scholarly journals Nature, civility and eschatology: Thomas Hobbes’s progress in three acts

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 884-900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marko Simendic
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Condition ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Hypothetical Situation

This paper argues that Thomas Hobbes?s theory contains an account of progressive defragmentation and unification of power, accompanied by the progression in human reasoning capacities. If the consequence of human nature is abandonment of natural condition and subjection to a sovereign, then similar principles should apply to the sovereigns themselves, since Hobbes sees them as continuing to exist in the state of nature. In turn, the relations between sovereigns must also lead to defragmentation of political authority, either by conquest or through peaceful submission. Total defragmentation of power might also have eschatological consequences, as the unified power of one human being over the whole world would remove ?external violence? as a cause of ?the dissolution of a commonwealth? while the perfection of reason would progressively remove the ?internal? causes. This is a hypothetical situation that could relate Hobbes?s description of the Kingdom of God from Leviathan to his wider political theory by marking the single sovereign representative of now immortal all-encompassing Leviathan as the Antichrist and thus announcing the second coming of Christ.

Thomas Hobbes's Materialism, Language, and the Possibility of Politics

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Dungey
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
The Social

AbstractThomas Hobbes sought a reconstruction of philosophy, ethics, and politics that would end, once and for all, the bitter disputes that led to the English Civil War. This reconstruction begins with the first principles of matter and motion and extends to a unique account of consent and political obligation. Hobbes intended to produce a unified philosophical system linking his materialist account of human nature to his moral and political theory. However, his materialism gives rise to a set of perceptions, imagination, and desires that contribute to the chaos of the state of nature. The sort of person that emerges from Hobbes's materialist anthropology is unlikely to be able to make the necessary agreements about common meaning and language that constitute the ground of the social contract. Therefore, Hobbes's materialism frustrates the very purpose for which it is conceived.

Kropotkin

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Kinna
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Special Character ◽  
Revolutionary Politics

This book is designed to remove Peter Kropotkin from the framework of classical anarchism. By focusing attention on his theory of mutual aid, it argues that the classical framing distorts Kropotkin's political theory by associating it with a narrowly positivistic conception of science, a naively optimistic idea of human nature and a millenarian idea of revolution. Kropotkin's abiding concern with Russian revolutionary politics is the lens for this analysis. The argument is that his engagement with nihilism shaped his conception of science and that his expeditions in Siberia underpinned an approach to social analysis that was rooted in geography. Looking at Kropotkin's relationship with Elisée Reclus and Erico Malatesta and examining his critical appreciation of P-J. Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Max Stirner, the study shows how he understood anarchist traditions and reveals the special character of his anarchist communism. His idea of the state as a colonising process and his contention that exploitation and oppression operate in global contexts is a key feature of this. Kropotkin's views about the role of theory in revolutionary practice show how he developed this critique of the state and capitalism to advance an idea of political change that combined the building of non-state alternatives through direct action and wilful disobedience. Against critics who argue that Kropotkin betrayed these principles in 1914, the book suggests that this controversial decision was consistent with his anarchism and that it reflected his judgment about the prospects of anarchistic revolution in Russia.

The Political Theory of the Disruption

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold J. Laski
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Political Principles ◽  
The Church

“Of political principles,” says a distinguished authority, “whether they be those of order or of freedom, we must seek in religious and quasi-theological writings for the highest and most notable expressions.” No one, in truth, will deny the accuracy of this claim for those ages before the Reformation transferred the centre of political authority from church to state. What is too rarely realised is the modernism of those writings in all save form. Just as the medieval state had to fight hard for relief from ecclesiastical trammels, so does its modern exclusiveness throw the burden of a kindred struggle upon its erstwhile rival. The church, intelligibly enough, is compelled to seek the protection of its liberties lest it become no more than the religious department of an otherwise secular society. The main problem, in fact, for the political theorist is still that which lies at the root of medieval conflict. What is the definition of sovereignty? Shall the nature and personality of those groups of which the state is so formidably one be regarded as in its gift to define? Can the state tolerate alongside itself churches which avow themselves societates perfectae, claiming exemption from its jurisdiction even when, as often enough, they traverse the field over which it ploughs? Is the state but one of many, or are those many but parts of itself, the one?

scholarly journals La condición humana y el Estado en Hobbes

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor Sierra Salas
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Natural Condition ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Civil State ◽  
Political Work ◽  
The Human Condition

Sobre la condición humana en la teoría del Estado de Hobbes. La necesidad de comprender la condición humana como razón de ser del Estado, se hace evidente a los largo de la obra política de Hobbes. Por eso, cabe notar cómo, paralelamente en los libros Elementos del Derecho Natural y Político, De Civey el Leviatán, el pensador inglés dedica parte de su estudio a la explicación de la naturaleza humana, y a la dramática condición de los hombres que habitan en medio de una situación de guerra permanente, surgida a partir del dominiode las pasiones naturales sobre el comportamiento humano. Así mismo, hace ver que la legitimación del Estado Civil y la justificación de elementos como el Derecho, la Ley, la soberanía, entre otros, surge de la necesidad de garantizarla paz y la seguridad a los hombres, lo cual significa sacarlos de su estado natural.Palabras clave: Hobbes, estado de naturaleza, Estado Civil.AbstractThe Human Condition in Hobbes’ State Theory. The need to understand the human condition as reason of being of the State becomes evident throughout Hobbes’s political work. For this reason, it is important to note how in the books, The Elements of Law Natural and Politic, On the Citizen, and TheLeviathan, the English thinker dedicates part of his study to the explanation of human nature and to the dramatic condition of men who live in an environment of permanent war. This environment arises from the domain of natural passions that make up human behavior. Likewise, it is shown that the legitimacy of the Civil State and the justification of elements, such as rights, Law and sovereignty among others, arise from the need to guarantee peace and safety for humanbeings, which means removing them from their natural state.Key words: Hobbes, natural condition, Civil State.

