Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a philosopher and political theorist . Author of works that cover concepts of politics, psychology, physics and mathematics. Leviathan (1651) wrote , a political treatise that earned him some persecutions and many disciples.
Hobbes Biography
Hobbes was born in Westport, England. The son of an uneducated vicar, he was brought up by an uncle. He studied the classics and at the age of fourteen he translated Medeia, written by Euripides, into Latin verses. At the age of fifteen he went to Oxford University, where he learned logic and philosophy, especially that of the Greek Aristotle.
Between 1608 and 1610 he was tutor to Lord Hardwich (future Earl of Devonshire), with whom he traveled through Italy and settled in France. At that time, he began to study the works of Galileo, Kepler and Euclides.
In Italy he visited Galileo, who had a decisive influence on the formation of his philosophical ideas. This contact led him to merge his concerns about social and political problems with his interest in geometry and the thinking of mechanistic philosophers.
If the principle that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles were contrary to the interests of the owners, one would have tried to annul it, by burning the geometry books.
Hobbes returned to England in 1637, where he maintained violent debates about his ideas, at a time when the political situation announced a civil war.
Hobbes favored royal power and withdrew to France in 1640, when Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford, the king’s chief auxiliaries, were taken to the tower on charges of conspiracy.
His time in Paris was one of intense intellectual activity. Descartes refuted, taught mathematics to the future Charles II (son of Charles I) of England, who was also in exile.
Leviathan
In 1651, Hobbes launched Leviathan, where he confirms and expands his work on politics. As Leviathan disgusted the Catholic Church and the French government, he was pressured to leave the country.
He returned to London and declared himself submissive to the English minister Cromwell. During the last years of his life he wrote his autobiography and dealt with the translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey in Latin verses.
In 1679, at the age of 91, he died during a trip, accompanying Count Devonshire.
Hobbes’ Political Ideas
For Hobbes, all knowledge comes from the senses, Passion is stronger than will. Morally and politically, this theory goes as follows: the State’s subjects are extremely individualistic and only come together in community because that is the best way to survive.
This semi-war is analyzed in Leviathan. Leviathan, in the book of Job, in the Bible is the monster that rules primitive chaos. For Hobbes, the State is the Great Leviathan, the immortal god that overlaps the individual and absorbs him, although he was created to serve him.
Hobbes was the author of several works such as: De Cive (1642), Leviathan (1651), De Corpore (1655) and De Homine (1658).
In all of them he speaks of a Natural State in perpetual war, expressing his thought well in the phrase: ” Bellum omnia contra omnes, homo homini lupus ” (Man is the wolf of man).
Hobbes and the Social Contract
The Social Contract would be an agreement between the members of society, which recognizes the authority of a sovereign, owner of enlightened rights. The absolutist state would be the only one capable of enforcing the Social Contract and guaranteeing order and peace in the relationship between individuals.
In order to build a society, each individual must give up certain natural rights to the government or other authority. With this, one obtains the advantages of the social order and establishes a mutual agreement of non-annihilation of the other.
Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are the most famous philosophers adept at the Social Contract.