Thomas Hobbes

This article reconstructs Thomas Hobbes’s theory of nonverbal reasoning and examines its implications for animal cognition. While Hobbes is often read as reducing reason to verbal computation, close analysis of Leviathan, De Corpore, and earlier texts reveals a more nuanced account in which reasoning originates as the imaginative “computation” of phantasms. While acknowledging discrepancies between different works, the article emphasizes their underlying coherence and development. It argues that Hobbes recognizes a form of nonverbal animal reasoning grounded in perceptual “comparison,” though (...) he denies animals the capacity to engage in reasoning involving mnemonic or imaginary content. This account reveals a structural continuity between human and animal logical thinking, while also highlighting the limitations of the latter. The article situates Hobbes within early modern debates on reason, prudence, and universals, showing how his radical nominalism reinforces the primacy of imagination in reasoning. In doing so, it clarifies Hobbes’s contribution to the philosophy of mind and underscores his relevance to ongoing debates about the nature and limits of animal cognition. (shrink)

This article engages the role of temporality in the work of Thomas Hobbes. Rather than focusing on the political individual proposed by his later works, it politicizes the conception of subjectivity advanced in his earlier works. In these, he advances a materialist account of subjectivity that is conceptualized in entirely temporal terms. It is, he argues, the temporal categories of memory and imagination that make humans uniquely capable of selfhood and freedom. This early conception lacks the tendency towards domination described (...) in Leviathan, in which the state of nature is presented as a war of all against all. However, this article argues that what the state of nature reveals is that the temporality of subjectivity is not objective, but rather socially produced. As such, the state of nature depicts behavior resulting from material anxiety, which prevents thinking, and therefore acting, beyond the present. Political institutions therefore emerge in his thought as a mechanism for quelling anxiety such that the future becomes actionable. By projecting a vision of a secure, open future, these institutions create a present in which meaningful, self-directed actions become possible. That is, he is the first to posit the very modern notion that political institutions fundamentally shape our sense of possibility. (shrink)

This paper explores the Leibnizian doctrine of universal connection and its roots in the philosophy of Hobbes − an area surprisingly overlooked in scholarly literature. It is argued that, contrary to interpretations emphasizing Neoplatonic or Stoic influences, Leibniz’s conception is grounded in a physical dimension: the idea of the universe as a plenum in which every movement propagates infinitely. This view aligns with Hobbes’s causal determinism, particularly his theory of the “full cause,” according to which every effect results from an (...) infinity of efficient concurring causes. The paper examines how Leibniz adopts and critically reworks Hobbesian ideas in his Paris writings, including the notion of “universal sympathy” traced back to imperceptible motions, while distinguishing himself from Hobbes by affirming the necessity of immaterial principles to explain substance and perception. In the concluding remarks, further lines of inquiry are suggested in order to better understand Leibniz’s critical reappropriation of some Hobbesian ideas in his philosophy of nature. (shrink)

Hobbes scholars have shown the relevance of Hobbes for Locke’s view of toleration in the 1660s. However, Hobbes’s position on toleration has been shown to be close to that of the Episcopalian tolerationist Jeremy Taylor. Thus, I reconsider Locke’s “Hobbesian” ideas on toleration in view of Taylor. Some of Locke’s ideas in the English Tract that have been characterized as Hobbesian can also be found in Taylor. Moreover, Taylor’s argument was closer than that of Hobbes to Locke’s distinctive ideas in (...) An Essay concerning Toleration. On the other hand, unlike Taylor, Hobbes and Locke focused on public peace in their consideration of toleration, and this feature, together with their corresponding lack of enthusiasm for the suppression of heresies, distinguished the two from many contemporary polemicists on toleration. This examination also sheds new light on the intellectual context of Locke’s An Essay concerning Toleration. (shrink)

Friendship was once a preeminent political concept. For Aristotle, friendship was analogous to concord in the polis. Hobbes is critical of both. Central to Hobbes’s political thought is a distinction between concord and unity. First, I argue that this distinction is important for both Aristotle and Hobbes and their understandings of what constitutes the political. Second, I argue that Hobbes’s concord-unity distinction finds new expression in Leviathan, following the introduction of his theory of representation, in the form of the categories (...) of regularity found in chapter 22. Regular systems have a representative; irregular systems have none. Third, I argue that when friendship takes the form of a system it cannot be a regular system. Friendship lacks Hobbesian regularity and is thus an insufficient mode of political unity. I therefore demonstrate the political significance of the categories of regularity and Hobbes’s role in friendship’s faded fortune as a political concept. (shrink)

