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Thomas Hobbes - Cameron Ingle H02

Thomas Hobbes was born on April 5th in 1588 in Westport, England. He was born prematurely and stated, “my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear.” This was because his premature birth was due to the imminent invasion of the Spanish Armada. He grew up to become an English philosopher who founded modern political philosophy. He came up with a social contract theory. This theory was his major political theory and it stated that in a state of nature, all men were equal. In nature, men are naturally evil and are driven by self-preservation and self-gratification. Without order and society, people will take what they want when they want it without regard to how it affects others. In nature, man would only form a sort of alliance with another man when they shared mutual interests and could gain benefits from grouping together. Hobbes stated, “if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.” He was very much a pessimist when it came to his view of man in its natural state. This was mostly due to the English civil war which took place at the time of the majority of Hobbes’ philosophizing. Hobbes believed that it was necessary for us to form a social contract in which we would give up our rights to freedom in nature. We would give our individual power to a king. This king would obtain his power through the people rather than through divine right. Hobbes explored this idea in depth in his most famous literature titled “Leviathan.” In “Leviathan,” Hobbes related the current English government to a monster, or a leviathan. This monster was created from the needs of the men that were controlled by it which was a reflection of his theory of the social contract. Later in his life, post-leviathan, Hobbes had been accused of atheism. Hobbes frequently refuted these claims of atheism, to which he responded, “atheism, impiety, and the like are words of the greatest defamation possible.” Hobbes was not an atheist in our sense of the term, he was more of just a bad Christian. At the time, the term atheist meant to believe in God but not believe in “divine providence.” This was actually a fitting term for Hobbes, who claimed to believe in a God but had philosophies which contradicted with that belief. Hobbes believed in materialism in a sense. He believed that there were no “incorporeal” substances. This is to say that God, heaven, the devil, and hell are all physical, or corporeal things. He did not believe that spirits were without dimension. He said that the spirits mentioned in the scripture were never stated to exist outside of our physical space, and therefore they must exist in this space with us. Hobbes had a very controversial philosophy for his time, when most views were heavily influenced by Christianity. It got to the point where Hobbes was so fearful of being called a heretic that he began to burn his own papers. Hobbes died of a paralytic stroke in December of 1679 at age 91. His last words were, “a great leap in the dark.”

Quiz Questions:

1: Why did Hobbes say his mother gave birth to fear?

2: What was Hobbes' major political theory called?

3: What was the name of Hobbes' most notable piece of literature?

4: Was Hobbes what we would call an atheist?

5: What were Hobbes' last words?

Discussion Questions:

1: What is the dark that you think Hobbes' took his "great leap" into?

2: Do you believe in Hobbes' idea of the behavior of man in a "state of nature"

3: Do you think a social contract is necessary for society today? Why?

4: Are we currently under the influences of a Leviathan?