History And Modernity In The Thought Of Thomas Hobbes

Robert Kraynak offers a radical reinterpretation of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes and a new assessment of Hobbes's contribution to the origins and problems of modernity. The author argues that it is necessary to examine a neglected facet of Hobbes's thought—his writings on history, especially Behemoth, his lengthy study of the English Civil War. Through a close reading of these works, Kraynak shows how Hobbes came to consider the possibility of a new kind of political science, one that is supremely confident of the power of critical reason to overcome the authorities of the past to build a new form of civilization yet uncertain about reason's foundations.

Yves Charles Zarka shows you how Hobbes established the framework for modern political thought. Discover the origin of liberalism in the Hobbesian theory of negative liberty; that Hobbesian interest and contract are essential to contemporary discussions of the comportment of economic actors; and how state sovereignty returns anew in the form of the servility of the state. At the same time, Zarka controversially argues against received readings claiming that Hobbes is a thinker of a state monopoly on legitimate violence.

In this groundbreaking collection of essays the history of philosophy appears in a fresh light, not as reason's progressive discovery of its universal conditions, but as a series of unreconciled disputes over the proper way to conduct oneself as a philosopher. By shifting focus from the philosopher as proxy for the universal subject of reason to the philosopher as a special persona arising from rival forms of self-cultivation, philosophy is approached in terms of the social office and intellectual deportment of the philosopher, as a personage with a definite moral physiognomy and institutional setting. In so doing, this collection of essays by leading figures in the fields of both philosophy and the history of ideas provides access to key early modern disputes over what it meant to be a philosopher, and to the institutional and larger political and religious contexts in which such disputes took place.

For the first time in three centuries, this book brings back into print three discourses now confirmed to have been written by the young Thomas Hobbes. Their contents may well lead to a resolution of the long-standing controversy surrounding Hobbes's early influences and the subsequent development of his thought. The volume begins with the recent history of the discourses, first published as part of the anonymous seventeenth-century work, Horae Subsecivae. Drawing upon both internal evidence and external confirmation afforded by new statistical "wordprinting" techniques, the editors present a compelling case for Hobbes's authorship. Saxonhouse and Reynolds present the complete texts of the discourse with full annotations and modernized spellings. These are followed by a lengthy essay analyzing the pieces' significance for Hobbes's intellectual development and modern political thought more generally. The discourses provide the strongest evidence to date for the profound influences of Bacon and Machiavelli on the young Hobbes, and they add a new dimension to the much-debated impact of the scientific method on his thought. The book also contains both introductory and in-depth explanations of statistical "wordprinting."

Revolutionises our understanding of Hobbes's influence over Locke and their roles within the history of religious freedom and liberalism.

Thomas Hobbes is a towering figure in the history of modern thought and political philosophy. He remains best remembered for his 1651 treatise on government, Leviathan, a work that shows at the very best the reasoning skills of a deeply original and creative thinker. Creative thinking is all about taking a novel approach to questions and problems – showing them in a new light. When Hobbes was writing Leviathan, the standard approach to understanding (and advocating for) monarchical government was to argue, using Christian theology, that kings and queens gained their power and legitimacy from God. At a time of intense political turmoil in England – with civil war raging from 1642-51 – Hobbes took the original step of basing a political theory upon reason alone, and focusing on human nature. His closely-reasoned arguments made the book a controversial best-seller across Europe at the time of its publication, and it has remained a cornerstone of political theory ever since. Though Hobbes argued for government by an absolute monarch, many of his ideas and precepts helped form modern liberal ideas of government, influencing, among others, the American Constitution.

In his unconventional reading of the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, Flathman (political science, Johns Hopkins U.) suggests a liberal reading of Hobbes that is skeptical of ethical and metaphysical arguments that claim to know God or God's moral requirements. This leads to a view that the preferred political order is one in which disagreement and disturbance are to be privileged over an imposed homogeneity or uniformity. The foregoing suggests that we cannot do well without government, but we should chasten our expectations for government to provide the conditions necessary for the pursuit of our individual happiness. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Written during a moment in English history when the political and social structures were in flux and open to interpretation, Leviathan played an essential role in the development of the modern world.