施米特和施特劳斯在1930 年代的互动是近年来许多学者关心的问题。在思考施米特的霍布斯解读的过程中，施特劳斯推翻了《斯宾诺莎的宗教批判》中阐释霍布斯时强调的物理学和人类学的二分对立，突出了霍布斯哲学中“虚荣” 这种人性激情的地位，并最终在《霍布斯的政治哲学》中认为霍布斯政治哲学的真正基础是虚荣和恐惧的二分对立。《霍布斯的政治哲学》中关于霍布斯哲学的核心论断，应理解为施特劳斯为了在更高层面上回应施米特而得出的 结论，而非如昆廷·斯金纳等学者认为的那样，是施特劳斯在英国查阅查茨沃思的霍布斯手稿后形成的。.

_En Leviatán, el trayecto que ofrece Hobbes para acercarse a la comprensión de lo político incluye un doble registro. Por un lado, hay desarrollos argumentales y definiciones estrictamente conceptuales. Por el otro, un conjunto de analogías, expresiones grandilocuentes y narrativas sumamente imaginativas. Si se opta por atribuir alguna efectividad explicativa, y no meramente retórica, a los momentos no estrictamente geometrizantes del texto, la lectura ajustada debe asumir la tarea de conciliar la presencia de imágenes y afirmaciones que, a primera vista, (...) aparecen como enfrentadas, o, al menos, no confluyentes. La hipótesis de este trabajo es que los problemas para conciliar los diversos elementos que ofrece Hobbes son un indicio deliberado que apunta a sugerir la complejidad inabarcable de la naturaleza de la estatalidad. _. (shrink)

This article reconsiders recognition in Hobbes by revisiting Strauss’s influential account to expand the discussion to wider relational and practical contexts. Returning to Leviathan with a revised Straussian perspective helps clarify Hobbes’s explanation for why the natural condition is a condition of war. The fear of violent death which opposes each man to every other is not a natural aversion to death, but a form of self-consciousness that develops across different contexts. Next, building on this revisionist Straussian interpretation, I examine (...) the mutual renunciation of the right to all things as the foundational act of the state. In renouncing their right, I argue, human beings recognize one another not only as potential enemies, but as partners in peace – a recognition that involves a shared risk. Tracing the movement from mutual fear to mutual renunciation of right, I show that Hobbes also envisions recognition as the self-conscious reconfiguration of relations. (shrink)

This paper explores the complex relationship between power and honor in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. First, it shows that individuals and systems (such as the commonwealth) derive their power from the recognition they receive from others. Second, it examines the tension between the spontaneous, intersubjective dynamics of recognition and the formalized, juridical logic of the social contract, particularly in the context of sovereignty. Third, it argues that the sovereign’s power is contingent on popular recognition and that the failure to secure this (...) recognition undermines both the sovereign’s authority and the stability of the political order. In this way, the paper challenges the traditional view of Hobbesian individuals as isolated, atomistic entities whose conflicts can only be resolved through the conventional institution of an absolute sovereign. (shrink)

This article explores the concept of equality in Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy through the lens of recognition. While Hobbes famously grounds equality in human beings’ roughly equivalent natural capacities and mutual vulnerability, this paper argues that equality in Hobbes is not merely an ontological fact but a psychological and moral phenomenon requiring mutual recognition. Two dynamics emerge: first, the gap between the objective reality of equality and individuals’ psychological awareness, where pride and resentment shape perceptions of superiority or inferiority; second, equality (...) as a moral norm, foundational for civil society. Contrary to readings that reduce Hobbesian equality to a pragmatic “peace claim,” this study contends that mutual recognition of equality underpins moral law and covenant-making, linking the psychological claim for self-rule to the equal worth of individuals as persons. However, this recognition-oriented view reveals tensions with Hobbes’s political theory, since asserting equality in personhood can threaten sovereign authority and civil stability. (shrink)

An introduction to the special issue on Hobbes and Recognition.

