Hobbes

toc =__Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)__=

=**Major Works**= //[|Elements of Law, Natural and Politic]// //De Cive// //**Leviathan**// //De Corpore// //Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance// //Behemoth//

=Biography=

Thomas Hobbes was born the second son of the vicar of Westport and Charlton (Wiltshire) England on April 5, 1588. He was born prematurely because of the stress created by the news of the approaching Spanish Armada. He later considered it a sign that he was born under the burden of fear and the consequent passion for peace.

His father abandoned the family in Thomas' early youth and was raised by relatives. He began schooling early in his life and entered [|Magdalen College], at the [|University of Oxford] when he was just fifteen. As a child he demonstrated little interest in his philosophy studies, though he was intrigued by maps and charts.

Upon graduation four years later, he became connected to the Cavendish family, serving as private tutor to the young [|William Cavendish] (who would become the second Earl of Devonshire) A tour with his student to the European continent stirred his interest in philosophy, and he began to study the classics thereafter. He began to develop a growing interest in the movement of history--in the fates of nations and empires. In 1629 he published a translation of Thucydides' [|History of the Peloponnesian War], which was largely motivated by his desire to send a warning to England about the dangers of democracy gone amiss, as happened in ancient Athens.

He was also heavily influenced by the new scientific discoveries on the European continent that the cause of all things was //not// some inherent urge of things to a particular self-realization or self-fulfillment (as was traditionally assumed), but //was,// instead a transcending system of various principles of motion. By the time of his third journey to the continent in 1636, when he met [|Galileo], he had become a devotee to the new science of mechanics.

From this new interest, Hobbes wrote three books, all related to the application of the principles of mechanics or motion to all life: //De corpore,// //De homine,// and //De cive.// The first, published in 1655, focused on the behavior of physical life, the second, published 1658 focused on the actions or behavior of the human body and mind, and the third, written 1642 but never published, applied these principles to man's organized social life.

But his return from the continent in 1636 was disturbed by the growing disharmony in England over the question of the royal prerogative. Royalist and anti-royalist factions were forming, and Hobbes, in 1640, put together a manuscript, //[|The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic]//, designed to demonstrate that the royal prerogative belonged by nature to the monarchy.

But this pleased neither faction in the dispute. Hobbes conceived of the royal prerogative as an evolved principle of governance arising from some ancient contractual transfer of power of popular or democratic society when democracy showed itself unable to govern properly. The royalists were not pleased at Hobbes' building a logical explanation of royal power on some kind of social contract theory arising from the consent of the people, for they claimed that royal power came solely and indisputably from God. But the anti-Royalists were unhappy with his work because it built a strong argument for absolute royal power.

Hobbes, ever nervous about the movement of political events, decided that life would be safer for him in Paris--where he spent the next 11 years. He and Descartes parted ways over Hobbes' critique of [|Descartes] [|//Meditations//]. Hobbes’ own works began to draw interest on the continent, especially //De cive//--which accorded monarchy absolute rights over the peace of the land, including even over issues of a religious nature.

//De cive// soon underwent a second edition, and //The Elements of Law// finally went into published form in the next few years. But even more important was his publication in 1651 of his masterwork, //Leviathan: or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil.//

But the work did not have the intended effect Hobbes supposed it would. By this time, the monarchy in England was ended and the country lived under the rule of [|Oliver Cromwell] and his Parliamentary army. Leviathan was intended to make a powerful case for a restored monarchy, except that the logic or justification employed was again a utilitarian one: people should submit to royal authority because it has the unique power to protect the people from civil disorder. Again his work did not give any support whatsoever to the royalist argument concerning the divine rights of kings. Worse, the work took on the arguments of both the Presbyterian and Papal factions which used scripture to undergird their claims. This further antagonized the Royalists, who were mostly fiercely Catholic and detested his attacks on their religious position.

Now Hobbes felt unsafe in Paris and returned to England--and submitted himself to the Cromwellian political system. He settled in London and joined some of the vibrant intellectual circles there. But unfortunately an old argument concerning human free will was brought back to life by one of Hobbes' admirers who decided to publish private correspondence between Hobbes and Bramhall, Bishop of Londonderry.

But [|King Charles II] was still well-disposed to his former tutor (Hobbes had tutored him while he was in Paris for a time in 1646), though many in the royalist ranks were not, especially over Hobbes' "atheism" demonstrated in his attacks on the church in his Leviathan. By the mid 1660s both the Great Fire of London and outbreaks of the plague in England stirred the superstitions of the day--and led the government to be vigilant in its ferreting out heresies that might be responsible for bringing the wrath of God on English society. Hobbes thus came under scrutiny for heresy.

Though the heresy furor eventually abated, Hobbes was barred from printing any more of his writing on social issues. Though Hobbes had promised his protector [|Charles II] to not stir up further controversy, the publication in 1679 of //Behemoth: The History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England,// (probably written about 1668) put Hobbes in jeopardy. His death that same year, at the age of 90, was probably all that spared him from the wrath of the royalist party.

Biography taken from http://www.newgenevacenter.org/biography/hobbes2.htm and http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/nature/hobbes-bio.html

=Links=

Hobbes and Religion The State of Nature