Leviathan

Born in Westport, England, in 1588, Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher often regarded as “the founding father of modern political thought.” (Williams, Garrath. “Thomas Hobbes: Moral and Political Philosophy.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.) The ideas he expounded in 1561’s Leviathan helped ignite a centuries-long dialogue in Western thought about the natural state of humankind and the purpose of government, informing the works of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and persisting as a source of debate to this day.

Hobbes’s anxiety over war and civil unrest can be traced to his very birth, when his mother went into premature labor upon hearing of the imminent invasion of the Spanish Armada. Later, Hobbes would say his mother “gave birth to twins: myself and fear.” (Hobbes, Thomas. Opera Latina. London: British Library. 2011.) Moreover, Hobbes’s critical opinions of excommunication practices and the undue influence of clergy members is foreshadowed by his father’s exile from his home region following a dispute with a church official.

Upon receiving a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cambridge around age 20, Hobbes became a tutor for the son of the 1st Earl of Devonshire, William Cavendish, igniting a lifelong friendship with the family. Given Cavendish’s other son’s strong ties to King Charles I during the English Civil Wars, Hobbes’s connection with the Cavendish family may have exerted a subtle influence on the Royalist sympathies he professes throughout Leviathan.

A lengthy period of travel through Europe between 1610 and 1615 helped instill in Hobbes an understanding and respect for the new scientific traditions that were emerging across the continent. These traditions were perhaps best embodied in the work of Francis Bacon, who is credited with developing the scientific method and who hired Hobbes as an assistant for a brief time in the 1620s. Given the similarities between Bacon’s taxonomy of human knowledge found in Advancement of Learning (1605) and Hobbes’s own knowledge tree included in Leviathan, it stands to reason that Bacon was an important influence on the author’s views on reason and science.

Around that same time, Hobbes published a much-lauded translation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, which according to historian Richard Schlatter, “apparently crystallized for Hobbes many of the ideas fundamental in his later political philosophy.” (Schlatter, Richard. “Thomas Hobbes and Thucydides. Journal of the History of Ideas. June 1945.) This is perhaps ironic given Hobbes’s persistently negative view of Greek and Roman philosophers, particularly Aristotle. Less is said in Leviathan of Hobbes’s opinion of Greek historians, though one can assume it is higher than his opinion of Greek philosophers, especially given that both Hobbes and Thucydides are often said to belong to the school of Political Realism.

For much of the 1630s Hobbes lived in Paris, where he developed an interest in physics. It was here that he began to formulate his view that the universe is made up entirely of matter and motion, including those substances that others call spirits. Upon his return to England in 1637, Hobbes wrote an officially unpublished yet heavily pirated treatise known as The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, which posed many of the same arguments he would revisit in Leviathan. These arguments naturally ran counter to the growing power of the Long Parliament and its continued hostility against the English monarch Charles I. Having fallen out of favor with much of the English government following the dissemination of his treatise, Hobbes fled to France in 1640. As the English Civil Wars raged in his home country over the following decade, Hobbes wrote Leviathan from his self-imposed exile in Paris.

Leviathan’s release in 1651 caused an immediate stir, particularly among Hobbes’s fellow exiled Royalists. They took exception to his view that the covenant between sovereign and subject is broken if the sovereign, as a consequence of war or invasion, can no longer protect his subjects. Hobbes even sought protection from the newly established postmonarchical government in England, returning to his home country in late 1651. Leviathan also drew heavy criticism from English clergymen who branded Hobbes a dangerous atheist for his unorthodox views on scripture. An anti-atheism law passed by the House of Commons in 1666 even mentioned Hobbes and Leviathan in its text. In response, Hobbes sought protection from Charles II, who was reinstated as the king of England following the death of Oliver Cromwell. It should be noted that in Hobbes’s time the term atheist often applied to individuals who believed in God but maintained other beliefs thought to run counter to Christianity.

Hobbes continued to write until shortly before his 1679 death at age 91.