This article takes a comparative approach to a positive function that Hobbes and Nicole ascribe to dissimulation: Following the norms of civility leaves the self-esteem of others intact, even when one does not believe it is well-founded. This can be understood as a kind of recognition in the sense of supporting the self-image of others. However, Nicole goes beyond Hobbes in analyzing the detrimental effects that complaisance with self-related acts of imagination can have on social life. While Hobbes takes an (...) uncritical attitude toward identifying with acts of conquest driven by inflated feelings of self-worth, Nicole is aware of the destructive effects of inflated self-esteem. Nicole’s analysis of the limits of the usefulness of dissimulation leads him to develop a complementary conception of recognition based on an insight into shared human weakness. (shrink)

This article evaluates the political implications of Thomas Hobbes’s extensive treatment of religion by taking up the motif of the Eucharist (and accompanying doctrine of transubstantiation) in Leviathan. Hobbes holds out transubstantiation as an exemplar of absurdity and an historical outgrowth of Christianity’s inauspicious meeting with pagan practices. At the same time, Leviathan contains allusions to eucharistic imagery in its narration of the generation of the “Mortal God,” the commonwealth, as the incorporation of a civil body. These conflicting sentiments are (...) illustrative of a wider tension running through Hobbes’s thought. Although Hobbes’s repudiation of superstition is well-known, it stands in stark contrast to Leviathan’s treatment of Christianity as an exemplar of “true” religion. The varied allusions to eucharistic doctrine illustrate how proper use might be made of a persistent “natural religiosity.” Both in its consonance with reason and its political logic, Christianity remains a politically constructive expression of “power invisible.”. (shrink)

An introduction to the special issue on Hobbes and Locke: Meaning, Method, Modernity.

Locke refrained from engaging explicitly with Hobbes in any of his writings. Locke’s policy of non-engagement should be interpreted, we argue, neither as evidence of his lack of interest in (or ignorance of) Hobbes’s arguments, nor as an attempt to conceal from the uninitiated Locke’s covert Hobbesian commitments. Locke’s silence reveals rather than conceals. What it reveals is an absolute determination to “distinguish between the business of civil government and that of religion, and to mark the true bounds between them”. (...) Approached in this way, precisely because Locke’s account of the “business of civil government” says nothing about ecclesiastical government, the second of Two Treatises can be read, in its entirety, as a powerful critical response to Hobbes. To see why, it is necessary to grasp that Part iii of Leviathan (“Of a Christian Common-wealth”) is integral to Hobbes’s positive argumentative purposes in the work. (shrink)

In the early iterations of his political thought, The Elements of Law and De Cive, Hobbes proposed a new account of the nature of the people. In Section 2 I describe Pufendorf’s critical response. Pufendorf’s theory of the people is a neglected aspect of the political argument of the De Jure. Just as neglected is Locke’s theory of the people in Two Treatises of Government, though there is better reason for neglect in Locke’s case, in so far as he fails (...) in his major work of political philosophy to present anything resembling a theory of the people at all. In Section 3 I bring Locke’s thinking about the people into clearer focus. In the concluding Section 4 I explore some of the weaknesses of his position. (shrink)

Field focuses on the role in political theory of the concept of potentia of the people—power understood as the informal, natural power of the people—as distinct from potestas understood as the formal arrangement of power under the constitution of a given state. In a close analysis of the arguments of Hobbes and Spinoza on popular power and sovereignty, the book critiques democratic interpretations of both theories. While correct about that, the book neglects fundamental dissimilarities in their views of popular power. (...) Of profound importance is the meaning of the concept “multitude”: unlike Hobbes, Spinoza distinguishes between the great mass of individuals and “the wise,” seeing the “multitude” as encompassing most kings. Also, there is a great gulf between their understandings of the “common good.” For Spinoza, obedience to the sovereign, Hobbes’s desideratum, is only compatible with freedom in the context of a state directed to the common good. (shrink)

This article offers a study of Thomas Hobbes’s reading of Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historiographer of the 1st century bc whom Hobbes called “the greatest antiquary perhaps that ever was.” After offering a comparison of the works of Thucydides (often regarded as Hobbes’s greatest classical model) and Diodorus, the article traces the reception of Diodorus’ work in early modern England and examines Diodorus’ strong influence on two principal works, De Homine and Behemoth. Early human histories in the first books of (...) Diodorus’ Bibliotheke Historike (‘Historical Library), including anthropological and cosmological narratives, are a recurrent feature of Hobbes’s focus, and a certain subversiveness animates Hobbes’s use of Diodorus and underpins his critique of contemporary theological and political structures. One result of this research is to suggest a greater place for Diodorus in Hobbes’s intellectual world than previously realised, alongside a strong appreciation for Diodorus across multiple learned discourses in the pre-modern period. (shrink)

