5/29/2023 0 Comments Leviathan hobbes meaningIn the most famous passage of Leviathan he says that in a state of nature there are ‘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.’ Human existence in a state of nature is, according to Hobbes, pretty undesirable. Hobbes grounds Leviathan in a state of nature – a theoretical situation in which humans have no institutions, no government, no coercive power – a pre-societal condition. To understand politics, he argued, you had to understand people. Hobbes’ originality was his belief that political theory could be deduced from scientific principles about psychology, the senses, language, morality, knowledge, and power. Nuanced and original, he is probably the most influential figure in modern political philosophy who, and could be described as the father of both modern liberalism and modern conservatism. Hobbes looms over all of us as the preeminent defender of the modern state and sovereign authority. An introduction to Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |