Hobbes's Behemoth and the Argument for Absolutism

1982 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 837-847 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Kraynak
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Science ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Civil Strife ◽  
Human Choice ◽  
Psychological Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

Hobbes's history of the English Civil War, The Behemoth, has been neglected by contemporary scholars, yet it provides the clearest statement of the problem that Hobbes's political science is designed to solve. In Behemoth, Hobbes shows that societies such as seventeenth century England inevitably degenerate into civil war because they are founded on authoritative opinion. The claim that there is a single, authoritative definition of Tightness or truth which is not an arbitrary human choice is an illusion of “intellectual vainglory,” a feeling of pride in the superiority of one's opinions which causes persecution and civil strife. By presenting Hobbes's historical and psychological analysis of this problem, I illuminate his argument for absolutism and show that Hobbes is not a precursor of totalitarianism but a founder of liberalism.

Writing History: Domestic Papers, Biographical Writing, and Public Histories

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret J. M. Ezell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Family Member ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Lucy Hutchinson ◽  
History Of ◽  
Life Writings

Many who lived through the English Civil War penned memoirs of their experiences, some of which were published after their deaths, such as Richard Baxter’s life writings and Thomas Fuller’s accounts of the worthies of England, or wrote and published topical public histories, including John Milton’s history of Britain. Samuel Pepys’s and John Evelyn’s diaries are among the most important sources about the Restoration years. Others such as Lucy Hutchinson wrote memoirs for their family or, like Margaret Cavendish, to defend the reputation of a family member. There was also interest in the history of foreign cultures, past rulers, and antiquarian topics.

The Composition of Thomas Habington’s ‘Survey of Worcestershire’

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Don Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Work Up ◽  
The Way

Thomas Habington of Hindlip (1560–1647), a Catholic gentleman, was the first historian of Worcestershire. Had it not been for the English Civil War, his Survey of Worcestershire would probably have been published in the 1640s. In fact it was not published until the 1890s, and then in a form and order which was very different from what he had intended. Others who worked on the history of the county (William Thomas, Bishop Charles Lyttelton, Peter Prattinton and, most importantly, T. R. Nash, whose ‘Collections’ for a history of the county appeared in 1781–2) did so on the basis of Habington’s unpublished manuscripts. In this article the genesis of the ‘Survey’ will be examined, the way in which his conception of its scope altered, his method of gathering materials, the additions he made to the work up to the time of his death in October 1647, and the relevance of his Catholicism to the Survey.

All the king's men: the impact of the crown's Irish soldiers on the English civil war

1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (83) ◽  
pp. 239-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Lee Malcolm
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Military Assistance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Disastrous Effect ◽  
Second Year ◽  
King's Men ◽  
The Impact

In the second year of the English civil war both king and parliament sought and received substantial military assistance from outside the kingdom: Charles concluded a truce with the Irish rebels and began the importation of troops from Ireland; parliament negotiated the introduction of an army from Scotland. Historians of the period are agreed that these parallel steps had quite opposite results. While the Scots army is invariably viewed as a ‘big factor in turning the scales against the king’, Charles's importation of Irish soldiers is regarded as having an insignificant impact on his military situation and a disastrous effect upon his popular standing. Parliament's alliance with the Scots has therefore been acclaimed necessary and prudent, Charles's acquisition of Irish help a terrible blunder. Samuel R. Gardiner, in his classic history of the English civil war, singled out the king's importation of Irish troops to England as the act which did most to weaken his authority.

The Debate about methodus medendi during the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century in England

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 339-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Crignon
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Comparative Anatomy ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient Medicine ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Ancient Philosopher ◽  
Active Investigation

Following a recent trend in the field of the history of philosophy and medicine, this paper stresses the necessity of recognizing empiricism’s patent indebtedness to the sciences of the body. While the tribute paid to the Hippocratic method of observation in the work of Thomas Sydenham is well known, it seems necessary to take into account a trend more critical of ancient medicine developed by followers of chemical medicine who considered the doctrine of elements and humours to be a typical example of the idols that hinder the improvement of medical knowledge and defend the necessity of experimentation (comparative anatomy, dissection, autopsy, chemical analysis of bodies). In light of the fact that modern discoveries (blood circulation, the lymphatic system, theory of fevers) resulted in a “new frame of human nature,” they developed a critical reading of ancient empiricism. As a consequence, we can distinguish between two distinct anti-speculative traditions in the genesis of philosophical empiricism. The first (which includes Bacon, Boyle and Willis) recommends an active investigation into nature and refers to the figure of Democritus, the ancient philosopher who devoted himself to the dissection of beasts. Defenders of this first tradition refuse point-blank to be called ‘empiricists’, a label which had a very negative meaning during the seventeenth century, when it was used to dismiss charlatans and quacks. The other tradition (including Sydenham and Locke), stressing as it does the role of description and observation, is more sceptical of the ability of dissection or anatomy to give us access to causes of diseases. This later tradition comes closer to the definition of ancient empiricism and to the figure of Hippocrates.


Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Como
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Press ◽  
King Charles I ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

This book charts the way the English Civil War of the 1640s mutated into a revolution (paving the way for the later execution of King Charles I and the abolition of the monarchy). Focusing on parliament’s most militant supporters, the book reconstructs the origins and nature of the most radical forms of political and religious agitation that erupted during the war, tracing the process by which these forms gradually spread and gained broader acceptance. Drawing on a wide range of manuscript and print sources, the study situates these developments within a revised narrative of the period, revealing the emergence of new practices and structures for the conduct of politics. In the process, the book illuminates the appearance of many of the period’s strikingly novel intellectual currents, including ideas and practices we today associate with western representative democracy—notions of retained natural rights, religious toleration, freedom of the press, and freedom from arbitrary imprisonment. The book also chronicles the way the civil war shattered English Protestantism—leaving behind myriad competing groupings, including congregationalists, baptists, antinomians, and others—while examining the relationship between this religious fragmentation and political change. Finally, the book traces the gradual appearance of openly anti-monarchical, republican sentiment among parliament’s supporters. Radical Parliamentarians provides a new history of the English Civil War, enhancing our understanding of the dramatic events of the 1640s, and shedding light on the long-term political and religious consequences of the conflict.

Marvell’s ‘Nymph Complaining’ and the Erotics of Vitalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 370-386
Author(s):  
Leah S. Marcus
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Natural World ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Hortus Conclusus

This enigmatic complaint has been studied in terms of a number of registers: political and ecocritical, relating to the English Civil War and its devastation of the countryside; Ovidian, relating to the Nymph’s desire to be metamorphosed into part of the natural world as a way of monumentalizing and assimilating her grief; ecclesiastical, relating to traditional images of the English Church as a hortus conclusus; and many others. This chapter briefly surveys these various strangs of meaning and then considers an understudied seventeenth-century context that helps tie them together: vitalist materialist thought, which posited an empathic relationship among humans, elements of nature, and even objects like stones, which we now are likely to consider inanimate. Recent vitalist materialist theorists like Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett interpret earlier vitalist ideas as a reaction against Descartes and his violent separation of the human from the non-human, which ruled out the potential for sub-human entities to feel emotion. But long before Descartes, vitalism flourished in England, thanks to Galenic and Paracelsian medicine, the Hermetic Books and Kabbala, and various other sources. In light of vitalist thinking in England at mid-century, Marvell’s poem can be read as a project for keeping the connections between humans and the natural world alive even amidst the wrenching changes alluded to in the poem.

The Last English Civil War

Daedalus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 147 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Fukuyama
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Glorious Revolution ◽  
English History ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Normative Factors ◽  
The Glorious Revolution

This essay examines why England experienced a civil war every fifty years from the Norman Conquest up until the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689, and was completely stable after that point. The reasons had to do with, first, the slow accumulation of law and respect for the law that had occurred by the seventeenth century, and second, with the emergence of a strong English state and sense of national identity by the end of the Tudor period. This suggests that normative factors are very important in creating stable settlements. Rational choice explanations for such outcomes assert that stalemated conflicts will lead parties to accept second- or third-best outcomes, but English history, as well as more recent experiences, suggests that stability requires normative change as well.

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