As a child in Malmesbury, Thomas Hobbes had an opportunity to observe many of the social and political phenomena that he considered in his later work. Contemporary sources reveal that Hobbes lived in a community that was wracked by marked animosity between different social groups, frequent disorder and a lack of consensus about the legitimacy of local political institutions. There was tension between the town’s elite and a proletariat of impoverished workers. Different members of the elite clashed, sometimes violently, as (...) they competed for local ascendancy. Hobbes’s extended family was heavily involved in these events. His hometown was deeply troubled. It was also a place where people had access to some “political” vocabulary which they used when describing their discontents and conflicts. The possible influence of Hobbes’s early experiences on his intellectual development has attracted little previous attention. (shrink)

This paper takes a rights-based discourse on the material conditions for the realization of human freedom – and flourishing – and re-centers this discourse on the necessary, physiological activity of sleep. It utilizes one principal case study (Shaunak Sen’s 2015 documentary 'Cities of Sleep') to re-calibrate normative insights about liberty, capability, physical integrity and corporeal security to the ‘mundane’ scale of basic body functionings (sleeping, but also eating, drinking, washing, excreting), and, crucially, to these functionings’ space-bound nature. As such, it (...) proposes an alternative theoretical exploration of the key role of domestic spaces in relation with bodily subsistence; with life and limbs. (shrink)

Introduction. The article analyzes the state-society relationship in the theory of social contract by T. Hobbes. The etatist interpretation of his socio-political doctrine, widespread in Russian philosophical thought, fundamentally opposing society to the state, does not seem to reflect the understanding of their relationship. From our point of view this is inherent in the contractual theory of the English thinker. Theoretical analysis. The author shows that the original conceptual and theoretical principles of T. Hobbes are the unity of sociogenesis and (...) politogenesis, the actual identification of sociality and statehood, and the assertion of the need for security as the most important factor in the transition of people from the «state of nature» to the state-public organization of their life together. Analyzing the nature of state power, T. Hobbes believes that the political activity of the sovereign, as the source and bearer of the first, is subject, first of all, to the interests of the society he controls. Conclusion. The etatist interpretation of the state-society relationship does not find sufficient confirmation in the theory of the social contract of T. Hobbes. The analysis made it possible to reveal that his point of view on this problem can be described with the idea of the syncretism of society and the state, which implies the unity of the processes of sociogenesis and politogenesis and, accordingly, the simultaneous emergence of these forms of common life. (shrink)

This essay mobilizes popular insights about the 'law of the jungle' to conceptualize and critique prevalent consumption and policy attitudes in urban environments, with a focus on residential infrastructure. A phrase used metaphorically to describe a given situation where competition, aggression, and 'survival of the fittest' prevail, it is here used in order to formulate a new characterization of contemporary cities as environments where there is minimal housing regulation or oversight (architectural occupation as survival-of-the-fittest battle), and where individual dwellers are (...) left to operate without significant constraints. In the first section of the paper, I introduce a commonplace interpretation of the 'jungle metaphor', commenting on sets of characteristics and values which are associated with it. In the second section of the paper, I paint a portrait of contemporary socio-economic environments, with a focus on urbanity and its distributive ordering of housing resources. I describe these environments as constructed (formal arrangements; architecture and urbanism) and policed (institutional arrangements; governments and state authorities) in manners which acutely—and problematically—emphasize market laissez-faire and self-interest. In the third section of the paper, I link this portrait of the contemporary city to survival-of-the-fittest jungle-like spaces, commenting on rivalrous competition between dwellers and, in the fourth and concluding section, I briefly propose one possible, normatively desirable form of urban market regulations. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es visibilizar en el núcleo de la modernidad algunos de los fundamentos filosóficos que directa o indirectamente han servido para la exclusión y opresión de identidades disidentes. Para ello se analizarán las principales características de las teorías del cuerpo humano en el pensamiento de los padres de la modernidad René Descartes y Thomas Hobbes bajo tres puntos: el papel que tiene el cuerpo en el marco de cada sistema filosófico, su tratamiento particular y las consecuencias (...) derivadas de cada tipo de abordaje. Una vez hecho esto se podrá observar que la existencia de Dios y el Estado es posible gracias a que tienen el principal propósito de ordenar la equivocidad originaria adjudicada a nuestras corporalidades. Finalmente, con ayuda de Butler, Foucault y Agamben, examinaremos la lógica subyacente en la interacción de estos entes con el cuerpo y la sexualidad. (shrink)

The description for this book, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation, will be forthcoming.

