Thomas Hobbes?

Question

What are some very important points and events to know about Thomas Hobbes. If you were teaching about him what is there to teach to sum up his importance.

Answer 1

The philosophy of Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the most complete materialist philosophy of the 17th century. Hobbes rejects Cartesian dualism and believes in the mortality of the soul. He rejects free will in favor of determinism, a determinism which treats freedom as being able to do what one desires. He rejects Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy in favor of the "new" philosophy of Galileo and Gassendi, which largely treats the world as matter in motion. Hobbes is perhaps most famous for his political philosophy. Men in a state of nature, that is a state without civil government, are in a war of all against all in which life is hardly worth living. The way out of this desperate state is to make a social contract and establish the state to keep peace and order. Because of his view of how nasty life is without the state, Hobbes subscribes to a very authoritarian version of the social contract.

Hobbs was the author of Leviathan, which stated that chaos or civil war - situations identified with a state of nature and the famous motto Bellum omnium contra omnes ("the war of all against all") - could only be averted by strong central government.

Answer 2

So far no person has legitimately answered this question. Outcomes and people influenced: His idea of absolute monarchism has essentially died out but he is the first person to bring up the idea of a modern social contract. He also came up with the idea of the "State of Nature" which both Locke and Rousseau modified in their own later works.

Answer 3

Read "Leviathan." 'Nuff said.