, structural realists like adapted Hobbes' model to emphasize systemic pressures on states, treating as a barrier to supranational and reinforcing the realist dictum that security dilemmas arise from rational in a leaderless . Empirical applications persist in analyses of great-power competition, where Hobbesian logic frames alliances as temporary expedients against common foes, as seen in post-World War II balance-of-power dynamics. Hobbesianism thus integrates causal realism—rooted in observable human passions and institutional incentives—with state theory's emphasis on coercive monopoly to sustain order, influencing debates on failed states and interventionism, though it faces challenges from liberal institutionalists who highlight interdependence mitigating raw .

Common Misinterpretations and Debunked Critiques

One persistent misinterpretation portrays Thomas Hobbes as an atheist, stemming from his materialist philosophy and critiques of religious enthusiasm, which led contemporaries like Bishop John Bramhall to accuse him of teachings conducive to atheism. However, Hobbes explicitly affirmed God's existence as the immaterial first cause of the universe and accepted core Christian doctrines, including original sin and scriptural authority under sovereign interpretation, viewing his positions as orthodox defenses against superstition rather than denial of divinity. Scholars such as A.P. Martinich argue that charges of insincere piety overlook Hobbes's consistent theological commitments, evidenced in works like Leviathan (1651), where he subordinates ecclesiastical power to the state to prevent sectarian conflict, not to eradicate faith. Another common error equates Hobbes's advocacy for absolute sovereignty with endorsement of unlimited, tyrannical power devoid of constraints, often labeling it proto-totalitarian. In reality, while Hobbes deemed undivided authority essential to escape the state of nature's war—arguing division invites factional strife and relapse into —subjects retain an inalienable right to , permitting resistance against direct threats to life, as no covenant can oblige or immediate death. This limit arises from the social contract's foundational logic: authorization of the derives from individuals' self-interested pursuit of security, rendering obligations void when the fails to provide protection, as Hobbes clarifies in Chapter 21. Critiques portraying Hobbes as oblivious to tyranny ignore his pragmatic concession that even flawed rule surpasses , but power's practical dependence on subjects' allegiance imposes checks absent in theoretical absolutism. Hobbes is frequently misconstrued as prescribing as the sole legitimate form, with vested exclusively in a single . Hobbes, however, explicitly allowed in , , or , provided it remains indivisible and absolute to enforce peace, though he favored for its decisiveness and reduced intrigue, as outlined in Chapter 19. This flexibility debunks claims of rigid , rooted instead in that any unified suffices if it monopolizes , countering historical failures like England's divided parliaments during the 1640s . The is often misinterpreted as a literal historical or anthropological depiction of pre-civil societies, inviting debunked critiques based on evidence of cooperative tribes or non-violent primitives. Hobbes intended it as a deductive illustrating human equality, competition, and diffidence without , yielding mutual insecurity—not an empirical claim about actual hunter-gatherers, but a logical premise for why rational demands covenanting into commonwealths. Anthropological objections falter by conflating with history; Hobbes's model explains recurrent civil disorders, such as the English wars he witnessed (1642–1651), through first principles of rather than ethnographic denial.

Recent Scholarly Developments

In the past decade, scholars have increasingly positioned Hobbes as a foundational figure in political realism, emphasizing his mechanistic view of and the necessities of state power over idealistic alternatives. Robin Douglass (2020) argues that Hobbes's emphasis on power dynamics and toward aligns him with realist traditions, distinguishing his thought from alone by highlighting prudential calculations in rather than abstract . This interpretation counters earlier liberal readings, attributing Hobbes's relevance to ongoing realist debates in , where his analogy informs analyses of without endorsing unchecked aggression. Recent textual scholarship has advanced through critical editions and comparative analyses, facilitating reevaluations of Hobbes's evolving ideas. Deborah Baumgold's three-text edition (2017, with ongoing influence into the 2020s) juxtaposes The Elements of Law, De Cive, and Leviathan, demonstrating Hobbes's iterative refinement of absolutism in response to English civil unrest, rather than static doctrine. Complementing this, a 2023 study by Michael J. Green traces Hobbes's shifting treatment of exemplarity—from historical imitation in early works to rejection in Leviathan—as a deliberate strategy to undermine sectarian appeals to precedent, prioritizing rational authorization of sovereignty. Contemporary applications extend Hobbes to modern crises, including technological and democratic . A special issue in Philosophies (initiated circa 2020) explores Hobbesian lenses on , environmental , and AI-driven , positing his fear-based as prescient for state responses to existential risks like climate instability or algorithmic control. Formal reconstructions using , as in recent dissertations, model Hobbes's equilibrium of mutual fear leading to covenant, challenging deterministic critiques by incorporating strategic over pure . These developments reflect a broader academic turn toward Hobbes's causal for dissecting power asymmetries, though interpretations vary on whether his absolutism prescribes or merely diagnoses authoritarian tendencies in liberal democracies.

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