Hobbes' 1651 publizierter 'Leviathan' zählt gemeinsam mit Platons 'Politeia' und Hegels 'Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts' zu den drei bedeutendsten Werken der politischen Philosophie. Hobbes greift das Bild aus dem Alten Testament auf, mit dem Gott zu Hiob spricht: "Auf Erden ist nicht seinesgleichen, er ist ein Geschöpf ohne Furcht... er ist König über alle stolzen Tiere" - zugleich als vermenschlichtes Kompositbild auf dem berühmten Titelkupfer programmatisch dargestellt. Unter dieses Bild stellt Hobbes seine Staatslehre, in die zugleich seine anthropologischen, psychologischen, (...) ethischen und religiösen Überlegungen einfließen. Dieser kooperative Kommentar erläutert und interpretiert den 'Leviathan' nach seinen Schwerpunkten und stellt ihn in seinen historischen Kontext. Er ist damit für jedes Seminar unverzichtbare Lektüre. (shrink)

"The development of the calculus during the 17th century was successful in mathematical practice, but raised questions about the nature of infinitesimals: were they real or rather fictitious? This collection of essays, by scholars from Canada, the US, Germany, United Kingdom and Switzerland, gives a comprehensive study of the controversies over the nature and status of the infinitesimal. Aside from Leibniz, the scholars considered are Hobbes, Wallis, Newton, Bernoulli, Hermann, and Nieuwentijt. The collection also contains newly discovered marginalia of Leibniz (...) to the writings of Hobbes."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’ Lebensaufgabe besteht in einer wissenschaftlichen Staatsphilosophie. Dabei stellt er sich den drei Herausforderungen seiner Epoche: methodisch dem Beweisideal der Mathematik, politisch der blutigen Wirklichkeit der Kriege und Bürgerkriege und moralisch dem Schwinden gemeinsamer Überzeugungen. Weil er sich allen drei Herausforderungen stellt, zugleich sie miteinander verbindet, schafft er das die Tradition stürzende Argumentationsmuster der politischen Moderne, die Vertragstheorie. Mit ihr bringt er eine der größten Staatsphilosophien der abendländischen Geistesgeschichte hervor. In De cive / Vom Bürger (1642), das noch vor (...) dem Leviathan (1651) entstand, finden sich bereits zahlreiche von Hobbes’ zentralen Gedanken zur politischen Philosophie. Diese Schrift wird hier durchgängig von international renommierten Autoren kommentiert. Mit Beiträgen von Jeremy Adler, Ronald Asch, Dirk Brantl, Franz Hespe, Moritz Hildt, Otfried Höffe, Heiner Klemme, Elif Özmen, Dietrich Schotte, Peter Schröder, Patricia Springborg, Tom Sorell und Lothar Waas. (shrink)

Holden’s main argument is both simple and bold. It is bold because it promises to show that “Hobbes’s religious system is stable and coherent across all the relevant works” (3). To accomplish this would be no small achievement since, as Holden explains, Hobbes’s writings on religion have lent themselves to a variety of interpretations (atheist, deist, various kinds of Christian), and Hobbes appears to make several contradictory claims. It is simple because it uses an explanatory “key” (3) that Hobbes explicitly (...) endorses in his writings, namely that God’s nature is inconceivable to us, so claims about God are (with one exception) not descriptive, but rather expressions of honor. There is, Holden writes, only one... Read More. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) is widely regarded as one of the most important political thinkers in the western tradition. Justice is one of the main political concepts today. This is the first book-length analysis of Hobbes’s ideas on justice. Hobbes made many startling claims about justice. Norms of justice have no place outside the commonwealth, the civil law determines what is just and unjust, and nothing sovereigns do is unjust to their citizens. But what exactly did Hobbes mean by justice? And (...) how did he convince his audience that he was speaking about justice when advancing such controversial views, and not about something else? In Hobbes on Justice, Olsthoorn traces the place of justice in Hobbes’s moral, legal, political, and international thought as developed over time. The book reconstructs his idiosyncratic glosses on notions like justice, rights, injury, obligation, and law; proposes new solutions to some long-standing interpretive puzzles; and provides in-depth discussions of property, slavery, treason, just war, and other neglected aspects of Hobbes’s thought. Olsthoorn shows that Hobbes’s theory of justice doubled as a civil theodicy: it aimed to morally empower sovereign rulers by vindicating them from all stains of injustice, no matter how horrid their rule. (shrink)