“Experience Concludeth Nothing Universally”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily C. Nacol
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Root Cause

This chapter begins with Thomas Hobbes' intertwined theories of knowledge and politics, as they emerged from his experience of a violent civil war and fierce struggles over epistemological and political authority. Hobbes provokes an early modern engagement with the concept of risk in politics by positing uncertainty as the main problem that political theory and political order are meant to solve. For Hobbes, uncertainty is the root cause of violence and insecurity, and thus it becomes a target for elimination when he begins to think about how to construct a safe political community. The chapter reconstructs Hobbes' commitment to a science of politics modeled on geometry, emphasizing its certain character by contrasting it with other ways of knowing about politics that are more experiential, such as prudence.

The Leviathan’s Conscience: Hobbesian Human Nature and Moral Judgment

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Branstetter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Practical Judgment ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
Individual Judgment

Hannah Arendt claims that Thomas Hobbes was responsible for constituting modern people as apolitical subjects who can no longer make independent moral judgments. The refusal to think that Hobbes allegedly engendered was a major factor in twentieth-century totalitarianism’s worst crimes. In her view, Hobbes’s Leviathan established the architecture of the totalitarian state and initiated the cultivation of people so incapable of exercising moral judgment that they stood idly by and let such a state commit horrors in their name. I argue that Hobbes rejected the proto-totalitarian form of domination Arendt attributes to him and expressed hope about the human capacities for practical judgment and moral improvement. Instead of creating thoughtless subjects which authorize any crime the state might commit, he suggests that the Leviathan should cultivate the public’s capacity for reason and judgment to make violence unnecessary. Considering Hobbes’s accounts of reason and science in light of his materialism shows that the Leviathan requires the exercise of individual moral thought and judgment to function properly. I suggest that the primary duty of the Hobbesian sovereign might be understood primarily in terms of the cultivation of individual judgment and reason rather than its suppression.

scholarly journals HOBBES AS A SOCIOBIOLOGIST. RETHINKING THE STATE OF (HUMAN) NATURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (136) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Darat G Nicole
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACT In the following text we aim to present a proposal of interpretation of Hobbes's work from sociobiology viewpoint. Despite the fact it may strike some at first as an anachronism or straightforward wrong, reading the philosopher of Mamelsbury from a sociobiological perspective, can shed light on some particular aspects of his argument, particularly those referring to the construction of human nature and its influence on the modulation of the state of nature and on the justification of authority and political obligation. So, Hobbes proceeds as a sociobiologist since he offers us a tale about the emergence of morality from where it didn't exist before and moves from there to a specific understanding of political authority.

Rethinking the sexual contract: The case of Thomas Hobbes

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-301
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Rustighi
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civil State ◽  
Sexual Contract ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Mother Child Relationship

Feminist scholars have long debated on a key contradiction in the political theory of Thomas Hobbes: While he sees women as free and equal to men in the state of nature, he postulates their subjection to male rule in the civil state without any apparent explanation. Focusing on Hobbes’s construction of the mother–child relationship, this article suggests that the subjugation of the mother to the father epitomizes the neutralization of the ancient principle of ‘governance’, which he replaces with a novel concept of ‘power’ as formally authorized command. This scrutiny leads to three main conclusions: (1) a radicalization of Pateman’s concept of ‘sexual contract'; (2) the acknowledgement that patriarchy is inseparable from the logic of political authority constructed by Hobbes; and (3) the claim that criticism of patriarchal rule requires an overall problematization of the mainstream conception of political participation we have inherited from modern political science.

Aristotle on the Foundations of the State

1988 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Everson
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
In Virtue Of

Aristotle's Politics shows an apparent tension between a recognition of the desirability of individual liberty and his claim that ‘none of the citizens belongs to himself but all belong to the state’. We can start to resolve that tension by considering Aristotle's doctrine of man as a political animal. Artistotle offers a particular account of the nature of man according to which his specifically human capacities cannot be realized outside of the state. This is not an account adopted arbitrarily for Aristotle's political theory but follows directly from his analysis of substances in the Physics. On Aristotle's account of human nature, man is essentially rational and virtuous and the political theory allows the rational and virtuous man to be as free as possible without intefering with others. Some are less rational and are subject to authority in virtue of this. We can see that Aristotle's theory has advantages over rights-based theories since Aristotle has an account of what constitutes human flourishing, without which one cannot found rights claims.

The Sultan and the Sultanate

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-180
Author(s):  
Hüseyin Yılmaz
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Strong Correlation ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings

This chapter examines the innovative panoply of views on the nature of political authority, and visions of the sultanate as its form of embodiment. Virtually every author writing on rulership felt it necessary first to address the question of what political authority really was, its raison d'etre and status among humanity, how it was acquired or lost, the nature of the ruler and his morality, and historical models of rulership. No author doubted the consensus-confirmed view that the sultanate was the highest rank a human being could attain, but they took divergent paths in defining its nature, scope, and entangled boundaries. A common attitude was to reconcile between various historical and theoretical models of political authority including philosopher-kingship, prophethood, and imamate by defining them in ways compatible with their own visions of rulership. Elaborating on a particular vision of rulership almost always involved an explanation of human nature, human beings' existential status, and the purpose of life. There is a strong correlation between one's perception of human nature and vision of ideal rulership.

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