This book presents the most plausible reading of Thomas Hobbes's moral and political theory based on his book, Leviathan. Hobbes constructs a political theory that bases unlimited political authority on unlimited individualism. The conclusion requires the premiss; anything less than unlimited individualism would justify only limited political authority. But the premiss is too strong for the conclusions; as this book shows, from unlimited individualism only anarchy follows. The theory is a failure. But it has two outstanding merits. First of all, (...) Hobbes introduces a number of important moral and political concepts that deserve our attention. Obligation is his basic moral concept, while authorisation is his basic political concept. Hobbes relies neither on the goodwill of men – their willingness to consider each other's interests for their own sake, and not as means to self-satisfaction – nor on the efficacy of institutions, as the means of both concentrating and limiting political power. Aside from political and moral theory, the book explores Hobbes's views on the nature of man, sovereignty, and God. (shrink)

[NB in publicity materials use short description + first few review quotes if short of space] Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is one of the most important figures in the history of European thought. Although best known for his political theory, he also wrote about theology, metaphysics, physics, optics, mathematics, psychology, and literary criticism. All of these interests are reflected in his correspondence. Some small groups of his letters have been printed in the past (often in inaccurate transcriptions), but this edition is (...) the first complete collection of his correspondence, nearly half of which has never been printed before. All the letters have been transcribed from the original sources, and all materials in Latin, French, and Italian are printed together with translations in clear modern English. The letters are fully annotated, and there are long biographical entries on all of his correspondents, based on extensive original research. These two volumes form one of the most significant and valuable publications of Hobbes scholarship this century, casting a new light on the whole pattern of his intellectual life and personal friendships. (shrink)

`the state of men without civil society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a mere war of all against all.' Thomas Hobbes was the first great philosopher to write in English. His account of the human condition, first developed in The Elements of Law (1640), which comprises Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, is a direct product of the intellectural and political strife of the seventeenth century. It is also a remarkably penetrating (...) look at human nature, and a permanently relevant analysis of the fears of self-seeking that result in the war of `each against every man'. In The Elements of Law Hobbes memorably sets out both the main lines of his general philosophy, later augmented in De Corpore (1655), and the moral and political philosophy later made famous in Leviathan (1651). Copies of Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, until 1889 printed as separate works, are rare antiques or scarcely less rare scholarly texts; this is the first complete popular edition. It is here supplemented by chapters from De Corpore and Three Lives, two from Hobbes's original Latin. These have never before been published together in English. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Noel Malcolm presents his long-awaited critical edition of one of the most important philosophical works ever written. Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) is a classic of political theory and of English prose, studied at every university in the world. The English and Latin versions of the text are fully annotated, with a book-length introduction.

To fully understand how social contract theory can be applied to the international domain, it is important to appreciate how it addresses individuals living in a pre-political scenario. This chapter provides a concise overview of some of the key elements of the theories as presented by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant. It will be seen that, even with short summaries of what are extensive theories, many differences exist which lead to distinct approaches in their application to the international realm, as (...) noted by the theorists themselves as well as when their views are extended. (shrink)

Auch wenn man davon ausgehen kann, dass Tocqueville von Hobbes gehört hatte und dass er auch zumindest die vom englischen Philosophen vertretenen Hauptthesen kannte – etwa über Arthur de Gobineau –, so ist nicht ganz klar, ob er ein Werk von Hobbes gelesen hatte. In der ersten Démocratie erwähnt er zwar ausdrücklich den homo puer robustus, der im De Cive von Hobbes auftaucht, aber es scheint eher so zu sein, dass Tocqueville diese Hobbessche Charakterisierung des Menschen nur indirekt über Rousseaus (...) zweiten Discours kannte – er selbst hat keine Quelle angegeben. In einem Brief an Sedgwick aus dem Jahr 1856 schreibt er allerdings ausdrücklich, dass, aus der Sicht der Europäer, die Amerikaner „den puer robustus von Hobbes“ darstellen (OC VII, 177). (shrink)